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late-to-the-magnus-archives · 1 year

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Corrupted, Chapter Three: D.B. Copper of the Demon World - a Malevolent x TMA crossover

Tim. Do as I say. And the way John says that confirms everything.

It’s uncompromising. It’s not a suggestion. It’s a command, like commands are really this thing’s nature, and he’s been making an effort to keep that under wraps until he knows how Tim will respond.

Tim thinks, Or maybe none of this is happening, and I’m hallucinating a dom in my head because I stroked out and I’m dying on the bathroom floor.

AO3

———

After all that pushing, all that swagger, John suddenly seems hesitant. The Magnus Institute?

“Only place I know of, since I don’t think we’re going the psychic chat-box route,” Tim says.

They have… something of a reputation.

Picky-ass demon. “Sure. For spooky shit,” says Tim. “Not going to read me the results? Fine. Siri, dial the number.”

John seems even more hesitant. I think this could be a mistake.

The lack of physical keyboards is such an accessibility issue, Tim thinks, and resolves to do better being loud about it. “Is my finger over the one?”

Tim, there has to be someone else.

“I don’t know anybody else. How do you know their reputation, anyway? Look—maybe they can at least direct us to someone who can help.”

John sighs. Very well. I can see you’re determined, and your choice could be worse. Yes—your finger is over the one.

”Dire,” Tim observes, presses the one, waits for the beep, and speaks. “Hi, my name’s Tim Stoker. I, uh. I need to come in and talk to you people about something.” He suddenly realizes he doesn’t know what to say. That he’s hearing voices? Well, they were sure to take that seriously, weren’t they? “So. Um. I guess I’m showing up tomorrow. Bye.” He hangs up. “Fuck,” Tim mutters. “We’re going to have to go in. They won’t listen if I just ramble at them over the phone.”

Well, this should be interesting, says John, sounding resigned.

“What will ?”

The Institute. I know what Power it calls upon.

Tim stiffens. “What? Power? What do you mean?”

There is a moment of hesitation. I think this will be all right, soothes John. Upon consideration, I believe I am safely unidentifiable in your eyes.

“Sure. Okay. That’s not spooky times at all.”

You should take it easy, Tim. You need to be in top form tomorrow.

“Yeah.” He swallows hard. “I don’t know how to do this. I can’t see.”

I will take care of you, Tim,says the voice, fond and warm and now slightly possessive, and Tim is not comforted at all.

He feels like some horrible dragon swooped in, looking for his brother, and claimed the lesser version because the better one wasn’t available.

Maybe “dragon” isn’t far off. “Let’s circle back to something. You are definitely talking like you’re not human.”

I’m not.

“Right. What are you, then?”

A friend.

Tim rolls his eyes. “I’m not six. Come on. What are you? Fuck, what else is there besides humans, anyway?”

Again, that dark, amused eagerness. Quite a lot.

“So here’s where I try very hard not to assume you’re some kind of demon, or evil wizard, or dragon, or something,” says Tim. “Or maybe the Devil himself. ”

The laugh. It really is something. Are those our only options?

“How should I know? You don’t exactly give off fairy vibes.”

The voice gentles. No. I am not any of those things, nor or all of those things real.

“Oh, so some of them are? Great. So what are you?”

I feel comfortable discussing that at a later time. If we talk about it now, they may see it in your mind tomorrow, and prefer the safety of anonymity.

“They’re going to read my mind?”

It is a possibility, yes.

Right. Right. This continued to be horrible. “Oh, and your identity is the big thing, is it? What, you’re the D.B. Cooper of the demon world?”

That laugh again. Not exactly, no.

Tim sighs. “Well, whatever. They want The Erotic Adventures of Tim Stoker, they’re welcome to them,” he mutters. “So what did the book say about getting my sight back?”

Nothing I will tell you now for the same reason. However, know that it is possible, if challenging. For the moment, our souls are entangled—like necklaces kept carelessly in a drawer.

Souls. There are souls.

Tim rubs his face. He can’t even process the enormity of this. “Not my favorite answer, if we’re honest?”

Tim, I’m trying to protect you. There are things in this world no human is meant to know—things which, if learned, can cause a psychic break. It’s one of the reasons I had to be sure you’d only opened the book to its beginning.

