#but that isn't the focus of this fic

[brutalitybunny]

a bunch of doodles from @attorneytrash 's fic 'such terrible tales' except it's just my favorite permanent piece of furniture. its a good fic u have to read it ok? you have to

archiveofourown.org/works/44907994/chapters/112994407 <- its here. are u reading it yet

[skyward-floored]

I am here to ask something extremely important about the downfall iau

is ravio around

Maybe. Perhaps.

...

Hyrule had been safely taken to Sky's place, they'd gotten a possible lead on where Wild might be, and Wind was currently sitting on the couch next to his brother, sipping warm milk while Four quietly read a book.

It had been a surprisingly good day.

Malon hummed quietly as she sewed something in the chair by the doorway, and Wind listened to her as he took another sip of milk. She seemed less sad then she had when they'd first met her, though Wind could still see the differences between her and his mom. They weren't quite as devastating as before though, and Wind smiled to himself. At least they'd done some good since coming here.

Four yawned beside him, and Wind looked at the bags under his eyes.

"It's getting late, boys. I know you were waiting up for Legend, but he must have been kept late doing something," Malon said, and Wind didn't miss her worried glance at the clock. It was after midnight already. "Maybe you should head off to bed."

"I'm not tired, it's just the reading making me yawn," Four protested, stifling another one behind his hand.

Malon smiled. "Uh huh."

"Can we wait another half hour?" Wind asked, worry squirming in his chest. Not knowing where Legend was made his stomach hurt. "Just to make sure he isn't coming tonight. Then we'll go to bed."

Malon considered, then nodded with a sigh. "I suppose so. But after that you boys truly need to go to bed. You don't want to waste all of Legend's free day by sleeping, do you?"

"No, but he'll be sleeping too," Four pointed out, and Wind giggled. Four had a point there.

Malon raised an amused eyebrow, but then she stiffened, and turned towards the window. Wind frowned, but then he heard it too: something shuffling outside.

Legend wouldn't be hiding in the bushes, would he?

The rustling went silent, and mere moments later, a door somewhere in the house banged, and Wind heard footsteps scramble inside.

“Mom, I need you!” Legend’s voice shouted from the back, and Malon jumped to her feet, rushing out to the back door. Wind and Four quickly followed her, sleepiness forgotten, and they peered around the doorway.

Blood was the first thing Wind saw, the smell of it sharp and metallic as it dripped steadily onto the floor. Wind's heart lurched, but it calmed down minutely when he saw it was coming from the person Legend was supporting, and not Legend himself. Their not-brother looked worn and worried though, his footsteps not entirely steady, and the teenager beside him looked about ready to faint.

“Wait... Ravio?” Wind whispered in disbelief, recognizing him as one of regular-Legend’s friends. Legend’s head went up at his voice, his eyes locking with Wind’s.

Ravio groaned though, redrawing his attention, and Malon quickly slipped under his other arm, supporting him into the living room. Wind and Four quickly got out of the way, and Ravio was deposited on the couch, Legend kneeling beside him and ripping his pant leg where it was bloodiest.

Wind sucked in a sharp breath as he saw the wound near Ravio’s knee, but Legend didn’t falter, ordering Four to get the first-aid kit, and then him and Malon moving with an almost clinical preciseness as they began cleaning the injury and giving Ravio some painkillers.

“Legend, what happened?” Malon began as Four handed her some clean bandages. “I thought Ravio was just passing on information now and then, and you were supposed to be home hours ago. How did... this happen?”

“Yuga finally scraped together enough influence to go after him,” Legend bit out, quickly wiping some dirt off his cheek with his arm. Wind thought his eyes looked a bit bloodshot. “Cowardly pig didn’t even issue a warning. I caught wind of it and went to go help.”

“Apparently Y-Yuga finally got my name on the wanted list,” Ravio tried to joke, but his voice was strained, and his face was paler then it should be. “I’ve b-been being hunted almost a-all day. Legend saved me.”

“Yeah, and I don’t know if I was seen or not,” Legend said grimly. Wind's stomach lurched. “This might’ve been exactly what Yuga was fishing for. Things've been getting worse since we got Hyrule out, and this might've been the last straw. We might have to put plan Phantom into effect.”

Malon’s expression tightened, but she nodded, finishing with wrapping up Ravio’s leg. “I’ll call Sky, see if he's heard anything."

She gave Ravio’s shoulder a warm squeeze, directing him to an untouched cup of milk she somehow warmed up and placed before him in the chaos, but before she left, she gave Legend a worried look.

"Are you hurt, sweetheart?" she asked quietly, and Legend suddenly looked every bit the teenager that he was, young and exhausted.

"I'm okay," he whispered, and Malon looked at him for another second, then kissed his cheek and hurried off.

“You two,” Legend barked as Malon walked away, and Four and Wind straightened. The brief moment of vulnerability was gone, and Legend had slipped back to being the person who fit his suit, strong and ready for any challenge. “Do either of you know anything about caring for injuries?”

“...A little bit?” Four said hesitantly, and Legend nodded.

“That’ll be enough. Ravio has some smaller injuries, it would be helpful if you could clean and wrap those."

"I'd appreciate that, yeah," Ravio admitted weakly, then looked up at the ceiling, worry on his face. Wind thought he somehow looked both older and younger than the Ravio he knew. "Mr. Hero, do you think Sheerow got out okay?"

"I'm sure he's fine, Ravio, they don't care about birds," Legend reassured with an eye roll. "Let Four help wrap you up. Now you,” he directed at Wind, “can help me with keeping watch and preparing."

“Preparing for what, exactly?” Wind asked, and Legend gave him a grim smirk as he stood, blood still on his hands.

“Any government supers to come busting down our door.”

Wind's stomach dropped out, and he exchanged nervous looks with Four. They'd known that was possible almost since the day they'd gotten here, but now it was highly likely it would happen.

And what’s going to happen to us if it does?

Ravio let out a moan. "I miss when my life had a lot less imminent danger in it."

Wind couldn't help but agree.

[bitchthefuck1]

you know what, I actually will talk about this because it's bothering me. The issue with focussing so heavily on syd and carmy's potential for a romantic relationship isn't that there's something inherently unintellectual about romance or whatever, it's that a lot of people seem incapable of doing that without immediately flattening the story and ignoring or intentionally misreading any and all nuance for the sake of that romance. Every scene suddenly becomes about how it impacts their relationship, every analysis is done through a romantic lens, every frame or line of dialogue becomes about finding some easter egg or hint that "proves" these people should start dating. Their dynamic is absolutely a fundamental part of this show, but if you can only see it as a will-they-won't-they, you miss so much of what the story is actually trying to say with these two.

There are good versions of this story where their relationship is romantic and there are good versions of this story where it isn't, but as soon as you decide them being together is "the point," you lose the ability to actually judge the story for what it is, not what you want it to be.

[still-breathing-au-p3r]

[continued from here] [first post for October 18th]

Akihiko pulls a long, slow breath in and out through his nose. He feels both relaxed and energized, loose-limbed and pleasantly charged the way he does after a good warm up. His eyes have even drifted closed at some point.

So that’s what a second awakening is like, huh? He wouldn’t have guessed it would be so…comfortable. The brand new presence in the back of his head is unmistakably different from Polydeuces, but just as effortlessly familiar. Had it been the same way for Amada?

He opens his eyes to find Shinji staring at nothing in particular, his mouth slack with surprise. As Akihiko watches, his gaze refocuses but loses none of its astonishment as it snaps to meet Akihiko’s own.

“...Aki, what the hell was that?” 

For a moment, Akihiko isn’t certain what he’s talking about. The only thing he can think of is… “Wait,” he replies. “You saw it too?” Were second awakenings actually visible to everyone? Or maybe just to Persona users? And outside of the Dark Hour, too–

“I–” Shinji clutches loosely at the front of his hospital gown with his free hand. He drops his gaze again, his brow furrowed in concentration, eyes darting back and forth like he’s trying to examine the inside of his own heart. “Castor, he…”

Oh. Everything suddenly clicks into place. It hadn’t been Akihiko’s awakening Shinji had seen.

“Yeah.” Akihiko is taken by surprise when the word comes out as a breathless laugh. “Me too. Polydeuces isn’t there anymore. It’s Cincinnatus now.”

Shinji’s mouth twitches upwards and he snorts softly. Akihiko suffers a moment of intense confusion before he realizes: mister-history-buff probably recognizes the name. He wonders what it says about him that Shinji finds funny; he’ll have to remember to look it up when he gets the chance.

The amusement slides from Shinji’s expression, replaced with befuddled concentration. His fingers curl and uncurl in the fabric over his chest. His other hand– the one still clasped solidly with Akihiko’s– flexes too. It doesn’t seem like he even realizes he’s doing it.

“Hey,” Akihiko murmurs, concerned. He’d been so caught up in how easy his own re-awakening had been that he’d just assumed it had gone the same for Shinji, and he probably shouldn’t have. After all, Shinji’s first awakening to Castor hadn’t exactly been…a peaceful event. He leans in a little closer and gives Shinji’s hand a brief squeeze. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’s wrong, that just felt–” Shinji’s jaw works silently for a moment. “So damn weird. It’s not– It isn’t bad, but it’s–”

“It’s a lot.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Shinji runs a hand through his hair, a nervous habit he’s never been able to break even after he started wearing a hat nearly twenty-four-seven (his other hand still hasn’t let go of Akihiko’s, and the realization hits like a bolt of giddy adrenaline). “I ain’t a fan of not knowin’ why it happened either.” 

“It happened to Amada too,” Akihiko says. “When he told us about it, Mitsuru said that it was something there had been theories about for a while, but that they’d never actually seen happen before. The idea is that if a person changes enough, their Persona can change too. She called it a ‘second awakening’.”

“Huh…” Shinji laughs. Just once, and the sound is thin and utterly exhausted. “I guess they recognized the promise we made too,” he says, slanting a tired, crooked smile at Akihiko.

It’s hard to breathe suddenly, like the tide of warm gratitude and affection that floods his chest is taking up all the space usually reserved for his lungs. He swallows past the knot in his throat.

“Yeah, I– I-I think they did.” Akihiko’s voice rushes out in a thick, emotional whisper.

His grip on Shinji’s hand tightens and the movement tugs Akihiko another centimeter forward. It strikes him now, for the first time, that he’s been leaning in like this for a while now. 

