#bruce is so used to playing the billionaire playboy but it’s so much harder when it’s genuine

[atomicowboy]

okay FINE i’ll draw them

[sasheneskywalker]

brudick fic recs

a bird in the hand by wingdingery The first time Clark meets Robin, he’s completely confused about why Batman (Mr. I am vengeance, I am the night, and I work alone) would choose to have a hyperactive neon-colored ten-year-old as his partner in vigilanteism.

Over the next twenty years, he comes to understand clearly what makes Nightwing so special—though the relationship between Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne never gets any less complicated over time.

T | No Archive Warnings Apply | Dick Grayson & Clark Kent, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson/Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent & Bruce Wayne

a painting you could never frame by wingdingery Batman gets hit by a curse that can only be broken by his soulmate. Fortunately, that’s easy enough for Dick to fix.

The only problem is, no one else knows that he’s Bruce’s soulmate—not even Bruce himself.

T | No Archive Warnings Apply | Dick Grayson/Bruce Wayne

when all the walls come down by wormsin This isn't the first time one of them has been dying in the other's arms. But it might be the last. As far as deathbed confessions goes, Dick thinks his is pretty good.

“Once upon a time, there was a kingdom without a King or Queen…”

-

Or: It takes a building falling on their heads for Dick to tell Bruce how he really feels.

E | Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings | Dick Grayson/Bruce Wayne

Hit me with your sweet love, steal me with a kiss by ful_crum After Jason’s death, Dick spends more time back at the manor. There are many opportunities for sparring between Bruce and Dick, but it’s only a matter of time until sparring turns into fighting.

Or, what happens when you fistfight your former mentor that you kind of hate and kind of love?

M | No Archive Warnings Apply | Dick Grayson/Bruce Wayne

Happy Acres by Kyele When a seemingly-rehabilitated Dr. Quinzel opens an upscale retreat for couples in crisis, Batman needs to investigate. An undercover mission as Bruce Wayne and partner should do the trick. Unfortunately, his first choice for the mission is unavailable. As is his second. And his third. And -

“What’s more important?” Dick challenges. “Your considerations - or the lives of the people who may be endangered by a delay in getting the truth about Happy Acres?”

Bruce opens his mouth, and then closes it again. He knows the answer to that. He believes the answer to that. He just - he can’t even form the thought. Logically he knows what Dick is suggesting, but it won’t even compute. He has spent too long preventing his mind from ever considering Dick and romance at the same time.

Dick, who doesn’t have Bruce’s feelings, also doesn’t have Bruce’s difficulties. “That’s what I thought,” he says. Despite his victory, he somehow sounds weary. “So get over yourself, and hand me the damn pocket square. I’m your date tonight, and you’d better start getting used to it.”

E | No Archive Warnings Apply | Dick Grayson/Bruce Wayne

Casino Royale by spaceisgay (ChancellorGriffin) Boravia’s grand casino, once a hotbed of European crime, has reopened with a high-stakes poker tournament Bruce Wayne suspects may be the work of Roulette. In a country where superheroes are banned, the only way to foil a criminal conspiracy is to enter the tournament as himself, and play his way up to the top.

But not just any card-playing billionaire can get his name on the list. The real price of admission is a lot higher than the two million dollar buy-in. You also need a secret to offer up as your stake. A dirty one. The kind a man like Bruce Wayne would pay dearly to keep quiet.

Enter Dick Grayson.

Though he agrees to accompany Bruce to the tournament in the guise of his illicit lover, to help him fake a blackmail-worthy secret besides the one with masks and capes, Dick's not wild about spending so much time with his old friend in flirtatious playboy mode; but somehow it's harder than expected to watch Bruce direct that legendary charisma at other people, and Dick doesn't quite know why. Over the course of four days, what began as a straightforward undercover job devolves into a messy emotional tangle which forces both men to confront truths they’ve kept hidden for years . . . even from themselves.

E | No Archive Warnings Apply | Dick Grayson/Bruce Wayne

You are forever in my mind by orphan_account This started off as a simple idea: Bruce installs a new set of cameras in the manor; cameras he doesn't tell anyone about. One night, he accidentally sees something that fundamentally affects him - and the way he looks at Dick.

E | Underage | Dick Grayson/Bruce Wayne

[regrettablewritings]

If requests are still open, could you do the love one w Bruce Wayne please??

Sure, they’re still open, and I can most certainly try! Though I must admit that quite a few of these headcanons have actually been mentioned or featured in separate sets I've done throughout the years. While some aspects may have changed since then, not much really feels like it's changed to me. As such, I'll try my best to answers these, but will also provide links that go into further detail. Hope that's alright!!

Who said “I love you” first?: You say it first, though the effort to do so makes you nervous. After all, you weren’t even sure if Bruce returned your feelings: Certainly, you were his longest-lasting and seemingly the most engaging relationship he’d had to the date, but you were most certainly not the first girl he’d brought home or shared some interesting experiences with. You wanted to trust that Bruce did hold some feelings for you deep down beneath that stoic and calm exterior, but some part of you worried: Maybe you were a passing phase of some kind? In actuality, no, you were definitely someone special. The problem (if it could be called that) was that Bruce just doesn’t use the phrase, “I love you” so lightly, much less often: If he’s going to use it, he wants it to really stand out and mean something. It therefore calms your nerves a great deal once he finally does it in the quiet of your home, just as you’re both about to depart for your respective work days. Suffice to say, your day is absolutely made, knowing that by the end of it, you’ll be going back to the home of someone who you can confirm, without a doubt, loves you.

What are their primary love languages?: Bruce enjoys physical touch, but not quite for the reasons people think he does. Being touch starved resulted in him seeking the hold of someone -- anyone -- in far too many cases of desperation. And sadly, it’s resulted in a lot of heartbreak and manipulation.But what makes it all so different when it comes from you is that you don’t take advantage of him by playing to his needs; you just provide the hugs and kisses because you actually want to. You’d really be surprised how many strings were attached to Bruce’s past instances of spooning, or how many threats lingered in the lipstick stains on his cheeks. There’s nothing so malicious in yours. Only ever desire or good will. And for this, you tend to be rewarded with Bruce’s zeal for giving gifts. Well, not so much zeal as it is how he feels he can best present you how much he cares. It took a bit of time (much to his embarrassment [world’s greatest detective his ass]) but eventually he did realize that it wasn’t necessarily material and superficial goods you sought after: It was in little things like small gestures of his love for you, or in the kitschy post cards he would sometimes send you with codes littered on them. Little unique items, wrapped or postmarked with his heart, destined only for your ownership.

How often do they cuddle/engage in PDA?: Not very often, at least not any extensively intense PDA. Sure, you’ll hold hands while in public, or he’ll place a hand at your waist as you attend a gala together. But despite Bruce loving physical touch, this doesn’t mean he wants to over-do it, much less in a way that might make you feel uncomfortable. Besides, anyone can share a kiss. But only someone he truly trusts can share a touch that sticks with him. When you’re at home, he’s not adverse to you joining him in his study and keeping him company as he looks over files both for Wayne Enterprises, and for Batman-oriented content. There have been plenty times where you’ve fallen asleep against his chest, his arm wrapped about your waist so that you won’t fall over.

What are their favorite things to do together?: It depends. Date nights are actually a bit more difficult for the two of you than the average billionaire’s, mainly because the average billionaire doesn’t also double as a vigilante. You’ve managed to do some more typical things like go to events that support the arts like operas or the ballet. Other times, you try to keep it decidedly lowkey -- though it’s a bit hard to do a lowkey paint-and-sip when all the people around you are either sneaking photos of your boyfriend, or eyeballing him because, hey, he’s far prettier than whatever subject the group was set to paint. But sometimes, these things can prove to be a headache: Because where there aren’t regular nosy civilians, there are the even nosier paparazzi. So when the time permits it, the two of you might rent out a place like the museum or a restaurant and just enjoy yourselves. But ultimately, not everything can beat just spending the night in, catching up on one another’s week or just plain resting. Snuggled up together, of course.

Who’s better at comforting the other?: You are, even though you may not always think so. You would think that cheering up or comforting the man who has everything would be a tough job, but the reality is that it really isn’t if you actually make an effort. To be quite frank, sometimes the fact that you made an effort at all is enough to lift his spirits even by 1%. You may have your doubts about the extent to which your attempts work but the truth is that when Bruce so much as smirks in your direction, you’ve done a damn good job. You worked for that smirk; own it. Bruce just simply isn’t the world’s most emotive person, even in private. But that doesn’t mean you should be so quick as to doubt your competency. Talk to him; hug him; rub his back consolingly; tell him an awful joke. He’ll appreciate you for it.

Who’s more protective?: Bruce is. The deaths of his parents kickstarted his protective streak in some form, and it’s really only evolved since then due to various incidents (including but surprisingly not limited to the Kryptonian Attack). And as dreamy as it can be, knowing that you’ll always have the protection of this massive wall of a man and his arsenal of weaponry and physical attacks, it needs to be taken with a grain of salt: Bruce can and has gone off the deep end, becoming overzealous to the near point of destruction. If he fears a threat may be directed at you or will effect any of his loved ones, there is very little that will stop him from going on the attack and sparing no expense.

Do they prefer verbal or physical affection?: Physical. Now that he’s aware of how much meaning and care can actually be packed into a single touch, Bruce seeks yours out. In addition, he doesn’t mind being able to return the favor by even just holding your hand and rubbing it with his calloused thumb.

What are some songs that apply to their relationship, in-universe or otherwise?: Ironically, “Aquaman” by Walk the Moon comes to mind. It’s not that Bruce is incapable of expressing or experiencing love: It’s more like occurrences both romantic and non-romantic have resulted in him becoming protective of his heart and increasingly reluctant to be even 90% open and vulnerable. (Remember: The two most frequent examples from his love life are women who ultimately used him or manipulated him in some way, so who could really blame him?) But you’ve been almost saintly patient with him, holding his hand the entire way not to be condescending or even pull him along, but to guide him and show him your constant support of his efforts and progress. And lo, the Crown Prince of Gotham eventually let his head underwater: And he can breathe there. He wasn’t wrong to be afraid of going in -- he just needed the right swimming partner. But for something more in-universe, look no further than a few jazz standards because fun fact: Bruce is actually a talented singer. No, seriously. He’s a crooner! And next to nobody knows about it because he makes a constant effort to hide it. Hell, even you didn’t know about it until the day he slipped up. And you had the addicting voice of the late and great Ella Fitzgerald to thank. Not even the world’s greatest detective could refuse her crisp yet calming voice, allowing her rendition of “These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)” to take up space in his ears and head until he could no longer bear it: Without even noticing it, he was singing it quietly as he fumbled around in the kitchen, fixing himself some coffee. He nearly dropped the mug when he turned around and saw you wearing a stunned expression on your face. And ever since then, Bruce singing jazz has become a lot more common in the house than ever before. When you’re upset, you might ask for him to sing. You need to sleep, you listen to a recording of him you sneaked. And sometimes, you just want to hear him sing: Of trips to romantic places, of candle lights on little corner tables, of two lovers who walk on the streets like dreamers . . . The foolish things that remind him of you.

What kind of nicknames do they call each other?: Bruce isn’t exactly the most creative when it comes to nicknames. A lot just don’t sound quite right coming out of his mouth, at least to him, especially since he’s aged up some since his more notorious playboy days. “Babe” or “Honey” have always been a part of his repertoire, but he’s noticed that “Darlin’“ and “Sweetheart” seem to flow a lot more smoothly with time. You, on the other hand, at least try to be more personal and creative. But it’s a lot harder than it seems, given that Bruce isn’t exactly the easiest name to derive nicknames from. Of course, you stumble your way to cheesy ones like “Prince Charming” or “Handsome”, but you always find yourself crawling back to throwing “Babe” and “Sweetie” right back at him.

Thank you for the request!

[stylesluxx]

cold? chilling? freezing? (I) – s.rogers

[warnings: brief talk of violence]

summary: in which y/n is an assassin turned lover | part two

word count: 1,193

masterlist

"Agent Y/L/N, welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D."

The man that spoke to you wore a black eyepatch and was dressed in all black. He was a spy that didn't bother hiding he was a spy.

"Thank you for having me, Director," You nodded and shook the hand he held out.

You looked around the Helicarrier as he gave you a tour. You were impressed. You've never been a part of an organization that was so advanced.

"The other Avengers are in the lab. They might already be bumping heads, but try to ignore it. They should be happy they have another teammate," He attempted to warn you.

You just nodded and kept a straight face as you both walked into an area where the other recruits were mid-conversation.

"Meet Agent Y/N Y/L/N. She's a trained assassin and will prove to be a great asset to the team," Fury introduced you to the four people standing in front of you.

Robert Bruce Banner, also known as Bruce Banner or Hulk. He's a good-mannered (despite the big green guy) rational, analytical, shy genius. A guy you would've fallen in love with had you not been taught to be a cold and standoffish assassin.

Thor Odinson, initially a stubborn, irrational, and arrogant brute that was turned mature and level-headed.

Natasha Romanoff, also known as Natalia Alianovna Romanoff or Black Widow. She's charismatic and can easily adapt to any role she has to play. Typical assassin.

Finally, Steven Grant Rogers, described in the files as compassionate, patriotic, courageous, and sticks with his morals until the very end. It was respectable, not necessarily how you were "raised" though.

"Nice to meet you all. I've read the mission files and have already been caught up by Fury, so no need for introductions. What's Loki's play?" You spoke sharply and looked at Loki's brother, Thor, for an answer.

Fury gave the other four an amused look before walking off, letting the group work on their own.

Thor then started explaining what Loki wanted and who he was working with.

"He's got two people brainwashed, correct? And one of them is Agent Barton?" You clarified.

"Loki has them under some kind of spell," Natasha nodded.

"I want to know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army from here," Steve spoke up.

"He didn't let you take him easy because there's someone on this ship that he's going to use as a pawn. Not too hard to figure out," You said and sat in the chair furthest from the table but closest to Agent Maria Hill.

You ignored them as they went back to talking about Loki. Of course, they were going to brush that off, they didn't want to admit that someone here was easy to use as a piece in Loki's game.

Tony Stark walked in the room, captivating it with his genius, as he does.

Anthony Edward Stark, Iron Man, a self-proclaimed egotistical playboy, philanthropist, billionaire, and genius. You would agree but you knew that was a façade. You had one too. Everyone with the potential to be an emotional wreck but has something to prove has a façade.

"Am I the only one who did the reading? And speaking of which, there wasn't much of you in them. Who are you?" He asked you, catching your attention.

"Y/N Y/L/N. Former assassin," You responded shortly.

"Yeah, I got that but anything else?" He asked and continued to push. "You guys usually have names. For example, Natasha here is Black Widow. Clint is Hawkeye. What do they call you?"

"Seven."

"No special name? Just a number and they couldn't even call you 'One?' How helpful could you possibly be?" He questioned.

You quickly reached over and grabbed Hill's gun from her holster and shot six bullets, purposely missing each of their heads by a centimeter. You put it back and sat back in your seat, crossing your legs.

"And I know five different ways to gouge your eye out with a shoelace. Any more questions, comments, and/or concerns?"

They all looked at you in shock except Tony. He knew he succeeded at pushing your buttons just a little.

"Then shall we continue?" You asked when no one spoke up.

Once Tony and Bruce decided to go to the lab, you followed behind but went to where you'd be staying at instead.

It was a small and temporary room, nothing special or specialized for you. But that was okay, you didn't like staying anywhere for too long. Being comfortable allows vulnerability and the potential to be shocked or disappointed. And those two feelings might provoke you to act out irrational and you desired to be level-headed at all times.

You sat alone in the room for a while doing nothing (because you obviously weren't unpacking) until you heard a knock. You sat up from the twin-sized bed and went to unlock and open the door.

—

Third Person POV

Steve watched as Y/N quickly exited the meeting behind Banner and Stark. His other teammates were in the files so he felt like he had a pretty good understanding of them but Y/N had almost nothing in hers.

All he knew was her name, age (27), the seven different languages she could speak (English, Latin, Spanish, French, Arabic, Portuguese, and Afrikaans) and where she was from (but he only knew that because of the unmistakable French accent).

When Steve realized he couldn't pry out as much information as he would've liked about the mysterious woman, he left Fury behind and walked to the lab.

When he saw Tony sticking Bruce, he of course had to comment about protecting the lives of those on the ship. When he realized it'd be harder than he thought getting through to Tony, he changed the subject.

"Mister Stark, is there any way you know any more information about Agent Y/L/N that you might know?" Steve asked, hoping maybe Tony did some extra research on the girl.

"Why? Got a crush?" Tony teased, causing Steve to cross his arms and roll his eyes. "Well, I did try but she's pretty good at cleaning up after herself and staying low key. Which I kind of figured, she's very... what's the word?" He hummed and snapped his fingers.

"Cold? Chilling? Freezing? Arctic, if you will," Bruce huffed out, raising an eyebrow.

"I think she just needs one on one time," Steve suggested even though he agreed with the men about her standoffish demeanor.

"Well you do it then, Doctor Rogers," Tony playfully taunted and set his hands on the table next to Loki's scepter.

"We're scared of her... like... petrified," Bruce admitted before going back to his computer.

"I wouldn't say I'm scared of her, she just seems a little unpredictable," Tony corrected him.

"Seems like you two might get along then," Steve directed toward Tony before walking out the lab.

Steve knew what it felt like to be a fish out of water, he still was on the shore flopping around and choking on air if you thought about it.

Steve was a big empathizer and that's how he found himself knocking on your bedroom door.

[AN: so this is my first series and there’s eight parts total. I’m kinda nervous ngl but excited]

[fordarkisthesuede]

The Tolls of Justice - Chapter 7

Goooood morning, darlings!  It was a longer wait than I wanted to give you, but I hope this absolute monster of a chapter is alllll worth it for what we’re leading up to! :3c

Important Spoiler Tags:  self harm, paranoia, playing with knives, discussion of mental illness, bonding through near-death situations, omg Billionaire Playboy Vigilante Bruce Wayne has That™ kind of drawer what a surprise

<prev> <next>

Read on Ao3 or continue below...

[Chapter 7:  Drawing the Strings]

Wayne Manor was too big. John figured he could walk the whole length of it in the time it would take to let Bruce deal with everything being set up for his fancy-schmancy party.

He was okay with not going. It wasn’t like he wanted to actually be in the enormous unused ballroom, all dressed to the nines. Or be on Bruce’s arm for any miniscule part of the evening. Or get to try to be normal-ish for once. It made sense for him not to go, what with a wannabe-killer on the loose. He knew that as soon as he’d realized he was in Wayne Manor and not in some weird fever dream made from various Arkham-brand drugs.

But hearing he wasn’t wanted there in the first place was different. Not so much from calculating, logical Bruce, who might have his best interests at heart - but from Alfred?

He felt the stirrings of the mysterious beast under his skin. It had been kicked hard in its cage and now it was angrier than ever. It was as if it had been staring Alfred down from behind its bars of bone and flesh, teeth bared and growling low since he saw him in the kitchen that morning - and it was lie Alfred could see it, somehow, and stared back as he shoved a pancake into John’s hands with his compliments like that would make things better.

John would be lying if he said it hadn’t made a fraction of a difference – Alfred treated him like he would any other guest to their face. He was polite and seemingly neutral, and even tossed a joke out about Bruce’s life juggling trick. It was enough to remind John that this was Bruce’s father figure he was dealing with and not a stranger, and he should do his best to get along with who could – in the slimmest possibilities of a good future – be his eventual father-in-law.

But the knowledge that Alfred didn’t think he should be around other people kept sitting in John’s head. It sat there in the kitchen, and in the oversized dining room, and back in the kitchen as John very carefully dried the china and attempted to make conversation about Alfred’s journey across the world in-between mentally running through a list of all the mob hits ever made on 13th Street. Bad thoughts were easy to drown out when he was thinking about other things, but as soon as he was left on his own it came back.

Alfred doesn’t want me here, the thought cycled in again as John stepped into the elevator down to cave. It was the one place he could surround himself with Bruce’s presence without the man actually being there. He doesn’t like me. He thinks I’m dangerous around people. Shadows passed over his face. 

He knew Alfred was right. Does anyone want me here, with my bloody hands...? 

John looked down at them. They were clean, but sometimes he felt like Lady Macbeth trying to scrub away the guilt that seeped a permanent red into her conscience. He squeezed his fingers into fists, feeling the short nails dig a little into his skin as his wrist muscles flexed. 

The wrists that Bruce had held not long ago, while lying on him with all the weight of the world packed in mostly-sculpted muscle. He flicked his tongue out, tasting his lips; Bruce’s flavor was all gone, and only maple syrup from breakfast remained, but he was sure it happened. There was no mistaking Bruce’s firm grip.

Bruce does, John countered himself, flexing his hands in a squeezing motion again. Bruce doesn’t care what Alfred thinks. I’m his best friend. He loves me.

He woke up alone. He woke up in the guest room Bruce had given him last time. He had to think carefully about where he was and had snatched the phone off the nightstand to prove to himself that it was Saturday.

...he SAYS he loves me. He left me alone. 

But Bruce had kissed him. Been real. John clutched his bandaged forearm, squeezing hard and feeling the fabric beneath his fingertips. He was there, in the elevator, heading towards the Batcave.

But Bruce had also lied to him before. He lied to Alfred very easily. He didn’t want Alfred to know I was with him.

Why would he do that? Why would he hide John away? Why would he not tell his father his boyfriend was there? Only if…

John squeezed his bandaged forearm harder. His gut had told him so the moment Alfred had finished his sentence from behind Bruce’s bedroom door:  Alfred didn’t know about Bruce and John’s relationship.

He’s ashamed of me.

He wanted to talk to someone about it. Badly. So badly it gnawed at his stomach. 

But of course Mickey and Devi were busy, and Dr. Song would practically say she told him it would happen and tell him to go wherever it was St. Dymphna felt would work for the time being, and John would sooner talk to Harley than go through that mess. Tiffany and Iman wouldn’t understand, and he didn’t think their budding friendships were at that level of emotional intimacy.

The elevator gave a little ding, and John felt his head start to clear with the first breath of cave air. Solid mixed metals and rock, live bats, fresh water, Kevlar cleaner - yes, this was all Bruce. Bruce in his truest form. Logical Bruce with his sweet heart that bled underneath the layers of armor he kept to hide and restrain it all.

Bruce loving him was unquestionable. He was an idiot sometimes, hiding things for his mysterious, inane reasons, but Bruce loved him. He had to. So Bruce might be embarrassed or ashamed of him, but…!

He won’t be for long. 

Sure, he could do something outlandish like kidnap Bruce without letting anyone else be wise to it and prove how clever and deserving he was of Bruce’s time and attention and love as he gave him the heavy pet-down they both deserved to indulge in, but it wouldn’t go over so well when John wasn’t officially released into the wild with the sanity stamp on his hand.

Solving at least one of the cases on Bruce’s desk, though? That was sure to earn him points. Hell, Alfred would undoubtedly be impressed, too. 

He had a lot to catch up on. He glanced over at the Batcomputer and thought about everything.

The Wednesday Nighters’ deaths at The Lot club were mysterious, but the gang seemed to have a lead on that, what with the idiot whose card was “stolen”. It wasn’t impressive enough if John puzzled the rest out.

His own attempted murder was intriguing, but there wasn’t much to go on. Unless Tiffany could show him the exact spot she lost the shooter in... If she did lose them and it wasn’t some very elaborate scheme to- 

Don’t go there, John. You know what the doctors all say about your little paranoid thoughts.

And while he could just throw their advice out the window like they seemed to do to him, he knew they were right. Thinking someone he knew (someone he was growing to like, and was sure he could get the feeling in return if he tried, no less) was out to get even with him wasn’t very progressive. Tiffany had trusted him enough to gamble on following a lead. She didn’t toss his phone over the edge of the building when he’d given it to her. She tried to chase the shooter and got her precious drone smashed to bits as a consequence. She didn’t even pull that weirded out face at the breakfast table...well, he was pretty sure she hadn’t, anyway.

The more he thought about it, the Chandis instance seemed to be connected to Cat-Lady, if the video was to be believed, and John had a feeling that it wasn’t a coincidence that both his and her attacker were wearing masks. And Selina’s looked peculiarly like a Batman knockoff.

Yup, first-in, first-out was the way to go, really. He’d just have to figure out where she was staying and then figure out a way to get there. 

It was only two things. He could manage that.

He was going to march over to the giant supercomputer when he caught a flash of movement in his peripheral vision:  Tiffany. 

For the second time, he found himself finding her in an unlikely place when her back was turned.

She’d brought up Miss Kitty-Witty. She would know exactly where she was. And John, having managed to coax her into working with him before, would surely be able to do it again, as long as he could keep his face straight.

Tiffany was in the little rogue gallery, her phone pressed to her ear. She seemed to be wearing her motorcycle gear from last night, sans the helmet; he could see some of the plating looked a lot like that of the Batsuit, but in a matte midnight blue. She was clearly planning on going somewhere...

John snuck closer, walking on the outside of his heels to lessen the noise.

“I told you, Barb’, I’m not with a guy. If I was, I wouldn’t be so tired when I come back home... Of course my Mom knows where I am; even if I wasn’t with her I’d have to text her. I mean, she’s been getting better, but… Yeah, it’s just work stuff.” Tiffany stepped closer to John’s case. What could she want from there?

Or was John just being paranoid and she was actually going for something else, like Harley’s hammer or Frieze’s ice-ray?