“And you could tell that, how?”

By which runes were last accessed.

Geez.

Tim frowns. “Why doesn’t this thing have a fucking warning on it?”

Oh, it does… but unfortunately, time has passed, and languages are lost. The symbol on that cover would have been enough to prevent anyone from opening it, in the past.

Tim only vaguely recalls it—a weird, three-hook shape, made of metal. “What, they can’t rebind it without dying, or something?”

Correct.

“it’s that dangerous? Well, that puts us in a spot, doesn’t it? Because someone is going to have to help me with that book tomorrow. I can’t just hand it over if it's going to break someone or kill them, can I?”

So you’re clever, not just handsome. Good. That will make this easier.

“And that’s a deflection,” says Tim.

You will not hand it over. You will hang onto it. Besides, unless I am completely mistaken about this Power—an impossibility—those at the Magnus Institute will be able to handle this book. To be frank, I have a different concern right now.

“And that is?”

Tim, how secure is this location?

His heart clenches. “It’s a house. Just… just my parents’ house.” It had never truly felt like his. “I’m supposed to finish packing it up. It’s been sold. Right, because you needed to know that,” he muttered.

Your parents no longer live here?

“Dad’s been dead since I was fifteen. Mom went three years ago from a heart attack. And my brother was just murdered, in case you forgot.”

I did not forget, Tim.Soothing. Smooth.

So damn smooth. Suspiciously so, really. “I… it’s fucking late. I don’t…” He lets out one little sob. “I don’t know what to do. I want to call Danny. I can’t.”

He died very recently, then?

“It’s not even been a month.” Tim’s voice breaks.

So you’re in grief, on top of all of this. The voice goes smooth again. You’re going to be all right. You’re not going through this alone.

Either John was genuinely compassionate, or he had already figured out how Tim responded to his voice and was using it like a tool.

Tim knows which one it is. It’s not a good feeling. “Why were you in a book?”

Does that matter?

“Yes.”

I’ll tell you after we leave.

“Leave?”

I don’t feel safe, Tim. I’d assumed we were in a place with protections, and that assumption is on me. When you opened that book, there was essentially a signal sent out, like a flash of light. We need to leave, Tim.

Tim sighs. “My apartment isn’t far, but I’m blind. I don’t even know who to call for help.”

We’ve wasted too much time. We need to leave now.

Tim stiffens. “The cultists, or… whatever you felt from the Magnus Institute?”

Something. I’ll guide you.

“I don’t know.”

Tim.

“So I’ll go and call a rideshare. Usually takes about fifteen minutes out here.”

I don’t think we have time.

“What? We’re in a rush, now? It’s nearly midnight!”

Tim. Do as I say. And the way John says that confirms everything.

Or maybe none of this is happening, and I’m hallucinating a dom in my head because I stroked out and I’m dying on the bathroom floor, he thinks.

Tim.

“Sorry. Sure. I… fuck. I can’t finish packing this place blind, anyway, right?” he says, standing.

Distinctly less patient now. I’m sure a friend could help you do it. Now, move.

Yeah, Tim’s pretty sure he could get this “John” good and mad quite fast.

He feels for the book. “Where’s my backpack?”

To your left. There.

Book in, zipper up, house keys in hand.

Tim wonders if whatever this mess is will kill him. He wonders if he should care more about that than he does. He sighs. Rubs his face.

Tim.

“Fine, fine. You better not walk me into a wall, or something.”

The tone changes. We’re not alone.

Tim goes still. “What?” he whispers.

And he hears something.

A scratching. A sniffing. A weird sound just at the front of the house, as if something also blind was trying to find the opening by smell and touch.

Tim freezes. He has never heard anything that alien in real life. He has never known this sour spike of adrenaline, filling his mouth, making his hands tingle.

Is there a back door?

Tim is already moving, and he curses softly as he bangs into another side table he’d pulled out of place earlier while packing.

Quiet.

“You be quiet,” Tim mutters, but tries to move more carefully.

Is John scared? Sure sounds like it. That is not comforting.