It strikes him, as well, just how little distance there is between him and Shinji’s smiling mouth– near enough to feel the warmth radiating from his skin. 

It would take so little effort to close that gap entirely, wouldn’t it?

The thought makes his jaw ache and his breath skip in his chest.

…What thought would that be, exactly? 

What the hell is he thinking? 

What the hell is he doing–?!

He can’t just–

He can’t.

He’s still leaning in closer to Shinji as though drawn by gravity, but he wrenches his attention away from the stupid, catastrophic impulse that had almost overcome him.

Instead Akihiko presses his forehead to Shinji’s and closes his eyes.

It’s an old, familiar gesture between them, and the wave of comfort it brings is so intense that it even overpowers (most of) his mortification, leaving him feeling very close to serene. 

Shinji sighs, long and relaxed, just as soothed by the gesture as Akihiko is. Mercifully, he says nothing about what Akihiko had nearly done.

He’ll think about that narrowly averted disaster later.

[northernyogurt]

why can't you guys be reasonable about actual grown men who use guns

[milimeters-morales]

chapter 5 of the transfem miles fic :3

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chap 6 / Chap 7 / Chap 8 / Chap 9

Wordcount: 4k+

Warnings: Someone's transphobic towards a side character, if you don't wanna read that then skip from "two in the afternoon" all the way to "Miles has been helping around the city all day"

“What did you say?”

Miles swallows down his hesitation, can feel the sweat running down his back, and breathes heavily out his nose.

“I… I told Peter and one of his friends… about us. Being together.” Each word feels like he’s digging further and further into his own grave.

Ganke takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes, “That’s great, man. I honestly didn’t think you’d be ready.” He then places his glasses back on and turns back to play on his computer.

Miles stares at him, dumbfounded. 

What?

“What?” 

Ganke hums. “What? I mean, you’re always hiding me from everybody, I just didn’t expect you to--”

“No,” Miles says, “is… is that it? You aren’t mad? You’re not gonna leave?” He asks, voice shaking. He can feel the rocks in his stomach and the adrenaline making him his limbs feel light.

Ganke quickly turns to face him again, and Miles can see his eyes shining ever so slightly. Shit. 

“Leave? What? Why would I do that?” He asks in disbelief. “Miles, you know I never really liked keeping us a secret. This is… actually amazing, I can tell my mom, you can tell your parents--”

Miles feels cold dread stab him in the stomach, and he holds in the “no” that wants to escape his mouth. Ganke’s eyes lighting up makes him bite the inside of his cheek.

“--well, maybe we can wait a bit before we tell my mom,” Ganke amends with a slightly bitter tone, “but no man, I’m not mad. Should we tell Gwen or do you think Pav told her already?”

Still trying to wrap his mind around Ganke not storming out of the dorm right now, Miles doesn’t respond. His heart feels like it’s beating way too fast, and he feels the sweat coming back full force, running down his face and back. His face feels hot, and he just wants to curl into himself until he gets so small that he merely pops out of existence.

“Ganke, I’m really sorry,” Miles finally says after a few unsure moments of silence. “I just… it was an accident, like with Pavitr. I didn’t actually want to… tell anyone? Not yet.”

Ganke actually pauses the game he’s playing, and fully turns in his chair to give Miles a quizzical look. “What?”

God, here comes the most difficult part.

Miles sits down on Ganke’s bunk, taking off his gloves and fidgeting with his fingers. “I’m still not ready. I know that… I know that you want to let people know, but I… just can’t. I’m--”

Ganke shakes his head, “You’re sorry, I know. I just… why? I mean, your parents are so supportive of literally everything else you do, the rest of your friends are going to accept us,” he trails off, looking away with a frown. “I know you’re scared, but we should at least tell… I want your parents to know about me, I don’t want to just keep lying to their faces and sneaking around all the time ...”

Miles looks down at his hands. He always knew that Ganke never really wanted their relationship to be secret, but already made it clear he wasn’t going to pressure Miles to come out to anybody before he was ready.

“I know, I know. I want to tell them too--”

“Do you?” Ganke interrupts, his tone causing Miles to look up and meet his eyes.

No , he thinks. “I… I already-- I’m Spider-Man, and you know they still aren’t… Look, I can’t keep pushing all this…” Miles struggles to get the rest of the sentence out as he realizes how bad it sounds. 

The other boy seems to realize what he was going to say, because his gaze turns sharp, hurt flashing almost too quick for Miles to catch, before he sighs. “Miles, let’s… not. We’ll talk about this in the morning, or something.”

“Yeah,” Miles agrees numbly, crawling up into his own bunk and changing into his sleep clothes. “I love you, you know that.”

Ganke doesn’t respond, which makes the rocks that settled in Miles’s stomach feel like they were going to drag him through all the floors in this very building and into the Earth’s core, but when he looks over, he sees Ganke already has his headphones on, facing the wall.

He’s going to be sick. He’s overreacting to this, it’s normal for Ganke to be upset right now and not want to see him or talk to him any longer. They can work this out. They love each other, and that won’t change.

Miles leans back into his own bunk, and stares at the ceiling for the rest of the night. 

____

The cool breeze stings his cheeks as he walks down the street with Ganke. His boyfriend. He squeezes his hand briefly.

“Miles, don’t. I know you don’t even wanna hold my hand right now,” Ganke mumbles.

“I do,” Miles insists, because he really does--

“But you’re scared,” Ganke says--

because he really is.

“I… I don’t want to be, I want to hold your hand,” Miles tries to insist, hating how weak his voice sounded. He did want this, why couldn’t he at least sound like it? “I don’t want to be scared of what anyone thinks--”

“How about this, we start slow. And on purpose, this time, we can…” Ganke trails off.

“You don’t think it’s a good idea,” Miles guesses.

“Well I don’t have any other plans, man. I don’t wanna just keep us secret for the rest of our lives,” Ganke says, tucking his hands in his pockets. His glasses fog up when he sighs, “But I don’t want to scare you off or anything. I don’t know.”

Miles turns his gaze to the ground.

“Maybe… yeah. We start slow. I can tell people… on purpose,” he agrees, swallowing the rocks in his throat. They settle back in his stomach, waiting. 

“But you’re not sold on the idea?”

“No, no. But I can… try?” That’s what relationships are about, right? Trying? Meeting halfway and all that.

Ganke is quiet for a few minutes while they walk. His breath fogs up his glasses, and splashes from the puddles they step in are freezing, even through their pants. 

“Yeah. Okay,” he mumbles. “Who do you have in mind?”

Nobody, but Miles doesn’t say that. He looks around, squinting at the slowly rising sun.

Alright, he could do this. He could try telling people. Pavitr and Peter already know, and they’ve done nothing but be supportive, or in Peter’s case, be annoying. The man probably told his wife, and his baby, who would’ve babbled nonsense back at him, and that friend-- Richard, he thinks-- probably…

Take a deep breath.

Probably didn’t tell anybody. He probably forgot all about it. Miles doesn’t even exist in that world, he would have no reason to go around telling people about some random guy’s relationship worries.

“Do you have anyone in mind?” Ganke asks him, unimpressed with the answering silence.

“Um… yes.”

“Really? Who?”

Miles gulps.

____

Even on Earth-42, a city that’s overrun with villains controlling more than they should, there’s still annoyingly loud morning traffic. Horn honking, tires screeching, car engines sputtering, and the jumbled muffled noise of people yelling at each other reaches Miles even when he’s hundreds of feet in the air. But it’s all just background noise. He’s not focusing on that. He’s focusing on how to not die inside trying to confess what he’s about to confess.

“So why did you make me come up here? You’re not here to pull an O’hara, right?” G. asks him, slowly coming closer to join him on the edge of the roof. 

The two chuckle at their inside joke, but Miles notices the other’s tense shoulders. Does he really look like that right now too? He relaxes his shoulders just the tiniest amount. 

“I just… wanted to tell you something. Away from Ma and Uncle Aaron-- it’s personal, so…”

“What? Did something happen? Is it about both of us?” G. suddenly straightened up from his slouch, eyes narrowing slightly. 

Oh man, wouldn’t that be a relief. 

“No, it’s just… I don’t want anyone else to know. It’s a secret.”

“Is it a girl?” G. asks hesitantly. “Uncle Aaron’s got better advice than me, though, so…”

Miles swallows the rocks in his throat back down to his stomach, where they finally settle and wait. He feels a shiver go down his spine, and sweat forms on his forehead. God, why didn’t he think to put his suit on before he came here? He could at least hide the more obvious tells that he was scared out of his mind.

“Nah, it’s not that,” certainly not a girl, “I just… uhh…”

Say it. Tell him. Tell him you’re-

“Did you kill somebody?”

“No! Dude, what the hell!” Miles shouts.

“Hey, don’t get loud with me! I was just asking! You look like you’re about to pass out!” G. grumbles, running a hand down one of his braids. “Probably shouldn’t be on the edge, come on.”

With a huff, Miles joins his alternate self in retreating from the roof’s edge and sitting down near the door leading to the stairwell. He picks up a pebble and tosses it up in the air repeatedly, trying to count his breaths. 

He can do this. His anxiety and fears are irrational. Everything about G. shows that he’s bound to be accepting. And even if he isn’t, he wouldn’t gain anything by outing Miles to anyone else here, and he doesn’t even really care about Miles’s friends enough to want to tell them anything.

He can do this. If not for himself, then for Ganke. Ganke deserves it. His boyfriend deserves it. 

“I’m…”

G. tilts his head, one brow raised.

Miles lets the rock drop and hides his face in his hands, groaning loudly. “I can’t do thiiissss…”

“Look man, you ain’t gotta tell me if you don’t want to,” G. tells him awkwardly, stiffly patting his shoulder in understanding. “I don’t tell you a lot of stuff.”

Miles peeks between his fingers. “Yeah? Like what?” He asks forlornly.

The other boy gives him a flat look. Yeah, okay.

“That’s the thing though,” Miles sighs, picking at his lip, something G. gently slaps his hand away for, “I want to tell you! It’s super important, and I kinda made a promise to tell you already.”

“And you hate breaking promises,” G. says. “But you hate telling me whatever this super important secret is… more than that.”

“You’re making it sound really bad.”