“Oh, uhh… I don’t know. It might be a couple of days. At least I paid rent already.” Tiffany was right in front of the old Joker items; his old belt, his grappling gun, and the razor-sharp Jokerrang. She reached up and snatched his grappling gun off the little pegs Bruce used to keep it in place. Her sixth sense was pretty shitty if she didn’t know he was right behind her by now. “Yeah, I’ll text you if anything interesting happens. Really, Barb’, I don’t know what you expect to-”

“Nice, isn’t it?” John asked from behind her.

Tiffany gave a yelp that echoed against the expansive cave walls as she swung the gun behind her in an arc - it would have hit him in the head if he hadn’t leaned back in the nick of time. John stumbled backwards a step, laughing at the wide-eyed shock on her face. He knew it was loud, but it wasn’t as if anyone else was down there to complain, so he didn’t bother muffling it.

John could hear the voice on the phone shouting in alarm. “No, Barbara, I’m okay, it’s just...one of my colleagues scaring me,” she explained, still frowning over at John. “Yeah, I’ll call you back later.” She hung up, stowed the phone in her pocket, and shoved his arm hard. “Don’t DO that! You scared the shit out of me!”

 John bit his lip to try and stop the titters in his throat. “You were on the phone! You wouldn’t have noticed my text!” he explained half-truthfully, “Nice reflexes, by the way. You’ll be like a little Bat in no time! Or would it be a batling...? A Mini-Bat?”

She didn’t seem to find the funny side to that. 

John cleared his throat, unsure of what else to say until he realized he should have apologized by now. “Um, ‘sorry’. That’s what I’m trying to say.” He stood straighter. “So - Bats won’t let you play with his toys?”

“Uh… Not exactly.” Tiffany shifted her weight and tried to cross her arms, only realizing the gun was in the way too late and having to put her hand on her hip instead. “Bruce…suggested I borrow it from you. Since you’re kinda stuck here,” she said with a shrug.

Ah-ha. She was heading out on a little mission - visiting the Cat, perhaps, in Bruce’s place. “Well, the man’s got a point… Kinda wished you asked first, though, Tiff’. It might be in Bruce’s fancy case under his fancier house, but it’s still mine.” She shifted uncomfortably. John supposed he should play nice and not glower. “But I suppose I could let you borrow it -” he rocked back on his heels once, thinking quickly - “if you let me come with you. You’re going to see the Cat, right?”

“You want to…” Her already dark eyes darkened further. “Did Bruce put you up to this?”

What a suspicious-aloysius. Clearly Bruce had her a short leash. “Give me some credit, Tiff’, I have a life outside of following him around. Though it is nice when he gets that cute proud face when I do something right…” It always gave him a nice little rush of mood-enhancing chemicals to his head, seeing that face...but he was getting off-track. And Tiffany was starting to pull her weirded-out face. “But I didn’t even know you were heading there for sure until just now.”

She seemed to be analyzing him. Thinking. Asking herself if he was lying. She could easily just take the thing and run; she might be shorter than him but the suit showed off powerful legs, and who said she couldn’t fight him? Bruce might take John’s side over hers, or he might take neither. Could she trust him? Would she?

“Let’s say I do,” Tiffany said, staring him down, “What are you planning on doing?”

“Outside of asking questions? Ha, I’ll wing it!”

The dark blue woven curls of her hair swung slightly with the tilt of her head. “And what if you do something stupid?”

“Like, accidentally hit myself in the head with the grappling gun stupid? ‘Cause I’ve done that. Really hurts!” She wasn’t finding that funny. Okay. “Ohhh, you mean whoops there’s a knife in Cat-Lady’s liver, how’d that get there stupid!” He laughed at his own joke, hoping she’d turn that serious line into a tiny smile. “I’m not an idiot, Tiff’. I learned my lesson,” he beamed, holding up his scarred hand and wiggling his fingers to draw attention to it, “I won’t be shiving anyone any time soon.” Well… “I mean, unless she tries to kill you,” he added sensibly, “Then it’d be a lot more socially acceptable.”

Tiffany blinked in confusion. “Are you expecting her to try and kill me? I didn’t think she’d be that testy about a couple of questions from a stranger.”

“I just figured that with Riddler being her ‘friend’ and all…” He could see the grim understanding growing behind her eyes. The ‘R’ word seemed to have been the trigger. “I mean, I don’t think she knows it was you, but...if she did? She might try to.”

“I see…” (He could tell she did. Though what hue she was seeing it in wasn’t for him to know.) “How do I know you won’t tell her when my back is turned?”

He supposed he could, if he felt cruel enough. “You haven’t given me a reason to,” he shrugged, “so my lips are sealed!” He made a zipping motion over his mouth as he gave her a wink.

Finally, she was actually smiling. Even a small one was better than nothing. “Alright, you can come. But you do anything stupid and I’ll test my roundhouse kick on you.”

“Hm, mhm mm-?!” He mimed grasping at his throat and unzipping his mouth and gave a dramatic gasp. “Whew, hard to breathe like that!”

Tiffany gave a slight titter as he laughed at his own joke. Hers was just a little ha ha ha - that was as much as he could’ve asked for. “John, you could breathe through your nose.”

“And what, ruin the bit? Not on your life.” John checked a little box off of his mental list of ways to win her over. He was getting there. “So, when are we going?”

She glanced him over very quickly. “Uh, you’re planning on going like that?”

How else would he go? Makeup took too long to apply. He’d stand out no matter what he did, with his complexion. “She already knows what I look like, Tiff’. If I pull out a disguise now that’s just another leg she could get up on me later.”

To his surprise, she reached around the back of his case and pulled a long piece of purple cloth off a large plastic hanger and tossed it his way. “If you fall off the bike without something on your arms they’re gonna get shredded to ribbons. And you’ll be...slightly less conspicuous with that.” 

John held up the fabric, feeling how heavy it was in his hands, and recognized it instantly. The purple leather trenchcoat he’d worn last year. “Ooh!” He gave it a firm shake and slid it on, instantly feeling the weight sink into his shoulders. He could smell something like mild fabric soap, which meant Bruce had kept it fairly clean. That sweetheart. “Oh, I missed this. I’ll never get why that vampire cosplayer just traded it away…” It was a little thick, really designed for the fall more than the summer. The buttons that made up the double-breasted style were dull black, but he could fix that later. “I need to put in some vents,” he mused, following Tiffany down to the parking pad below. He could hear his ankle boots click slightly on the metal steps, reminding him of when he and Bruce had left for their little missions last year. “How many do you have in that suit? It has to get hot in there.”

“Ten. Bruce’s suit has more, you should look at it later.”

He patted his pockets. Pretty flat. “You wouldn’t happen to have any extra gloves, would you?”

“Yeah, but they’re not going to fit you.”

Upon closer inspection, the sleek motorized bicycle was really built more for one than two. The elevated seat on the back had small handles on the sides for the passenger - or easily-strapped bag - to hold onto. “Uh, you know I’ve never ridden on a motorcycle before...”

“It’s okay, I’ve never had a passenger before.” Tiffany tucked the majority of her hair into a tight fitting hood that reminded John of knight’s chainmail. “Just hold onto the handles and lean with the bike if we turn. I need to start it before you get on.”

“What, no holding onto the driver like they do in the movies?”

Tiffany gave him a look. He’d seen it before on Harley when he’d asked what he didn’t realize was an ‘inappropriate’ question - an odd sort of angrily tired, like she’d been asked it too many times before, but had almost gotten used to it. But of what exactly he couldn’t understand; he’d never seen a guy give that expression to help explain it. “You try and I’ll kick you off the bike.”

“Okay, point taken. Handles only.” 

Tiffany was trying to find a spot on the bike for the grappling gun. She had a couple of little side compartments that John figured was for drones or her controlling tablet. There was a D-clip on what must have passed for her utility belt that could probably hold it, but John had deep pockets and freer hands.

“You want me to hold onto that?” He held out his hand, “Even I know you shouldn’t shoot ‘n’ drive!”

She plopped it into his hand, seeming somewhat annoyed she couldn’t find a spot elsewhere. “Only while I’m driving.”

It was nice and cold, and just the right amount of weight for a tool that could zip him almost anywhere. Now all he needed was a Batarang in his pocket... He did have that nice rainbow-hued knife Devi had given him; he supposed that was close enough, so he slid it from his pants pocket to his coat and heard a little clink.

It had hit a plastic tube that read Number 45, Wine under a torn brand name label. “Ha! I knew I left the spare somewhere.” 

Tiffany was digging around in the little trunk hidden under the backseat. John shuffled to kneel in front of the little side mirror by the controls. 

He hadn’t worn makeup since last year, either. It was one of those socially-unconventional things that made people everywhere look at him uncomfortably - and as much as he liked attention and making people question their own ideas of what was ‘fashionable’ and ‘normal’, he did kind of prefer finishing his recovery in peace. Being lynched in a mental ward with shitty excuses for protection wasn’t his idea of a good time, let alone worth ruining his record of good behavior. 

John rolled the lipstick on; it was a color bordering on the fine line between dark purple and red. The kind of color he wanted to smear over Bruce’s collar. Color over the inevitable purplish bruises and lines of faded scars. Mix with fresh cuts until the reds were indistinguishable and staining white sheets as they tumbled together, blurring the lines of taboo and illicit...

“Here,” Tiffany yanked John out of his thoughts by handing him an open-faced helmet. It reminded him of more of an old-fashioned army helmet than anything. She blinked, slightly surprised by the slight change in appearance. “Uh, there’s no visor, but I did find a bandana for you.”

Heavy white cotton. It could use a good coat of paint… “...are we ganging up on a piñata?”

“What?” Tiffany scoffed, the corner of her mouth upturned just a little, “John, you use it to cover your mouth. Unless you want to swallow a boatload of mosquitos,” she pointed out with a smirk.

“Point taken,” he grumbled, tying it around his neck.

Tiffany slid on her helmet and started the bike with a rumble of the engine while John was still working the helmet’s strap. He’d only just settled on the back of the bike and Tiffany took off like a shot, causing him to grin anew and clutch the handles like he was riding the old haunted house ride back in the abandoned amusement park, grinning anew.

Clearly, Tiffany and Bruce had something else in common.

*~*~*~*~*

To put it mildly, the Motel 11 on Augury Road was the sort of place that seemed to have a pest problem.

John just didn’t know what kind of pest. Arkham always seemed to have rats until his last two years. The run-down halfway house he’d been in the first time he was released had roaches in three sizes. The Old Five Points station John had kicked around for a few months had a bit of both, plus mice, spiders, and The Pact, depending on where you walked.

This place was still a step above all that, of course; it offered freedom, secrecy, hot water, and quiet.

Not too quiet. People clearly stayed there, and the freeway entrance wasn’t too far; John could hear the rush of cars speeding like they were all Batman on a Friday night call.

Tiffany parked her bike in a discreet out-of-the-way corner in a nearby alleyway and stashed their helmets in the tiny trunk as John took in the sight of the motel’s parking lot. 

Selina Kyle had reversed into her parking place so the traffic cameras couldn’t read the plate. There were no markings as to what model car it was, but the sleek dark windows and shiny black finish told John that it was expensive-ish and thus primed for stealing. Or stripping, depending on the area’s hoodlums. He was surprised it hadn’t been touched yet.

“How do you know which room’s hers?” John asked as Tiffany fiddled with her tablet. One of her miniature drones - he was so tempted to name it! - was already zooming towards the building like a little bird.

“Electronic record says someone named ‘Frieda Baast’ checked into room 14[B1]   late last night. Preeetty sure that’s her,” she smirked up at him briefly before watching her screen again, tilting it to fly the small drone, “Plus, she parked close to it.”

John hovered over her shoulder a little, watching the camera zoom around the place like a bee. It looked empty at first, but John saw lumps at the end of the bedspread. “Looks like she’s taking a cat nap.”

Tiffany gave him a look. “Ha ha.”

“What? It’s an easy jab!”

“Speaking of easy,” Tiffany snatched the grappling gun out of his pocket and clipped it to her belt, not bothering to even say ‘excuse me’, “she’s only got two exits.”

“Yeah, the front door and the back window. Duh.”

“Exactly,” she continued with an air of a new orderly, “You go around the back in case she tries to run for it.”

John felt offended at the very idea. There was no way he was going to fit through that back window. Tiffany was clearly going to try and hog the glory of confronting Cat Woman by herself.

Telling Tiffany they should switch places wasn’t a good idea, though. She’d take immediate offense, and even if he threatened her, they’d be fighting before they got to the real problem at hand. No, this would take compromise.

“How about we both go in the front door and use your little kit to guard the back?”

She wrinkled her nose and raised her right eyebrow. “Kit?”

“Yeah!” She didn’t get it. Of course. He rolled his eyes; he didn’t like explaining jokes. “Your last name is Fox, you built the drones - so, your kit. A baby fox!”

She didn’t look impressed. “Oh.”

“Doesn’t it have a laser or miniature flamethrower or something on it? It’s got that little tube under the lens.”

“No, Charlie is only a surveillance drone. That piece is so he can connect with Foxtrot in the field. We don’t need that, though,” she waved off as if his curiosity didn’t matter, “You’ve got a good point, we can both cover the main exit better. And she doesn’t know it’s only for surveillance.”

“Charlie? Ha, what happened to Alpha and Bravo?” he joked. “Wait, does Charlie surf?”

“Alpha was the prototype I made for Br- Batman until it…exploded,” she winced, looking away as if she didn’t want to think about it, “Bravo is what he uses in the field now. I’ve got Charlie, and Delta is the backup in the bike. Batman has the larger drones stashed around the city. And they’re all waterproof, but I wouldn’t say they surf.” Tiffany slid on a large pair of rimless yellow-tinted goggles that looked almost like they were taken from a movie. A small green square lit up in the corner of a lens, and John saw small text crawl across the yellow glass as what looked like a diagram flashed up for a moment.

“Woah.”

“Cool, huh?” Tiffany puffed up in pride. “I’m a few steps ahead of the industry. No big deal.”

“I’d say it’s a pretty big deal!” John flattered, actually meaning it. “You got any other surprise gadgets up your sleeves?”

“What, and ruin the fun?” She lightly smacked his shoulder. Friendly, not bruising, accompanied by a warm smile that reached her eyes - John had scored some points. Clearly, the old adage about catching flies with honey was onto something. “Come on, Selina isn’t going to lay around and wait all day.”

“She will if she’s been in the catnip,” John joked, striding next to Tiffany as they snuck their way around to number 14.

Tiffany could now see the camera feed in her right eye; a little controller in her own wrist gauntlet controlled the drone movements once the tablet was put away on her belt. It was incredibly impressive, but John wondered if it wasn’t a little distracting to be watching a camera and where she was walking. It would be worse if she were fighting or taken by surprise…

John decided to stay on the camera’s side. There was no helping her if she couldn’t see from both sides.

It was tempting to burst in unannounced, but Catwoman wasn’t just using her name for a cute pun on her burglary tendencies – he’d seen her dance with Bruce as nimbly as her namesake. So of course if they couldn’t break in to get the door open, they’d just have to get her to come out.

The easiest way was her car. Anyone who gave a rat’s ass about the safety of their primary method of escape checked on their car alarm.

John remembered Batman’s stunners, and how Bruce had started carrying around one in his pocket since ol’ Scarecrow got put away. He knew they packed a serious punch; he’d been hit with one of those, back when…

No. No no no. Not going there today, Johnny-boy.

John shook his head, telling himself he’d have his little traumatic flashback at a different time. It didn’t quite help, only bringing back that after-zap feeling and the image of Ace Chemicals’ control room, which frustrated him, and that made him gnaw on his bottom lip for something to do and squeeze the knife in his pocket really hard.

“Uh...you okay?” Tiffany asked, stopping him without touching him. He almost wished she did, so he knew for sure she was there.

“Ha ha ha! No!” he answered, feeling more annoyed at everything, “Of course not! Why do you think I was in the funny farm for so long, hmmm?”

It was the wrong thing to say. He knew it was. But he was pissed at himself, at his stupid brain for acting up at the wrong time, for not being able to make that memory better than it was because Bruce probably wouldn’t go for a little safe recreation and they kept getting interrupted, damn it, could things not go his way for fifteen full minutes?!

He grit his teeth. There was no use staying angry for things neither of them could control. “Sorry,” he ground out. “I’m just…” He couldn’t explain it. She wouldn’t get it.

Or would she? Surely she had nasty little memories of where she was last year, too. He knew he caused one of those. His doctors always said he should open up to others. Share the experience.

“It’s just one of those stupid thoughts. The ‘hey, guess what you did a long time ago, boy-o? Let’s relive that,’ kind. It’s not fun.” He breathed in. He was outside, in Gotham, with all its car exhaust and leftover hot dogs covering the rot that seemed to make up the city’s foundation. It was better than Ace or his old cages; at least he could clean out some of the mess by himself. “They just come in at random, sometimes. I’ll be...” 

Not fine. It was what Bruce said all the time. And not ‘normal’, because he never would be. 

“I’ll be okay.”

Tiffany looked sympathetic. Or was it empathetic? Both? She looked at him less judgy and more understanding, and that was all he wanted. “You need a minute?”

“Nah. I was just thinking we need to set off the car alarm and kinda wanted a taser to do it.”

“Oh. We don’t need that.” Tiffany waved over her shoulder for him to follow as she took position by the door, the material of her hood now covering her mouth and nose. John slinked under the window and stood on the other side.

John watched as - quick as he could say ‘Rawhide’ - Tiffany took his grappling gun and fired at one of the headlights before retracting the clattering metal teeth with a snap of a button and clipping it to her belt by its’ jaws.

Like back in his room, half hidden in the dark, John was counting beats. Feeling his heart drum along a little, excitement building in anticipation.

The door opened partway, and Tiffany met his eyes for the briefest second before they spun on their heels to block the doorway and push forward.

“Selina, how are you, can we come in, thanks!” John rushed, pushing the door wide open.

Catwoman was just as fast and nimble as he remembered; it made him wish he’d brought some of his old playing cards along. She rushed straight to the bathroom window and unbolted it as fast as lightning - only to find the drone flying there, the lens right at eye level with a little red LED blinking to life.

Tiffany had her hand poised over the little controls at her wrist. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she taunted, “Unless you want impromptu laser eye surgery.”

Selina turned to face them partway, looking more pissed off than he’d ever seen her. She had cut her hair short and dressed in tight fitting black and white; John could see something slightly protruding above her lower back, which likely meant a knife. She was dressed for combative self-defense, some instructor might say. But like everyone else, she had bags under her eyes - and they weren’t leftovers of eyeliner. In fact, there wasn’t a trace of her usual style. There was only a glowering resentment and an obvious pressure bearing down on her shoulders. He could see the tension in her brow and jaw and wondered what it was that made her hate them that much.

“Fine, you got me.” Selina stared him down; he could practically see possible escape plans swirling behind her eyes. “What do you want?” 

John could not resist a joke with an opener like that. “Oh, you know - freedom, a little niche of my own, a sunset dinner with Bruce overlooking the city...and my own cotton candy machine,” John answered, enjoying the confusion twisting her face into something less threatening, “But I’d really like some answers.”

“I see.” Selina shot a glance over to Tiffany, not seeming to recognize her. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” she said sarcastically, giving her a short once-over. “You must be Bats’ side-kick. Or have you gotten yourself mixed up in this crazy clown’s delusions?”

John could practically feel his dislike for her grow, simmering in the front of his head. What did she know about him? Or even the basic definition of a delusion, for that matter?

Tiffany seemed to have bristled a little less. “It doesn’t matter who I work with. If I don’t hear what I need to know, making your little hideout a beacon for trouble will be the least of your worries.”

“What, don’t you have a cute name to go along with the rest of the crew?” Selina taunted, not looking like she was enjoying it.

John held his gaze steady on the stealthy Cat, though his mind was already wandering to what Tiffany’s reaction would be. She supposedly wasn’t in the cave half the time anymore, and with the obvious costume change she’d likely not be calling herself ‘Oracle’ now. What would it be? Spoiler, as a homage to her original purpose of spoiling criminal’s fun? Batgirl, in mimic of her mentor? Something to allude to her range of skills, perhaps…Spectrum[B2] ? Or some word beginning with ‘T’?

“Robin. Now step away from the window,” Tiffany commanded, side-stepping close to the drone as Selina moved closer to the edge of the bathtub. 

“Hm, cute. Hope that’s not your real name, Robin.”

Selina looked very much like a cat itching to stretch its claws by the birdfeeder. It made John antsier, and he had half a mind to shove her into the bathtub and hold her there until he got the answers to the questions sitting in his gut.

Calm down, Bruce’s voice echoed in his head from a distant memory.

Sweet, rational Bruce would be right. She might kick him away, and a fight wouldn’t give him anything they actually needed. His impulses had to be tempered. And what did those doctors always say to do about it?

John whipped out the butterfly knife and began to fiddle with it, opening it and twirling it in his hand in a familiar pattern. He couldn’t quite remember just when or how he had gotten so good at it since his first release. It was sort of...natural.

He already felt the little urge ebbing away with the repetitive motion. It helped that it doubled as a passive threat - Selina eyed it a little upon seeing the flash of light glint off the blade with every turn and snap.

Selina sighed, glowering lightly at him like she was a cat stuck in a bathroom during dinner. “Let me save you the time - you’re here to ask about the attack on me in Bludhaven, right? All because I wouldn’t give up the dirty details to Bruce?” She folded her arms across her chest, looking almost business like. “The short version is:  I don’t know who they were. One minute I’m strolling down my gallery, and the next the lights cut out and some knife-happy freak crashes through my window. The only thing I can tell you about him was that he was wearing a mask.”

“How do you know it was a ‘he’?” John asked.

Selina rolled her eyes. “Please. I’ve seen enough men in costumes to know one when I see one. Tall, wide build, in a mask and ridiculous cape - only a man would wear that and think they look cool.”

John thought that remark was annoyingly unnecessary. And wrong - a third of Gotham could all agree that Batman’s picture should be next to the word ‘cool’ in the dictionary. (She was clearly jealous. Who wouldn’t be?)

“Casual sexism aside,” Tiffany grunted, “did you notice anything else? Any distinctive markings? Smells?”

“I just said he wore a mask. You think a guy like that wouldn’t cover himself up elsewhere?” Selina shot back, clearly not impressed, “I would’ve thought the sidekick to Bats would know to pay attention to context clues.”

John thought about throwing the knife at her, but it was a bad idea. For several reasons. “And I would’ve thought you were smart enough to not make deals under the table anymore, now that you’re free from the pound,” he sneered, clicking the knife open and shut, “What did Roman Sionis cut you in for?”

Selina glared, her stony green eyes hardening at him. “My deal with Roman was above the table, like all my sales. I don’t see how him buying something from my gallery has anything to do with this. Just because he’s loaded doesn’t mean he’s another crazed mob boss who needs to cut ties with everyone he meets.”

So Alfred was right - Roman bought something from the gallery. John made a mental note to mention that later in the most flattering way possible later.

“Did you see him after that?” Tiffany asked.

“Why would I?” Selina asked coolly.

“Handsome, rich, easy to rob…” Tiffany trailed off, seeming to smirk at her, “We all know he’s the kind that splashes champagne on pretty girls.”

“He does seem right up your alley, Cat,” John added.

Selina looked mildly disgusted at the mild pun. Or maybe the implication. John wasn’t sure which. “Look, we had a drink together after the payment transferred. I didn’t see him after that and I didn’t care. Why does this matter?”

…so she really didn’t know. That was interesting. John had figured she had a bit more of a detective instinct than that. “Because, surprise! He is a mob boss,” John said smugly, “One in a mask, no less.”

“I still don’t see how that matters. I don’t care who my clients are, as long as I get paid. And he has no reason to try and kill me, if that’s what you’re implying – the pieces I sold him were authentic. We parted on perfectly friendly terms.”

“Pieces?” Tiffany puzzled, “What, did he buy half your gallery for his yacht?”

(John quietly wondered if she wasn’t reading his mind somehow.)

“Don’t be silly,” Selina said tiredly, “It was a set of masks. And no, they weren’t anything like what the guy from the gallery was wearing.”

Tiffany stared her down, looking cockier than usual behind her glasses. “So if you left Bludhaven to run for your life and got a nice cash deposit, what the hell are you doing here?”

“We can’t all afford to stay at the Hilton for a week,” Selina dead-panned, shifting to add another mildly scathing remark.

But now who was missing context? And with all the obvious bitterness and tension oozing out of every pore, there was a clear answer hanging in the air. One he definitely preferred over the paranoid idea that she was here for Bruce. “I knew it,” John grinned, snapping the knife in his hand open, “You’re here on a job!” he pointed at her with the tip of the knife, not missing the flash down at it. Thinking of whether he would or wouldn’t use it. “What’s wrong, Kitty, get bored of hanging paintings you hadn’t stolen? Wanted that thrill back?”

“Don’t act like you know me,” she sneered in a slightly louder voice than she needed to use, “you’ll only embarrass yourself with your paranoid delusions of what I am.”

She was baiting for a fight. Maybe she wanted to watch him crack in front of Tiffany. Well, weird people said there was more than one way to skin a cat. “Ooh, throwing around psych terms! If you want to play psychiatrist, you better bring better material than that. Like… I would be willing to bet,” he emphasized with a little faux jab and a step towards her, “that you were actually happy down there, weren’t you? Settling nicely in a weird new life you’re not used to,” step, “when it’s allll upturned by some lunatic,” step, “and you’re forced to run back to the only life you knew before.”

He could tell he was right. Very right. She looked like he’d pinned her to the dissection tray in a lab.

“So you come back home!” He splayed his hands open, feeling more and more assured of himself, “And you need to prove to the world you can still land on your feet, so you pick right up where you left off. Am I right?”

“I don’t need to prove anything to anyone,” Selina growled, looking predictably pissed off, “And what I do in Gotham is my business.”