Tim reaches the back door. His hand is on the knob when the front door bangs open as though hit with a truck.

He gasps, cringing out of reflex. It’s followed by a deep sound, a growl, triggering every panicked chemical his lizard-brain has ever produced, and Tim suddenly feels about six inches tall and very afraid.

Tim!

More sounds. Something crunching. It is in the house.

Tim! MOVE! That was a roar, and it was inside his head, not behind him.

Tim slips out, closing the door behind him. Then he crouches on the back stair, clinging to the knob like a life-raft and shaking, and gasping, and frozen.

Your breathing is too loud. You’re going to give away our position.

“Fuck,” whispers Tim. “I’ve never run for my life before, okay?”

The slightest pause. The voice is even less patient. You’re doing fine. Now turn the fuck around and let me see where we are.

Inside the house, something crashes.

“Oh, gods,” Tim murmurs as he looks, fully on his knees now. His arms have gone weak.

Damn. That fence is too high. We’ll have to slip around the front.

“Sure, no problem, I’ll just slip around the front while totally blind. This’ll work great,” Tim mumbles.

Keep it together. We need to get away from here before they realize where you went.

Tim pictures the layout back here. He thinks about the windows, shades all up, curtains removed, lights bright and yellow in the night.

He crawls.

Good. Turn right. A little less. Good.

So at least he wasn’t going to ram into the house head-first.

The grass is half-dead, stubbly, and some of it is sharp. He hisses through his teeth, palms hurting.

Hurry.

“I am!” he whispers back.

Okay, stop. Lean forward just a little and let me—oh!

Tim doesn’t breathe.

There are creatures going in and out of the house. They’re big; eyeless. Wolf-like jaws. Dark gray skin without fur or hair. Bipedal, though their front claws look prehensile.

Tim makes one low, choked sound. “What the hell are they?”

Hunters. Servants of terrible things. Tightly: Next time I tell you to move, you need to do it faster. We were almost caught.

Tim frowns. Yeah, they were going to have to talk about this bossiness, or whatever it was, but this was definitely not the time. “Sure. Whereto?”

Something in his tone must give his irritation away, because John goes smooth again. If you reach the sidewalk and go left, we can get away from them. I suggest walking, not running. Try to stay calm. They will chase us if you act like prey. They will feel us and seek you out.

Oh, good. That was normal.

Tim reaches the sidewalk, and as he chooses to stand—to make himself more visible in order to be less obvious—he reflects that he’s never felt so brave in all his life.

There’s another crash in the house behind him.

Somehow, he walks, and doesn’t run, and remembers (barely) to breathe.

Easy. Adjust to your left. Very good, Tim. You’re doing fine.

“Don’t think I am,” says Tim, but he keeps walking. “Rideshare?”

I wouldn’t. The risk of having to wait in one place is too high.

Tim could tell the driver where to meet him up ahead, but the challenge of attempting that via an app he cannot see is suddenly too much. Just too much. “You know how addresses work?”

I do. Amusement again.

Tim could shake him. “Here’s mine.” And he walks, and John directs, and they take the long way back to his box-filled apartment.

John had no trouble navigating them back to Tim’s new rental (which doesn’t feel like home, but nowhere does).

Tim has so many questions. They feel bottlenecked in him, like panic has made the exit too small.

“Home, sweet home,” he mutters, locking the door by feel, switching on the light by habit, and walking blindly into his living room.

The first thing we’re going to—stop!

It came a second too late, and Tim trips on a box. “Ow.”

When I tell you to stop, you need to fucking stop.

There’s that impatience again.

No time like the present, he figures. “Look,” says Tim. “I’m probably in shock, or whatever, but we need to lay some ground rules. You may be a magical scary whatsit, but you’re in my head, and I’m the one with the body. You’re obviously used to bossing people around. That isn’t me. We’re sharing this situation, and I’d like a little more respect.”

Would you.

That was completely flat. Unreadable. A warning tone.

Tim’s not in the mood for taking shit right now. “It’s not a lot to ask.”

No, I suppose not, says John, still unreadable, still flat. Perhaps I should lay some ground rules, too.

John is absolutely building toward a tirade or threat or something. It’s like a trembling under the floor, warning of an approaching train.