G. rolls his eyes, “Who did you even promise that to? Ma? Your dad?”

“Ganke. It’s super important to him that I tell somebody, and I promised to tell you like… earlier this morning. I hate breaking promises to him, man.” Miles wonders if that was too much information to give, and that G. would guess what he was supposed to confess anyway. Shit, that would be way worse than him just outright saying it… what if G. guesses it and stays quiet about it but secretly hates him because of that?

Stop it, stop it brain, Miles thinks to himself, furrowing his brows. 

“Ganke? Is this about… y’know--”

Miles swears his heart stops for a second.

“--his crush?”

His WHAT?

“Yeah, Barbara? She’s… shit, you didn’t know?!” G.’s eyes widen, and he waves his hands as if trying to dispel the words. “Then forget about it!”

Miles stands up, feeling like ice cold water was just dunked on him. “His what?! No no no, don’t you walk away--”

G. groans and hides his face in his hands, “ Ay, bendito, that’s-- that’s super personal!”

“Then why did you think that’s what I was talking about!”

“Because what else would he tell you to tell another version of yourself that would probably already know?! Dude, seriously , you need to calm down--”

“Calm down?! Calm down?! He’s my--”

G. tugs on a braid as he takes a step back for some reason, “I know he’s your best friend, and we liked Barbara first, but he doesn’t even like her anymore! It’s probably the same with your Ganke!”

Huh?

“I… don’t… I don’t like Barbara,” Miles says after a few moments of tense silence.

“What--”

“I don’t even know who that is, man,” he elaborates.

“Then why’re you so heated?”

This is your chance! Tell him the truth, Miles!

“I just…”

He can’t do this.

“I was upset that he wouldn’t tell me something like that. I’m his best friend!” He settles on. The words make his entire body feel cold, and the rocks in his stomach grow heavier with guilt. He isn’t the best liar, but a shamefully large part of him hopes G. buys this one.

“Well, if it’s the same in your world, maybe he just wasn’t sure. And just because you’re friends doesn’t mean he has to tell you everything, you sound overbearing.”

“I didn’t say he had to tell me everything,” Miles bites out.

“Yeah, whatever. What were you gonna tell me?”

Miles shrugs him off, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell you some other time.”

G. gives him another flat look and crosses his arms. “Aight, I’m leaving. Waste of my time…”

“Tell Mom and Uncle Aaron I said hi.”

G. doesn’t answer, and leaves Miles alone on the roof.

Ugh. Way to go, genius.

____

How is it only two in the afternoon?

“Well, thousands of years ago, some ape invented keeping track of time, so now we’re here,” the caretaker responds humourlessly. 

Miles went back home, deciding to spend the rest of the day helping out in his own world. He’s in a homeless shelter, keeping the lights on with his own electricity until the backup generators are fixed. “Don’t quit your dayjob, ma’am,” he responds dryly, startling a laugh out of the lady. “How’d those generators break, anyway? I never asked about that.”

A somewhat elderly man sitting nearby responds, “Rats.”

A woman texting on her phone nearby scoffs, “Dad, it wasn’t rats. You were hearing things, again.”

“I’m not the crazy one, I know what I heard.”

“I’m not crazy, I told you to stop calling me that!”

The caretaker brings the man a sandwich and bowl of banana slices, shooting Mlies a look as if he started the argument. “The official story is that it’s an old generator, it was just a matter of time before it went kaput,” she tells him.

“And the unofficial story?” He presses, crossing his arms and raising a brow.

“Some assholes took a whack at it,” she whispers to him. 

“Why cover that up?” He whispers back, eyes widening.

“So that some people here don’t lose it. A lot of them have no where else to go after this, and we don’t want them to get scared and think we’re being targeted,” she explains, glancing at the two still arguing, “we don’t want to take this away from them because of this one-off thing.”

“What if it’s not a one-off attack?” Miles can’t help but ask, frowning. “Even if it is, you should still let them know the truth.”

“Wow, your mask is really expressive. You look devastated,” the caretaker comments, not answering his question.

“Thank you, I helped design it,” he replies instead, making a mental note to swing over this shelter more often. Something tells him now isn’t the time to debate or argue with her.

Another woman, probably around his mom’s age, shuffles into the room with a tall pile of clothes in a basket. “Hey, the washer and dryer working?” 

“Yeah, thanks to Spidey here,” the caretaker says, waving her hand in his general area.

“Thanks Spidey,” she says, “I’m Jeremy.”

Miles blinks, “No problem, Jeremy,” he tells him. Hopefully his embarrassment doesn’t show through the mask either.

Jeremy walks past everyone to another room, presumably the laundry room.

The old man scoffs loudly, “You’re still letting her work here?”

The way he says it makes Miles tense his shoulders and jaw. 

“He,” the caretaker corrects sharply, “is a great volunteer, and is washing your clothes for you without complaining.”

The old man grumbles, goes to look at his daughter, and gives up the argument when he sees her glaring angrily at him. “Whatever. Too old to be dealing with this,” he mutters as he walks out of the room.

“I’m sorry about him,” the daughter says quietly and stiltedly to Miles and the caretaker, face quickly turning pink as she follows him.

The caretaker doesn’t respond to that, only dragging her hand down her face and rolling her eyes. “Poor kid. He’s gotta deal with those types that don’t even like him. I don’t know how he keeps coming back.”

“Well, my mom has to treat some real jerks at work, and she still goes back,” Miles tells her, “I think it makes Jeremy a pretty great guy. Putting up with all that so people can have clean clothes.”

The caretaker looks at him and smiles warmly. “You’re a good kid, Spidey. Don’t let anything change that.”

“I’m--” Miles coughs, and deepens his voice slightly, “I’m a grown man.”

The caretaker laughs at him, shaking her head. 

____

Miles has been helping around the city all day after that, not stopping once for a break for himself. 

It started storming at one point, rain seeping into his suit and chilling him to the point of numbness, resulting in a peaceful trance as he swung around, offering a hand wherever he could. 

Sent down to the subway, Miles helps a group of teens find their art wall. Two boys and three girls were just wandering down here, clearly lost, and with their descriptions, he was able to figure out exactly what mural they were looking for. He hopes they don’t realize another mural-- his own, with the other spider-people and his uncle-- is nearby; he doesn’t want it to end up getting attention if the kids decide to take a picture or something, and he couldn’t really explain why he’d stop them either. “The guy who painted this is my friend,” doesn’t sound convincing, and even if it did, what if he ran into these kids as Miles down here? That would be a whole new thing to deal with and lie about!

“Hey, are you actually allergic to cinnamon?” One of the teens ask him, breaking him out of his thoughts as he leads them down the tracks. “Or am I reaching?”

“Why would I be allergic to cinnamon? Where did you hear that?” He questions her, dropping down now that they were getting close. He looks at the group of teens, noticing most of them were slightly taller than him. Which was only slightly annoying.

“Well,” one of the boys begins, “we binging your fail compilations--” Oh come on , Miles thinks-- “and you ran into a wall when running from that candy cane villain. Remember that?”

“Uh-huh,” Miles nods, crossing his arms. It was a few days after Christmas when he first became Spider-Man, and a major embarrassment even if he did end up winning.

“You said you were allergic to peppermint when a reporter asked why you ran, so we searched it up and spiders hate cinnamon too.”

Damn, he did say that, didn’t he? It was to save a bit of face, but the smell honestly did make him want to gag and made him so irritated that he had to do more running away than fighting. Sue him, he wasn’t about to throw up as Spider-Man. Guess he has to roll with the lie now. 

“I like cinnamon most of the time,” Miles finally answers, “only really how my mom uses it.”

“Oh!” One of the girls pipes up, “Have you ever done the cinnamon challenge? You totally should!”

Miles lets out a sharp laugh, “And what, embarrass myself on the internet again? Willingly?”

“You already do that,” one of the boys says dryly.

“Ouch, you should be a little nicer! I am the one leading you through here,” he jokes. 

“Sorry,” the boy drawls, not sounding sorry in the slightest.

They are quickly coming up to the mural, so Miles takes his leave. “Will you guys need help getting out of here?” He asks them, placing his hands on his hips. “I can hang around, and you can just call for me when you’re done.”

“Nope, her uncle can come pick us up when we’re done adding the finishing touches to this,” one of the boys responds, pointing to a girl that’s pulling out her phone. 

The mention of the girl’s uncle sends a pang straight through his heart, but he just nods his head, taking in the mural once more. 

He’s passed it maybe twice before, and It was a really beautiful work of art, messy in a way that screams authenticity and just pure fun, not following any sort of rules or guides. Just a collage made and continuously added on to by complete strangers. There was a group of smiling stick figures all circling the planet, and a realistic heart painting above in the colors of the gay pride flag. There were several more hearts painted haphazardly around, all in different styles, some of them were national and disability flags too, each surrounded by flowers and more smiling stick figures, a few in wheelchairs. There were even some printed out articles glued or taped around, mostly about accomplishments great and small for the communities painted. There was a cardboard sign nearby that said, “Make Your Mark!” with an arrow pointed to the mural, inviting anyone who wants to add to it.

It was probably one of his favorites, if he was being honest.

Miles would have to come back later anyway, just to see what these kids added to the mural.

____

He sighs and opens his bedroom door. “I got the oranges,” he calls out, peeling off his mask and tossing it behind him.

“Miles, go change, no Spider-Man at the table. You’re soaked, what did we tell you--” His dad tells him as he takes the bag from him, tossing a large towel at his face. 

“But Spider-Man did really good today, can’t he get a few scraps?” He jokes.

“You know what I meant,” his dad mumbles, “go change. Your mother’s trying a new recipe, and I’m not getting my tastebuds burnt off alone.”

Miles’s eyes widen, “Are you sure Spider-Man shouldn’t get involved?”

“I can hear you two!” His mom laughs from her experimenting in the kitchen.