“It’s not just your business,” Tiffany injected, stepping closer to both of them. John wished he could communicate to her that it was a bad idea without having to threaten her; he just hoped Catwoman wouldn’t get as skittish as her namesake when cornered. “This isn’t just your city. It’s all of ours.”

“Who are you doing business with, Cat?” John asked, choosing to ignore Tiffany’s attempt to get Selina Kyle to play hero. If he was going that route he might as well have mentioned how they were in the same sort of boat! Either way it wasn’t going to appeal to her the way it might with someone else. “How do you know they weren’t the ones who tried to kill you?”

She was skirting her gaze between both of them. Annoyed. Wary. Backing up just a slight bit, metaphorically and literally.

“If they wanted to kill me, they would’ve done it already.”

“Unless they realized they could use you.”

She was thinking about it, staring him down, wondering if he was right, if what she thought was an obsessive lunatic might have had a very good point… She hadn’t considered it before, had she? She had met them already. Why wouldn’t they kill her on sight if not to use her for a day or two?

“Just something to think about!” John smirked, smacking her lightly on the shoulder with his free hand and turning to leave, trying to guide Tiffany to the door by her shoulder. “Come on, Robin. Cat Lady’s not in the mood to play with us.”

Tiffany didn’t budge. She had the same sort of stalwart glare that Batman got. “You know we’re only trying to help you.”

Wrong thing to say. Really wrong thing to say.

“Help me?” Selina hissed, “You barge in and poke your nose where it doesn’t belong, and you call that helping?”

“Robin,” John warned-

“God, you’re just like him! Just as stubborn and deluded with his self-righteous concept of justice. I don’t need help! Not from Bats,” the woman spat, “and not from you! If someone’s after me, I’ll-”

“You’ll what?” John interrupted, finding the ‘if’ particularly amusing, “You’ll pull a Riddler? Put yourself on display to lure them in and go for the kill?” It felt really good to rub it in her face. Almost soothing, in its own way. He couldn’t help but grin wider through his mildly-reddening vision and twist the metaphorical knife a little more. “You know what happened to him,” he purred, pointing the knife in his hand a little at her face, “Let’s not pretend it can’t happen to you.”

He felt a weight on his shoulder. Tiffany’s lightweight armored glove was attempting to pull him back, like she thought he might actually stab Selina in the face to prove a point. He went back to spinning the knife in his hand and stepped away. “Good luck out there, Cat-Lady,” he added, pulling Tiffany’s shoulder along with him in a loose, sidelong sort of hug as the drone hovered behind them like it was on a leash, its harmless lens trained on the angry thief at their backs. “You’ll need more than he did.”

Tiffany was stiff. Or maybe that was just the armor. It was hard to tell… He decided to let go as soon they were out of sight; she didn’t seem to be at the ‘hugging’ level of friendship yet, even if it was only a little one that barely counted. It would probably take longer to get there now. Which was a shame, because he felt like they could both use one.

He did want to break the silence, though. Something about the walk back to a getaway vehicle always seemed out of place, like an overly-long transition between scenes in a movie. But things were real, out in Gotham - he could feel the short heels of his boots as he walked and the city heat pressing against him. He clicked the knife shut and put it back in his pocket, not needing it anymore. “Good job back there,” he said earnestly, flashing a thumb’s up at her, “We can officially cross Black Mask off our list of suspects!”

Even with the mask and high-tech glasses covering her face, Tiffany was clearly angry with him. “So it’s our list now? Because I thought you did an awful lot of talking back there. Almost like I wasn’t there.”

“Oh.” He felt dumb just saying it aloud, but it was a reflex. “Um… I guess I got a little carried away?”

“A little? I was trying to get her to work with us, not plant suicidal ideas in her head!”

“I wasn’t doing that!” He protested, hoping he looked as honest as he felt. (Besides, even if he was, it wouldn’t be his fault if she did go down the Riddler-esque path of showboating and winding up dead.)

“What, next you’ll tell me you weren’t openly threatening her, too?” Tiffany rounded on him, looking more furious as she stopped at the end of the row of rooms.

“I wasn’t!” He clicked his heel hard on the pavement. “I was stimming! She just happened to be close to the other end when I was trying to make a point!” She didn’t seem to believe that, but he didn’t care; he knew it was the truth. “Did you want me to just walk away and let her yell at you for nothing all day?!”

“Yeah! I might have gotten a word in that way!”

“And what, convince her to have a sudden change of heart?” He scowled, getting agitated by the very idea she’d do a sudden one-eighty, “She won’t be a hero if you tell her she should!”

“I wasn’t trying to force her,” she countered, “I was suggesting! Unlike you, trying to play psychiatrist just because she pissed you off!”

“Oh, and I guess you wouldn’t get pissed off if someone tried to tell you what your issues are?!”

“You only made her madder!”

“YOU only made her madder! You don’t just offer her help!”

Tiffany was practically stomping towards the motorcycle in the distance as she threw up her hands in exhaustion. “There is just no dealing with you! I don’t know why I went along with this!”

That hurt. The kind that left a burn-like sting over a punch. They were teammates. Or at least they were supposed to be. Was it just guilt or pity that was holding their shreds of civility together? Was trying to get along with her the first step towards failure?

...or was it her fault? She couldn’t see the obvious nature of Selina Kyle - too independent and fickle to follow life-path suggestions, let alone accept help. Or maybe Tiffany did see it, and she thought Selina was still a better match for the crew - for Bruce - than he was. Maybe, like Alfred, Tiffany thought he was too unstable and dangerous to be around.

He stood in the corner of the alleyway, watching her angrily push on her helmet, and wondered at the intricate nuances of who exactly was to blame. He looked out at the city on the opposite end, wondering if he should just get a Ryde or risk using the Sky Rail...and thought it was odd a large white van was going that fast in his direction from the turn.

Ha, they’d have to stomp on the brakes to get into the parking space here...

It was getting a little too close…

WAY too close!

John darted into the alley, his heart jumping as he heard a sickening crunch behind him.

The van had smashed right into the corner of the building. Right where he had been just a moment ago.

It didn’t matter how curious he was about the driver. He didn’t want to hang around in case they had backup.

“Start the bike!” He shouted at Tiffany as she stood there, looking at the accident behind him. “NOW!”

“But-”

There came another crunch. Like metal pulling away.

The car was reversing, clearly not taking enough damage to stop the engine. It was impossible to see who was driving.

Tiffany revved the bike to life as John slammed the trunk and clumsily straddled the back seat. He’d barely sat down when the van had successfully pulled away from the building and turned its wheels towards the alleyway.

Tiffany had clearly seen this in the rearview mirror - she sped off, past the dumpster and down one of the many long back-routes of Gotham as wind whipped John’s hair. He gripped one handle hard as he pulled the bandana over his face and practically prayed that Tiffany did not decide to suddenly lose control.

The driver of the van didn’t seem to care how fast they were going, what route they were taking, or if half their front bumper was dislodged. They sped past the same brick and concrete and fire escapes and a rainbow of graffiti like it was nothing.

Tiffany tilted the bike to turn onto the street, narrowly missing a peeling station-wagon that sat too close to the alley.

John turned to see if the van was still there, wondering if maybe he could get a glimpse of the driver as they turned - the station-wagon was upended with a loud pop of fiberglass, swiveling into the road as the van barreled into traffic with a sharp turn, leaving a chorus of honking and squealing tires to follow.

John’s heart was practically drumming against his ribs like a fist, barely heard over the roar of the motorcycle but felt all too much - the van had a web of cracks in its windshield and more severe dents in its engine and driver side, but it still managed to follow them, dropping the headlight dangling from its front into the street for some other driver to run over.

Tiffany dodged between cars, seeming to ignore the beeps and rude gestures. John turned forward to see where they were, trying to think quickly on where they could go where their chaser wouldn’t follow, and heard more telltale sounds of the van in pursuit following Tiffany’s lead.

He was horribly reminded of his chase with the G.C.P.D. last year, when he had Waller thrown in the nearest vehicle as they’d ignored almost every traffic law on the way to Ace Chemicals, winding every which way to lose the cops on their tail.

He’d already killed people that way.

He didn’t want to be responsible for more off-screen deaths. 

The van was close behind, if the rearview mirror was anything to go by. Like it was tracking their every move and just waiting to splat them against a...

Oh. Now there was an idea. The van couldn’t squish them if they did the squishing first!

“ROBIN!” He shouted over the wind, tapping her on the shoulder.

She shoved her visor up. “WHAT?”

“TURN HERE!”

Tiffany made a right turn down the emptier street, passing an abandoned storefront, and John saw his chance - there was streetlamp in the middle of the sidewalk in the distance, right next to an alley.

The van could turn, but he knew it wouldn’t be able to turn too sharply without clipping the corner.

John did what he wasn’t supposed to do and quickly wrapped an arm around the armor plates of Robin’s waist as he unclipped the grappling gun still dangling from her belt. 

“WHAT ARE YOU-?”

Timing and aim - a formula too tricky and complex to actually think through. It was all about gut feeling and best judgement.

So John pointed, waited until the mirror showed the van right at their tail, and fired the hook at the lamppost.

Aaand retract!

They were pulled towards the post sharply, and John pushed the little button on the gun to unclench its jaws as the motorcycle tilted into a turn.

The crash of the van hitting the corner’s wall rang in John’s ears like a small explosion, getting quieter as Tiffany screeched the bike to a halt.

John let go and sat back in the seat, unable to stop himself from laughing in relief, letting out the strained ache in his lungs, and then laughing harder at sight of the van. The very smashed front, the now ruined windshield, the bent tire - they were going to have a hard time chasing them now!

Tiffany pushed down the parking lever in two seconds and hopped off, looking an odd mix of pissed off and amazed as she yanked her mask down to her neck and pulled off her helmet. “You…! You fucking idiot! That was brilliant! And stupid!” She shouted with a shove, causing him to teeter a little on the seat.

“Aha ha…! Sorry, sorry,” he tried, holding up his hands in surrender, “I had to do something to get that creep off our backs! And you nailed the landing! Ten outta ten!”

She looked conflicted. Like she was proud of herself but didn’t want to admit it. “Yeah,” she said simply, “but we could have died!”

Yeesh, did she sound like Bruce. “We could have, but we didn’t,” he emphasized, sliding off the bike with ease. “Besides, life’s not worth living without some risk!”

“Just...fucking warn me next time,” she said loudly, power-walking towards the van. “You’re lucky I’m an excellent driver!”

John decided to keep the thought of there wasn’t any time to himself. She sort of had a point - Gotham was full of alleyways. A few more people might have gotten into accidents along the way, but he could have waited...though he did sort of prefer stopping the van now rather than later, so he still felt his decision was the best. Still, another instance of someone telling him something uncannily familiar to what another person said…

Ah, who was he to dwell on little things like that?

“I thought I was stupidly brilliant?” He teased, following her with a twirl of the grappling gun in his hand.

“You’re a lot of things,” she shot back, not sounding as nearly as mad.

He wasn’t sure how to take the odd mix of implied-insult and praise. He decided to focus more on the positive aspect of her actually saying something nice and marked it as a personal progress.

Tiffany pulled out one of Batman’s portable stunners and kept it ready, poised to throw open the passenger side door of the van - John kept the gun pointed at what should be level with the driver’s face. “Ready when you are, Robin.”

Tiffany counted down from three on her fingers, and opened the cabin door with what looked like enough force to rip it off the hinges.

Broken glass and plastic littered the very…empty seats.

“Well, that’s anticlimactic,” John grumbled, lowering the grappling gun, “Self-driving cars sure have come a long way!” He pulled out his phone to take a quick picture:  proof that it happened, of course, but also proof for Bruce.

Tiffany was already climbing into the seat. “It was driving pretty erratically,” she commented as she poked around the ignition.

“Oh, sure, it clipped some corners and sped up a lot – but I’d say that was more reckless than erratic.”

“It wasn’t quite driving straight.” Tiffany pulled up a normal two-pound weight from the gas pedal, tugging some wire tracing from it to the back area, which was also empty. “And it’s easy to see why. Check this out,” she gestured, waving her hand in.

John hoisted himself up and in, keeping his hands to himself in the likely case it was dusted over later. “Shouldn’t we be worrying about the eventual crowd?”

“We’ve got a minute. Look,” she tugged the line, connected to a pulley system controlled by what looked suspiciously like a standing kitchen mixer, “The mixers are rigged to pull the weights on the brake and gas pedals. They probably have remote capability.”

“You’d think that would be a reeeeally short radius...”

“That’s what the cell phone’s for,” Tiffany said, gesturing to the out-of-date smartphone sticking upright in the dashboard. “They must have used it as a dash-cam, and connected it to the mixers to control through an app at the same time. There’s actually a free one for remote device control.”

“I somehow didn’t pitch you for the kitchen-gadget type.”

Tiffany shrugged, seeming slightly downcast at that. “I’m not. I bought my mom one of these for her birthday. This one’s a little different, but it probably has the same sort of rig.”

“So whoever we’re dealing with doesn’t have the handy funds for an actual radio transmitter setup to drive this thing, huh...” John pondered, pulling away the bandana on his neck to pick up the phone up.

The phone’s battery was getting low and the signal was on the edge of reception, but a remote-wipe app was up and struggling to work; John quickly canceled the wipe action and turned the tower radio off before the mystery-driver could do any further damage.

Beep. 

A beeping noise?

Beep.

That couldn’t be good.

“What’s that?” Tiffany pulled away from the backseat. Whatever was beeping came from the back, and John had a sneaking suspicion it was positioned close to the gas tank.

John pocketed the phone. “Time to go!” He snatched Tiffany’s arm and half dragged her out of the van, thinking wildly – if it were him, he would have rigged the whole thing to blast the car sky-high, and running was likely not going to cut it.

Thankfully, like alleyways, Gotham had a lot of fire escapes.

He didn’t think, only counted off the beeps that seemed to coordinate with his heart – six, seven – as he aimed, fired, and zipped up the line with Tiffany being held against her will in one arm.

Nine, ten –

A blast of superheated air hit his back as they reached the top of the metal staircase, accompanied by the roar of exploding gasoline and metal bending against its will.

John grimaced as he smacked his shin right against the metal grating as he wedged his heels in the little bars. “That’s gonna leave a mark,” he growled, casting a look down at the now-definitely-ruined car. “But it looks like our geese live to see another day!” he joked, trying to lighten up the mood for both of them.

Tiffany was just silently looking down at the wreckage below and clinging to him like she thought he might drop her.

“You okay, there, birdie?”

“Yeah,” she said, the ‘oh God, that could have been me’ written clearly on her face.

“‘Cause you’re not as heavy as Bruce in full gear, but your pal Joker can only hang around with you for so long.”

She shot him a look he couldn’t decipher and silently climbed up and over the railing.

“You sure you’re okay?” He asked again as he followed her, pulling out his phone for another snap of the now-burning van below. “You kiiinda seem like you’re in shock.”

“Yeah, I just…” She pushed her goggles on top of her head to look at him, a little wary and unbelieving, but guilty more than anything. “I’m sorry I called you stupid. I didn’t mean it.” She crossed her arms, looking down at her bike below. “You saved us twice today.”

Part of him wanted to just say it was okay, and another wanted to rub it in her face, but he pushed both ideas away. “You’re welcome! But friends don’t wait until after they’re saved to apologize for being rude,” he emphasized with a light glare. “Still, I’d say this calls for a group pic! Just for my album, of course.” 

“...you’re not gonna let me go without one, are you?” Tiffany mused.

“How can I, it’s our first proper team-up!” He gently put his arm around her shoulder to draw her in. “Ooh, put your goggles on! Then we’ll be Joker and Robin.” He made sure to get both of them at a good angle, with Tiffany’s little smile and yellow goggles making her look like she was defining ‘cool’ in her own way. Snap! 

It was a really good one. There wasn’t a trace of awkwardness on her face this time, and the angle was perfectly flattering for both of them. 

“Okay, we should go before the fuzz shows up.” She pushed her goggles back up into her hair and led the way down the stairs, charging down with hard stomps. “You grabbed the phone from the car, right?”

“Yup! I stopped it from doing a little wipe. It was probably tracking us, too.” He followed closely, seeing the plates of her armor shift a little with movement. It really was like a slimmer version of Batman’s suit. “So why ‘Robin’? I kind of expected something a little more…”

“Batty?” Tiffany kicked the ladder down and started to climb back to the safety of hard pavement. “I always liked robins,” she said simply, “My suit’s wings aren’t suited to be bats’, anyway.”

It was a short fall, but worth every second of the wheee he didn’t even try to hold in as he slid down the ladder after her. He plopped the phone into her hand upon landing, not caring about the bemused look she was throwing him. “Here, you’ll probably find more than I could.”

Tiffany poked around on it, swiping with her gloves’ little pads as she walked towards the bike. “Looks like the wipe started with downloads and unused applications.” Swipe, swipe, tap. “Two different apps were used for the mixers… Bluetooth’s enabled, too... Doesn’t look like any navigation software was installed,” she muttered, “They might have a remote tracker elsewhere. But just what are they tracing?”

He was surprised the answer wasn’t so obvious to her. “Uh, pretty sure it’s me, Tiff’. I mean, the car did swerve towards me back at the motel. If it was you they were after, they would’ve veered towards the bike.”

“But the Batcave has a sensor to detect tracking devices upon arrival. Both the entrance and the elevator would’ve set it off if it was stuck to you...”

“I doubt they could’ve just seen me,” John panned, already emptying his pockets, “I might have changed my clothes, but I have to be carrying something…”

She frowned. “You don’t think it’s someone from St. Dymphna, do you? They gave you a phone, right?”

“I doubt it. It’s too basic! And look, it’s barely got a signal,” he held it out for her to see. “Besides, if someone working at St. Dymphna wanted to kill me, all they’d have to do is give me an overdose and claim it was an accident.”

There was his own cell phone, of course, but it was the least likely thing of all. No one but he, Bruce, and his friends knew of its existence, and he kept it close at all times. Remote access was turned off, as was a lot of casual security violations the phone’s software wanted to enable by default. It was possible that someone could use the Batcomputer to look at it, though… He wouldn’t put it past Bruce to leave an emergency loophole.

Just as he was about to put that one away, too, a text came in from Iman:  

Where are you?

There was the nagging thought that maybe it was one of their little makeshift crew. Especially former-Agent Iman, who could easily plant something on him without suspicion. 

But he trusted Bruce with his life. He should extend that same trust to those who Bruce trusted...right?

Right. It was just the paranoia talking.

Out with Tiffy for a joyride! he answered. Don’t tell Bruce though, I’m hoping to surprise him with what we’ve found.

Are you visiting Selina with her?

Of course he was, where else would he be? Hey, don’t ruin the surprise! ;)

John, PLEASE be careful. Both you and Selina have been targeted recently. Your attempted murderer/s are probably still be hunting you.

It’s safer for you to be in the Manor. 

You know Bruce would say the same.

A little too late for that, he thought privately. Not like he hadn’t thought someone would try it again eventually… 

 Iman sure had good timing with her commentary… She had access to the Batcomputer. In fact, she had access to just about everything. She could have known all along where Selina was hiding out and planted the van near there and just waited until-! 

“Robin,” he started, remembering what Dr. Leland had said about proving to himself that irrational ideas like that were wrong, “You trust Iman, right?”

“Of course I do,” she said confidently. “Why?”

See, John? It’s fine, he told himself. “Just wondering.”

There was no use worrying Iman needlessly by spilling the whole can of beans. We’ll be back soon! Promise!! he wrote, making sure not to scrape the screen against the knife he’d gotten from Devi as he slid it back into his pocket.

Speaking of Devi, he’d been carrying around that knife since last night...but the metal handle would probably interfere with a radio signal. And he doubted she would have planned out the shooting to deliberately put herself in harm’s way. She was smart enough to keep herself out of the way for something like that.

The only other thing he had was his rainbow-splattered wallet. There was the hotel key Mickey had given him last night, which he’d stuck opposite the official state ID grinning up at him from the little clear pocket. But the keycard was pure plastic with a little security stripe - nothing more. And why give it to John to bank on killing him later when he or Devi could have just thrown him in the middle of the sniper’s gunfire? It didn’t make sense…

The only other things he had in there were cash, an emergency contact card, some state-given insurance, that really good picture of Bruce he’d saved from an old newspaper…

John stared at the little blue card he’d hidden behind the clipping and felt the urge to smack himself. 

Of course. Of course - of course - of course. The expired card had a chip in it. He hadn’t even thought about it since he had to jimmy the parole officer’s door open… “I found it.”

“Found it?” Tiffany looked up from her examination of the bike’s underbelly. The trunk was wide open and searched thoroughly.

“It’s the only thing I can think of that I’ve been carrying around before Friday,” he said, stretching it out to her.

Batman’s apprentice took it gingerly, and he knew by the utter shock on her face it was something important. “How did you...?!” 

A distant wail of a fire engine pierced the air. Tiffany stashed the card in a little pouch in her belt, shoved her helmet over her head, and started the bike’s engine.

“Come on! We’ve hung around too much!”

“Oh I don’t know,” John beamed, taking the seat behind her with his borrowed helmet loosely stuck on, “We could always get lunch.”

*~*~*~*~*

Upon arriving back at the cave (unfortunately lunch-less), Tiffany had barely gotten off the bird-cycle before making a beeline for the Batcomputer. “I knew it - Michael Hodges! The same guy who booked the room at The Lot…” 

“From the Friday Nighters’ murders?”

“Mm-hmm…”

John felt like reality had twisted itself a little more at her casual affirmation. He was desperate for something to squeeze or tap. The cold metal of the knife in his pocket wasn’t doing it. The grappling gun was too familiar to ground him in the here-and-now. He settled for holding himself, clutching handfuls of leather and reminding himself that it smelled too clean to be fake.

From what he had read of Bruce and Iman’s notes, all seven cops ‘n’ crooks were drugged and shot in their seats, left to watch as each died and bleed into the couches. It stunk of the sort of gloating reserved for serial killers who had debts to settle. He’d wondered if that’s what they were - debts of death being repaid with more death. The little group had been around for a while. Who was to say someone couldn’t trace them back to a single, faulty so-called accident?

But the fact that the guy who booked the murder-room had his card conveniently dropped into John’s lap… It brewed a terrible feeling in his stomach. Clearly, whoever had tried to shoot him and tried to run him over, too, and they were connected to a mass homicide barely a day after two other mass homicides.

It could be a coincidence.

But didn’t the fact that he had to use ‘could’ tell him it wasn’t?

“It’s not a coincidence, is it,” he said, clutching himself a little harder. “They planted that deliberately.”

“I hate to say it, but...it really seems that way,” Tiffany affirmed with a concerned frown. “Where did you even get this?” Tiffany asked, shaking him out of his thoughts without even glancing over at him.

“It’s a long story,” he tried, not wanting to just spill everything he was feeling, “I kind of found it.”

“So, you stole it,” she said, giving him a disapproving side-eye as she jammed the card into a slot.

“Look, I got an order at work, it was sitting inside of it all expired, and I was never planning on actually using it to buy anything,” he growled in a huff, “I was only ever going to use it as a key! And if it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t have found all that stuff on Ian!”

He wasn’t sure if Tiffany was actually listening or not. Her eyes were darting over the screen, hunting for something particular in the schematics of the little chip. “How long have you had this?”

“Tuesday.”

“Tuesday?” She glanced at him once, then when back to scanning for something in the computer’s analysis.

“Yeah, Tuesday! Makes me wonder why our would-be killer took so long to find me.”

“That’s easy,” Tiffany said slowly, still not looking at him, “This thing’s shit.”

Maybe it was stress, or maybe it was her expression and the casual tone she used, but John found it a particularly funny thing to say. “Y-you said that so seriously,” he managed between titters.

“Yeah, because it’s seriously shit,” she replied with a smirk. “The receiver on this thing is pretty bad - even without the Batcave’s defenses blocking it, it must only be getting a signal a third of the time.”

“And me wedging it in a door wouldn’t have anything to do with that?”

“Maybe?” she shrugged with an exaggeratingly-puzzled look, “We’ll never know now. But they can’t track you anymore - my belt has extra-special lining, so they’ll think you got severely injured, if anything. They’ll have to wait until the police or news report comes out to know, and that could be a while.”

John had heard all of that, but he was too focused on the word anymore to really take the rest in.

Even if the thing was working a full thirty-three percent of the time, that was still a thirty-three percent chance his would-be killer knew he was staying at Wayne Manor. He’d prefer that number be a nice, round zero…

“John?” Tiffany waved a hand in front of his face.

“Ha, sorry, just thinking,” he waved off, shoving his hands in his pockets so she wouldn’t see him flexing his hands.

“Look, John - I know you’re worried, but the house is going to be packed tonight. You’d have to have one borrowed brain cell to try and get past the amount of security Bruce has for his parties. And thanks to our resident genius,” she said with a self-satisfied smile, “we should be able to track the signal back to ‘em.”

That was all well and good, but whenever anyone told him not to worry, he knew whatever they were going to say wasn’t going to put his mind at ease. 

“So, do you know who slid you the card? Like, who the order was from or anything?”

He did know, but he couldn’t remember the name exactly. John pulled his phone up and scrolled through his gallery, passing the photos of the van, his friends, graffiti… “S. Townsend. Bruce never did get back to me on this signature…” He shared it with the Batcomputer, instantly seeing it appear on the oversized screen. “I was thinking it was that chairperson.”

Tiffany sat back in the captain’s seat, looking thoughtful. “There is a Sonja Townsend on our list of potentials. She’s Michael’s mother-in-law.”

It sounded like a winner to him. “So it’s got to be her!”