Whatever.

Tim makes his way to the bathroom, hands out, finding boxes with his toes. “Yeah, well, go on, then,” he says. “Get it all off your chest.”

Tim, do you like being alive?

Oh, so they had gone from zero to sixty in two seconds flat. Cool, cool.

Out of habit, he turns on the bathroom light.

That grieves him because, of course, it’s pointless, and he leans in the door frame, feeling haggard. “Sure. Alive is just grand.”

There’s the tiniest pause.

So do I, says John, and he’s back to smooth. The flatness is gone, rage diverted, leaving a mental breeze in its wake because it had been so huge and heated. However, we will not be able to stay alive if you are going to be obstinate simply for the sake of being obstinate. Anything I tell you to do is for our mutual good, Tim. You’re going to have to trust me.

And Tim can absolutely feel that was not where John had been going to go.

John had changed directions. Gone from direct threat to… something else. Why?

Maybe it was because John got a look at his face in the bathroom mirror. Tim feels distinctly pitiful, not obstinate, and that probably shows.

He sighs. “I’m not trying to be obstinate. I don’t know what’s happening. I’m afraid. This is… Look, three hours ago, I would have sworn in a court of law that magic wasn’t real, and there were no souls, or anything else. And here we are! All of a sudden, everything I know is wrong, and now I have to be afraid for my parents and my brother because there’s souls, and what the fuck does that even mean, and monsters are trashing the house I grew up in. I’m not doing great. All right?”

His cheeks feel tacky from tears, and he feels his way to the sink to wash it.

Of course, Tim. I understand. Sin and melted chocolate, all in his tone.

“I don’t like being manipulated, either,” Tim says, softly.

Who does?

Well, that was a response of some kind. Tim lets it go. “What time is it?” He shows John his phone.

Two thirty in the morning.

“Right. Am I safe to sleep? Can I do that?”

You should be. Nothing followed us here, though if you open that book again, I’m sure we’ll draw something.

“What book? I have no book. You’re talking nonsense.” He turns on the shower.

Then he considers turning off the light.

This was awkward. In fact, there were going to be a lot of awkward moments in a shared body with eyes he couldn’t control.

But in the dark, he’d have to try to find things entirely by touch, instead of John just saying, Shampoo is six inches higher, and that seems like a lot of work right now.

Tim sighs.

Do whatever you have to, Tim. It’s not as though I’m unfamiliar with bodies. Even human ones, says John with an eerily good guess.

Or maybe with experience. Maybe John had done this before, and knew what to expect from the start.

Tim files that away for later. “Yeah, well, you’re not the one putting on a peep show for a ghost,” he says. “Fuck it. We ball.” He strips and gets in.

It feels very good to wash off. He was positively rank; whatever happened when he opened that book had really put his body through it.

“So you’re not a demon,” he says, rinsing his hair.

No.

“Genie?”

Tim, I’m not going to tell you until after the Institute.

“Sure, sure,” says Tim, who might just be overtired, but he’s beginning to feel like maybe he handled all of this… okay, given the circumstances. “But a guy’s got to guess. I mean, unless you’re actually Satan, I don’t care that much. I just want to know.”

I am not actually Satan.Such amusement.

“Shame,” says Tim. “That voice would go great with horns. Like Tim Curry in Legend.”

John snorts.

Tim notes that John doesn’t ask what that is or who, and files it away for later, too. “Towel?”

To your left. There.

“Thanks. So. Am I going the wrong way? More Tron, less Tinkerbell?”

Tim…

That is a sort of fond exasperation—something Tim is very good at creating—and he awards himself a point. “You’re a simulation? A.I. and nanobots, that kind of thing?”

For now, let’s just say a being.

“Ominous! Also vague as hell.” Towel hung, Tim marches out of the bathroom, nude and uncaring. “I’m still picturing horns, since you didn’t say otherwise. Kitchen?”

You may picture them, but think ‘antlers,’ branching toward the sky like lightning. More to your left. Boxes on both sides.

Also noted that John is too vain to let ‘horns’ go. (And possesses a level of inhumanity that is frankly upsetting, but Tim will not deal with it now.) “I hope you like peanut butter. I haven’t gone shopping yet.”