Once he’s in his room, he takes a few minutes to relax. He removes his suit, dries off, and puts on a plain tee shirt and some shorts, wincing when the shirt snags on his earrings. After giving himself a once-over to make sure there aren’t any bruises, cuts, trackers, or old gum he missed, he decides to text his friends.

|Miles Morales 1610-B: Hey hows it going

|Gwen Stacy 65-B: bsuy w fight

|Miles Morales 1610-B: lmk if you need help

Okay, well Gwen’s occupied. Pavitr’s… probably still asleep, since it’s the weekend… Hobie prefers calling, and Miles really doesn’t want to do that right now… hmm.

|Miles Morales 1610-B: Hey margo how have you been?

|Margo Kess 22191-B: hi it’s been going i guess! Wbu

|Miles Morales 1610-B: Nothing much just saving the day and hating school

|Margo Kess 22191-B: felt that lol 

|Margo Kess 22191-B: im actually about to help gwen with this weird villain

|Margo Kess 22191-B: its a surprise tho so dont tell her 

“Oh,” Miles quietly says aloud, sitting down on his chair.

|Miles Morales 1610-B: Thats super nice of you!!

|Margo Kess 22191-B: yeah i want to be close again like we used to be

Huh. That’s interesting. Gwen never mentioned that she used to be close with Margo, and vice versa. Miles fights down a rush of… something close to jealousy, but not quite that. He knows Gwen made a few friends while she was in the Society, but she didn’t really like to talk about her time there in general. And he never really asked anyway, with a wound that fresh. Shoot, should he have asked at any point regardless? He doesn’t want to come off like he doesn’t care.

You’re overthinking again.

|Miles Morales 1610-B: Good luck

Does that look sarcastic? Or bitter?

|Margo Kess 22191-B: thanks dude :)

“Thank god,” Miles lets out a sharp breath, not realizing he was even holding it. He puts his watch in his nightstand and lays back on the bed, pulling out his phone, about to text Ganke--

Nevermind! That would mean he’d have to tell him he didn’t tell G. about their relationship. If he simply… forgot to text Ganke, perhaps…

No.

He needs to tell somebody . Tonight .

“Miles, come help cook!” his mom shouted from the kitchen.

____

“You okay?”

Miles blinks, looking down at the ball of meat he’s been rolling for the past five minutes. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he answers. “Just a bit tired after saving the day, you know how it is.”

“Mm,” his dad hums, not wanting to talk about anything Spider-Man related, Miles guesses. “Just checking. You’re really tense.”

Miles unclenches his jaw and lets his shoulders drop to a more natural position. “I’m not.”

“Miles, you can talk to us. Me and your mother have seen a lot--”

They have? Miles feels lightheaded, and the rocks forming in his stomach are making him tense up again to not fall over. 

“--whatever happened out there tonight, you can tell us. We know there’s a lot of stuff out there, stuff no kid should have to handle, and… we just want you to be honest...”

Miles could cry right now. Oh my god. They didn’t know, his dad was just talking about being traumatized on the job from getting horrible injuries or whatever. He swears he heard angels singing for a second there.

“I know, Dad,” Miles says, slightly impressed at how steady his voice sounded. He can’t see his dad, but Miles swears he can sense the unease and disappointment in the air around him. 

Miles understands. The part of him that isn't cheering is screaming that he’s ruined his chance to be honest again, for his own selfish reasons. But the other part, the one that fiercely shields him as he hides away in that closet, simply leaves a cold relief as it washed over him.

“Miles, are those piercings infected? They look dark,” his mom points out as she comes back into the kitchen to finish cooking.

The lobes themselves are warm to the touch, now that he actually pays attention. “They do?”

“Yes, are you pulling on them? I told you not to go through any sewers, any dumps, and to clean them everyday!” she scolds, “They’re going to itch like crazy and drive you mad now.”

“It’ll be fine, ma,” Miles chuckles, realizing he actually has been slacking in cleaning them, “I can handle some itching.”

“Oh, Jeff, our son’s laughing about that infection,” his mom places a hand on her cheek, “We’ll have to call the priest.”

“It’s not an infection, mami.”

“Yep, I see the life leaving him right now,” his traitorous dad joins in.

“Guys, c’mon,” Miles laughs, “I’ll clean them after dinner.”

“Our last meal together,” his dad mumbles, shaking his head and wiping away imaginary tears.

____

Miles waited until his parents were asleep to sneak out onto the roof of their apartment building, creeping into the greenhouse. 

He still needs to tell somebody, even more so now that he has an entirely new person to potentially worry about. Miles doesn’t know who this Barbara girl is, but if she exists here, that means Ganke could have a crush on her, and the very thought of that is making Miles’s brain go haywire. It doesn’t even make total sense in his brain; instead of neurons, there are just jumbled wires and a cacophony of incoherent panicked shouting.

He sits down on the floor of the greenhouse, hunching over and pulling at his hair. 

Be smart about this , Miles thinks to himself. Don’t freak out, don’t freak out… He needs-- there’s gotta be a list. What was it Peter’s friend said? Start a journal, or something. He should list the problems, make a plan of action. That’s the smart thing to do.

[silverwhittlingknife]

did nobody ask you for red letter day? absurd! *I* wanna know about red letter day!

hello captain and friend anon!!! I KNOW I HAVEN'T UPDATED THIS IN SIX MILLION YEARS SO THANK YOU FOR THESE ASKS <333

okay SO the first thing is, you have to understand, my list of documents for this fic looks like this:

anyway i do love this fic even though it FIGHTS ME; it's supposed to have both Fights and Mysteries and both are hard to write 😅

anyway hmmm i'm going to cheat by including a Dick POV section that I am probably gonna end up cutting, because i like it but i also worry that it slows down the dialogue?

excerpt below the cut! the only context that you need is that Dick and Tim have been having the "should Tim call if there's danger in Gotham" argument again (Tim's position is "no"), partly because they both have genuine positions on this argument, but also because it enables them to sublimate an emotional conflict into a work conflict and thus avoid talking or thinking about their feelings, which is a shared pathology goal:

Dick would bet Tim never mouthed off to Bruce like this.  One of the many things that suck about being the knock-off Batman is that none of Dick’s orders really stick.  All of the responsibility without the authority to back it up.  At least when Dick was leading the Titans, they did what he freaking told them. …Mostly. …Okay, sometimes. The awful truth is—and he tries not to dwell on it because it’s pointless and doesn’t achieve anything, but—everything with Tim, sometimes it reminds him of the worst times with the Titans.  The same uneasy feeling of dread, like he’s grabbing for someone who’s slipping through his fingers.  Roy’s crossed arms.  The clock creeping toward midnight, staring at the champagne, knowing in his heart that Kory wasn’t coming.  After Tartarus: watching Roy walk out of the room, watching Donna follow him, staring at Vic’s back, Kory’s back, all of them walking out, and no one left but the newcomers.  When the personal is so fucked up that all you can do is double-down on the professional, and even that doesn’t help, and then— (Get a grip, Grayson.) And anyway, this isn’t like the Titans, is it?  Dick was out-of-line, there, in retrospect. He’s never been good at losing people gracefully.  Pushing Kory for marriage when she was already pulling away, trying to cling to her instead of letting her go.  Giving ultimatums after Tartarus, when he knew the team already resented his orders.  Making decisions behind Vic’s back, trying to force him to stay.  It’s an ugly bad habit, picked up from Bruce: things are slipping, and your people are mad at you, so you get scared, and then you get authoritative and controlling so you can hang onto them, except you can’t control them, so then they get even angrier and you lose them anyway.   It’s easy to see in Bruce, hard to see in himself, but he knows it’s there.  He barely managed to catch himself in time, with the Titans.   Is he doing the same thing to Tim?  Does he need to back off? But Gotham is risky.  Tim’s always been capable, obviously, but…it’s okay to be a bit authoritative, isn’t it?  Tim should call if there’s someone who looks unusually dangerous.  That’s just common sense.  Dick’s not asking for miracles, here.

[chronicowboy]

wrote this on wednesday then promptly forgot about it (thabk @danielsousa for reminding me) but there's like a tiny chance eddie could be trapped in that van with someone so the bones of this fic could still technically apply

Eddie makes it out alive. Again. Somehow.

(Except somehow is 6ft2 and looks a lot like an angel when the last piece of rubble falls away and the light filters into what Eddie had thought would be his grave.)

Eddie makes it out alive, but Joel isn't so lucky.

He had been on a motorbike when the first crash had happened, in critical condition before the bridge had collapsed. It had taken them far too long to extract him from the cluster of cars, and then, when they'd finally gotten him ready to transport, the bridge had swallowed both Joel and Eddie whole.

It had been a long two hours of trying to keep Joel from bleeding out, but eventually he'd lost the fight and the man had taken in one final, wheezing breath before going still.

Now, Eddie's staring into a hospital mirror covered in dust and another man's blood. The bathroom door creaks open, and Buck's reflection appears in the mirror.

"Chim's okay," he offers softly. Eddie squeezes his eyes shut in relief, its the most Buck is going to get out of him. "Maddie's just waiting for him to be assigned a room and then she'll go up and sit with him until he's awake." Buck joins him by the sinks, turning the faucet on and grabbing a wad of paper towels. "Hen and Bobby have been checked out too. Nothing but a few scrapes and bruises. Karen and Athena are looking after them."

Buck picks up Eddie's bloodied hands with a gentleness that makes Eddie want to curl up in a ball, but he lets Buck wipe away the grime on his skin and doesn't think about Maddie with Chimney, Athena with Bobby, Karen with Hen. He catches the bandage peeking out from under Buck's shirt sleeve and his stomach clenches.

"What about you?" he croaks, voice hoarse from begging Joel to stay with him. Buck looks up at him with earnest eyes before following his gaze down to the gauze.

"Oh, that's nothing." Buck shakes his head. "Chim needed a blood transfusion, and..."

"You're a universal donor," Eddie mumbles to himself. Buck nods.

"How are you?" he whispers, guiding Eddie's hands under the lukewarm stream of water. Eddie fixes his gaze on the pink liquid swirling around the drain.

"Unscathed," he spits.

"Eddie," Buck murmurs. "You did everything you could for him."

"It wasn't enough."

Eddie jerks his hands out of Buck's grasp, pumps three drops of soap onto his palm, turns the heat up to full and scrubs and scrubs and scrubs. Buck shuts the tap off just as the water begins to burn, and Eddie slumps into a white-knuckled grip on the edge of the counter, squeezing his eyes shut and hanging his head.

"He had a kid at home, Buck." Eddie bites his lip, revels in the gritty taste of dust. "A little girl. Jackie. God, you should have seen his face when he spoke about her." Even in the darkness, even in tremendous amounts of agony, Joel had lit up like the fucking sun when he spoke of his daughter. For a single moment, Eddie had been back in the well, fighting to get home to Christopher.

"And I know that you did everything in your power to try and get him back to her," Buck says with conviction.