“Well…” Tiffany pulled up the security footage of the woman at The Lot, clearly on her way to the murder-room. Big hat, sunglasses...what about this was special? “Look,” she zoomed in, enhancing on the jaw and nose that could be seen in certain shots, “Sonja isn’t this young.” Sonja’s company photo pulled up on the second monitor. “She’s in her mid-sixties. This woman’s half her age, at least. You can see it in her face, and I know Sonja’s waist isn’t that small.”

“All it takes is a corset and a good makeup application,” John said simply.

“I’m not saying I won’t look into this. I just think we’re might be looking for another fraud. Whoever they are, they must have known Michael enough to want to frame him.”

John didn’t have any experience with mothers-in-law - at least that he knew of - but if the media had taught him anything, they were filled with vengeance for their child-in-law for whatever reason. But as he’d learned the hard way, TV wasn’t always right. “What about her kid?”

“A daughter, but it’s definitely not her. She’s currently eight months pregnant. And she’s three inches too short, even without the heels our killer wore. As far as we can tell there’s no girlfriend in the picture, either, and mutual friends that could fit the bill have pretty sturdy alibis.”

John tilted his head, studying the image of the woman on camera. A sturdy, confident pose. A slightly round face without blemish or scarring. Red lips without any hint of smugness. Dutiful.

“I swear she looks almost like one of those really expensive sex workers,” Tiffany said, “The kind that meet businessmen in their offices.”

Jealousy hit John like a light stab. Had...Bruce had someone like that? Even though he’d told John he was waiting for him… “And you would know...how?”

“I’ve run into a couple when I was doing overtime,” she said nonchalantly, “Some of the managers on the twelfth floor seem to be steady clients.”

“You...haven’t seen them above there?” He asked nervously, “Near Bruce’s usual haunts?”

Tiffany laughed. “Bruce? No way! The guy’s way too paranoid about his social persona - he’s not about to invite one of them up to the office.”

“Oh, thank God,” John sunk, feeling some weight lift off his shoulders, “Don’t scare me like that! I mean, I know he loves me, but... I mean, I wouldn’t mind too much if he’d just asked permission first or something…”

Tiffany had a very odd look on her face. Uncomfortable? Confused? Concerned? She had looked away from him and seemed to be pulling up more programs not related to what they were doing. “I’ll look more into where this card might have come from,” she said steadily, as if they had never changed the subject at all, “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

It shook something inside, deep down, pricking his head with a familiar feeling. He’d said something wrong.

He stared at the head in front of him for a moment, wishing he could crack open her consciousness for a little peek at her thoughts. She had changed the subject and wanted to be alone, all because he mentioned Bruce. Did she not...know about them?

Naaah. Alfred he could understand not telling - but Tiffany? She was part of the team, not a relation that might judge Bruce harshly and tear his heart to shreds. Tiffany had to know.

She was probably just uncomfortable with it because of the whole almost-tried-to-kill-her thing… Or the whole almost-tried-to-kill-Bruce thing. Either way, that was water under the bridge, and she’d have to cross it sometime. Besides, she’d have to be completely blind not to notice how far along Bruce and John had come from that point.

“O-kay, well - I’m going to borrow one of the tablets and do a little research of my own. And then I will tell you what I find!” He said as cheerfully as he could manage with a slap to the back of the chair.

He picked up the spare bat-engraved tablet from the workbench on the way out, expecting her to tell him to be careful with it as soon as it went into his hand, but instead John was left with an uncharacteristically stony silence all the way to the elevator.

*~*~*~*~*

John had been careful about wandering the manor - he didn’t like the idea of suddenly running into Alfred or Tiffany and feeling worse than before, but he did like the idea of running into Bruce on the upper floor. Sadly, his fantasy about bumping into Bruce casually and pulling him into a random room to blow off steam hadn’t come to pass. Instead, he found storage rooms, a second, smaller library, and Bruce’s home office, and still wound up right back at his own guest room.

It was, admittedly, the perfect place to think. The classic green wallpaper was a pretty homey shade, the view of the garden was nice, and the vast empty space that normally bothered him was perfect to pace in and lay out all the things he needed for thinking.

“Of course I’m stimming, Doc’,” he said, looking from the picture of himself and Batman he’d put on his nightstand to his makeshift crime board spread on the floor, “it helps a lot, but it doesn’t help the nasty little thought in my head.”

“What thought?”

“That I’m not entirely welcome here.” He sighed to himself, refocusing on Batman’s stubbled jaw. “Bruce has...guests here, right now. And not just the ones having a literal ball. A surrogate father, and a...well, I don’t know, somewhat-adopted child? Their relationship is weirdly familial.”

“And that makes you feel unwelcome?”

“It’s just… Alfred doesn’t like me very much,” he lamented, looking down at the torn article depicting the Chandis stuck in the harbor. “He’s not rude or anything. It’s the little things. The way he looks at me. How much space he leaves between us.” (The killer had to have stowed away on the boat, hiding himself to lie in wait until the moment was right to kill the crew. Brutal. Forward.) “He said he didn’t think I should be around other people. He didn’t know I could hear him… It was like he was trying to convince Bruce that I should be locked up.”

“How did that make you feel?”

Isn’t that obvious, he wanted to shout into the phone. He didn’t. He looked down at the picture of the warehouse, of the crime scene photos of the mobsters on the ground. “Angry. Mostly Hurt.” He breathed slowly, squeezing his free hand into a fist and letting go. “I just… I just want him to like me. He’s Bruce’s family.”

“I know you and Dr. Leland discussed your feelings about needing to be accepted - do you remember what she told you?”

“That I shouldn’t expect instant results,” he said, not quite remembering Dr. Leland’s exact phrasing.

“That’s true, too, but more importantly:  there will always be people who won’t accept you for who you are. A parental figure in Bruce’s life will naturally be wary of someone who once put his son’s life in danger.”

She had no idea just how much he’d put him in. She would never know. “So… Should I just…not try?”

“I encourage you to try. But you shouldn’t expect anyone to take to you right away. And if there’s no improvement, you have to accept the loss.” There came a brief pause. “What about the other guest?”

“It’s a kid-of-a-family-friend sort of thing. I know she’s going to take a while to come around,” he muttered, “and I didn’t like her at first, but she’s grown on me - and I don’t think it’s entirely mutual.” He studied the picture of the dead group sitting at almost a makeshift conference table. All three major killings were in groups. The only two that weren’t were Muddy Nye and Hubbard Jr., clearly only cover-ups…

“Sounds like you’ve been making a good effort to get along with her. I’m guessing Bruce and her are close?”

“Of course! How’d you guess?” he asked, studying the strings he’d laid over the pages to connect them all. Black Mask connected to the Chandis, the warehouse, Hubbard’s Garage, Muddy, and Selina Kyle; Selina connected to Black Mask and her art gallery, with the Chandis’ killer linking it to the boat; the warehouse connected to Hubbard’s Garage; Sonja Townsend connected to The Lot and St. Dymphna, and Bruce could only be connected to both of those.

(Unless he counted his previous not-quite-a-friendship with Selina, of course… And he did know Roman, but did that really connect him to Black Mask?)

“Would you be making an effort if Bruce wasn’t close with her?”

Oh. That was a good question. One that was potentially driving in the ‘are you revolving your life around Bruce Wayne’ undercurrent that Dr. Song seemed to use as her driving force behind their therapy. It wasn’t necessarily something that made him mad, but it wasn’t something he liked to discuss with anyone except Bruce. Not that he had, exactly, but… Bruce would understand more than anyone else. Doctors and strangers and everyone else would line up around the block to tell him how obsessed he was and that it was “dangerous” and “inappropriate” if he said one word about it.

But he couldn’t keep Dr. Song waiting forever. He paced around the floor-bound casebook slowly, thinking carefully about her question.

Maybe, if they never ever knew each other before, he might not try as hard. If there was no Batman, there would be no reason to try to apologize for old-John’s actions at all. (Well, except at the funeral. But he didn’t think he caused that much of a scene...) They could just be strangers, and there wouldn’t be this dangling thread of animosity towards him. They could, potentially, just be acquaintances.

But if her Dad was alive and she just built Batman’s gear in silence…he still liked being around interesting people. And the little tech-whiz had just enough humor and potential to qualify as interesting in John’s book. He was pretty sure that was why Bruce made her his partner-in-vigilante-crime, outside of compromising for the guilt for her father’s death.

“John?”

“Yeah,” he answered, “I would. Maybe not as much, but...I would.”

“Do you think either of them would make an effort with you, if things were reversed?”

He watched the string paths on the floor turn upside down. “Ha! I wouldn’t know that… I’d have a harder time liking them, though.”

“Try to look at it from that perspective. They clearly care about Bruce a great deal, and the fact that they haven’t been openly hostile mean they’re making an effort. Take those strides with them - give them space and time, and if you feel overwhelmed or threatened, don’t be afraid to walk away,” she advised in her wise, calm tone.

John stared at the upside-down pictures, and the strings leading things together, and breathed out. She would be right, if Bruce wasn’t Batman. If Bruce wasn’t the glue holding the mansion together with his lifelong mission for his personal pursuit of justice. The Batman complicated things far beyond the notion of family and friends. He always hung there, upside down like the proverbial flipside to...

His brain fizzled and thoughts faded away as he stared down at the drawings he’d made over the bodies on display in the Chandis’ storage room.

He HAD seen that shape before. Two lines arcing out from a long vertical line, aka three lines meeting to turn into one. 

Not at all unlike the foot of a bird stamped on heavy stone tablet of the Gotham Cemetery’s mausoleum floor...

“Remember, you can always call me,” Dr. Song said in his ear, stirring him half from the memory and thoughts that were getting squished together. “My phone is always on.”

“Okay,” he heard himself say. He could hear Bruce’s innocent question echoing back out of time from Dr. Crane’s living room:  Did you ever hear anyone talk about the Court of Owls? “I’ve gotta go, doc’.” He vaguely heard her say what was probably ‘goodnight’, but he was too focused on the symbol at his feet. “Yeah, ‘night…”

There were no voices, no music, no hums of lights – just a quiet hush of a lonely room.

His head felt fuzzy, narrowing in on the symbol he’d scribbled over the bodies, silently putting the strings together.

The Court of Owls. An old cult-like organization who believed in keeping the Devil out of Gotham by any means necessary – which usually meant straight-up murder. They disbanded years ago, since the heads of it were either hung in execution or offed themselves before the law could be given the chance. The rest had left Gotham entirely, leaving their bloody sins behind to dry and stain and be swept over.

Until now.

Everything started from Bludhaven. Black Mask had his leg over the fence separating the two cities. The drug shipment, the crew on the Chandis. Catwoman had made her living there. Ian Coggs had supposedly moved to Bludhaven.

And all of them were back in town. They brought The Court with them like a plague…

But that wasn’t true - Black Mask had an inside guy, Muddy, a newbie who didn’t mind giving up the details to the Court.

They were the real rat. They knew when the ship was coming in, and who would be waiting for it – they didn’t care about the drugs, only about leaving their message behind. A warning that Black Mask was being hunted. They killed Muddy for good measure and played dress-up to throw the group off the scent entirely, just in case they delivered a message before their own demise.

John stared at the picture of his attempted-shooter. There was a line connecting the Chandis’ killer to Selina Kyle. Another connecting The Lot to himself.

The masks. The capes. Not copycats, exactly.

Owls.

John felt like he wanted to shed his skin. Chemicals in his brain rushed like he’d woken up next to Bruce for the first time. He could feel his lips wobbling and the thing inside of him vibrating.

Hee hee ha ha HA HA HA HA!

“All this time! Ha ha ha, I’d been thinking it was a riv-al ga-a-ng!” he cackled to himself. “And it’s some - rogue crusader club - risen from the dead! Hee hee aha ha ha! They could’ve killed me before I…!”

Oh.

The realization made his lungs ache with the dying laughs stuck in them. 

They could have killed him. Bruce probably hadn’t considered The Court of Owls as a possibility either. His best buddy hadn’t told him he’d had a theory about it, so he must be as in the dark as the rest of Gotham. But he couldn’t blame him, he was so busy chasing after Black Mask and the various killers and now dealing with him and the Gala and…

He stared at the pages on his bedroom floor, with all the strings laid out, connecting everything together in a complex web. “I have to tell Bruce,” he reaffirmed to himself.

But Bruce was having that big soiree downstairs. The Gotham elite had all stepped out to Bruce’s mansion to show off and pal around on the billionaire’s estate under the pretense of charity. Texting Bruce was likely to backfire, as all the music would likely drown out the phones’ vibrations and tones, and Bruce probably had his Wayne-mask on, which meant his social graces had to be generally adhered to and he couldn’t just cut off whatever schlub he was talking to just to talk to John.

Which meant there was only one solution:  John would have to go down there.

He’d see Bruce in a tux’, undoubtedly impress him with his case-solving abilities, and maybe squeeze in a make-out session in one of the unused rooms. It was a win-win.

He just had to get something to wear and smear makeup on his face. Easy-peasy.

Bruce hadn’t left the suit in John’s room or the Batcave, so it likely was kept in Bruce’s bedroom closet. The same went for John’s makeup. Bruce never just threw things away - as evidenced by the everything in Wayne Manor - so they’d likely be shoved in a drawer somewhere in his grand bathroom.

John had already dumped out half of his meager possessions when searching for his crime-board materials, but there was one thing he needed to find; even if he had to borrow another one of Bruce’s black suits, there was no way he was wearing nothing but black. He pulled out a half-eaten packet of mini-marshmallows, the shiv he’d crafted out of a broken razor and a toothbrush his first week into his stay at St. Dymphna, a very orange button-down too crinkled to deign being put in the closet, the photo album he’d been filling since Bruce had given it to him for Christmas - ah-ha! He shoved the purple bow-tie that had been folded in the corner of the bag into his pocket.

He needed something to cover his hands, too, now that he thought of it. He only had so much peach-tone foundation, and he didn’t trust the setting powder that much.

It was quiet out there, but he knew there was a party going on despite the lack of music thumping under his feet. He passed mirrors and wall-sconces and breathed in, smelling all kinds of buffet food and the smell of old house that seemed to permeate everything. He passed the spots he remembered Bruce throwing some of his clothes down on when John had been there last, and felt a little jolt of deep-seated excitement hit his groin. What he wouldn’t give to relive that wonderful rush of endorphins…

Bruce’s room was just as he’d left it that morning. Except the bed was made. And there were no more clothes on the floor. And there was a definite lack of Bruce’s super-handsome face looking at him with soft longing from the pillow.

But now he was alone in there. With no one to stop him. And John had itchy fingers and a curiosity to fulfill.

“Focus, John,” he muttered to himself, squeezing his hands to try and pass the urge to rifle through Bruce’s bedside drawers, “You’ve got a mission to do.”

The walk-in closet was like a peek into Bruce’s inner-fashionista. Black, white, gray, dark blue, thin classy stripes; t-shirts, full suits, sports jackets, slacks, jeans; shoes that cost more than John’s whole outfits; a whole section of silk ties and pocket squares in colors John had never seen Bruce wore…

It made him want to pull Bruce and his fancy-schmancy black credit card into a proper store and force him to try on some more colors. He settled for running his hands across the rack of expensive shirts instead, flipping them halfway and releasing the smells of fabric detergent and leftover colognes.

John took a step backward, seeing a flash of color behind the up-ended fabric.

A secret button. In red. With ‘ESC’ written on it.

That had to mean ‘escape’, right? What happened if he pressed it? Did Bruce have a secret panel for Batman gear? A panic room? Both?

Bruce had never mentioned it. And if it turned out to fire Batarangs, that was just extra dodging practice and wounds he could make Bruce clean up, so he decided to push it, bracing himself to move.

But there was no alarm or spray of surprise-sharp-things or secret trap door that dropped John into some holding cell. There came a quiet squeak of hinges behind him - and behind the opposing rack of suits, there was an open gap in the wall with a long, shiny pole that plunged who-knew-how-deep into the floor. John took a peek downward, seeing lights reflecting off the pole far, far down.

A secret route to the Batcave, maybe? John made a mental note to ask about that later. He did remember Bruce mentioning wanting to put in an extra entrance…but he wasn’t going to just go down the pole to find out. Pressing buttons was one thing, but travelling potentially-incomplete paths was another entirely.

The door closed by itself after John pulled his head out of the enclosure. He continued down the rack of suits, finding some in clear protective bags, and found a tuxedo in Bruce’s size - but with white formal gloves in the breast pocket. What a lovely coincidence!

They fit his hands a little loosely, but it was better than nothing, so he decided they would do. Bruce must have kept them for if he had scars or visible battle wounds on his hands.

John found his tailored charcoal-suit at the very back, kept in a full-length plastic cover with one of his playing cards peeking out over the breast pocket. He could smell the same laundry detergent Bruce used on everything else in his closet as soon as he unzipped the bag. “I’m steppin’ out, my dear - To breathe an atmosphere -” he sang to himself as he quickly changed, “That simply reeks – ha ha ha ha – wi-ith claaass!”

It still fit as snug and comfortable as ever. He hung up the street-clothes he had been wearing on the now-empty hanger for later and decided that his ankle boots (which he had worn with the same suit last time) still looked fancy enough. Bruce had not thoughtfully put the whole deck in the suit’s pockets, though. He had to have kept them somewhere…

He decided to give into the urge to peek in the drawers, finding nothing but socks in one, and another with an awful lot of boxer-briefs in Bruce’s favored colors, and the last... 

Weapons. A telescoping nightstick, razor-sharp throwing stars, an actual honest-to-goodness pair of nun-chucks, a can of extra-strength mace, a stunner, a pair of police-quality handcuffs, a literal money-clip of cash, and… 

“Oh. My. Batman.” 

Bruce had not only kept his razor-cards in a cute plastic card-case with the Joker card face-up on top, but he’d kept his old joy-buzzer on a fancy velvet bracelet-holder! (Or was it a watch holder? John could never tell the difference.) They were incredibly out-of-place sitting with the non-Batman defense weapons. It made John wonder if Bruce just hadn’t gotten around to moving them to someplace more secure - if someone poked through his drawers, like John was doing now, they might put things together.

Or just think Bruce was obsessed with him and bought the things under the table from the G.C.P.D. 

The thought made John giggle. He was definitely taking the joy-buzzer back. And borrowing the can of mace for good measure. He wanted to take the full deck of cards, but one card was surely enough to qualify as an emergency use, and the rest of the deck would be awfully bulky with the rest of the things in his pockets. Not to mention, he liked the idea of taking them slowly to see if Bruce noticed any missing.

John smirked to himself as he stood in front of the embedded mirror in one of the closet’s cabinet doors to put on his home-made bow-tie. Bruce had stolen more from John’s evidence locker than he’d previously thought, and kept them in display pieces in his bedroom like they were treasures. It was enough to make any boyfriend smug. God, he could not wait to tease Bruce for it later. Maybe pull the card out of his pocket and tap it against his cheek, and wait until Bruce got that surprised look on his face and asked him where he found it, and John would tell him it was a s-e-c-r-e-t…

Though...speaking of secrets. “I wonder where Bruce put my Batarang,” he muttered, tilting his head in the mirror to make sure the tie was staying put. “It wasn’t in the cave earlier…”

And if it wasn’t in the secret drawer… It had to be somewhere in Bruce’s room.

So naturally, he poked into the closest thing outside of the closet - Bruce’s bedside table. He wiggled his fingers before pulling the knob to the top drawer, grinning to himself as he prepared to be surprised with what was inside.

Hm. Just ordinary things. Flashlight, a candle and matches, pen and paper with the Wayne Enterprise logo, the billy club Bruce used to keep under his pillow, and what looked like a powered-off burner phone. Bo-ring.

John checked under the pillow to see if maybe it was there - nope, nothing. Maybe the second drawer of the nightstand?

He opened it, stared, and promptly shut it. He hadn’t…seen that? Right? He was imagining things?

He peeked again, half-hoping he was. Nope, that pearly-white fleshlight was definitely real. So was the bottle of lube and condoms next to it, and the…

John felt uncomfortably warm. Guilty for looking, a little embarrassed for what he’d seen, and turned on by the mental image he was producing. He let the he amused, nervous giggle leave his mouth, grateful that Bruce wasn’t there to see him like this.

Especially since his Batarang - with the lipstick-scrawled message still intact - was sitting right on top of the condom box. It really made a guy all…wonder-y.

He snatched it out of the drawer and focused on tapping on the wood grain of the furniture rather than the dangerous thoughts trying to force their way to the front of his head. Just save those thoughts for later, John. Muuuch later. You’ve got a job to do.

But it was sweet that Bruce kept his little promise-note. Really sweet. Kissable sweet. Shove-him-against-a-wall sweet. The lipstick was dried, but still slightly waxy, so John was careful when putting it in his pocket.

He breathed in and out, smelling remnants of Bruce, and went to put on his face in Bruce’s bathroom.

Thankfully, John had learned how to apply foundation fairly fast, and temporary hair color was only comb-in job. It was the little details that took longer, like eyebrows and careful shading. Especially since he had to do it in a smaller mirror, or else...it wasn’t fun. 

He left in a hurry and straightened himself out as much as possible, his mind full of Owls and Bruce and the out-of-body feeling that came with looking at himself in the mirror with his man-off-the-street makeup. He avoided looking at any hallway mirrors, reminding himself that he did a fine job and didn’t need to triple-check, and followed the sounds of people and classic lounge music to the ballroom, taking the stairs two at a time.

Wayne Manor’s ballroom wasn’t as big as John imagined. He expected something along the lines of an old castle’s ballroom, but it was actually smaller than the manor’s foyer. It still glittered like something out of a storybook or an old Hollywood movie, with an enormous crystal chandelier dangling from the high ceiling, long banquet tables complete with ice sculptures and chocolate fountains, and people dressed to the nines dancing or milling about with champagne flutes.

It was there, just outside the ballroom door, that John realized he would have to sift through the crowd towards Bruce, who was unfortunately not easily visible. 

Well, he had to do what he had to do. Enter the world not as John Doe or Joker or whoever he might have been nearly a decade ago, but as some other new rich schmo out for a shoe shine on the ballroom floor with the rest of Gotham’s elite. He could do that.

He strode in, weaving through the outskirts of the crowd as he scanned them, searching for Bruce’s beautiful face among the crowd. It was difficult - there were an awful lot of black tuxedos and pretty faces, and his growling stomach didn’t help any.

He looked over by the long buffet table - the one with shining silver trays bearing all manners of savory hors d'oeuvres - and spotted a familiar face.

She had her hair up in a very sleek ornate bun, and he couldn’t recall ever seeing her wearing lip gloss or sensible chocolate-colored high heels, but it was definitely Iman in that champagne halter dress. He approached her as casually as he could, popping one of the little fluffy pork-filled dough-things from the end of the table in his mouth on the way. “Well, fancy seeing you here, stranger,” he said as he sidled up to her.

She searched his face for a moment, clearly trying to disguise her confusion with polite examination. He grinned wide when her left eyebrow shot up to her hairline. “John?”

“In the make-up-covered flesh,” he answered quietly. “I’d say you clean up nicely, but you’ve honestly looked this pretty every day I’ve seen you!”

“Thank you,” she said politely, the silvery pearls in her ears reflecting the chandelier with the tilt of her head. They went very well with the snake-shaped hearing aid. “That suit looks like it was tailored for you.”

“It was; I tailored it myself.”

“I’m guessing you’re looking for Bruce?”

Damn, what a guess! “Ha! What are you, a mind reader? Can you guess what number I’m thinking of, too?” 

She smiled warmly. “Of course not. You’d guess a letter instead.”

“Man, you’re good,” he chuckled. “You haven’t seen Bruce, have you? I figured something out and I kinda want to tell him in person. And you, too, of course!”

Iman opened her mouth to reply when Tiffany wedged herself on Iman’s other side. 

“Oh man, I swear if I have to talk to another…” Tiffany paused, seeing John but not recognizing him. “Oh, uh, sorry. Ignore me,” she said, turning to busy herself with choosing from finger-sandwiches.

“It’s gonna be hard for anyone to ignore you when you’re looking that pretty,” John said, taking in the one-shoulder satiny blue jumper. She’d sprayed silver glitter in the dyed portion her hair, too. The effect wasn’t as cute looking when she whipped her head around with the just-seen-a-ghost type of surprise on her face. 

“What are you doing here?” she stage-whispered, “And where did you even get all that?” she added, gesturing to his whole ensemble.

“I could ask you the same question,” he teased, “I’ve had all this since the last time I was here! Well, except for this,” he added, thumbing his tie, “I just couldn’t let a perfectly good scrap of material go to waste! Oh, but I’m here to see Bruce. And you guys! I found something major, and it, uh, probably shouldn’t wait. At least for too long.”

“And you can’t just tell us now?” Tiffany asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

He bit back the desire to ask what her problem was. It wouldn’t be a great start to the evening plan. “It’s easier if I just tell you all at once. In private. Hopefully in the next ten or fifteen minutes, depending on if I can find Bruce in this ridiculous crowd.”

“Which case does it deal with?” Iman asked, watching him with that same analytical curiosity he’d seen half the time she asked him questions.

All of them! He wanted to say. But you didn’t get an audience by spoiling half of the ending. “You’ll find out if you meet me in the parlor,” he said, hoping he was projecting an air of mystery. “I’m gonna keep looking for Bruce. And if you see him, tell him I’m looking for him!” he added, clicking his fingers in their direction as he made his way to the edge of the crowd.

He looked out into the party. People were dancing, laughing, pushing signed checks and wads of cash into glass bowls for the charity of their choice - if it weren’t for the otherworldly feeling he was getting and the fact that all the upper-class twits surrounding him didn’t really care about the actual people they were helping, it might have made a nice picture.