I won’t taste anything you eat. All I share is your eyes.

“That kind of sucks, doesn’t it? Though I guess it means if a monster chomps down on me, you won’t feel that, either.”

I won’t. But I will die if you do.

If true, that meant John would try to keep them alive. All right. “I don’t even remember if this place has curtains, or if I pulled the blinds, or anything,” says Tim with great cheer. “Hello, world.”

They are closed. You’re suddenly in quite a good mood.

“Probably the adrenaline. Or, just, you know, the whole surviving certain death thing. That was always Danny’s deal—adrenaline junky. I never saw the appeal.”

Yes. Danny… Do you know how he got involved with cultists?

“Nope. He always did normal crazy things, I thought. Mountain climbing. Skydiving. Sailing stupid distances.”

He sounds quite brave.

“He wasn’t, though?” Tim feels along the counter and finds the bag of bread left out a million years ago, when he’d had breakfast in a world he understood.

How so?

“You’ve got to feel fear to be brave,” says Tim. “He didn’t really feel it. Did all those crazy things just to feel something, you know?”

So you’re quite different.

“Can’t tell if that’s an insult,” Tim says, mouth full of sandwich. “Refuse to take it as one.”

Mm. I’m glad to see you’re eating. Who knows what kind of day we’ll have? You’ll need to keep up your strength.

Tim chooses to ignore the weird eagerness in thatdelivery. “I, for your information, want nothing more than to get good and drunk and pass out, but I won’t because I’d sleep late. I mean, the plan is to show up at the Institute when they open. Siri said eight a.m., and Chelsea is like… an hour from here by bus. Um. I don’t know where the mattress is.”

Not going to brush your teeth? John sounds amused.

Tim smacks his lips. “Yeah. Should. Help?”

He is directed.

“Do beings brush their teeth, too?” he says, fumbling for toothpaste.

No. We have spells for such things.

“Fucking convenient,” he says, and commits an act of oral hygiene.

He knows the peanut butter jar is low, which is a sign, he thinks. He has to get groceries soon, and he’ll need to see to do that, he thinks.

He can do this. He chooses to believe he’s going to get help tomorrow, and all of this is nearly over.

And then… what? Back to emptiness and job searching? Back to reaching for his phone to call Danny and remembering too late that he’s gone?

That thought does not feel good, but any concern he has that he won’t be able to sleep fades the moment his face hits the pillow. Falling asleep is like literal falling, taken by gravity and stress, and he is out.

#Tma #tma fic #malevolent #malevolent fic #malevolent crossover #tma crossover #tma x malevolent #malevolent x tma #tim stoker #kiy malevolent #corrupted fic

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bigskydreaming · 3 years

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#when i read about tim i often kind of come to the idea that he's relatively self centered#and that can be both a flaw and a strength#but he doesn't often consider other people's feelings and circumstances#like when dick made damian robin he didn't really consider the situation from anyone else's view#or in his origin story#he doesn't seem to consider how dick would feel about hearing how tim was affected by dick's parents' death#or with the spyral situation#or in regards to him earning robin#and its pretty consistent in fandom characterization even if a lot of writers don't seem to be aware of it#its interesting cause i think its something i think he has in common with bruce#its honestly a surprisingly consistent thing from what i see#and it can be a strength to#it can absolutely lead to some confidence and self actualization#as well as being able commit to fixing something and working hard at it#because you believe you can and don't think anyone else can/will do it via @emenerd

Y’know, what’s interesting to me about these points is the fact that like.....Tim having tendencies towards self-centeredness is actually something that COMPLETELY makes sense and can be quite sympathetic in light of his backstory of having neglectful parents.

In an age of armchair diagnosticians eager to label anyone who expresses a controversial viewpoint while centering themselves as an example, as like, having a narcissistic personality disorder (and with the loaded implication that this makes them a bad person even if its true, instead of just....having a disorder, yay weaponizable ableism) like, it can be important to add in distinctions that even tendencies that share overlap with a lot of things born of entitlement, etc....aren’t always necessarily proof of that.