"Well, it wasn't enough, was it?" Eddie snaps. "He died in my care, Buck. I let a little girl lose her father."

"Eddie, that was not your fault," Buck warns him, tone stern. "The universe was working against you in every possible way."

"The universe!" Eddie laughs coldly, meets Buck's eyes in the mirror. "The universe has been working against me my whole goddamn life, Buck. But I'm still here." His voice cracks, but he doesn't take his eyes off Buck. Can't. "Why am I still here?" Buck opens his mouth, but Eddie doesn't want an answer as much as he wants to spit in the universe's filthy fucking face. "Shannon died, my convoy died, Joel died. You died." Eddie takes in a ragged breath, cursing the oxygen in his lungs. "Why am I still alive?"

"Because there is a little boy, who's not all that little anymore, waiting for you at home. A little boy who loves you more than anything in the world. A little boy who needs his dad."

"Wasn't enough for Joel," Eddie croaks.

"No, but." Buck sighs. "You made Chris a promise. To always fight to come home to him. You were just keeping that promise."

"He had a wife," Eddie whispers. "A wife and a kid to get home to. And he fought for them. But..." He squeezes his eyes shut again. "Why am I still here, Buck?"

"For Christopher."

"Christopher would be fine." Eddie shakes his head in dismissal. "He'd have you."

For a moment, the only sound in the bathroom is Eddie's ragged breathing and the drip-drop of a leaky faucet. Then, a low and furious noise, like the grumble of thunder -

"Eddie, you are not expendable."

Eddie huffs a laugh and shakes his head.

"Clearly not," he snaps, spinning around to face Buck head on. "Clearly I'm not expendable when everybody around me, everybody but me keeps dying."

Eddie storms out of the bathroom before Buck can say anything else. The itch under his skin turning into a haunting chorus telling him to run. He follows the winding hallways of the hospital in a blind need for air, suddenly claustrophobic trapped in between four walls, just waiting for it all to come crumbling down around him. He doesn't stop until he's outside, collapsing onto the bench just left of the exit as the tears start to fall. He hunches in on himself and cries into his hands for what feels like hours.

Eventually, somebody eases down onto the bench beside him. He doesn't have to look to know its Buck, can feel it in the warmth where their shoulders touch. Eddie braces himself for whatever Buck is going to say, but nothing comes. Buck just. Sits beside him. Sits with him in his grief. And Eddie is so thankful for it that he almost doesn't remember Bobby's words to him in the hardware store.

a motorcycle accident... it was a bad one... I wasn't at my best at the time... I needed to take a minute and she sat with me.

"Eddie, you said it yourself." Buck smiles at him. "Experiences like this they change us, so you're gonna have to make a choice. What's this gonna change in you?"

Oh, Eddie thinks, that's what its going to change.

[crimeronan]

writing this eda-centric princess AU fic is very funny and sad, as most things about this AU are. mainly, it's the first time i've explored what luz's separation anxiety actually looks like in action. like the series has illustrated that she HAS separation anxiety and WHY she does, but this is the first installment where she Actually Is Separated from hunter. even though it's through exactly one (1) wall & she knows she can walk out to check on him at any moment so it arguably doesn't even Count

the thing making this very funny instead of just tragic is that luz's approach is to go "i do not have separation anxiety, actually. i'm not anxious at all and i don't even know what the word anxiety means and i'm going to Prove It by Not obsessively going to the window every two minutes to check that hunter still exists. i'm neurotypical and always have been. i am the Most neurotypical. i'm concentrating really well on diplomacy and being normal because i don't have separation anxiety. nobody would notice a thing wrong if they looked at me right now because nothing is wrong :) yay :) :) :)"

while eda - who has ABSOLUTELY no context for Any of luz's shit, besides knowing that belos was abusive - is just like "hey, listen. kid. no offense but. i think you might be the single most anxious person i've ever met in my Life."

[justawrites]

im writing out god in a godless land and my urge to skip everything and write the leshycat is overwhelming bc I love them

i want them to be silly and dramatic. i want them to switch between romcom and drama. i want them to share a quiet kiss after a solemn serious moment and then turn around and set something on fire to make s'mores

what if yellow cat makes leshy want to be better huh. what if he was willing to change just for the sake of their friendship. what if he was willing to defy his very nature just to know that they were safe. what if this cat saves him just by the terrible, horrible, difficult act of just loving him the way he is. what if he finds redemption through learning to love someone selflessly. what then

[half-dead-ham]

Family introductions

For @blue-soundwaves, merry Christmas!

summary: Danny and Tim have been dating for about a year now, figuring out their relationship between Tim’s vigilante duties and Danny’s Ghost King responsibilities. Danny is taking a small (unauthorized) break from his paperwork to find his bf flat on his ass sick trying to go on patrol. The only way to stop him was to take his place, and Danny was lucky they're the same size.

[Ao3: here!]

 

Being King of an entire dimension had its perks, the new powers, meeting new (alien!) civilizations and cultures, getting an actual mentor to help him figure everything out. Those were really cool, and oftentimes it was fun to figure out the new powers with said mentor and his friends, but at the moment all Danny could think about was how much it sucked to be king of the Zone.

 Why, do you ask?

 The paperwork.

 Pariah Dark was many things, a tyrant, a conqueror, a fearsome warlord with a look that could melt steel, but he was not a good king. Might be stating the obvious, but ruling with an iron fist does not a just king make, and the evidence was clear in the sheer amount of paperwork the old king left behind. Several filing rooms had been allocated to the pileup since the previous king was forcefully put to rest, and now…

 Now it was Danny's problem.

 In the three years since he defeated The Mad King, and the two since he took the throne (only part time until he’d finished his human education) the amount of files and requests and notices Danny had had to go through was mind melting, and so far it had only been the ones of most importance! He tried to keep out of the filing rooms as much as possible, partly because the royal record keeper had a system for those rooms that for the half-life of him Danny could not wrap his head around, and partly because the amount of paperwork in those rooms made him want to melt into a puddle and not reform for the next century.

 The one thing currently keeping him going while at his royal desk during summer break (other than his friends and family) was his boyfriend. They had met a year and a half ago when Danny had gone to Gotham on a STEM exchange program with Gotham Academy. They started talking after some incorrect statement the teacher had made about electromagnetism that they had both pointed out. From there they had basically spent the two weeks glued to each other, bouncing ideas off one another and creating coffee induced chaos in the science lab.

 By the end of the exchange they had swapped contact information and promised each other to keep in contact as much as they could with their hectic schedules, them having important rich boy stuff and Danny with highschool and ghost king work.

 A week later Tim had texted asking if he was Phantom.

 He responded by asking whether or not he was Red Robin.

 A few explanations and it all went downhill from there, them only getting more and more comfortable with each other, texting and calling after patrolls, Danny abusing his newfound portal making power to hop over to Gotham for hangout sessions, then sleep overs, then spending weekends.

 It was Tim that eventually asked him out, and Ancients dammit, he was too cute not to say yes.

 It went on pretty well after that, Tim telling him about his family and their nightly activities, how he got into the whole thing himself (which Danny just had to laugh at) and all the… feuds he and his brothers have had since then.

 Danny personally wanted a few words with his boyfriend's adopted family, just a few, but he respected Tim’s wish to keep their relationship a secret, with Tim explaining that if his family knew he'd never get away from them.

 Right now he’d love for that to happen.

 Danny was on his second week of summer vacation, and his second week of ghostly paperwork. The Observants had all but whisked him away the first day of break, and the only thing currently saving him from a lecture about staying out late is the fact that his parents don’t keep up with where he goes during the day and his late hours in the office (and sometimes a little help from Clockwork,) keeping him out until everyone was already in bed.

 The observants shuffled him from meeting to desk work and back, always keeping an eye on him so he couldn’t just run off. He had no excuse (that they would take) to keep him from working his way through the stacks they deposited on his desk, and made their opinions of his “inconsistent and intolerable” working habits very well known to Danny.

 Ancients, he needed a break.

 And just as he thought that for the fifth time that hour (was it an hour? Time was so inconsistent in the realms,) the opportunity for a breather presented itself. Danny was halfway through his most recent stack when the door opened. Another Observant than the ones that had been keeping an eye on him had barged in, fuming about something going on at the Tribunal HQ. They screeched at each other for what must have been half an hour, talking “impossibilities” and “needing to speak to Clockwork about this” before giving him a stern “don’t you dare get up from that chair,” then racing off to do their freaky hivemind shouting match between themselves.

 Needless to say Danny didn’t listen to them.

 First thing to do was stretch. With the Observants breathing down his neck, Danny barely had any room to move. He felt like being back in school, having to ask for a stretch or bathroom break, not to mention the amount of grumbling from Bert, the Observant currently watching him, that Danny very quickly learned to tune out.

 Lacing his fingers and lifting his arms above his head, Danny heard more than a few sickeningly satisfying pops run down his back, even a few in his neck afterwards. He did a few stretches, even sneaking in a few yoga poses Jazz had shown him before, and with each different move he felt something stretch or unstiffen, even a few more satisfying pops here and there.

 Next thing on the agenda? Get the hell out of the Realms.

 Specifically, to Tim’s place. The Observants would probably check Amity first when they find him gone, and he wanted as much time as he could get out of this. Tim doesn’t usually mind his impromptu visits, and even if he’s out on patrol just getting to see him when he comes back would be nice.

 Even with the paperwork Danny had been finding ways to keep in contact, a missive here, a text there. Not a lot, but they were both busy, and they both knew that.

 It was with great joy that Danny grabbed the folds of reality and tore, creating a tear in space big enough for him to step through to his favourtie humans home. Reasserting his heartbeat with his human form Danny found himself in the darkness of the upstairs bathroom. It made sense for the bathroom to be dark given the time, but the presence in the apartment gave him pause. The little digital clock on the bathroom shelf indicated that Tim should be on patrol by now, if not just leaving, but the human's presence was down in the living room.

 “Timmy?” Danny called out into the equally dark apartment as he opened the bathroom door. A low groan emanating from where Danny could feel Tim’s presence didn’t ease his worry as Danny crept his way through the upper floor and down the stairs to find his boyfriend.

 Another groan had Danny rushing down the rest of the flight of stairs, jumping the last three and turning to the living room. Shuffling behind the couch had Danny running around the corner to find Tim, in full Red Robin uniform, struggling to get up off the floor on weak legs.