Actually, getting a picture was a good idea. They really did help with the whole grounding-himself-in-reality task he had to do more and more often nowadays. He pulled out his phone, thinking about what angle to use, and saw a text pop up from Devi.

How u holdin up J?

His phone had definitely vibrated in his hand, so that was real… Oh, there was no way he could resist showing off, now. 

You’ll never guess where I am!!! :D He wrote back, having to press a little harder on the screen so the thin cotton would let him type.

Ur bfs bedroom????

Dude u DIDNT

John giggled to himself. Her mind would be blown if she knew what he’d found in there, but he wasn’t about to tell her all that. It raised too many follow-up questions. LOL I wish!!

He turned around and decided to swallow his discomfort to take a partial selfie in the glittering, perfectly-lit ballroom and send it to her. It was honestly better to look at his made-up face with a camera than a mirror, where he couldn’t manage to look at the whole thing without feeling distorted. Maybe it was because he’d done it with Bruce before, back at Dr. Crane’s house? Or maybe it was the way the digital camera moved that made it feel fake enough. Or both. 

I’m at the gala! Undercover, of course. ;D he added.

Ok that makeup is amazing I barely recognize u!!!

Whats it like? Live up 2 the hype?

Everyone is super pretty, it’s annoying and crowded.

But it’s got swanky music and good food sooo... Pretty ok???

He should ask how she was, since she took the effort to reach out to him. How’s it going over there? You and Mickey doing ok?

Well we r still standin so its good. My sis came to visit which was nice but I decided not to transfer out. 2 much trouble. Mickey had no choice but 2 stay bc usual insurance bs :\

Oooh but that bitch Karen got her ASS reprimanded for yelling at the mens room by the gym for some reason last night! Dont ask how i found out ;p

HA I told her Mickey went in there when he was hiding from her in the library yesterday!!! Ha ha ha ha I can’t believe she actually yelled at nothing!!!

Omg!!! Mickey actually laughed when i told him!!! Classic J!!!

If u didnt almost die id say u need to come back

Its less colorful and WAY 2 quiet wo u

John felt that familiar fuzzy warmth that came with Bruce saying he missed him. He looked up into the crowd and was sure he spotted the familiar head of sleek black hair, so he decided to try and navigate through the crowd and text at the same time.

Awwww!!! Don’t worry, it’s only until they catch the guy! He wrote, side-stepping a hired butler before the tray knocked into him. (Should he tell her about Batman working on it? Surely he could excuse it away with a surprise visit. It wouldn’t be the first time Batman had been perched outside his window.) God, was there always this many people huddled together or what? Which should be soon, since Batsy’s on the case!

He’d no sooner pressed send when he smacked into an obstacle and heard the tinkling clink of shattered glass.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, but clearly she didn’t hear him.

“Fuck,” the woman he’d bumped into muttered, wiping off the end of her oddly familiar orange off-shoulder dress. It was too dark to blend in with the rest of the summer dresses swirling in the crowd. It was more suited to autumn, especially with the chunky black heels she was wearing with it...

Waaait a second.

Sure, the curly bob curving around her ears and framing her face was brown, but he knew that cute face anywhere! He’d sat across from it dozens of times!

“Jackie Lant!” He exclaimed, unable to help the smile stretching on his lips as she turned with the very clear look of a deer caught in headlights.

It was actually kind of nice how she seemed to instantly recognize him through the makeup and hair dye. Though the sight of him didn’t seem to excite her. “H-hey, John…”

She must have been thinking he was talking to her for some sort of threatening purpose. He should squash that right away by just talking like he normally did. “Talk about a coincidence! I thought that dress looked familiar – tailored by Mr. Prinya himself! It figures you’d wear it in summer. It’s just everything pumpkiny all year ‘round for you, isn’t it?” He chuckled. “But I’m surprised you’re back in Gotham! How’s the acting gig going for you? I’m assuming well enough to get you invited here?”

Jackie snorted into a small smile as her nerves melted away. “You haven’t changed a bit,” she said, propping one hand on her hip, “You still talk a mile a minute. Well, firstly - I, uh, don’t go by Jackie. In public, anyway,” she added with a pout and a side-eye to the crowd, “It’s Jacqueline, right now.”

“Little close to home, don’t you think?” John smirked.

“It’s easy to get used to,” she shrugged, “Besides, it makes for a good stage name; I get more callbacks with it. Probably because it makes me sound classically trained,” she emphasized with finger-quotes and a slight smirk that made a spark in her leaf-brown eyes. “No one suspects I just learned from life experience and being a huge theater nerd.”

John sniggered. “Well, if you ever need a letter of recommendation, I think me and Bruce can give you one! ‘Fooled entire asylum of patients and employees into thinking she was a trustworthy budding doctor,’” he mimed writing on an invisible notepad, “‘Played dual role as a sympathetic victim of our money-hungry society and a secondary villain, with a believable and overall stellar performance,’” he continued with a grin, “‘Solid ten out of ten!’”

“…sounds kind of like you’re still mad,” she responded, folding her arms across her chest with a dull look at the crowd. She looked more like the hopeless person he’d seen clutching her stitches on the mausoleum floor than the one watching the Batmobile take off afterwards. “Not that I really blame you.”

Well, he couldn’t help but enjoy holding her sins over her head a little, but he wasn’t really mad…anymore. They both did pretty rotten things at some point. “Oh, turn that frown upside-down, Pumpkin-head,” he teased, poking her in the corner of her mouth, “I’m only messing with you! It’s water under the bridge!” She eyed him, seeming like she wanted to believe that, but wasn’t too sure if he meant it. She looked like she needed a little boost. And what better way than to lighten up her grungy past a little? “Besides,” he added in a low voice, “you’re an idiot if you think I don’t replay the memory of you shooting ol’ Scarecrow in the shoulder whenever I’m feeling blue.”

That, surprisingly, made her laugh. It was light and short, but it lit up her face, so he knew he hit a bullseye. “Honestly, so do I,” she said with a dark gleam in her expression. “Especially when someone’s really annoying me. It’s a good reminder of what I’m capable of.”

One of the butlers had swooped over to their spot on the floor to clean up the glass.

“Oh, excuse me,” Jackie said politely and pulled John towards a less crowded section of the floor. “Sorry - I don’t really like the idea of smacking into anyone else out here,” she muttered, “but I’ve been meaning to ask – what are you doing here? I thought you weren’t released yet.”

Sheesh, can a guy just not want to have a good time, he wanted to say. But he didn’t really want to rile up anyone just yet, and it wasn’t her fault she didn’t know he’d been asked that twice already. She must not have known about the incident at St. Dymphna yesterday. (Not that he could blame her for not looking at the news. The same cycle of misery and murder never made for an entertaining time.) “It’s a secret,” he said simply, “Besides, I’m here for a good time, not a long time!” he added with a wink, snatching a shrimp cocktail off a waiter’s tray. It only lasted two bites, but it was delicious. “How about you? The last I saw you, you were running from your problems in a shit-box of a car.” She couldn’t possibly have been doing well enough to get a formal invitation if she had gotten her dress tailored in his neck of the woods…

“Ha, I still am,” she said, not sounding very amused despite the tiny smirk on her lips. “I’m here because it’s better than sitting around my hotel room feeling sorry for myself,” she grunted, the light in her eyes dimming as she snatched a flute off another waiter’s tray and downed half of it in one gulp. She stared at the glass, thinking of something with all the depressed seriousness he’d seen back in the mausoleum last year. “Fifteen years ago, my best friend was found rolled up in a rug in the dumpster three blocks from where she lived.”

John remembered the many pictures she had hung up in her small apartment; a lot of those friends were dead. “Oh… Uh, I’m sorry,” he tried, not sure what else he could say without sounding like a huge jerk.

“Don’t apologize,” she said with an oddly sharp look, “I didn’t tell you to get sympathy. I get enough of that from everyone else. I told you because you would’ve picked my brain apart to get it out anyway, and I don’t really feel like playing that game.”

“Ouch, Jackie,” John clutched his chest and pouted dramatically, “You think so low of me! And here I thought we were getting to be friends…” He couldn’t hold the pout for long – if she was going to be rude, he could needle her with a taste of her own medicine. “But I guess if we were, I’d drop dead in a week.”

She didn’t seem to take that harshly at all. In fact, she lightened up a little. “See, that’s more like it,” she said with a Bruce-like smile. “No one else gives me dark jokes like that. They all think it’ll just make it worse.”

Huh! Well, at least John didn’t have to worry about tossing around grim jokes in her presence…?

“Honestly, though,” she continued, “I’m really only in Gotham for-”

“Jacqueline, baby – who’s this?” A man who couldn’t be much older – or taller - than Jackie sidled up to her out of nowhere, putting his arm protectively around her shoulder and flashing what could only be described as a bad attempt at ‘the Bruce Wayne press smile’. He didn’t have Bruce’s natural charm to pull it off, but he was fairly handsome, in a standard-Hollywood-twenty-something sort of way. Bronzer, foundation, and eyebrow powder were enhancing his face, but admittedly the curly swoop of dirty blond hair and lithe athletic frame helped with the overall look.

Jackie seemed to brighten a little more; she clearly knew him. “There you are, Matt – I was just talking about you. This is one of my old work-buddies.” She nodded slightly as she gestured to John, giving him a significant look he took to mean play along. “We worked on my last play here together. He’s a real Gothamite.”

The man called Matt reached his hand out to shake John’s. “Nice to meet you, Mr…?”

Shit. John had gotten used to being himself out on the floor, and now he had to put his normal-person face on, even if he didn’t want to play along. He grappled for the most normal names he could think of. He didn’t want to use his own, no matter how ordinary ‘John’ was.

Eric? No, I need something more familiar... Uh, J...erome? Jerimiah? Ooh, wait-!

“Jack,” he answered, thinking of the card currently sitting in his breast pocket. He might as well pick a good surname to go with it. And who was this guy to know where it came from? “Jack Napier,” he finished, reaching out to shake the guy’s hand. “Sorry - auditory processing,” he snorted, trying to smooth it over, “Takes a bit for the ol’ brain case to catch up sometimes.”

Matt didn’t seem to quite understand that, but he shook John’s hand anyway. “Matt Chaney,” he said proudly, like his mere name was something to envy.

“Matt and I snuck in here for research,” Jackie said with a small wink.

“Jacqueline-”

“Oh, lighten up, Matt. Jack’s great at keeping secrets.”

John tittered. “Got a noodle stuffed with ‘em,” he joked, “and not a single leak in the pan.”

“There’s a new TV soap role he’s trying out for,” Jackie explained with a pointed thumb up at Matt’s chin, “Think Bruce Wayne, but with less dough.”

“Oh, you’re on TV?” John asked, looking over their shoulder to see if Bruce made a coincidental appearance in the crowd. Maybe he was brooding somewhere…

“I’ve gotten some good contacts recently,” Matt boasted, which John translated to a ‘no’. “You worked with Jacqueline before she moved, right? Man, you must be pretty jealous now.”

...jealous of what? “Uh, look, you’re both rather attractive, but I’m afraid my heart’s spoken for,” he answered, tapping his chest where his undying love for Bruce Wayne lay embedded. “And neither of you are…really my type.”

Jackie sniggered as Matt frowned at him. “He doesn’t really go on social media, babe,” she said to her boyfriend with a genuinely amused grin as she pulled her phone out of the small purse dangling from a pathetically tiny strap on her shoulder. John could see the Lucky Hotel logo on a card she’d stuck in the back of the phone case; no wonder she altered her dress at his place! “Matt’s big on Root and MuSec[B1]  nowadays,” she explained, tapping on her screen, “I’ve got a bit of a following myself. Here, this one’s gotten me a lot of attention.”

John watched the very short video. He couldn’t hear the background music, but he watched as Jackie dramatically flipped a fan between her face, showing her normal face at first (with her hair still dyed brown), and then transitioning to a wide, grinning jack-o-lantern face done entirely in stage makeup. She’d worn yellow contacts to make the black of the painted eye-holes pop and seemed to have crafted painted plastic teeth for her jaw to open wide. “Ooh hoo hoo! Ve-ry nice,” he praised, watching the light in her eyes brighten further. “Reminds me of your last Halloween costume,” he teased.

Matt was clearly seething with jealousy - he plucked the phone out of Jackie’s hand and pulled up a different video. “Here, check this one out,” he said haughtily.

“‘Video removed for copyright violation’,” John read from the video placeholder on the page, “Impressive!”

“What?!” Matt pulled the phone back to him a deep scowl. “Not again! Those stupid fucking…”

“Why, Mr. Chaney,” a clear voice said from John’s left, “what a delight; it seems we’re destined to keep running into each other.”

John tossed a look towards the stranger heading towards them:  a man with extraordinarily average looks and flat, mousy brown hair. He could’ve passed him in the street a hundred times.

“And who are your friends?” The man asked, looking between Jackie and John. He settled back on John, looking more and more curious. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Oh, uh, Jacqueline – my girlfriend,” Matt emphasized by putting his arm back around Jackie and giving her a little squeeze – “this is Reverend Overfield; we met when I was scouting around town a while back. Reverend, this is Jacqueline Latern, and-”

“Jack Napier,” John interrupted, deciding to take initiative in shaking the Reverend’s hand like people were supposed to do. But weren’t guys like the Rev’ supposed to wear those little white collars everywhere they went, and not full-blown tuxedos?

“We haven’t met before, have we?” the Reverend asked as he withdrew his hand. “You seem familiar.”

You might have seen me on the news, John thought privately. “Oh, I’m just your typical man about town,” he answered with all the patented Wayne charm he could channel. “I’m sure you’d find a dozen like me in this crowd.” He looked over the faces of people behind the Reverend’s shoulders, hoping to suddenly see Bruce come into view, but no such luck. He’d have to stealthily make an excuse and slip away when he could.

“Do you live in the area, or further into the city?” The reverend asked, looking oddly probing for such an innocent question.

“I’m just taking the tour, Rev’,” John said with a growing impatience.

“Splendid!” He beamed, as if he was truly enthused by the idea, “You should pay us a proper visit before you decide to go.” He pulled out a business card and handed it to John. “We’re currently housed in of the older churches in the city. It’s quite the sight by itself; you don’t have to worry about being pressured into anything.”

John doubted that. He looked at the card. Rev. Sebastian Overfield, Church of the Written Mercy was stamped next to a picture of three people clustered together to reach up to what John figured was supposed to be a beam of light. “The Written Mercy? ”

“So it is written, and so it shall be,” he nodded with a serene sort of smile that usually came with John’s neighbors being doped up. “God has written our destinies out since the dawn of time. Regardless of evil’s lawless discord interfering with those destinies, we firmly believe those injustices can be resolved with faith, perseverance, and God’s guidance. Of course, we are always open to interpretations now and again.”

“You mean want people to tear your philosophy apart?” Jackie asked with raised brow.

The reverend gave a polite laugh. “There are no better fresh interpretations of ideas than from strangers.”

John’s first impulse was to tell him fate was as much of a joke as the justice system - but while justice had dealt John a bad hand and turned his whole life into a long, bad joke, fate had given him something worthwhile.

Something beautiful, in the form of a man who might as well have been divine for all the life upheavals and whirlwinds of emotion he caused. A man that could, finally, be seen in the immense, glittering crowd over Jackie’s and Matt’s shoulders.

“I think the inevitability of death is the only true fate in the world,” Jackie said as John stared out into the crowd, feeling a sweet sting at the sudden appearance of some pretty nameless thing putting her hands on Bruce’s shoulder to guide him into a dance, “How long we take to get there, the people we meet along the way – all of that is random.”

John could see Bruce following along with the motions, but his smile wasn’t reaching his tired eyes.

“I can see where that comes from,” Reverend Overfield nodded sympathetically, “It’s hard to believe that the people we lose in this lifetime aren’t taken away by chance; but I have always believed that every loss has a place in one’s life, even those most painful to live with. How about you, Mr. Napier?”

He did agree with Jackie’s point about them all being born astride a coffin and being subject to only the unknown, but... There was no way that was all there was. How could he think that, when a piece of his destiny was twirling slowly out beyond them as they spoke? “I think we’re at the mercy of a chaotic, constantly-changing universe,” he said, keeping his eyes firmly on his disarmed dark knight, “but there are some people that are always meant to be there…” (Some of the doctors always seemed to think it was dangerous for patients to think of soul-mates and pre-determination. But they weren’t here, were they? John could speak freely, since he wasn’t going to see most of these people again. Who would care?) “Our choices can make the universe change the how and why, but they’re there; and their choices shape us in return.”

He wouldn’t be there, the way he was now, without Bruce. If Bruce hadn’t saved him. If Bruce hadn’t believed in him. John felt it, deep down, past his thoughts and feelings, past his memories, past his sensory input…

“That’s an interesting way of putting it,” Jackie commented thoughtfully.

“So fate is essentially giving us soul mates, but with free will?” Matt said with what sounded like a sneer.

John could feel himself being stared at, and tore himself away from looking out at Bruce’s strained dance. The Reverend Overfield was staring at him a little too intently. John had the feeling he’d said something wrong; there was a definite dislike sitting in that subtle expression. Not that he cared – the guy was weirding him out anyway. “Aaany-who, this has been a fun diversion and all, but I’ve got a brooding billionaire-playboy in desperate need of some livening up - I’m sure I’ll see you all around!”

He gave a little wave to the group as he made his way back to the ballroom floor, hearing Jackie’s little call of good luck as he plopped the empty shrimp-glass onto a passing waiter’s tray.

John didn’t need luck. He had Bruce squarely in his sights, and navigating around the various tuxedos and shiny gowns was nothing compared to dodging punches and stray bullets.

Judging by the look on Bruce’s face as he spun slowly around on the dance floor with the pretty young thing that had dragged him there, John figured Bruce would rather be in his favorite suit, dancing to a very different tune.

 [B1]My answer to TikTok!

*~*~*~*~*

Notes:  ...now, I know what you’re thinking. Yes, that’s where I’m cutting this chapter off. Yes, you don’t get to see The Dance I teased you with yet. But it took well over my original time-limit to finish this with all the Tiffany-John bonding and various developments I’d been planning for ages! I always seem to go “yeah I can do this large amount of development in a short amount of time nbd” and then forget that when I flesh out ideas, I pull all the stops to make sure they flow with the story right and it takes foreeeevvverrr. So, as I sorta predicted, our Big Gala Saturday is split into 2 parts! So you’ll have to wait a liiiittle while longer to see The Dance...s. But we’ll get to see Brucie next time! It’s gonna be one hell of a night... >:3c

John is just a barrel of fun to write once I get into the rhythm! Having him bond with Tiffany was a great challenge, and I managed to check off soooo much of my wishlist. Jackie Lant’s return! John choosing his “name”! The fun inclusion of the famous Bat Pole! John and Tiff bonding through their investigation and getting a selfie out of it! Ahhhh!!! I’d been planning having him grapple Tiffany out of the way of that van for months! What fun!!! 

Writing John with Selina was tough, though, because part of me knows he’d love to just deck her in the face out of undealt-with jealousy re: Bruce, but I had to remind myself that for all his similarities, this isn’t a S2!John Doe. This is an evolving John “the player” can control, and naturally I get to choose the shape he takes in his chrysalis. Our boy is doing his damnedest to keep his violent impulses in check as he grapples with reality and grows to truly care for people outside of Bruce like the recovering patient he is. He’s come a long way in such a short time! ;w;

I’m hoping I can finish and upload the next part by my birthday. So fingers crossed I’ll upload in the next 6 weeks! Please comment, kudos, and subscribe/bookmark to help charge the muse! (And reblogs are HIGHLY appreciated!)

PS -  I couldn’t NOT reference @fractualized​‘s Free John Doe series! If you haven’t read it yet, check it out! :D

[capsscarlettwidow]

Now Or Never: Act 1 - Part 1

Paring: Natasha Romanoff x BlackFem!Metahuman

[Her powers are that of supergirl/man]

Summary: You meet Natasha at shield headquarters, initially she doesn't think much of you, but that's until she gets to know you.

Warnings: Profanity, sexual connotations + sexuality, but overall fluff

Notes: Please note that this is a black reader! Although anyone can read. Also don't be shy and check out my Mood board & Playlist, it’ll make the read better I promise.

A/N: Act 1 spans from Avengers- Age of Ultron

-------

Finally, you were here. Home. Nick Fury sought you out three long months ago. He found you through one of hydras files, he’d admit you were hard to track, harder than anyone he’d had to find before. When the hydra base and team that kidnapped you and where they stored at got busted you fled, went off grid petrified they would find you again. But something better found you, shield. A home, a family. You couldn't be more proud to be standing at the building foot.

Walking through the busy decks you're conscious not to bump into any of the several angsts that whirl past you in a hurry, every one of them with different conversations buzzing through their intercoms.

Eventually you spot the one , the only Nick Fury. He’s dressed in his all black attire per usual, but accompanied with new accessories. The Tony Stark, shields own “genius , billionaire, playboy, philanthropist,” and Maria Hill. They were discussing something but you weren't sure what. Of course you could listen in with your superheating ability but you chose not to, it wasn't your business or place.

Approaching the crowd at foot, you open your moth to speak but Tony beats you to it.

“You must be y/n? Heard you’ve got a killer throw.” Tony said referring to your super strength.

Rolling your eyes and casting a smirk on your lips, you stretch your arm out hoping Tony latch on.

“Yes I'm Y/n, and actually I've never been to good at ball throwing.” you respond sarcastically.

“well I could always teach you.” Tony reassures his eyebrow cocked seductivly in your direction.

“I would but i like my lessons from a different crowd of folk.” you admit you're eyes flickering up and down Maria’s body praying Tony takes the hint.

He does just that, Starks no idiot. 

You watch as Tony’s mouth forms an “O” shape in surprise of you subtle coming out to him and the two agents around you.

“If you to are done having show and tell, I would love to get agent y/n up to speed on the alien crisis at large.”

agent? alien crisis? large?” thoughts punctured and swirled you mind.

“Agent.” you say letting out a slight chuckle in shock.

“Yes agent.’ Fury eyes your attire. “ Even though you couldn't be less obvious, we’ll have to change that.”

Well maybe if you knew you were an “agent” you wouldn't have wore a bright pink body-con dress and the most hideous converse planet earths ever seen and your beaten leather jacket.

“The suspect at large is Loki, God of mischief, his brother God of thunder.’ Fury explains swiping on the tablet that was positioned on the desk. “God of mischief stole the tesseract, we need it back your mission retrieve it, and don't die.”

“Just me.” You questioned.

“No you’ve got back up, and looks like back up is here.” fury said

“Well, let's go meet back up.” You elate

----

You were approaching the jet that had just landed your “back up” waiting for them to exit. 

but you weren't expecting what got off the jet would change your life forever.

She casually walked off the jet. For the normal naked eye she’d appear blurry and distorted but to you, she was crystal clear and beautiful. You loved her simple and gentle makeup covered with red locks styled in a red bob textured with curls. She walked with confidence and seemed harmless but you knew underneath all her beauty was a femme fatal.

The three finally finish their advance toward you all. there was a moment of silence, not awkward, but that of studying one another. Everyone here had done some sort of hiding for their life, so trust is imperative.

Fury clears his throat. “Y/n your back up, Natasha Romanoff,  Steve Rogers, and Bruce Banner.” 

You listened. from the sound of it everyones heart rate was elevated. except hers, she wasn't scared or even the slightest bit nervous. Your bombshell was brave.

“Well it’s nice to meet you y/n.” Steve saying extending his hand in hopes to break the ice.

“Same here, I'm excited to work as a team and kick alien ass.”

You earn five snickers at your lame attempt of a joke. only five, Natasha was busy eyeing you, scanning you like a computer. Like she was trying to pry something out of you without your knowledge.

“Lets head to the debrief room we’ve got lots to discuss before anyones kicking any ass.” Fury announces.

----

You follow fury toward the debrief room but you began to feel a familiar heat on the back of your neck. Natasha was yet again buring holes into your skull. What had you done to raise her suspicion? Were you just not trust worthy enough?

You reach the debrief room. Steve held the door open for you, you shoot him a soft and sweet smile mouthing a short “thank you” before taking a seat.

“Meet Loki. God of mischief by the way, do not under any circumstance under estimate him. He’s not gonna play fair especially for us “mortals.” Tony explained.

“We need all our forces to catch this son of bitch, so you got a gun, shoot it, you got shield, throw it, you got anger, express it, you got super human abilities show them, got a suit, put it on.’ We need every force on deck to get the tesseract back.” Fury explained with urgency.

“Well suit up meet back here in ten, we don't have much time.” Cap instructed.

“I don't have a suit.” You exclaimed.

“Oh sure you do!’ Tony said. “Follow me.” He ushered  you out the room arm draped over your shoulder.

This should be interesting.

---

 Tight wasn't even the word. There had to be another word in the English language to describe the suffocating feeling you felt around every limb in your body as squeeze into Tonys “new suit” he designed for you.

“Geez, Tony you do understand the concept of curves, because I’m kind of suffocating here.” You complain menuvoring in your new attire.

“Yes, and I wanted to esintuate them. Plus it’s hard to find material that’s meta-human proof. If there’s a issue Joan fabrics is a twenty minute drive.” Tony remarked.

You scrunch your nose snarling at him slightly. You could tell the relationship you were beginning to form with the billionaire, you’d be lying if you say you didn’t like it. But at the moment you were more concerned as to why the black widow wasn’t opening up to to you as easy as the rest of the team.

Hesitantly you slide over to her locker and station, coughing to get her attention as she loaded her final gun holstering it.

“So, I mean I’m y/n I know your name but I wanted to get to-.”