For instance, in Tim’s case, an overemphasis on himself and his own position in situations and arguments can very reasonably be attributed as a coping mechanism he developed in an attempt to acknowledge and address self-esteem issues he sees himself as having, DUE to parental neglect.

Its not that he thinks he’s the most important person in the room, necessarily, its that he spent so many years not even being considered a person in the room, that now he OVERCOMPENSATES on his own behalf, in an attempt to remind himself that no, his opinion and feelings and situations do matter.....and because he like most of the Bat-characters has a tendency towards hyper-fixating on a problem they’re trying to address, this can also understandably create a kind of tunnel vision. Where he’s so busy focusing on what he’s diagnosed as an actual issue he has that he’s trying to address or make up for, in order to build up his self-esteem....that he neglects to keep everyone around him equally centered in his interactions with them, and remember that like, they have their own issues and ignoring that to focus entirely on his own runs the risk of negatively impacting them in the exact same way he’s still learning to cope with having been negatively impacted in his development as a child.

None of this makes him a bad person, or is stuff that can’t be addressed and developed just by paying the appropriate attention to it and his interactions.

SO the issue I tend to more often have....

Is with how often in fandom and fanon we hear references to Tim’s neglect and emotional abuse and how this impacted him.....much in the same way we see Jason and Cass and Damian and Dick’s various forms of abuse and the developmental impact it had on them....

BUT there tends to then be a disconnect, IMO, because that acknowledgment of the WHAT of Tim’s neglect and abuse and the HOW it hurt him.....isn’t often followed up by an examination/awareness of how it also SHAPED him.....at least, not compared to how discussions/fics about say, Jason’s abuse tend to point out the latter as much as the former.

And this is a big part of my gripe with the ways abuse is centered and tackled as a topic in fics and fandom discussions, because its so often capitalized upon as a defense or shield for a character from criticism, stuff like that.....without ever actually EXPLORING the topic itself, or the FULLNESS of the impact it can have.

But only in regards to some characters.

What I mean is like....we see a lot of focus on Jason’s childhood abuse, yeah? And this often is then connected through headcanons, meta and fics to various aspects of Jason’s characterization as a teenager, and as an adult as well.....with a tendency towards anger or violence, abrasive personality, etc. Don’t get me wrong, its usually presented as such in a SYMPATHETIC light, especially when raised by fans of Jason themselves.....but his abuse is very much present and centered in fics and discussions as something that not only impacted him and made him suffer, but something that actually shaped him to varying degrees as well....with a lot of focus then in fics of him as an adult, like, paid to him going to therapy and unpacking his childhood abuse in an effort to WORK on these aspects of himself that make his present day life harder or less healthy than he’d like it to be. The issue of how his abuse lent itself to various behaviorisms is raised in order to address various byproducts of his abuse as FLAWS that he seeks to eliminate, in order to make himself happier and make himself someone that people want to be around more.

And again, don’t get me wrong - for the most part, this is a GOOD thing. The caveat here is just a personal dislike I have for how often these narratives smack of a kind of saviorism, and act like it was only through the grace of Bruce and becoming part of the Batfam that Jason’s ever afforded the opportunity to better himself as a person. I dislike the hell out of this because it not only pairs all too well with a lot of classist shit, it feeds into the singular narrative we’re so often presented with by media about abused kids: the myth of the victim being destined to become a victimizer, it all being an inevitable cycle. The reason this myth is so easily perpetuated is the exact reason I’m so critical of the saviorism in a lot of abused-Jason fics.....people can very easily fall into the trap of assuming that abused kids are likely to grow up to be abusers because they never have anyone to TEACH them that abuse is wrong, or to lead by healthy example.

The harm of this perception is that it kinda throws under the bus every kid who never lucks out and gets a Bruce Wayne style savior swooping in to not only save them from their abusive environs, but TEACH them that they deserved better and that abuse is wrong.

Because its like, uh, the thing is, plenty of abused kids who never get a personal mentor or savior figure are fully capable of figuring out for themselves that they deserve better and that people hurting them is wrong, because it makes them feel bad and they don’t like that?

Many abused kids don’t grow up in a media vacuum where they simply have no access to glimpses of lives different from their own.....we see kids having happier, healthier family lives on TV or in books and are able to figure out that society overall thinks that’s what family is SUPPOSED to look like, and its ours that is the aberration?