 “Tim!” Danny rushed over to catch a shaking Tim from collapsing again, grabbing him by the cape before pulling his human into his arms. He was pale and sweating, with the vigilantes mask crumpled as he screwed his eyes shut with nausea at the sudden altitude shift.

 "Danny?" Tim groaned as he cracked one eye open. Danny was frantically checking the bird over, peeling his mask off to check his eyes, placing fingers to his neck to read his pulse, and placing the back of his hand against the human's forehead to check his temperature. Tim made a small sigh at cooled contact, and while Danny noticed he was burning up, it wasn't to a dangerous degree. Right now it just seemed as though Tim had caught a really bad cold.

 "Tim, what the hell? Why are you trying to scare me to full death by trying to go tour the realms in your costume‽" Danny whisper-shouted to the vigilante in his arms, noting the bird's costume was out of place in certain spots. Did he put his costume on like this?

 The bird groaned as he tried to sit up, but the grip Danny still had on his cape prevented it.

 "Gotta… go, Bats called… bigg breakout a’… Arkham… nnneed to help…" With the way Tim was shaking, he couldn't help anyone, let alone leave the apartment. Another attempt at getting up had Danny sighing at his boyfriends antics, what's with these Gotham vigilantes' and their need for self sacrificing?

 "Tim, you look halfway to your grave, I'm not letting you out on patrol, not like this," gently the half-ghost repositioned his grip on the human's shoulders, snaking his other arm around his knees and picking the teen up bridal-style. With another glance down he started walking, softly adding in, "how did you even get up here? A light breeze would make you crumple."

 Dazedly Tim made a confused grunt, seemingly only realizing he was not, in fact, in The Nest downstairs and actually in his living room. The wrinkles between his eyebrows would be cute if he wasn't looking about as dead as Danny was.

 "Wazn… this bad… before-" a dry cough wracked through his frame, causing Danny to readjust his grip slightly. "-fought Ivvy yeserday… got hit… didn think it wass 'nything to worry 'bout… till now…" he trailed off as they reached his bedroom, watching with half lidded eyes as Danny carefully opened and maneuvered them through the door and striding over to place Tim down on the bed.

 As Danny started taking Tims cape from around his shoulder he grabbed Danny by the arm.

 “Nnnoooo… Batz’l kill mee.. f’I don go outt…” Tim whined, trying to simultaneously push danny off and prop himself up, but his shaky arms barely held his weight and before long he was back on the bed with his cape removed.

 “Tim, you look like shit,” the ghost boy replied bluntly, “you really think you'll be able to help anyone like this?”

 Nothing but a soft grunt came from the bed bound bird as Danny folded up his boyfriends cape, setting it down lightly on the dresser nearby. He turned around to see his boyfriend covering his eyes with his arm… Was he crying?

 “Boo? Boo what's wrong?” Walking back over he saw his boyfriend was indeed tearing up, using his arm to try and hide the damp rolling down his cheeks and sniffling softly. Danny kneeled next to the bed and took the arm, revealing Tim, crying and pouting like a child. It was so cute, Danny had to resist taking a picture.

 “Bruce’ll be mad…” he heard the sick teen mumble softly. Danny had to sigh, why was Tim suddenly acting like a five year old? Was it because of what he got hit with yesterday? Tim had said there was an Arkham breakout, so people could be in danger if they didn’t have enough people to round all the villains up, but Tim couldn’t be left alone… But but if he went out he could maybe find Ivy and ask her for an antidote, but but but he couldn’t go out as Phantom because he still hadn’t been introduced to the family yet…

 Ugh, this was giving him a headache.

 Stewing in his own head wouldn’t do any good, Tim was supposed to be out for patrol by now. Danny absently looked around the spacious bedroom, eyes landing on nothing until he spotted the folded cape on the dresser.

 He and Tim shared quite a few characteristics, height, figure, relative facial features…

 A plan formed in Danny’s head as he stood up, a half assed, crazy plan, but one that just might work. Quickly he started stripping Tim of his Red Robin gear, knowing roughly how to take it off and put it on from the few times he had shadowed Tim on his patrol. He replaced the costume with a loose sleep shirt and shorts, then just as quickly stripped himself. A small gasp had him stop halfway through, turning to see Tim with clearer eyes. Tim was looking at him put on the costume. A blush crept onto Danny’s face for a reason he couldn’t figure out, but it had stalled him long enough for Tim to regain some rational speech.

 “Danny… what are you doing?” Tim asked, looking absolutely and utterly confused, cute.

 “What does it look like I’m doing Polaris? I’m getting Red Robin ready for patrol,” he turned back to finish putting on the costume. It fit him well, with only a few minor adjustments to his form he filled it out nicely. All zipped up and caped, he didn’t look that much different to Tim, and he spun around to show off, even giving little jazz hands as he faced Tim.

 Danny couldn’t tell if the blush on the boy's face was due to the fever or the pet-name, but the calculating look was aimed at him nonetheless.

 “How do I look, Starlight? Pretty similar?” Danny gave his best smile, even at the near glare his boyfriend was scrutinizing him with. He really hoped the glare was due to hazy vision and not him being mad.

 “Bruce’ll find out,” Tim grumbled, but didn’t deny he looked the part.

 “Only if we’re together too long. I feel like I know you well enough to act like you in front of them for a little,” he replied humorously as he applied the domino mask to his own face. It didn’t restrict his vision as much as he thought it would, and the readouts streaming into the lenses was pretty useful, if a bit distracting.

 “‘Nd the hair?” Tim questioned hoarsely, looking at the mop of black locks that was too short to fall like Tim’s but too long to say he just had it cut.

 That was easily fixed with Danny running his fingers through his hair, using the little trick to help show off his form changing and growing at a thought. When his hand dropped he looked like Tim, if Tim had gone through a windstorm and came out with messy hair. The mess was fixed, not entirely but enough, for Danny to look near identical with the mask on.

 Another calculating look over from Tim and he seemed to pass his test.

 “‘Nd… the voice?”

 “A little bit of precise muscle control and I’m peachy,” Danny replied easily in Tim’s voice. Sure, he’s been told by Sam and Tucker that the voice changing was creepy, but for this?

 For this it works perfectly.

 Tim made a similar face to his friends when he had showed off the voice manipulation, but made a grunt of approval at the display. A nod and Danny was making another swirling green vortex to his castle, popping his head through to a hallway. Sticking an arm through Danny pulled a very startled footmen through the portal into the bedroom.

 “You, you aren’t busy, are you?” He asked the footman in ghost speak.

 If the ghost wasn’t startled at being pulled into the human world, they were with his lord addressing him personally.

 “N-no my lord! I am here to serve!” They hastily replied with a deep bow.

 “Good, I’d like you to watch over my human for a while. He’s bedridden with illness and I’m going to be taking over his duties for the night so he doesn’t get the crap beaten out of him by his boss,” Danny waved off the bow, rolling his eyes at another rejection of his order to not bow at him.

 The footman looked between the bedridden human and his king in panic. “But my lord, I couldn’t possibly take care of a human! It’s been too long since I was alive for me to remember how to care for a sick mortal, and if I were to accidentally damage them my crime would surely be severe!”

 Danny couldn’t stop the chuckle that came from his throat as he replied “Don’t worry, too much. I just need you to keep a water glass full and come get me if he looks like he’s getting worse.”

 Danny tilted to look at Tim with a pointed glare, “you will stay in bed and sleep to get better, right Tim?”

 A grumble and wave as his human turned away from him was as good enough a reply as he was going to get. So he quickly phased through to the kitchen to swipe a glass, led the footman, Markov, to the bathroom to show him how to use the tap on the sink, then he was racing across the rooftops to where the bat family usually assembles for missions.

   So, maybe Danny didn’t entirely think his plan through when he first thought of it.

 Why?

 The bats were very intimidating up close.

 Danny had made it to the rendezvous rooftop just fine, even using the grapple to propel himself across the city instead of flying like he wanted to! (He really wanted to, controlled falling with only a tiny cable to keep him from going splat? He may be self sacrificial but not suicidal.) Had to keep up the Red Robin persona, after all. By the time he had made it to the predestined rooftop the rest of the clan had already arrived and were just barely waiting for him. Barely.

 “The hell were you, Replacement?” The guy in the leather jacket and death stank snapped at him. Huh, Danny thought Red Hood didn’t like working with Tim, but that question almost made it seem like the antihero was worried for him. “Dickwing here wouldn’t shut up about you not being here early, and we were the ones that had to deal with it!” Ah, so that’s what it was.

 Nightwing elbowed Hood with a glare, before turning to Danny with an apologetic smile. “What he meant to say was that we were all worried when you weren’t here at the usual time, something we should know about, Timmy?”

 “Nothing, really,” he replied in Tim’s voice. “I had an unexpected visitor and getting them to leave took longer than expected, that's all.”

 He could feel someone’s gaze on him, from just beyond the shadows of the roof's stairway access. Danny could only imagine which more observant bat was in there watching him. Tim had mentioned one of his sisters being able to read body language fluently, he only hoped that if he kept his stance relaxed and open and not looked he’d at least be able to get through this.

 “I expect a more in depth answer when I read your report, Red Robin,” the sound of gravel came from Danny’s left, and turning revealed the big Bat himself. Ancients, Danny really needed to keep calm here, Tim had said his adopted dad was intimidating, but holy crap, Batman!

 With how silent the bat was he really hoped he didn’t die and become a ghost, he would be terrifying. (Or maybe he should want Batman to become a ghost? Then Tim could still see him and he’d get a fearsome new strategist.)

 A smaller form rounded the imposing caped crusader, one Danny recognized instantly. It was hard not to recognize the youngest Wayne with how often his starlight complained about him.

 “Drake,” Robin said as he crossed his arms.

 “Brat,” Danny replied with a nod of his head.

 Batman made a grunt as he turned to face the rest of the group.

 “We’re splitting up to cover more ground, teams of two,” the Bat motions to the shadow and Nightwing, with Orphan stepping out of the darkness to be better addressed. “Orphan and Nightwing will be taking the west side, Robin and Spoiler-” he points to the child and the blonde in purple sitting above Orphan on the access hut roof. “-you’ll take the south. Red Robin and Red Hood-”

 “If you say anywhere other than the north, old man, I swear-”

 “-you’ll be taking the north,” he cuts over Hood’s rant quickly. How used to that was he? Danny could only imagine.