You were cut off by the slamming of her locker. Clearly she wasn’t intrested in your little introduction.

“Save the introductions. If we survive this maybe I’ll care to know your name, but for now I’m not interested in conversing with anymore aliens.” Nat snarled seemingly stomping off.

Truthfully, Natasha did want to get to know you. Sure you were beautiful and bubbly, a contrast to her personality. Hell she was so drawn to you and couldn’t keep her eyes off of you, but she was scared to get close to someone. In this line of work it would never go further than sex. She had to much red in her ledger and felt she was nothing more than a trained killer.

You gulp the silence of the locker room echos off the wall. You were a nice person and hated when people were mean. I mean with bad guys it didn’t bother you but with people you wanted to get to know and bloom a friendship with it bothered you giving you a sense of anxiety about yourself .

Gathering your composure, you float out of the room, head hung low at your failed attempt to talk to Natasha. It was no time to gloom though, you could do that after you kicked Loki’s ass.

—-

“Well now that it took you sissy’s ten hours to get armed, let’s talk partners. You’ll cover different grounds of the battlefield. Different missions, one common goal faster results.” Fury ensisted.

“Alright.’ Rogers and Stark, Banner your solo considering you’re your own partner, and romanoff and y/l/n. Got your team get your assignment and give em hell.”

You could feel Nats scowl on you before you even thought to lift your head up and look at her.

She approached you in a hurry. “Don’t slow me down, and if you need help, help yourself.” She hissed pacing past you toward the jet.

You stood in disbelief. Why was she being such an ass toward you. And only you.

“Don’t take it personal kid. Nats a tough shell to crack sometimes, she’ll come around for you.” Steve insisted giving you a reassuring back rub.

——

“This could be the last fight we have, so put your heart into avengers. I know you have your partners but backups always here.” The captain explained while eyeing both you and Natasha.

Even her body language showed she disliked you. You felt hopeless and small. You didn’t even know why tho considering you just meet her. But it felt like you known her or at least her energy for a lifetime.

You could tell Natasha was a good women even under all the murder she’s committed. She was pure and that’s what was drawing you toward her, even though she made it clear to stand five feet away.

“We are here, stay safe and stay sharp.” Cap said before the jets rear end opens up exposing the battlefield.

stepping off the jet you feel the warm dense air of the battle consume you. You weren’t stationed long as you noticed Natasha rushing off without you. On purpose of course . She didnt realize not only could you fly but you could move at the speed of light.

Quickly you catch up to her, “Really?” You question clearly agitated. 

“Really what?” Natasha Shouts with a pinched expression.

“We are supposed to stick together and you just-.”

“Incoming!” Natasha warns.

You both hit the ground, quickly getting up gathering your composure preparing for whatever the hell had just hit.

Chitauri explode out of the pod that had just impacted the ground. There had to be at least ten, we were outnumbered.

Natasha immediately pulls out her guns and rains fire giving the aliens hell, You suppose you should do the same.

You begin ripping the chitauri in half with ease. You project laser beams from your eyes obliterating even more chitauri. Again you could feel her familiar heat watching you, she stood still mouth agape brows drawn together. Maybe this meant she’d finally see you.

Distracted, Natasha was attacked. You instinctively thunder clap them away rushing toward her side. 

“Nat are you alright, let me look at you.” Panicked you hadn't even noticed how she was allowing you to be so close to her, allowing you to touch her even. 

“I’m alright just a small laceration, I'll live” She reassured.

raising up from the ground she grabs your hand in support. Immediately you both felt the spark that formed between you two.

Natasha immediately pulled away, walking back into the battlefield. 

You didn't know if what you had just felt was real or even meaningful, but you’d like to believe so.

----

A/N: Hey guys thank you for reading! I know it was long but I can't promise that the other parts will be any shorter I've had this idea in my head for a while! Im hoping to update every two days and have several parts so look out! Also what do you think about Natasha’s ending in the mcu because I'm thinking of a spicy one. Also if you didn't know this series spans upon all the movies nat was in. Please reblog and thank you for the read have an amazing morning, evening, or afternoon.

[not-close-to-straight]

A Blushing Bet (Natasha/Tony/ Pepper)

This commission is for @enchantingpearlcollector and honestly its just me writing shamelessly about pretty girls. I’m not even sorry. 

Enjoy!

****************************

“Oh hello, my love.” Pepper leaned over the kitchen table and placed a soft kiss on Natasha’s cheek. “How are you today?”

“I’m bored and feeling vicious.” Natasha answered, using the tip of a wicked looking knife to clean under her nails. “So watch out.”

“Yes, well you certainly look vicious.” Pepper plucked the knife from her girlfriends hand and tossed it away with a sigh, dropping into one of the chairs to start rifling through her mail. “Why aren’t you out training with Clint? I thought you were going to mess around on that obstacle course Tony had put in.” 

“Clint’s still pouting because of that slight bump on the head I gave him last week.” Natasha leaned her chair back and plonked her feet on the table. “You know, I think he’s getting whinier the older he gets. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?”

“To be fair, wasn’t a slight bump.” Pepper corrected. “it was a concussion--

“-- a slight concussion.”

“--and he has every right to be sore at you for it, it was tag-football Tasha, not tackle football.” She tossed Natasha a magazine and went back to opening bills. “What about Steve or Bucky? You couldn’t give those two concussions if you tried and they have no problem kicking your butt if you’re feeling vicious.”

“Steve is teaching an art class and Bucky volunteered to be his model--” Pepper’s jaw dropped and Natasha nodded. “I know, I have a million questions about it too. But they are busy, and Clint’s being a whiner and Tony barricaded himself in his lab to work on something devious--”

“--he’s one bad lab accident from a super villain.” Pepper confirmed, her lips twitching in a smile. “But he’s so gosh darn cute in those big goggles and that ridiculous white coat Bruce makes him wear, it’s almost worth it.”

“Anyway, Tony’s busy so I can’t drag him off for sex and you threatened me with bodily harm if I disturbed you today--”

“I did no such thing!” Pepper protested and when Natasha just looked at her, she protested again-- “I’m busy today, Nat! This is the only free time I have today and you should be glad I’m spending it with you and not our boyfriend because let’s face it, it’s been so long since he’s actually come to bed at a decent hour I’m starting to think he broke up with us and just didn’t say anything.”

“Tony would never break up with us.” Nat said confidently. “He thinks it's too funny to constantly remind Sam that there are exactly two beautiful women in this compound and we both sleep in his bed.”

“Yes, well we are rather beautiful, aren’t we?” Pepper’s cheeks tinted a soft pink and first Natasha smiled over it and then her eyes flew open wide and--

“What if we have a contest!” she cried. “That would take care of my boredom and my viciousness!” 

When Pepper narrowed her eyes suspiciously, Nat hurried to add, “Not like the ultimate hide and go seek one from last month, don’t worry. But what if we had a contest just you and Tony and I?”

“Okay.” Pepper scanned through her last piece of mail. “What sort of contest would this be then? And remember, it can’t be naked. Bucky almost had a heart attack the last time Tony lost a bet and had to cook breakfast in nothing but an apron and a thong. Those sorts of bets are off limits now.”

“No aprons and thongs required for this one.” Nat assured her. “What if-- and hear me out-- what if we see who can make which of the three of us blush the hardest?”

“I think you’re more excited by that prospect than I am.” Pepper said dryly. “Because I’m so pale I blush if my heart rate picks up at all, whereas you walked in on Steve and Bucky watching porn last week and didn’t so much as blink. I think the odds are unfairly skewed in your favor.” 

“In my defense--” Nat held up her hand when Pepper started laughing. “It was some terrible super hero parody porn and no one would ever think that was sexy, much less blush worthy. And second of all--” she raised her voice when Pepper only laughed harder. “-- second of all, what if only you and I knew about the contest?”

“Only you and I?” Pepper repeated. “So what, we’d just be competing to try and make each other blush and Tony would have no idea what’s going on? Where’s the fun in that?”

“The fun--” Natasha emphasized. “Would be when Tony can’t keep his hands off us because I know for a fact he has a complete kink for seeing me do something that makes you blush.”

“Oh he does no--”

“New Years Eve.” Natasha challenged. “You were wearing a silver dress and I used your braid to yank you down so we could kiss and you turned tomato red and Tony--”

“--locked us both in the bedroom all night and then instead of breakfast in bed we had--” Predictably, Pepper turned bright pink. “Oh my. He does have a little bit of a kink for that doesn’t he?”

“So if I’m going to be making you blush all the time, and you’re going to be acting bold and scandalous to make me blush….?” Natasha let the question hang there as Pepper’s eyes widened. “Yep. Could be fun, right?”

“Well then, how do we know who wins?” The discarded mail went into the trash and Pepper dusted off her hands. “If the point is to just get Tony into bed, how do we keep score?”

“Whichever one breaks him first.” Natasha patted her thighs, and Pepper came willingly, folding her tall frame onto the smaller redheads lap. “We’ll judge his reactions based on how red he turns, how much he stammers and whoever does something that gets him to drag us both to bed first, wins.”

“Tasha, I do love when your vicious moods play out and no one gets hurt.” Pepper looked her arms around Natasha’s neck and kissed her square on the lips. “Though I suppose I love you when you’re stabby too.”

“Well I’m glad to hear it.” Natasha grinned and kissed her back. “Game starts tomorrow, okay?”

“Get ready to lose, Romanov.” Pepper threatened playfully, and Natasha retaliated with a -- “Your ass is mine, Potts!”

“What a shame.” Pepper giggled and Natasha blew her a kiss. “Tomorrow then. Be ready.” 

*******************

Most people assumed Tony Stark was full of himself, focused only what he wanted and oblivious to anything or anyone else. He was never anywhere he needed to be on time, he couldn’t be bothered to remember birthdays or important dates, and despite constant assurances to the negative, the press was sure that he was playing both Natasha and Pepper because that’s the only thing that possibly made sense. No way he loved them both, not billionaire playboy Tony Stark. One day the tabloids announced that he was only dating Ms. Potts because she was his boss, the next everyone was sure that Natasha was blackmailing him somehow-- on and on it went.

Of course anyone who knew Tony in the slightest was well aware that he was head over heels for both the always put together Pepper Potts and femme fatale Natasha Romanov. And he never remembered birthdays, but he never forgot anyone’s favorite coffee and ordered the specific sheets that Clint liked and had the sensors in the Tower set to change anytime Bucky was in a room since he still had triggers after his Winter Soldier time. Tony noticed everything and was oblivious to nothing--

--But boy howdy was he caught off guard when Natasha walked into the living room wearing a white crop top that showed off her stomach and little flashes of-- eep! Under bosoms!-- and snake skin pants riding low enough to show her thong, swaggered up to Pepper and brought her in for a long, filthy kiss.

“What--What-- hnnnngh!” Tony gaped at the scene-- his prim proper Pepper palming over Natasha’s rear, the snakeskin pants hanging on for dear life, in immediate peril of exposing much more cheek than the spy had intended. “Natasha! Clothes!”

“Why do you mean, clothes?” Nat asked lazily, wiping a smudge of lipstick off Pepper’s face and smirking when she saw the tell tale streak of red on Pepper’s cheek. “I’m wearing clothes.”

“Not--not many of them!” Tony stammered. “I haven’t heard the term ‘whale tail’ since like, 2002 but good Christ!”

“Calm down, Tony.” Natasha snapped the unbelievably skimpy line of her thong and winked at their boyfriend. “You’ve see me in less.”

“I-- You-- urgh--” Tony kept stammering as Natasha sauntered right back out, and he had no idea why she pulled out a notebook and made a mark in it, just like he had no idea why Pepper cursed and also pulled out a notebook and made a mark in it, but he didn’t really care.

Natasha in snakeskin pants?

Heaven save him.

******************

Pepper Potts was practically perfect in every way, the best dressed in any room she walked into, somehow stylish in nothing more than a pair of Nat’s cut off shorties and one of Tony’s white button down, and a literal goddess in a floor length gown.

Natasha had seen the woman in everything from pin striped pant suits to fishnet lingerie and anything in between, but she had not seen Pepper in a black skirt just a hint too tight and a hint too short and a blouse unbuttoned just on this side too low.

“Oh fuck me.” Natasha interrupted the briefing when she swore out loud, staring opened mouth at her girlfriend as Pepper sat that adorable ass upon the conference table and crossed long long legs one over the other, showing off the thigh high slit in that damnable black skirt and--

“Ms. Potts!” Tony sounded like he really might be choking to death when he caught sight of the color inked high up on Pepper’s thigh, bright flowers and flowing vines wrapping around her leg and disappearing out of eye sight further beyond the cut to whoo skirt. “Is that-- are you--”

“No fair.” Natasha breathed, face flushing a dull red, green eyes glowing with something altogether wicked, and Pepper simply tossed her hair over her shoulder and handed Tony something else to sign, smiling prettily into his shell shocked expression.

“Thank you, sweetheart.” She cooed when Tony handed her back the file, and with a little more swing in her hips than strictly necessary, Pepper left the room so the briefing could resume.

Not that Steve could remember what the hell he’d been briefing anyone on, and not that Bucky was thinking about anything else but the situation in his jeans and Clint and Sam weren’t doing much better. Tony’s jaw was still somewhere near the vicinity of the floor and Natasha was muttering curses under her breath as she dug out her notebook again and made another mark.

Briefly, Tony wondered which god he’d pleased so much to have not one but two redheads who seemed intent on making him explode, and then he pulled out his phone and texted Thor:

From Iron Man: Hey God of Fertility, you are awesome

From Thor: I AM AWARE

*****************

*****************

Natasha had a scar on her abdomen, the result of a bullet that had gone through her and into someone else, and she tended to wear camisoles and shorty shorts to the beach or pool just to avoid stares and the smattering of freckles she accumulated after just a few minutes in the sun.

Pepper freckled too, in the sort of sophisticated way she did everything, so she was one for sun hats and cover ups as she lounged on deck chairs at the poolside cabana and sipped at her no- doubt low fat drink.

But when Tony went out to the pool to swim a few laps, he found not just one but two women in bathing suits that were nothing more than strategically placed bits of cloth held together by a smattering of strings and the occasional buckle.

Pepper in a plunging white monokini that was more like a no-kini and Natasha in what might have passed for a bikini in certain sketchy circles, but was really a collection of sparkles and tassels that somehow stayed put as she chased Pepper around, tackling her girlfriend into the grass and smearing sun tan lotion in a graceless, completely Tony approved way until Pepper had enough and rolled them over a few feet to dunk in the pool.

Then there were screams and giggles and-- “Oh look at that.” Tony gulped. “The suits are just about see through.” -- and playful kisses and greedy hands and-- “Ho-ho-holy shit--” Tony had to suddenly sit down, towel held over his lap when they both bounced jiggled walked out of the pool and dried each other off, teasing and laughing at each other.

“You’re pretty red, my love.” Pepper rubbed a towel through her long hair. “I think I win this round.”

“I dunno, I made you blush hard enough you got spontaneous freckles.” Natasha pointed out, brushing her fingers over Pepper’s collarbone. “I think I win this round.”

“Well to be fair,” Pepper inclined her head towards Tony. “I think we might have broken our boyfriend. There’s no way he’s going to be able to walk for a while, and that towel isn’t hiding as much as he thinks it is, so maybe we call this round a tie.”

“Should we have pity on him and take him to bed?” Natasha reached out and tugged at an errant strap, correcting it before Pepper’s entire top came off, and trying not to laugh when Tony made a high pitched noise behind them.

“No no, the bet was that he has to break and take us to bed.” Pepper adjusted a tassel that wasn’t quite doing it’s job anymore. “So. This one is a tie?”

“I suppose so.” Natasha’s eyes sparked. “But I can take you to bed, right?”

“Ms. Romanov, I think you should.”

*******************

There was nothing heinous nor distracting nor naked -- or any combination of the three-- planned on Thursday morning, so Pepper and Natasha cuddled up together in their fluffiest robes and shared a cup of coffee while reading through the paper and waiting for Tony to come down for breakfast.

“Are we still tied?” Natasha asked absentmindedly, weaving their fingers together, and Pepper hummed a response, adding, “Five to five darling. We’ll have to step it up if Tony is going to break soon. I’ll tell you, I was his assistant for years and never saw a single ounce on impulse control from that man, but all the sudden he’s a picture of restraint. It’s baffling.”

“What’s baffling, beautiful?” Tony made his appearance for the day, swooping down to kiss both of them good morning and getting himself a cup of coffee. “You’re so smart, I can’t imagine there’s anything that really baffles you.”

“No, of course not.” Pepper answered cheekily and Natasha kicked her foot under the table. “How are you this morning, love?”

“Still a genius.” Tony winked and pushed two identical sized boxes towards them. “I got you something.”

“Presents!” Pepper cried and while Natasha wasn’t as outwardly excited, she still snatched her box as fast as she could and tore off the wrapping paper.

“You-- you bought me a gun?” She hefted the handgun in her palm, admiring the weight and feel, the way it fit her fingers perfectly, then turned it over and-- “Why is there sparkly things on my gun, Tony? That’s not the proper place for sparkly things.”

“Sweetheart, this is lovely.” Pepper admired her necklace, the way it shone against the velvet box, the uniquely green stones gleaming in the light. “What design is this, I don’t think I’ve seen it before.”

“This is a journey design.”  Tony touched Pepper’s necklace, then drew a line along the matching design on the grip of Natasha’s gun. “It looks like a river, and represents the journey of life-- where we’ve been, where we are, and where we are going together.”

“Oh.” Pepper turned light pink, her breath hitching. “This is so thoughtful.”

“Nat.” Tony tapped at the stones. “I had these created specifically for you. They are the exact shade of your eyes, lighter here for when you laugh, darker here for when you’re--” he cleared his throat meaningfully, and it was Natasha’s turn to flush. “There is no other gemstone in the world the same color as these ones right here, because there’s no one else in the world like you.”

“And Pepper--” he turned back to the necklace. “These are the same color as your eyes, too, and some of them have white cut through like lightning because when your eyes flash in laughter or anger or anything I--” Pepper bit her lip and Tony grinned. “-- I love it every time. Different from Nat’s in every way, but equally as stunning. It’s one of a kind, just like you.” 

“Christ.” Natasha choked out, red from her collar clear to the tips of her ears and Pepper wasn’t doing much better, her pale skin nearly crimson. “Tony, this is--”

“Tony, I don’t even know what to--” Pepper shook his head. “Why--” 

“And because I know Pepper is way more dangerous than she looks, and Natasha loves pretty things too--” Tony handed them two more boxes, and Pepper laughed when she opened a handgun with her design on the grip, and Natasha sighed happily when she held up a journey stone necklace as well. “Loving you two is a journey I don’t want to ever end.” 

He smecked a kiss onto both their cheeks. “If you two decide you want to spend some time together--” 

“Get you ass upstairs.” Natasha demanded and Pepper echoed-- “And you should be naked when we get there.” 

Tony saluted them teasingly and headed out the door, leaving them to smile and blush, oohing and ahhing over each others gems.

“Are you gonna tell them you knew about the bet?” Steve asked under his breath as Tony passed him in the dining room.

“Nope.” Tony shook his head. “But let’s be honest, I definitely won.”

*****************************

SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE FIC!

A KO-FI WOULD MAKE ME BLUSH!

*****************************

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[enygmass]

Title: The Visiting Room

Characters: Jonathan Crane, Bruce Wayne

Synopsis: An early morning visit leads to Jonathan receiving a very odd opportunity.

Ao3 link can be found here if you don’t want to read 2800+ words on Tumblr

[Shameless self promo of Ko-Fi ]

_______________________________________________

“The Visiting Room” was to Jonathan as sleep was to an insomniac; a foreign concept that, although observed numerous times in passing, was never in reach of his outstretched hand. The other inmates had all been introduced to “The Visiting Room” at least once. Mr. Dent often left to consult with lawyers, Mr. Nygma to consult with the media, and Mr. Fries to consult with inquisitive scientists. From what Jonathan had gathered via word of mouth, “The Visiting Room” was a derelict space, approximately 10x15, with aqua coloured walls that were gradually chipping away to reveal the grey concrete underneath. The air conditioning never worked, so it was constantly boiling in the summer, but to balance it out the heat never worked either, so it was constantly cold in the winter. Mr. Tetch had mentioned in passing once that there was a metal table with two chairs bolted to the floor and that, in his words, sitting on the chair was equivalent to sitting on a horse barebacked; uncomfortable, and leaving you with an aching body once you were done. No, Jonathan had never had the privilege of going into “The Visiting Room”, which was why he was surprised when the guard came to his cell saying that there was someone here to meet him.

Jonathan had experienced his “Eureka” moment a few months ago. It was a moment that many scientists or entrepreneurs hoped to accomplish in their lives. It was the moment when all the puzzle pieces clicked just right, and suddenly you were met with a beautiful image that made the laborious process to accomplish it very worthwhile. Yes, he had experienced his “Eureka” moment, in a sense that he realized in order to exit from Arkham and to be granted the opportunities he needed, he had to play by the rules. Arkham’s rules were the very ones that he had set up long ago, when he had been in control of the Asylum, with every inmate and doctor available at his beck-and-call. The rules were very simple: show improvement, be polite, keep your head down, and walk forwards. Walking backwards was sure to lead you right into the arms of the nearest security guard, or your next ten years in a cell. He supposed, given that he had been playing so well, it was due time that someone would finally want to meet him.

The walk to “The Visiting Room” was nothing exciting. There was no flashing lights, no butterflies in his gut, absolutely nothing at all. Instead, he was shuffled down the hall by a guard who smelled like nicotine and stale coffee and looked as though he hadn’t seen sleep since the cold war, all the while having his arm gripped in a vice that was sure to leave bruises in the morning. Guards were always rough-and-tumble in this field; playing nice had been killed and buried when Joker had walked through the doors.

“I ‘aven’t taken you here before, ‘ave I?” The guard spoke with a gruff tone in an accent that was indiscernible to Jonathan, coming off as more aggressive than Jonathan supposed he meant.

“No.” A short, clipped response was all he offered. He wasn’t in too talkative of a mood at the presiding moment. Part of it was due to the fact it was still so early. Despite Arkham’s protocol to have all inmates up and in the showers by 6 am, Jonathan still found it hard to become aware of everything before the hour of 10. The other part of it was due to the fact he was too preoccupied trying to hypothesize who would come to see him so early. Chances were it was his lawyer, who had been ghosting him since he was put in here, but it could possibly be a curious student as well. It wasn’t uncommon for Gotham University grads and undergrads to come to Arkham to get interviews for thesis projects; Jonathan would be flattered if that was the case. Despite being an inmate, he was still more respected than the other staff in the university.

“Well, suppose they say there’s a first time for everythin’.” The guard let out a hoarse chuckle as he fumbled with his key card, much to the bemusement of Jonathan, before finally scanning it through the slot and unlocking the door. Then, without so much as another word, he tugged Jonathan through.

“The Visiting Room” was exactly how it had been described, right down to the fact that it was frigidly cold. The only details that had been missed were the fact that the room was illuminated by blinding fluorescent lights above, one of which flickered intermittently in the corner. Within the first few steps, Jonathan already knew that the next time he performed any toxin experiments, he’d be doing them here- the room looked like it was taken straight from the set of a Saw film.

“Jus’ sit and be quiet, yeah? We’ll be back in a few.” The guard guided – no, shoved – Jonathan towards one of the bolted chairs, then without so much as a second glance he exited the room, leaving Jonathan to stand alone. Which was perplexing. Often, the guards would attach the cuffs to the metal chain that, too, was bolted to the table to ensure that the inmate wouldn’t try to kill the visitor or something. Perhaps the guards were so fed up with everything that they were beginning to neglect essential components of their job, a thought that Jonathan only fuelled as he sat down in the chair.

Ah, Jervis had been right. Jonathan was not the meatiest inmate in Arkham, and the metal of the chair only served to emphasize the fact that this was the case. His boney stature combined with the hard surface brought immediate discomfort and made him only wish harder that this visitation was finished quickly.

That, however, did not seem to be the case. Time passed slowly when you were aware you were waiting, and time passed even slower when there was no clock to tell you how long it had been. He found himself inspecting the wall, inspecting the table, staring into the camera in hopes of unnerving any observers, and eventually picking at his nails as he waited. Then, after what seemed like a lifetime had passed, the telltale buzz of a card being registered sounded from the door, and Jonathan looked up to greet his visitor for the first time. Or at least, he would have, had confusion not rendered him silent first.

The man in the door was no student, nor was he the slimeball individual that Jonathan had the pleasure of calling his lawyer. This man was tall, impressively so, wearing a well-tailored suit and a red tie. His dark hair was cut in a neat style, and his dark blue eyes made Jonathan uncomfortable in the sense that nothing felt secret to them. The man could have been a lawyer, yes, or a politician, but the Wayne Enterprises pin on his suit told Jonathan exactly who it was. The two of them retained eye contact for a period, before the visitor offered a warm smile.

“Dr. Crane! It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person.” Had he not spoken, Jonathan would have been convinced that this was a hallucination brought on by some mix up in his medications. Despite this, his words and the decision to use the title “Dr. Crane” rather than the usual “Patient 406224” or “Scarecrow” did little to convince Jonathan otherwise. But, it was rude to say nothing back, so Jonathan cleared his throat and tried to speak in a firm tone, which was hopeless as he was acutely aware his voice was now a pitch higher.

“Mr. Wayne, what an odd surprise.” Odd, yes, and he wasn’t sure it was welcomed either. “What brings you here?”

Mr. Wayne, or Bruce – Jonathan wasn’t sure what title to use – said nothing as he settled himself into the chair across the way. The guard looked between the two for a moment before exiting the room, closing the door firmly behind him. Jonathan had no doubt that he and the others would be turning on the audio of the room in order to hear what this exchange would be.