 “I’ll be taking the southside, with Oracle on lookout. We have reports of the joker running around, if anyone spots him do not engage. Call for backup and keep a safe distance,” he turns to give what Danny thinks is a glare to Red Hood, the cowl makes it a little hard to guess.

 “Are we clear?” Batman challenged, clearly expecting only a yes. A glare-off started and Danny could swear he saw sparks.

 Finally, after a good five minutes, Hood relented, huffing out a “Clear,” between clenched teeth. Everyone else sounded off their confirmations as they left in different directions, with Oracle relaying sightings of various rouges through their comms.  Seems he and Hood were on the trail of the Riddler to start, with him being spotted near Gotham stadium.

 With the directions given from Oracle, Danny had to use a tiny amount of flight to catch up to Red Hood, who had started his run just after the grumble to B. Seems he was trying to lose him, if the dissatisfied grunt when Danny caught up was anything to go by.

   Good news, The Riddler was an easy catch, running around in the stadium underground trying to get ready for whatever hair-brained scheme he’d come up with, only to be knocked cold by a few rubber bullets to the back and bo staff to the face. There were a few bombs to dispose of, and while Danny didn’t actually know how to safely dispose of a bomb safely, he did have the ability to pocket inanimate objects into a space between spaces, and no one really needed to see the bombs he disposed of right away.

 He figured he could give them to Tim to disarm and he’ll be able to give them to the police later.

 Bad news, he and Red Hood split up to make sure they got all the bombs in the basement floors, making it really easy for Hood to ditch once he was done and leave Danny alone.

 Coulda at least given him a heads up, so he didn’t try to wait for him while the police showed up for the weirdo in green. Guess he was on his own then.

 Propelling himself off another rooftop to the northwestern port, Danny absently listened to the chatter of the other bats over the comms. They all liked making small talk, with Nightwing being the most talkative. Apparently Tim was just about as talkative as his brother, as Nightwing made a comment towards him saying something along the lines of “Tim, you good? You’re quieter than normal tonight,” and he had to spin something about how he was fine, and he was just thinking about something his guest had said before he left and left it at that.

 The docks were just as haunted as he remembered, with shades and whisps floating from warehouse to warehouse aimlessly. Danny remembered a few villain hideouts around here from the cases Tim had shared with him, and it was better to be safe than sorry with this port being closest to Arkham.

 Danny wasn’t finding anything immediately dangerous as he went from one corrugated roof to the next, thanking whoever staged the breakout mentally that they had decided to do it during a dry spell. He would not do well as a regular human on slick roofs, ancients only knew what would happen if Tim fell from this height just because he slipped.

 A clattering noise coming from a few buildings in front of him startled him enough to stop. He was nearing the end of the docks, and the warehouses were becoming sparse enough to see the more residential buildings not too far from him. More noise and he zeroed in on the warehouse it was coming from.

 One of the Joker's known hideouts.

 Danny really didn’t like the situation he had just found himself in.

 “Oracle,” Danny clicked on his comms, silencing whatever Nightwing was about to say. “I’m at Port Hill on the northern point, there's movement inside one of Joker’s hideouts.”

 That got everyone's attention, silencing any chatter they may be having on private channels. B’s line clicked on and the low grumble practically shook Danny’s core.

 “Red Robin, maintain your position, everyone else rendezvous at his position.”

 Several sounds of confirmation could be heard, with eta’s coming in just after. Looks like Danny will be staying in place for a while, so he might as well plop himself down on the ledge of the roof next to the one he was watching.

 He busied himself with counting the ridges of the roof as he swung his feet rhythmically. Not really focusing on anything except the weak presences of the nearby spirits as they  wandered around the port.

 A shrill scream cut through his daydreaming, coming form the warehouse in front of him.

 Shit, did the Joker take a hostage?

 His core flared to life with protective urges, needing to make sure the origin of the scream really was someone in need, and if there really was a hostage that they could get out safely before whatever the clown had in store for them played out.

 Great, this was so going to get him in trouble.

 Danny clicked the comms alive once more, relaying the new information to the bats. “Just heard a scream, I think the clown might have taken a hostage.”

 “Red Robin, don’t engage. We’ll be able to handle a hostage more efficiently together.”

 “But B, we may not have the time to wait! He’s probably waiting for us all to come in guns blazing so he can kill them in front of us!”

 “My orders are the same, do not engage,” Batman shut his comms off after that, leaving no more room to argue.

 Danny turned his own comm off and growled, deep and inhuman. He couldn’t just not go and try to help. If someone was in there and Danny stayed? He didn’t want to remember the burning his core would give him in response. Making up his mind, he grinned a too wide smile as the whites of his domino lit up green.

 Fuck Batman, time for some fun.

 Finding a way in was easy, as the roof was lined with windows just below the overhang. They were dirty and rusted at the hinges, but gave easily when he pulled enough against one. He managed to pull one open just enough to squeeze through and drop himself onto one of the catwalks snaking through the rafters of the building.

 The place itself was packed with clown themed contraband from wall to wall, some being just benign stage props and others being rather nasty looking contraptions. Danny was pretty sure he spotted an electric chair knocked over in a ball pit.

 The center of the warehouse was cleared of the clutter, rounded to the main doors like some inverse stage. Strapped to a chair in the center of the clearing was a guy, maybe mid twenties, with short brown hair and gray hoodie. Poor guy must have been picked up off the street on the Clowns way here, he was gagged and wide eyed with terror.

 The hostage was here, and other than looking a little scuffed up he seemed fine, but where was the Joker?

 Danny crept along the catwalk silently to canvas the rest of the warehouse for the Clown, even jumping a few beams to get a better vantage. No sign of him. The probability of him going out for a smoke break or something was pretty low, but as Danny’s core was still screaming at him to get the hostage out of here, he'd rather take the chance of a trap than get the guy hurt.

 When he returned to his original spot on the catwalk there was still no change to the guy in the chair, no noise other than his muffled gasps and sobs and no shuffling in any other part of the building. Silently Danny slid off the platform to the concrete floor below, crouching and using a bit of flight to negate the impact he had with the ground. He scanned the room once more, looking to see if anything had changed with the new perspective. Still nothing.

 Ancients, this situation had ‘Trap’ written all over it in bright red letters.

 Still, he made his way over to the guy strapped to the chair, who by then had noticed him and was looking at Danny with tearful eyes. The spotlight overhead cast most of the building's innards in shadow once Danny stepped inside, but he’d still have the shadows and the guy to help him notice if anyone snuck up on him.

 Danny’s first order of business was to ungag the guy, both to help him breathe and to ask the guy some questions.

 “You’re Red Robin,” the dude sputtered eloquently.

 “Sure am,” Danny replied with a huff, moving to untie the guy's arms from behind him.

 “You shouldn’t be here,” he added on nervously, shifting his gaze around as he tried to look for invisible enemies.

 “Well sorry to disappoint,” Danny grumbled as he moved from the knots behind the guy to the ones tying his legs.

 “No, no, you don’t get it! He’s waiting for you bats! He went somewhere a while ago and who knows how long it’ll be before he gets back!” The guy was nearing a panic attack with how quickly his breath was coming out. Danny needed to calm him down so they could both get out of here safely.

 “What’s your name?” The non sequitur seems to jolt the guy out of the panic spiral he was going down.

 “M-Mark. You really shouldn’t have come in here.”

 “Well, Mark,” Danny rolled his eyes behind the domino. “What do you think he would’ve done to you if I hadn’t come in here to get you?”

 At that Mark paled, not realizing exactly how bad his luck was tonight until Danny pointed it out. Mark stiffened, never letting his eyes still as he watched the shadows in front of the duo.

 The knots came undone rather quickly, and while Danny wanted to question it, he could do it at a better time and place. He looked up, about to reassure Mark that they could make their way to the door now, when he had to cut himself off by dragging the guy off his chair. A bat narrowly missed the back of his head, clanging onto the metal back of the chair and denting the soft metal.

 “Awwww, I was really hoping you wouldn’t notice till his head popped like a piñata,” a lilting voice said. The Clown Prince himself walked closer to the two, roughly kicking the chair out of his path as he propped the bat up on his shoulder.

 “And, what? No Batsy? Too busy for good old Joker to come himself, so he sends one of his little birdies to play instead?” The Clown exaggerated a pout as he looked to the rafters. “Or are you just hiding Batsy‽ Waiting till I let my guard down!”

 Now that he had a good look at the infamous circus freak, Dannny was amazed at just how hated the villain was. The stories Tim told him and the sites dedicated to the Clown really didn’t quite make it feel real, but now that Danny has had a chance to look at him up close. Just, wow.

 That was a lot of curses.

 The mass of negative energy slithered over and around the crazed man’s form, swirling around him like smoke and hanging off him, covering every inch of the human in thick, oily smoke. The smoke condensed behind him, forming a writhing mass of living curses, angry and sad and hateful. It looked like everyone the Clown ever killed had a piece of their soul stuck to the man just to make sure they knew he’d died in the afterlife. It was beautiful and terrifying at once, just how many had this one mortal killed?

 “Seems like I’m just disappointing everyone tonight,” Danny mumbled under his breath as he refocused and got himself and the hostage to their feet, bringing out his bo staff carefully. He placed himself between the hostage and villain protectively as the Clown swung his head around to view the rafters, searching for something that wasn’t there.

 Taking advantage of Joker's distraction, Danny pushed Mark towards the door behind them.

 “But!-” Mark tried to get out but Danny silenced him before he could say anything more.

 “Go, I’ll keep him busy,” and with another push Mark was running to the door and Joker’s attention was back on them.

 “Hey! You’re letting my guppy get away, the nerve!” The crazed Clown exclaimed as he charged at Danny, taking a swing at his head and missing by a hair as he dodged. The clown changed the angle of his swing and the bat came down, nearly hitting Danny's shoulder if he hadn’t blocked it with his bo.

 “Aw, well… Suppose I did catch a bird with my fish, so I still have some bait to lure the bat in,” another swing that glanced off Danny's staff had him taking a step back, unused to the weapon. Sure, Pandora had trained Danny in a few different weapon styles while training, but he wasn’t nearly as proficient in it as Tim was.

 A sadistic grin grew on the Joker’s face as they swung again, manic glint in his eye and cackling as he spoke. “I never did manage to get you in my collection of plucked birdies, did I? Maybe once I clip your wings I’ll give you to the Bat as a gift! Another dead bird for his flock!” A louder cackle and another dodge of the bat as Danny's thoughts swirled in the new information.

 Another dead bird? A few things came to mind, including the worrying smell of death revived from another red themed vigilante. The fact that this maniac had got one of Tim’s brothers and killed them, and now he wanted to do the same to another one?

 Danny’s core was icing in his chest at the thought.

 Dropping any pretence of dodging the next swing Danny let the Clown cackle triumphantly as his bat connected with the side of the hero's face. The laughter turned into annoyed grunt as the Joker dropped the bat in favour of clutching his wrist, now numb and tingly from the impact. Danny hadn’t moved an inch from the swing, watching the confusion grow on the Clown’s face as he looked to the supposed bird in front of him.

 “What-” the Clown started but silenced himself at the deep chuckle Danny forced out of his throat, much too deep for someone of Tim’s stature to produce.

 “See, now you’ve gone and did something you shouldn’t have, Boingo.” Danny stated, using his own voice and lacing it with a ghostly chill. “You just threatened the lives of people under my protection. Just the fact that you’ve already done something as great as killed one had you on thin fucking ice, but you threatening my people in front of me?” Another low chuckle escaped his throat as he smiled with lips pulled back too far and teeth too sharp. He could see the glow his eyes were putting off on the rims of the domino as he cocked his head jarringly to the side.

 “Now we play my game.”

   Bruce was worried, they hadn’t made good time to the north port and Tim hadn’t responded when they had tried to ask him more about the situation.

 Now, it wasn’t that Bruce didn’t trust his sons, he just didn't trust them against someone like the Joker. He’d already lost one son to the mad man, and even if he did get him back he couldn’t afford to lose another.

 Bruce was the last to arrive at the port, and scanning his children left one unaccounted for. He had told Tim to hold his position, why did his kids never listen?

 Jason, the first on scene had told them Tim was nowhere in sight, and when Dick asked why he wasn’t with him in the first place he grumbled something about losing him while apprehending The Riddler in the sports stadium underbelly. While Bruse could have called him out on the lie he had more pressing things to think about, so he left that to Dick.

 One more look to his children before they dispersed with a nod, off to find their own ways into the building as Bruce headed for the warehouse bay doors. He landed on the ground silently, noting the doors were left open enough for him to move in without moving them. Something intentional? A trap maybe? Dread filled his gut as he realised Tim would have been alone while possibly walking into a death trap.

 Two taps over the comms signaled everyone in position, and a tap to his own comm gave them the go to start going in. Bruce maneuvered himself through the door to find a singular overhead bulb illuminating a cleared out space in an otherwise packed room. A steel bat lay dented a few feet from the door, warped at an angle suggesting it had hit something denser than it. A metal chair was on the edge of the cone of light, clearly knocked out of the way as it sat on its side, another dent on its back clearly seen.

 At the opposite end of the circle was Tim, unmoving with his back facing Bruce. From his point of view he couldn’t see anything wrong with the boy, but he could tell something was wrong. Tim was too still, his situational awareness would normally have alerted the boy to Bruce coming up behind him, yet he didn’t move to face him.

 More taps over the comm signaled an all clear, and still Tim didn’t move, proving he had taken his comm out earlier. Bruce moved to just behind the boy, hearing the soft thumps as the rest of his family made their way down.

 “Tim?” Bruce asked softly, fearing dark scenarios with Joker’s poisonous smile on his son.

 Finally, Tim moved. Turning to face Bruce with a questioning hum. Bruce minutely sagged in relief, the boy wasn't smiling, that was good. Something still didn’t sit well in his stomach, though he couldn’t place what.

 “You disobeyed orders,” he ground out. He knew his son was safe, now he was in deep trouble.

 “Yeah, well,” Tim shrugged nonchalantly. “You were late.”

 Bruce’s brows came together under the cowl, as he noted a few of his kids stealing glances at each other. That wasn’t something Tim would say. Something wasn’t adding up here, with Joker being nowhere in sight and Tim acting off.

 Tim turned his head to follow Cassandra as she moved next to Bruce, Keeping a critical eye on Tim while she spoke.

 “Not Tim.”

 Those two words sent everyone on high alert, tensing for a fight now that the imposter was outed. Not-Tim didn’t move, keeping his posture relaxed as he smirked.

 “You knew the whole time, didn’t you?” The imposter asked in an unfamiliar voice, his tone almost sounding amused with the outcome. Cassandra nodded once, confirming the man’s assumption and he chuckled, shifting to place his weight on one foot as he brought his hand up to scratch at the back of his neck.

 “Was it anything in particular, or did you just read me that well?” He asked, still no heat to his tone. By now the others were beyond confused, looking between each other in uncertainty as their forms dropped with the tension, though Jason and Damian still kept their weapons raised.

 Bruce would really like to know what was going on right now.

 Cassandra smiled at the man in front of them, eyes crinkling over the half mask. The man gave another chuckle as he moved his hand from his neck to his hair, carding his fingers through the mop. When he set his hand down again his hair had become shorter, no cutting or pulling it back, just magically shorter.

 Bruised wanted to groan, he hated dealing with magic.

 “If you aren’t Tim, then where is he?” Dick asked cautiously.

 “He’s at home, sleeping off whatever Dr. Ivy hit him with the last night you went on patrol,” the stranger replied easily. A glance to his daughter beside him told Bruce he was telling the truth.

 “What, is he sick?” Stephanie asked with a scoff. “That's bull, he said himself that he felt fine after taking it, for all we know you could be lying.”

 “Believe me, or don’t,” the stranger shrugged, pulling his legs up to sit cross-legged in the air as he spoke. “I have someone keeping an eye on his condition while I take his place for the night. He was delusional and could barely stand, I found him in his living room trying to jump out the window.”

 A snort from Jason's direction was cut short with a grunt. The stranger before them snickered.

 “Y’know, you guys are a lot more fun when you don’t have a mission to be focused on. Maybe I’ll ask Tim if we can hang out sometime now that I’ve met you.”

 Bruce narrowed his eyes at the stranger, something still wasn’t adding up, and it had nothing to do with the floating act. Before he could pursue it, though, Jason brought up another good question.

 “So where’s the Joker?” The stranger flinched, making Bruce tense again at the sheepish look on the beings face.

 “Yeah, see well… About that…” he stuttered, before deflating, sinking a few inches in the air as he motioned over to a dark lump behind him just outside the light. There wasn’t anything special about the lump until Bruce let his eyes adjust some, he realised the lump had legs.

 The Joker was curled up in a ball on the floor.

 “What the hell‽” Jason alarmingly exclaimed as he backed up a step.

 Bruce took two batarangs out of the pouch on his belt, ready to throw them at the being in front of them. “What did you do to him?” He growled in warning, making everyone raise their guard in waiting with him.

 “It’s not my fault, okay‽ The dude was just really cursed, I just helped a little!” The being raised his hands as a show of peace, looking slightly panicked.

 “What exactly did you help?” Dick asked, batons out at the ready.

 “Well, the curses were pretty weak, so after I roughed him up a little I fed them a bit. I swear he’s not dead!”

 “He sure fucking looks dead!” Was that a touch of glee to Jason’s voice? Best to ignore that for now.

 “No, I swear! He’s just in a coma! He’ll come out of it in a month or two once the ectoplasm wears off!”

 Well, he wasn’t dead at least, though now Bruce’s question really had to be asked.

 “Who are you?” He looked the still floating being up and down one more time as a surprised look came over them, followed by a sheepish one.

 “Oh, shoot, sorry. I guess I forgot to introduce myself.” The being places their feet back on the floor and sticks out their hand. “Hi, I’m Danny Fenton, I’m Tim’s boyfriend.”

[oofouchstovehot]

wrote this whole thing in one go at 11:30 so we'll see if it's comprehendible in the morning...

The Evolution of a Redeemable (or at least changed) Vlad:

Beginning of ✨The Plot✨, Normal Vlad, asshole, if i saw that thing in my living room-

Something Occurs, Vlad realises (preferably in horror) at least one of several things: There are only 3 halfas and he's been endangering the other two/sitting back and letting them put themselves in mortal danger, Danny's parents put him in danger, Danny's parents put them both in danger, Maddy would and could kill both of them if she ever found out, Maddy's never going to fall for him, Danny's current living conditions are Not The Best.

Final Vlad #1: He actually makes an effort to do better/help Danny out/Get Over His Maddy Obsession, in plots where the Fenton parents really are genuinely awful Vlad could even get custody and accidentally get half what he's wanted the whole time just by Not Being So Evil About It anymore. His Obsession shifts to just Wanting A Family (will elaborate)

Final Vlad #2, the Actually Not That Redeemable Special: Vlad completely switches out his obsession with Being Maddie's Husband for an obsession with Being Danny's Dad. Cause, y'know, only two-three halfas ever, and since I fannon that the whole root of his Maddy Obsession is him Wanting A Family, when he realises she's not an option he turns to the next best thing. A son who's just like him. This makes things even worse for Danny, because if Maddy isn't getting dragged into The Situations then Maddy can't help Danny get out, and when Vlad's obsessed with his mom Danny can at least be assured that he won't try to hurt/kill her, but when he gets over Maddy, it suddenly becomes a very real possibility. Especially if Vlad decides his goal is to gain custody of Danny and Jazz.

@ravthegrave for what could have been 😔 it still lives on in my drafts

[five-abs-and-one-peck]

Poison Apple

November. 2006.

"We need to talk."

"Yes, we do. We agreed not to get attached."

"We also agreed it wouldn't happen like this."

"You know what they did. You know they deserve it."

"... He's getting suspicious. He's started looking for you."

"I'm well prepared for that. I know how to deal with him."

"Even if he throws teeth at you?"

"Have you made up your mind?"

"People have called me a monster before. Many times. But never heartless."

"I see."

"I'm going to miss you, despite what you think. Perhaps you'll figure out a solution to get us out of this mess."

"..."

"Perhaps."

[ladyniniane]

Felt like doing this tier list and here is the result!

[radroachmeat]

alright I promised I would share my ghoulfucker art so here I am to deliver. thank you for stopping by the Sierra Madre please come again!

(uncropped available offsite)

[mykelneedssleep]

Welcome to my favorite time of the day which I like to call my sleep schedule vs. that random fanfic idea I had