“I actually came here to speak with Jeremiah about the accounting for the institution. The year-end review is coming up, and he called me in for some suggestions.” Bruce adjusted his suit jacket as he spoke before finally settling in and resting his hands on his knees, taking a moment to look over Jonathan. Jonathan was becoming acutely aware that his dull russet hair and exhausted appearance looked rather sad compared to Wayne’s immaculate uptake. “Then, while we were talking, he mentioned your progress. I have to say, it’s good to see that something in Arkham is finally improving.”

There was a pause between them before Jonathan let out the snort that he had been holding in. “It’s about time, isn’t it? I don’t suppose that Dr. Arkham mentioned the deplorable inmate lounge while you two were talking? If anything needs improvement, it’s the paint job in there.” Bruce let out a laugh at that, which eased Jonathan if only a little bit. This was much preferable to being grilled by a lawyer.

“He did mention that, in fact! Although I think it’s got a bit of charm to it. Something about the 60’s pop-deco polka dots combined with the striped wallpaper really sets a vibe, or it just makes everything worse. Who knows?”

There was something odd about a psychiatric patient and a billionaire playboy poking fun at Asylum design choices. Jonathan felt like it was the beginning of some poor joke – A lunatic and a playboy sit in a room – and the thought sobered him up a bit. Bruce must’ve noticed the change in mood, as his smile faded just a bit. Bruce Wayne didn’t come to visit just anyone – especially Jonathan.

“You still haven’t told me why you’re here, Mr. Wayne. Should you not be getting ready for your next charity event, rather than wasting time in a room with a criminal? It might look bad for your publicity if anyone catches wind of this.” Jonathan paused for a beat before continuing. “Unless this is to improve publicity. I guess it would look excellent on your record to be visiting the poor, and the suffering, children of Arkham.” He had never referred to himself as a child of Arkham, but it felt fitting to jump on the term that the media liked to throw around so often. At this, Bruce seemed to sober up as well, shifting in his seat before resting his hands on the table instead.

“Well, for starters, the event isn’t until next week, so I think I have a bit of time to kill. Secondly, this doesn’t concern publicity. Are you aware that you’re on the fast track to receiving a bill of release soon?” Bruce fixated Jonathan with a stern stare, and he felt himself growing uncomfortable under those blue eyes again. Something about the look, about the colour, drew forth memories of encounters with a certain bat that Jonathan thought best to keep under wraps. He looked away. “There is no support system for released patients in Gotham City. Essentially, when they get out, it’s entirely up to their own devices to ensure housing, transportation, and a means of income, as well as keeping in touch with doctors to ensure treatment retention.”

“I’m aware, Mr. Wayne. I was the director of this Asylum as well. I saw more than my fair share of patients leave and then come back more destitute than before.” Jonathan had been one of the few to appeal to the council in Gotham to set up a plan for released patients. All his appeals, of course, had fallen to deaf ears and he had been left to pick up the pieces of released patients lives when the eventually returned home, no support provided.

“I don’t want to see that. You, amongst others, have skills and potentials that could greatly improve this city. It isn’t fair to see them go to waste because of a past record. I personally believe that every person deserves a second chance – something that the mayoral office seems to ignore.” Now Jonathan was looking back at him, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. This was leading up to something, he knew it. He had experienced numerous encounters with men who were using the same tone Wayne was using now, and he knew they always, always, wanted something.

“What’s your card here, Wayne?”

“I’m glad you asked!” There was a warmer tone in Bruce’s voice now and his expression seemed to soften at Jonathan’s inquiry. He hated it – Bruce looked so pathetically likeable with that look and Jonathan wanted nothing to do with it. “Dr. Crane, you won’t be accepted back into any hospitals or universities, you and I both know this.”

Well, obviously.

“But I’d like to give you an opportunity to use your skills to your full advantage. Wayne Industries is currently working on a government-funded project to produce an effective treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder in adolescents and adults. Given your knowledge both in psychology and the effects of trauma on the human mind, as well as your experimental background, I’d like to know if you would be willing to work with us on this project once you’re released. You’d be given an apartment under Wayne Enterprises listing, as well as means of transportation and income. We want to do this more for reformed patients in Arkham, and we’d like to start with you.”

There was a beat of silence. It drew out for a long period of time, held steady by the expression on Jonathan’s face as he looked at the man across from him. He was searching, digging, trying to find the lie in Bruce’s eyes because good opportunities like this, opportunities for a second chance, did not come to men like Jonathan Crane. He was waiting for the ‘just kidding!’ that was sure to follow next, but after another few moments, he realized with horror that the man was being dead serious.

“Are you kidding? Mr. Wayne, are you aware the backlash you will receive upon employing me to work for your company? I mean, have you, have you looked up from your blissfully naïve world to see what I have done? I will take two steps into Wayne Enterprises and be tackled to the ground by every security guard you have under your employment within a moments notice, not to mention I highly doubt the government would like to work with me. Have you thought this through at all?” Jonathan’s voice was raising pitch again, but Bruce seemed unfazed by it all.

“Oh, I have, Dr. Crane, and I’m not expecting you to accept anything right this moment. Rest assured, I am more than familiar with what you have done. In fact, you could almost say it has impacted me directly. But I recognize the potential this could have with you working on it, given that you’re more qualified than anyone else that’s applied, and I have no doubt that others will see that as well. If I’m willing to give you a chance, so will they.” Bruce tapped the table twice with his hands, then waved to the camera in the corner. “I’m just asking you to think on it, that’s all. If you agree, you can leave the public to me.”

With these words, a familiar buzz sounded out and “The Visiting Room” door slid open, revealing the guard that had brought Jonathan here before. At this, Bruce stood up and extended his hand to Jonathan. Jonathan stared at it for a moment, as though it were a cobra poised to bite, before cautiously taking it into his own. Bruce’s hand was surprisingly warm, despite the frigid room, and his grip was firm.

“Think on it hard, Dr. Crane. It’d be an honour to work with you.” Then, after two shakes, Bruce relinquished his grip and exited the room, leaving Jonathan with more confusion and uncertainty than what he had walked in with. The guard gave him a look and gestured to stand, an action that Jonathan did automatically with no thought at all. It was only when the guard took on his vice grip of Jonathan’s arm once more was he shaken back into reality.

He supposed that this first trip to “The Visiting Room” was a worthwhile one, and as they stepped back into the hall and the door closed in their wake, Jonathan had an uncomfortable feeling that he’d be returning again very soon. Playing by the rules had not exactly gone as planned.

[forthemultiverse]

No Picnic - Damian Wayne x Reader

Damian always had a way of getting under your skin, and you hated yourself for it. You’d dated for a year, sixteen to seventeen, broken up and become ‘friends’ afterwards, and now you had to sit there as he slowly became a mini Bruce Wayne. Maybe it was your fault. You were his first real relationship, and if you’d tried harder to make it meaningful and longlasting, he’d still be with you instead of making you watch him kiss with other girls. 

Everyone knew he was an Adonis, and if he was your type, you’d want to make out with him. You couldn’t complain. You’d dumped him. You couldn’t be jealous. You didn’t have a right to be jealous. And you claimed to be his friend. You ate lunch together, hung out on the weekend, shared a car when going to parties. You were friends. No matter how hard it got sometimes. 

You thought about how easy it had been at the beginning. How quickly you’d connected with each other. Becoming friends through other friends until you were in one large social circle, eventually dating. You’d caught onto Damian’s mask early on, you'd watched how he shifted personality when any press were around, ar any people from his high society balls. How he was harsh to people and expected everyone to be at his level. He grew as a person, he grew with you. He still had that personality because people rarely change completely, but he was trying. Eventually, he was seen as the boy who could live in your dreams, sown together and perfect. You seemed to be the only person who noticed how he was coming apart at the seems. 

When he started dating again, you couldn’t pretend anymore. It wasn’t like you still liked him that way, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. You were one of many, you weren’t special, you were just the first. He'd called you special many a time, but you weren't anymore, you didn't matter, you weren't on the pedestal. It was no one's fault. He was going to start dating again, eventually, and you just hadn't expected it to happen so quickly. You started hanging out with the mutual friends separately. You’d only broken up with him because he was hiding something and constantly busy without an explanation. You didn’t need to see him eating some other girls face every lunch. 

You ended up back in his life when he was supposed to give a speech to some parents on prize giving day. He was frozen by your locker, holding his speech in front of him and panicking. Damian Wayne didn’t get panicked, which explained why he’d come to you. You had always seen him at his weakest, you’d never believed the mask to begin with. 

Luckily for him, no one else was around so you could snap him out of it without blowing his disguise. 

“Dami?” you snapped fingers in front of his face. 

“I’ve had a bad week.” He shook his head.

“You don’t want to give a speech.”

“I’m not in the mood to have people staring at me and judging me more than they already do.”

“Wanna ditch?”

“I can’t ditch, my dad’s out there, and we’re both getting prizes.”

“How do you know I’m getting a prize?” you hadn’t told him, and you didn’t think of any reason for him to know.

“Doesn’t matter, I can’t go up there right now.” You didn’t make him tell you why, it wasn’t your place anymore. He just needed someone to support him, a friend. That’s what you said you were. That’s what you’d be.

“Split it, you offered to do the speech, but I’m student council head, so it makes sense for me to do it too. Split the speech halfway, then not only will you not be up there alone, but they’ll only be looking at you half the time.” you took the speech and started to skim it.

“That’s not fair to you.”

“You think I’m scared of Gotham Academy parents? I know they're all pretty much snobs waiting for me to fail so they can complain about how their kids could have done it better. But I also know not all of them are, spot the ones that aren’t.”

So that’s what you did. You worked together, smiled and laughed, entertained the crowd, and you made no mistakes. Damian and you always had a way of working, but working with Damian never came without strings attached. 

“I didn’t think you guys were still friends?” his latest girlfriend gave you a one over. She wasn’t some cliche bitch from a movie. Damian wouldn't just date some random girl with no nice qualities. He liked substance and people with an opinion they could back up. The girl didn’t bully you overdramatically in a lunch hall, but she wasn’t fond of you either. You weren’t friends with her, she didn’t know you well, she didn’t have a reason to like you. It’s hard to fond of your boyfriends ex, especially when everyone still talks about how she was the best. It was hard enough for you to be fond of any of his girlfriends for a similar reason. 

“We aren’t friends.” There was something about the sentence that stuck with you, he wasn’t just making some agreeing comment, he was being clever. You didn’t like it when he being clever. “I was told we had to do it together.” Damian didn’t thank you, he didn’t give a second look, he just went back to being the playboy billionaires son, leaving you shaking your head and rolling your eyes. The second anyone looked at him for longer than a second, started to ask a question, he tapped out. You’d helped him out of his tricky situation, and it was his turn to leave now, he didn’t need you anymore.

You slipped out of his life again, quickly and without any regrets. You couldn’t help it if you were too nice to leave him that day. He could think he used you all he wanted, you knew better. You knew he wasn’t happy, and you knew he was going to screw up one day and come out on the other side regretting everything - maybe you’d even become friends again. You didn’t think he’d screw you in the process of realising he’d made a mistake trying to be his dad. 

The next few times you reconnected were brief and almost univentful. They weren’t easy, because he was often such a pretentious ass, but you didn’t expect a connection with Damian Wayne to be some kind of picnic. There was the time you were paired together for a research project and you ended up laughing so much the librarian kicked you both out. Once the project was over you separated off. The time he dumped one of his girlfriends and they were trying to track him down to throw a fit so you hid him and calmed her down. He’d come screaming your name down the corridor and desperate for help from someone who’d get it and not just want to laugh at him. You’d gone to him when you needed help with fundraising for one of the school’s events. You needed his opinion on some of the art pieces that would be used to decorate the walls. You’d gone to him because you knew he’d take it seriously, and because you knew he’d understand why you were working for it to be so perfect. You’d gone to him when your mother had been put in hospital after a bank robbery. Who knew why, you just ended up at Wayne Manor. And it was the best conversation you’d ever had with somebody. Each time life got a little hot and heavy, he’d freeze up and you’d snap him out of it. Neither of you acted any differently, but you couldn’t help but think about the Damian you’d first met - that Damian never froze. You didn’t mention that to him, that wasn’t your place. You both just had to play your parts for what they were worth. 

It all came to a head at his eighteenth birthday party. He’d invited everyone in the year to the event, and surprisingly enough, you’d decided to go. Loads of your friends were going to be there, it would be fun, and maybe you did want to see what he’d planned. Being his friend, or whatever you were, had never been easy, but you were still something to him, and you wanted to wish him Happy Birthday through something other than Snapchat. 

You greeted your friends then went to find Damian, you’d quickly say hey, then disappear back to your group. It was only polite. The music was loud, and everyone was shoving into each other as they danced. You eventually found him standing and watching the crowd from a platformed section, and you pulled yourself up. He didn’t seem to be enjoying his own party. 

“Hi!” You yelled as loud as you could, and he turned his head mouthing something. It was so loud up there that he couldn’t even hear you. You tried to speak again, but he just shook his head and rolled his eyes in a typical old Damian fashion, grabbing your hand and leading you to the back of the building, where all the cars were parked.

“We can talk now.” You could still hear the music, and it was cold. Gotham was always cold. “Actually, still not right.” He pulled some keys out of his pocket and unlocked his car, opening the door for you to get into the back. Him sliding in next to you. 

“I just wanted to say hey, and happy birthday, we didn’t need to leave the party.” you shook your head.

“Are you sure that’s all you want to say to me?”

“Oh yeah, we’re alone again, that means we can act like friends!” You knew it sounded sarcastic and harsh, but it was true. 

“We’re not friends.”

“I know that, you’ve said it quite a few times, yet I’m still the one clearing up your messes while you go and continue playing your part.”

“I don’t mean that we’re not friends, so we’re enemies or strangers. I’m not lying to anyone or pretending I’m better than you.”

“Then why are we hiding in your car and not just talking in the front areas of the building?”

“Because, when I say we’re not friends, I mean we’re something else. Not more, not less, not friends. Just something else.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Just have the argument you want to have with me. We’ve been pretending like nothing happened, but it isn’t working so let’s just have the argument.” Something was off with him that night, and he was under your skin the way he always had been, encouraging you to be as temperamental as he was. If he wanted an argument, you’d give him one. 

“You want to have the argument? It’s not an argument, it’s a wake-up call. You’re off, stuck living in some Aesop fable, but let me remind you that none of it’s real. This life you’ve created around yourself is fake, and that’s why whenever something real happens, you come running to me! I’m your support system because you refuse to be genuine or real. You build your little mask and all your walls and you don’t want me around because if I’m noticing it, you’re scared someone else might too. But you refuse to admit that you need me so you act like I’m not there. You make me watch you make out with those other girls hoping eventually I’ll believe you’re actually happy doing that when I know for a fact there is nothing you hate more than being used - so why would you just use people like that. It’s sick, you’re becoming someone who you used to make fun of, and I don’t know why, I don’t care why, I’m just finally going to tell you to stop! This perfect lie you’ve built, it’s making me sick, you act like your life’s a picnic when it clearly isn’t, but everyone else believes it so you carry on! You're taking the easy path instead of the Damian one, and one day you're going to wake up hating yourself so much because the last thing you ever wanted to do was become someone else.”

“You actually think you have a clue what my life’s like? We broke up because I didn’t tell you what my life was like, remember? I was just busy, and crazy, and trying to please everyone, and you broke up with me. I didn’t make you watch me kiss other girls, I didn’t make you do anything. You chose too. You’re right, I hate being used by people, and maybe I was using those girls to create a facade, but you were using me too. You knew something was going on with us, and you didn’t act harsh or cold, you helped me if I needed you, but you didn’t then help me completely. You’d leave me alone and go back to pretending we were friends when we weren’t, which just encourages me.”

“Your stressful life had nothing to do with me, I was just nice. You made the stupid decisions.” 

He didn’t respond, he just leant forward to kiss you, and for some reason, you felt yourself kissing back. Angry making out turned into more, kissing down your neck while slowly taking your clothes off as quickly as possible

When his phone went off, you were both brought back to reality for a second. 

“They’re about to do cake and want to know where I am.” he sighed, sitting up and starting to get dressed.

“Are we just going to continue our pattern of pretending we don’t interact? Because I’ve been getting a bit sick of it.”

“Let’s just get inside for the cake.” He smiled slightly and helped pull you out of the car once you were dressed. “And if you really want everyone to know we’re back together, I’ll just kiss you’ve once I blown out the candles.”

"That might be a bit much." You kissed him one more time, no one else was around, and it was just you and Damian Wayne.

"I've missed this."

"Me kissing you?" You teased

"You kissing me, feeling like someone's looking at just me...being away from that god awful noise." Damian glared at the door separating you both from the party music.

"Change back, it's always an option." you rested your head on his shoulder.

"It's a desirable option that I've wanted to try out for awhile now, beloved."

You laughed and rolled your eyes at the over the top nickname, letting him guide you back into his masked life, knowing he wasn’t going to be putting up with it anymore. Damian Wayne wasn’t Bruce or any of his brothers, he was him. He was difficult, arrogant, argumentive, secretive, but you could read him like a book. He was pretty easy if anyone asked you.

[skymoonandstardust]

Office Hero Part 4

AN: The Last part :( thank you all of you for loving this series and leaving scads of wonderful comments <3 I loved writing this and I'm kind of sad to see it go. . .  

The revelation of Clark Kent’s secret identity shook your world and changed how you saw . . .well, pretty much everything—especially him. It was going on a week now since you discovered his secret and so far you’d managed to keep it to yourself, act normal and not let anyone least of all him have any idea that you knew.  You still hadn’t gotten used to the fact that you were working in the same building as the man of steel, that you knew him, that you counted him as a friend. It was too wild to be true.  You’d think that this discovery would be enough for you and spell the end of it. You’d go back to being a normal reporter, slowly get used to the idea that Clark Kent who’s desk you passed every day on your way into work doubled as a hero, and that would be it.

. . . but there was no rest for the wicked and no time off for an investigative journalist.

As soon as you’d solved the mystery of the man of steel and the mild-mannered reporter you immediacy set yourself on another track, that of his friend Diana prince and the billionaire playboy himself Bruce Wayne. They were both inexplicably high on the danger scale and (at least in Diana’s case) had a clear friendship with Clark—there had to be something up with them, just like there had been with him and your reporter’s inquisitive instinct wouldn’t let you rest till you’d cracked them too.

It only made sense to you that if Clark was secretly a flying cape wearing hero then the other two had to have a similar day (or would it be night?) job so you started monitoring both of them.  Bruce Wayne was easy, being the rich, famous, playboy that he was, you just payed closer attention to all his photos, speeches and appearances --- and more importantly, his disappearances and cancelations.  The trouble there was sorting through the white noise to find the really relevant stuff, which was made doubly hard because of the massive amounts of info you got on him every day and the fact you still sort of had to look over everything since you didn’t know what might turn out to be the key you needed to unlock the truth in his darkness.

You weren’t ashamed to say that you’d often asked some of your friends and coworkers to help you sort through it all. There were times you asked them or keep an eye out for anything Wayne related for you when you had to go out for a story or were too busy to do it yourself.    

You made a file for Bruce and wrote your data down in a notebook jut like you had for Clark. His got full surprisingly fast.

Meanwhile the one’s you’d made for Diana were nearly empty.

It was much harder to get information on her. On top of the fact that she wasn’t as well monitored as Bruce, only the most basic facts were known about her life, nothing more nothing less.  Still, it would have seemed above board over all if, when you started digging-- Her past hadn’t turned out to be little know and sketchy. It seemed like she had just popped into the face of the earth one day and just started living her life.  It had taken you asking for help or information from other reporters, even ones from other papers and calling in a few favors to learn more. . . but it only made things more confusing. Ultimately the trail led you to a historical societies archive’s were you spent the day going back in time through pictures, looking at centuries worth of photos in an attempt to find her or any of her ancestors.

You found her alright.

A thrill had gone through you when you’d first found Diana standing In one of the photos, followed immediately by a burst of confusion and excitement when you realized that the photo was taken too long ago and she looked too old  (exactly as old as she did now as a matter of fact. . .) for it to be her. For a second you wondered if it was her mother or maybe a grandmother but no, when you looked at the names written in the bottom corner of the page hers was written there in a faded spidery script and they looked exactly the same in every way; there was no piecemeal genetic inheritance that you usually see—no “they have the same eyes” or “the chins looks the same”.

No, they had to be the same person.

Trying to stifle your exactment and crush the urge to go tell the world you kept digging, going further and further back and finding her in more and more photos. In every single one she looked the same, like she hadn’t aged a day even though the date written down on the back or the corer, the clothes she and the other people in the photo wore, and the changing style of the pictures themselves all said differently.

Finally, you got all the way back to the nineteen forties, and found a few more photos of her before the trial suddenly went ice cold and froze to nothing in front of you.  

That was it.

No more pictures, no more appearances after that—and still she looked exactly like she did the day you saw her walk through the daily planet’s glass doors.

You left the building that day with more questions then answers.

Billionaires and nurses weren’t the only ones you were keeping track of and monitoring. You also kept an eye on anything and everything having to do with heroes or the justice league. Hey, maybe if you couldn’t figure it out one way then you could figure it out the opposite way, attach the hero to the secret identity instead of the secret identity to the hero. . .

Whatever would work.

Two days after your trip to the historical society you were sitting at your desk at work, actually working although more then half the office was stopped in their tracks, all clustered around the nearest Tv as the news channel played the latest battle of the justice league live as they faced off against a small army (for what was it, The second time this month?)   Just a minute before you’d seen Clark do his usual disappearing act, running out of the office when everyone’s back was turned and no one was looking, so, you knew, he could be change into superman and fly off to join the battle. At the sight a smile that bordered on a knowing smirk flashed across your face before you got back to writing.  

Three minutes later and you let yourself take a quick break to look up yourself and watch from your desk as the arrival of superman was announced by the blonde pretty female newscaster.  Just as you were about to look away the tv changed as they showed Wonder Woman Standing her ground as a hail of bullets sparked harmlessly off her famous bracelets.

The second you saw her you knew it was the same face you’d been searching for and staring at in pictures for hours. It was the same Person Clark had brought into the office and introduced to everyone.

Wonder Woman was Diana Prince.

It was almost too easy to spot once you knew what you were looking for.  The only difference was the change in outfit, the tiara and that fact that her hair was down instead of the ponytail it was in when you first saw her or tied up in a bun on the back of her head.  The whole thing seemed about as ridiculous and as likely to work as Clark’s stupid glasses and the appearing, disappearing forehead curl . . .yet somehow, they both worked.  You guessed it went to show how caught up in themselves, stupid and blind people at large could be, that a pair of glasses and a change of hairstyle was enough to fool them and keep them from seeing the hero in front of them.

Everything clicked into place and it all made sense. Of course she would stay the same in all those photos--- if Diana Prince really was wonder woman she’d be an amazon, an immortal. It would explain why she seemed to appear out of the blue one day. . . she actually had.  Her words came back to you, drifting through your head once more. . .

“It’s a small island near Greece in the Aegean Sea. . .”

And the amazons were said to live in an mystical island near Greece hidden and protected from the outside world

The giddiness of your second triumph thrummed In your veins, causing a wide smile to spread on your face, directed at empty air.  You’d met Wonder Woman, you’d met a literal goddess—well not really but technically. . .as close as you were going to get.  Laughter bubbled up in you, light and euphoric and you could barely keep it in, but you had to.  if you let it out everyone would be wondering just what you found so funny and amusing when there was a battle going on right now, when the justice league were fighting together at this very moment. With a small force of will you swallowed the laugh and tried to concentrate on something normal and serious to keep it from coming back up, scaling your throat to escape into the empty waiting air.

Two mysteries solved, One left to go. . .

 Fittingly, it was at night that you discovered the truth behind Bruce Wayne, Billionaire Playboy.  About four days after you connected Diana Prince to Wonder Woman you were at home, working late on a piece due the next day when a voice from the darkness of your shadowed hallway made you nearly jump out of your skin “Doing more research?” The deep gravelly voice sent shivers through you as you recognized it instantly.

You were in trouble—deep deep trouble.

That was the only explanation, the only reason he’d be here since he hardly ever came to Metropolis – lord knew he had enough trouble to solve in his own city. Somehow, he’d found out about your research, all your discoveries and had come here for you. Almost certainly to threaten you , possibly to destroy everything you’d gotten on him and the other two heroes. At least you knew he wasn’t the killing type, you’d learned that much from your research and years of watching him fight and stop crime.

Nonetheless you found yourself having to speak over a pounding heart as you found courage from somewhere and answered the voice from the shadows.  “Sorry to disappoint, but no. It’s for work.”

Batman stepped out of the blackness and you could have worn that for half a second his lips had been just he slightest twitch up. . .that was probably as close as he ever came to a smile “You have been doing a lot of research lately, haven’t you—into Bruce Wayne, Diana prince, and especially your coworker Clark Kent.”

“Don’t you mean you and two other members of the league?” The words were out before you even realized it and as soon as they were you wanted to bite your tongue off, to sew your mouth shut so you’d never speak again—anything to keep from saying something so provoking and stupid. It was too late, the words were out now and there was no taking them back so you could only continue on. You pulled up a picture of Bruce Wayne and turned your computer to face him, so he could see “That is you isn’t it?” The face under the mask was inscrutable as ever. You may as well have tried getting a reaction out of stone “Maybe. What I want to know is what you know—about the people you’ve been looking into.” You scoffed and turned the laptop back to you “Please. You already know it all—why else would you be here? You just want me to corroborate it so you can be sure that everything I wrote is the truth. It is.”

Your words did seem to surprise him, but the emotion only flickered there for half a second before there wasn’t a trace it had ever been there—it may as well have been an illusion of light and shadow.  “Humor me.” You sighed and closed the picture before putting your laptop aside and locking eyes with him again “Alright. . ..” so you told him as briefly, concisely and accurately as you could everything that had happened, everything you’d found out from start to finish including all the hard proof you’d been able to get on all of them— only leaving out the minor detail of your power obviously.

When the last of your lingering words faded slowly from the air emotion once again seeped through the cracks of his (literal) mask as he nodded once approvingly, a (small) smile on his face “Impressive.”  Of all the thing’s you’d been expecting to hear that was the last thing you thought he would say.

Batman lowered his hood, showing the features of Bruce Wayne exactly as you suspected “How would you like to Join the Justice League?”

You were completely and utterly stunned.  You couldn’t believe you might have actually heard him right—never in your wildest dreams did you ever imagine that this was what he was here for, to offer you an opportunity to join the Justice League. . .but here you were.  “b-but I can’t. I can’t fight, I don’t have any training-- and I don’t have any powers.”

Bruce smirked “Don’t You?”

Your heart went right up your throat before sinking all the way to your stomach “W-what?”

“You’ve told me everything except what made you look into Clark Kent, or how you knew to look into me and Diana. Diana makes some sense because to you there was a clear connection between her and Kent- -they knew each other, but you didn’t know Clark knew me—in fact, he told you the opposite. So how did you know?”

Against your will your eyes flicked up to the black ten hovering above him and he caught their movement, his eyes lifting in an attempt to see what you were seeing. . . except he couldn’t.  Words and sentences choked your throat. . .too few, too many, and you couldn’t get any of them out.  You inhaled and let it out in a great big whooshing breath that shook the words loose inside you “I- I can see numbers—over people’s heads. They tell me how dangerous someone is. It’s usually on a scale of one to ten. . . but thanks to Clark I’ve run into one or two of you who broke the scale.”

The same crooked almost boyish grin that you’d seen directed at a few near swooning girls at the planet reappeared, making him seem years younger and much happier, much nicer. It was hard to believe that smile could belong to someone as serious, cold and direct as the batman. . . which was exactly the point of course. “I thought It was something like that” The grin grew wider “Still say you’re not fit to join the league?  That power could come in useful-- And you’re smart, smart enough to connect the dots between me Clark, Diana to our alter egos ---and get enough evidence to prove it. That’s just the kind of skills the league needs. As for training, don’t worry about it. We’ll take care of that if you decide to join. It would take time, don’t’ get me wrong, but you could do it--- you’d be able to hold your own next to the rest of us. So what do you say, do you want to join the justice league?”

The forevers:  @casownsmyass  @docharleythegeekqueen @imadeangirl-butimsamcurious@his-paradox @l4life @fangirl-who-dreams @sarciaczekk @esoltis280 @theresnofandomforthis  @laramitk @dragonangel-funandfire  @a-sea-of-fandoms @thatbasicnerd4life @scarlettsoldier @cassiopeia-barrow

 The office heroes: @scionofthestars @suz-123 @aquabrie @sneakingthroughyourgifs @theresnofandomforthis @bbparker @iclaudsworld  @purpledolphin-f   @luv-what-you-do  @coltcas

[kittynightterrors]

Hello, since I’m about to drop a story with this bastard it’s time I introduce an OC! You’ll find him and another look like Dylan. It’s left over from RP days. Sue me.

Before I get into the fun stuff I should probably give a bit of backstory. I was/am a very big RPer, and often times I would take who I was RPing at the time and just bend them into an AU. So Talib is born from the idea of Stiles being a villain in the Nolanverse. He’s not a genderbend of Talia, but rather a replacement of her? She exists, but almost like a mother to him than anything. So for this, he was the child in the Pit. If that makes sense. Anyway, who needs canon?

Full Name: Talib al Ghul

Reason for name: Talib means student so combined with his last name he’s the Student of the Ghoul. NGL, always figured that ... uh R’as would name his kid some stupid shit. Nickname: Genim “Stiles” Stilinski Reason for nickname: Talib could not intern under Mr. Fox with his given name, so when his paper work for forged he came up with an American name. One that wasn’t too terribly fake sounding. Age: He has no idea, but he would guess early to mid twenties. Sex: Male Place of Birth: The Pit Birthday: Unknown. Currently living in: Gotham, specifically Wayne Enterprises Occupation: Former intern at Wayne Enterprises, current prince of Gotham Sexual Orientation: Bisexual Social Status: Feared Relationship Status: Bedding the Masked Man

Appearance

Body Build: Lean muscular Height: 5′11″ Weight: 150 lbs Skin color: Pale Distinguishing Features: Moles and freckles everywhere

Mental/Emotional State

Archetype: Villain I guess, if that’s an archetype Act before thinking/Think before acting?: A mixture of both, when someone actually gets under his skin he will act before thinking. Emotion-wise, generally: Generally, Talib is very level headed, but can air on the side of manic a lot of the time. The longer he stays in power over Gotham, however, the more his mental state starts to degrade.

Conversation

Swears?: Not really. Cussing had only been used to establish dominance among henchmen when he first came to Gotham. Now that he’s in the position he’s in, he has all but dropped them from his vocabulary.

Strengths/Weaknesses

Strengths: Talib is skilled in hand to hand combat as well as small fire arms. 

Weakness: Hard to say, he’s not the most trusting person in the world. If that’s a weakness or not, only time will tell.

Secrets:

If he was honest with himself, he’d like to imagine a world where he could live a normal life. He’s seen the movies and books, seen what a teenager is supposed to do. There’s supposed to be romance and heartbreak, school and not.. not this. Not murder and running Gotham. It’s nice, but is this really a life? He didn’t think it was, but it made his father happy, it made Bane and Barsad happy. So, it must make him happy, right?

Fears:

Revolt. He knows it’ll happen, whether it’s from Gotham’s citizens, from his own henchmen, or the other nut bags lurking the streets beneath Wayne Tower. His time is running out, and he knows it’ll end bloody. 

Dreams/Goals

He’s surpassed his goal of killing Batman and controlling Gotham. It was easier than he had expected honestly. Once Gotham’s symbol of Justice was gone the whole city seemed to crumble. Even when John Blake had tried to step up and take his place it was easy to clip the Bird’s wings.

Relationships

Family:

R’as al Ghul - His father, his teacher. Their relationship was strained for many years after the rescue from the Pit, having only had Bane in his life for his whole life. It took some coercion, but finally they started to get along; to a point. R’as would push Bane out of the League of Shadows, too concerned with his own mistakes to see how much Talib needed Bane in his life. When the man died trying desperately to kill off Batman, Talib wouldn’t so much as shed a tear; though he’s convinced his father watches his every move.

Talia al Ghul - Somewhere between a mother and a sister, Talia would be at Talib’s side when R’as would go to hard on the boy’s training. She would patch his wounds and hold the boy when he couldn’t sleep at night. After Bane’s banishment Talia took over the role of “parental” figure. It made her own abandonment of the League that much harder. To this day, Talib harbors no ill will towards Talia. He hopes she’s happy and safe, and he wonders if he should have left with her.

Love interest:

Bane - The time of Bane’s banishment was a living hell for Talib, and the young boy had never realized how much he depended on the large man. When R’as died and the League was given to a Talib, he did everything he could to find Bane. This time, it would be his turn to protect him!  Somehow in Talib’s fucked up life, Bane went from being a parental figure to being a lover. He didn’t know when it happened or how. He knew it should be disgusting, but it was right to them. No one really knew Talib like Bane did. It had been them for so long, and even after the Pit it still felt mostly like them.

Friends/Allies:

Barsad -  The man with the red scarf. Barsad entered into Talib’s life under interesting circumstances; from his understanding he was a mercenary who owed the wrong people money.  He wanted to pay off his debts as quickly as possible and return to a normal life. Normally, Barsad would not bite the hand that feeds him, but when he saw how the League, specifically R’as, would just wallop on Talib he had to speak up. For all intents and purposes, Talib was still just a child, and training him to the point of vomiting would do him no good. He would dote on the boy, often smuggling in books and movies for him to be as much of a child as possible. The time between Talia leaving and Bane being found Barsad would be another proxy parent to Talib.

John Blake - The little bird. After the fall of Batman, John tried his hardest to take down The Masked Man. He had not been prepared for, what looked like, a kid to be running Gotham. A kid who had infiltrated Wayne Enterprises from the inside, posing as a bright eyed intern, just wanting to learn from the best company in the world! It was laughable really, that John had tried so hard, and got absolutely nowhere in his pathetic attempt to save Gotham. It took some time, but John was able to be molded into a pretty little lap dog for Talib.

Enemies:

Batman - Bruce Wayne, billionaire, playboy, Batman. He was what was keeping the criminals of Gotham at bay. Talib wasn’t quite sure why they needed Batman dead, but his brief stint as Wayne Enterprises intern made Talib want their tech. So, why not just kill Bruce and rob them blind? The fanatical obsession with taking over Gotham never really stuck with Talib, not like it had with his father. Something about greed being the root of evil or something. Still, he played his part, and took down the Batman with surprising ease. Bruce had been so surprised to see his little intern had been in control of The Masked Man. It was a little sad to see, really. Millions of people had faith in some hero that was too stupid to see the enemy in his face, and once that hero fell everything else fell with it. 

The Joker - Something about the Clown is just unsettling. After the fall of Gotham, most of the villains had at least tried to kiss Talib’s ass one way or another, but the Joker had just disappeared from Arkham without a trace. He’s still around, lurking in the shadows, though. His calling card has been left on the corpses of Talib’s men.

Unnamed Vigilante - Someone’s gunning for Talib, but no one knows if he’s a villain, a hero, someone with a death wish, or what. All they know is he’s strapped with one too many guns and runs around in a red mask like an idiot. 

Trivia

Fun fact, my stories will Talib will be released backwards??? Since he’s from an RP I’ll basically be transcribing old RPs into a fic format and making it more palatable, if that’s hunky dory with my partner. If not then you guys will get new content that’s completely out of order :D

The secret stems from my RP partner and I having a like “human” au, where like Gotham is just a normal city and Bruce is just a billionaire. They get to live “normal” lives where murder isn’t.... as involved, at least not on Talib’s end. It is on Bane and R’as end. 

This is also the most thought I’ve actually put into Talib, and wow he has feelings. what is this???

This is the result of people letting me do fuckin’ crossovers.

[systemfailuresunshine]

Karaoke - Elsa Chapter 3

Author: @systemfailuresunshine

Summary: Year-round fluff for a soldier who just needs a hug, starting at Christmas. Karaoke time!

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Word count: 3471

Warning(s): Swearing, panic attacks?

A/N: It’s a long chapter! This chapter gets a bit sad and possibly out of character (let me know) but I feel like Bucky would try to comfort anyone in distress. He’s starting to realise he can be more than just the Winter Soldier.

“Right fuckos, who’s starting this thing?”

The karaoke machine had been hooked up to the giant TV screen in the middle of the living area. After some help from Tony. A lot of help from Tony. After the tree incident it shouldn’t come as a surprise that you get overexcited and then can’t do seemingly simple things. Bucky teased you.  

“Well given that you decided to start by insulting us, (Y/N), maybe you should,” Steve chuckled. “And it’s a thing now?”

“Maybe I will then,” you huffed, laughing. “Nat and Bruce basically challenged each other to a rap battle. It’s definitely a thing now!”

“Given the probability that we’ll all have to sing eventually, why not just go alphabetically?” Vision suggested.  

Wanda cuddled in closer to his fuzzy jumper as they sat on one of the larger armchairs in the corner, only having come down for lunch.  

“An excellent suggestion, Vision,” you said, looking pointedly at Steve. “See? This is why I like him better than you. He comes up with solutions instead of questioning my thing.”

Sam, Tony and Rhodey all started laughing. You came up behind Tony and slapped him round the back of the head. He stopped, stunned. Sam and Rhodey laughed harder.

“Children,” you muttered, walking back to Bucky, still in his armchair, in the opposite corner to Vision and Wanda.  

“Go on then Anthony, you go first,” you smirked at Tony.  

“I was going to say… my house, of course I’m going first.”

“This is not a house!”

“Tower, whatever,” he waved dismissively. “Still mine.”

Tony picked up the remote and began flipping through the song list.  

“There’s nothing here that suits my style,” he moaned, after five minutes of scrolling.

“And what style is that?” you asked.

“Oh you know…” he paused.

“Genius billionaire playboy philanthropist,” he continued, with you, Steve, Sam and Rhodey all joining in with him.  

“Guys, I’m hurt,” Tony said, faking a sob.  

“You say it at least once a week, when you can,” you laughed. “I’d go with Carly Rae Jepsen then. Totally your style.”

The others laughed. Tony scrolled until he found a rock song.

“At least F.R.I.D.A.Y. doesn’t judge me.”

“Not to your face,” Wanda pitched in.

He finally settled on an Aerosmith song and you all sat back and waited. No one had heard Tony sing so you all leant forward in their chairs with bated breath.

The music started, and a noise came out that none of you were expecting. Vision covered Wanda’s ears, Steve started laughing, and everyone else just sat stunned. Thirty seconds in and Rhodey had the sense to pull the microphone from Tony’s hand and stop the music.

“What was that?” Tony asked.

“What was that?” Steve countered, clutching his sides.

“Genius billionaire playboy philanthropist… who can’t sing,” you chuckled.

“You said I could go first,” Tony smirked.

“You arse!” you elbowed him. “You know?”

“Of course I know. I just wanted to see your faces,” he laughed. “It’s the one and only flaw in the masterpiece that is Tony Stark.”

You rolled your eyes. “Next!”

Next up was Bruce, who took Natasha with him. He was Hamilton, she was Jefferson. By the end of the song, no one quite knew who’d won, but everyone was suitably impressed with Bruce’s rapping skills.  

“Didn’t know you had it in you, Banner,” Tony clapped his hand on Bruce’s back.  

“I’m challenging you next time,” he smiled. “Beats hearing you sing again.”

The two James’ flipped a coin to see who would go next. Rhodey won and chose another rock song, but actually sung it.  

Bucky went next, and scrolled through the songs for a fair while before deciding on one that no one was expecting from the Winter Soldier. A familiar tune began to play, and you stared, stunned, like you’d never seen him before.

“I have often dreamed

Of a far-off place

Where a great warm welcome

Will be waiting for me”

You began to hum quietly along to the Hercules song, tilting your head to the side as you watched Bucky sing the final lines.

“I will please the Gods

I can go the distance

‘Till I find my hero’s welcome

Right, where I belong”

You sniffed and wiped at your eyes as tears threatened to spill from them. All he ever wanted was not to be seen as a villain, or a victim. He just wanted to be seen like the others were: a hero. In that song, in the emotion that he put into it, you felt that more than ever.  

People clapped quietly, as he returned to where you were sitting. You got up and took his hand, pulling him out of the room as Nat chose her song.

“You okay?” Bucky asked, looking worried. He’d never seen you cry, you didn’t cry, not to his knowledge.

“I’m…” you coughed a little. “I’m fine.”

“You sure?” he asked, stroking the thumb of his right hand under your eyes, wiping away the few tears that had managed to escape.  

“That’s all you want, isn’t it?” you whispered. “To be treated like a hero, to be seen as a hero, just like them.” You gestured into the other room.

“(Y/N), I just like the song,” he smiled down at you.

“But it’s true,” you said.

He sighed softly.  

“I see how Steve looks at me, like I’m injured, like I’m not who I was, and I’m not. Everyone else sort of keeps their distance, but not you. You stay right by my side, you took me and made me help you put up a tree with you. Me, putting up a Christmas tree. I never thought I’d see the day. I just wanted to be treated like a normal person. I want to be James again.”

“You are to me. You take every day like a fight, and day by day you are changing their opinion of you. Steve teases you more, you and Sam make jokes together, and even Tony doesn’t hate you.”

“He calls me Elsa,” Bucky huffed.

“It’s a term of endearment,” you laughed. “You are so much more than the Winter Soldier. You are James Buchanan Barnes, and you are my hero.”

Bucky stood still, not really knowing what to say. After all he’d been through, could there be a way back for him? Could he move on from hiding in the shadows, even when living in the tower? He’d kept to himself pretty much since he came back out of cryofreeze, and, although he had been getting more sociable, he’d never really felt like he fit in. Could that all be changing? Could he really be someone’s hero?

You pulled on his sleeve.  

“I’m sorry, did I say something wrong? I didn’t mean to s…” you were cut off by a pair of lips pressing lightly against your cheek.

It was your turn to look stunned. He’d kissed you on the cheek before but that didn’t really count. Surely it was because of the tree, because you’d included him in something. And again because that was how you greeted them all, and they’d taken to doing the same to you. But this. This was different. Definitely different.

“Thank you,” was all he said.

You looked up at him slowly, peeking out from under your eyelashes. He took your hand, and held it softly.

“I guess we should go back in,” you suggested, not really wanting to. He looked down at you, smiling at the twinkle in your eyes and sighed.

“Well it is your turn to sing.”

You turned the corner as Nat finished her last long note. Steve looked over as you came in, nodding his head slightly in their direction.  

“Right, well as this was your idea, it is only fair that we judge you really harshly,” Tony said to you as Bucky went and sat down.

“Ha, ha,” you retorted, poking your tongue out.  

You scrolled through the songs lazily until you came to a song that made your heart skip a beat. You stopped, but not enough that the others would notice. You clicked on it, hesitantly, picking up the microphone.  

“Guess it’s true, I’m not good at a one night stand

But I still need love ‘cause I’m just a man”

You started singing but the more you sang, the harder it got until you dropped the microphone and ran out of the room. Tony and Steve looked after you and made to get up from their chairs but Bucky beat them to it, nearly flying out of the armchair and rushing from the room.  

Bucky looked into every room as he passed until he got to your bedroom where he could hear sniffing as well as the occasional whimper. As he walked slowly into the room, he saw you sitting in the corner, knees up to your chest, head in your hands. You just looked so small, and vulnerable. He’d never seen you like this. None of them had. Not properly. You heard him come in and looked up through teary eyes.

“Who were they, doll?” Bucky asked quietly as he folded himself gracefully next to you. He wrung his hands because he didn’t know if you’d want an arm around your shoulder or any contact at all really.  

You let out a sob and Bucky’s heart broke a little. Whoever this person was, they were never going to get near you again.  

“Hey,” he started. “You don’t have to talk about it. We can just sit here and you can cry, and it’ll all be okay.”

You tried to speak but your throat stuck and you coughed violently. A tinkle of glass could be heard just outside the bedroom door as someone set down some water. Bucky looked at you and made to get it but not before reassuring you.  

“It’s okay. I’m just going to get you water. You can still see me. I’m right here.”

He crossed the room and came back again as soon as was physically possible for him to do so. He held the glass in his hands as he passed it over to you to drink. With how much you were wringing your own hands and how much they were shaking, there wasn’t much way you could hold the glass so you just tilted your head down to drink some. You coughed again but seemed to be better to talk. Your breathing flitted between verging on hyperventilating and taking deep breaths, as if trying to calm yourself down. Bucky held out his hand, just to make him feel like he was helping in any way. He didn’t like feeling helpless, lost, not knowing what to do or how to make things better. Steve hardly ever cried when they were younger and it was always because of bullies and Bucky knew how to deal with bullies. He didn’t really know how to deal with crying any other time.  

You held one hand out and started to trace patterns on Bucky’s hand with your finger. Your breathing slowed but then you coughed again, and another sob broke.  

Bucky stood up and took your hands in his, pulling you up with him. He made to put his arms around you but you protested.  

“No, I don’t deserve this,” you whispered, hiccupping.

“What don’t you deserve?” he asked, slightly worried.

“I don’t deserve you being nice to me, I don’t deserve you coming and holding me, I don’t deserve kindness, I shouldn’t have any of this. This isn’t right for any of you to care about me like this when I just make things bad. I mess things up, I ruin things and you all seem to care about me and I just don’t deserve it,” you started to sob again and began to hit the wall with your hands as you spoke.  

Bucky turned you around but through the veil of tears and your hazy mind, you didn’t notice and began to hit Bucky by accident. He took it all, still holding on to your shoulders, holding you steady.  

“I don’t deserve you guys to be my friends. You’re the Avengers for God’s sake. What are a bunch of amazing people like you doing with a fuck up like me? I shouldn’t be here. You all feel sorry for me and I just…” you trailed off again as another sob racked your body.  

He took this opportunity to hold you, just hold you close like he was never going to let you go, and if it were possible he would never let you go.  

“Hey, hey,” he soothed, rubbing your hand with his and he held your head with the other. “Whatever he told you to make you think that is a lie.”

He held your head in both of his hands now so that he could look you in the eye when he spoke, so that maybe you’d take in some of what he was saying. It was the only thing he could think of to do.

“You deserve all of this. You’ve helped so many people, and you believe in every one of us fuck ups every day.”  

You made to protest but he cut you off.

“You came into our lives to help us. That’s the whole reason you’re here. Because we are fuck ups and we needed someone to help us out with that, to help us unwind after missions, to make us feel like we actually did some good when people still died, to put things in perspective. So that’s what I’m doing for you, doll, because you deserve all of this. Look at Steve: you saw how he was when I first came here, you saw first-hand what I did to him by putting myself back in cryofreeze. You saw that and you talked to him. You befriended him, because he needed someone who didn’t see him as ‘Captain America’ but who saw him as Steve, just the skinny kid from Brooklyn, like I did. You saw Tony, a guy who’s been struggling with demons and ghosts for pretty much all of his life, and you said to yourself ‘I’m gonna help this guy, we’re going to get through our difficulties together’ because that’s what you do. And me. You told me I was your hero. You call me ‘James’ when you don’t want me to think the worst of myself. You can see past my arm and what I’ve done, you can see past the Winter Soldier. You can see James. God knows I can’t, but you can, and that’s all down to you and how much you care about everyone here. You can see all these people, all these so-called heroes, and you can see the good and the human in them. You, (Y/N), can see past all the bad in everyone else, so why not in yourself? And I know that makes me a hypocrite but goddamnit I’m trying to help you here,” he finished, chuckling slightly.  

Your sobs had stopped as he’d talked you down, slowly dissolving the knot in your chest, and you gasped every now and again but seemed quieter and more able to look at things properly.  

You smiled sadly at his last comment, as your arms went around him and you held onto him with everything you had.  

“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” he reassured, holding you close.  

They finally pulled apart but he still held your shoulders in his hands, making sure you weren’t going to start crying again. You stood like that for a little while before you broke the silence by coughing again.

“They were my ex,” you said quietly.  

Bucky stiffened slightly but you carried on, rubbing one of his hands with one of yours.  

“We started off as friends, and then we had this thing, and then we ended it but it got complicated. The first time, they ended the friendship, then got back in touch a few weeks later. The second time, the last time, I ended it. I walked away. I finally realised that enough was enough. But that still doesn’t help when any of the music comes on and I feel like I can’t breathe. They sent me a few messages in the last couple of days and it’s been playing on my mind. I tried to reason, then I tried to shout them down but now I’m just tired. I’m tired of the games they play, I’m tired of the way they can still keep me on a string and manipulate me whenever they like just by finding me again, even when they have no way of contacting me.”

“And that song reminded you of them?”

“Yeah, it played at a concert we performed at together, years ago, and it just struck a nerve I guess. I never was very good at letting things go,” you chuckled lightly, sniffing.

“Yesterday was the last message, but I almost know it could happen again.”

“Not with us around,” Bucky laughed a little. “Especially not with Tony’s tech. He’d have them blocked out of every possible way of ever contacting you again if he knew.”

You smiled. “I know but what’s done is done. I’m hoping to move on.”

“Then that’s exactly what we’ll help you do.”  

You hugged him again and then held onto one of his hands and looked at the door.

“Guess I better go and explain myself,” you laughed.

“You don’t have to explain anything,” Bucky reassured. “They’ll understand. We’re all fuck ups, remember?”  

He squeezed your hand.

“But you do actually have to sing for us, seeing as this was all your idea.”

“I guess I can do that much,” you said. “But I’m singing Disney with Steve.”

“He wouldn’t have it any other way.”

You walked back into the living room with everyone exactly as they’d left them, save for the worried looks on their faces. Tony spoke first.

“So I have to sing with my horrible voice but you make one wrong note and you get to leave the room?” he jibed, playfully but cautiously.  

Bucky fixed him with a look but you seemed to be up for the challenge.  

“It was only so I could sing with Steve. Didn’t wanna sing by myself and needed an excuse to get out of it,” you laughed, a little quieter than you would normally, but still enough for the others to know that you’d get there soon.  

“Maybe I wanted to sing by myself,” Steve protested.  

“Tough, Cap,” you said, poking him in the side. “You’re stuck with me for this one. But I will let you choose the song.”

“I guess I’ll let you off this time,” he joked. “Nat, you know which one.”

The song began to play and you all looked at Bucky, who fixed his gaze towards the screen and groaned when he heard what it was.

“It’s a great song,” you protested, “and at least it’s not ‘Let It Go’.”

You all laughed, and as you started singing your part of ‘For The First Time in Forever’, you started to feel like maybe things could be okay. Maybe with your pact with Tony and the support of the others, you’d actually be able to do this. Maybe you all could. Maybe you just needed each other.

Taglist: @buckyywiththegoodhair @buckys-shield @itscooltobehappy @the-renaissance @justkeeplaughing-nevergiveup

If anyone else wants to be added, just message me on here (@systemfailuresunshine) or on @story-prompt-lyrics!

Enjoy!!