The very fact that we’re taught or have it instilled in us by abusive parents that like, we’re not to bring up instances or examples of our abuse to teachers or friends, that its a SECRET, is like, usually a dead giveaway that there’s something WRONG with it that we’re being instructed - and enforced with abusive consequences - to keep from alerting others to....like, this is basically a blaring siren to a lot of us that no, what’s happening to us ISN’T normal and acceptable, and that’s literally WHY the parent we’re afraid of is so insistent on us keeping the facts of it hidden?

And so like, tons of abused kids figure out for ourselves the difference between right or wrong, based off nothing more than our own feelings about things and a desire to not be like the people who make us feel miserable - like, never underestimate the power of spite to like, keep a kid from growing up doing the same thing to others that was done to them, lol.

But point being, lots of kids never get a Bruce Wayne figure to take them away from their abuse and also teach them that they never deserved it and how not to pass the hurt forward by doing the same things to others. And its kinda condescending as fuck that we so often see narratives that take it as so obvious it barely merits commenting on, that like, ‘of COURSE abused kids grow up to become abusers if they don’t have someone else step in and show them a better way’....mmm, no. Fuck that. But you get what I mean.

So like, its a mixed bag. Its a good thing, to see Jason-centric stories that show him addressing his childhood and seeking just a more fuller, happier, healthier life for himself. Its a less great thing to see this narrative presented as all encompassing, with it never being raised that no, Jason actually could figure out he deserved better and how to treat people in ways he’d want to be treated even without a billionaire guardian angel.....NOT because the narrative wherein someone helps an abused kid figure out what was wrong about how they were treated is like, NEVER valid....but rather it just becomes a problem when looked at as a data point against the larger tapestry of fandom-wide works....and noticing that this specific narrative is pretty much the ONLY one raised or treated as valid. With it just being ASSUMED to be the natural course of events and characters, rather than just....the direction society overall has their perceptions of abuse steered towards due to a singular and constantly reinforced abuse narrative shown to us in media.

And the way this all plays back into my point about Tim and what took me down this road in general.....

Is that disconnect I was talking about, lies specifically in HOW Tim is often acknowledged and regarded as an abuse survivor due to his emotional abuse and neglect......with this abuse and its impact on HIM often taking center stage, much the way Jason’s abuse and its impact takes center stage in his narratives.....

BUT with a key difference being that while a lot of Jason’s narratives go on to denote the specific ways his abuse helped SHAPE him and his interactions with others, and raise and address the ways in which he can better himself and his relationships by unpacking all of this openly....

Most of the stories about Tim’s abuse/neglect tend to just STOP at the awareness of its existence and impact on him. Never taking it that one step further to examine how those specific forms of abuse could have additionally SHAPED him....in ways that sometimes negatively impact those around him and his own loved ones, even if this is completely unintentional on his part. The difference, the disconnect, lies solely in how rarely its ever acknowledged that Tim’s own upbringing can and does play directly into how he interacts with people later on in life.....and in ways that he’s fully capable of addressing and bettering himself so as to be happier and healthier just in his own life, and in his relationships, as someone others want to be around.

Aaaaand once you actually examine or consider WHY there’s this discrepancy between the full ramifications of Tim’s abuse and that which various siblings of his underwent, when there’s full agreement that what he did go through absolutely can be termed abusive as well....like, its the implications of what about Tim makes him more naturally resistant or whatever to being shaped by his abuse in ways that have actual negative impact on others in his life, whereas the same isn’t true of say, Jason.....that’s when the red flags start to go up for me, and the unintended subtext starts to get Less Than Stellar, IMO.

Anyway. Just food for thought on the subject of Tim, his upbringing, the various impacts this had on not JUST him but also on how he interacts with others, and ways in which all of this compares and contrasts with how the subject of abuse is raised and depicted in regards to other Batkids.

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catxsnow · 4 years

Text

JEALOUS, MUCH? T.D.

Summary: Tim doesn’t like to see you dancing with other men at Bruce’s gala’s.

Warning: a few suggestive themes at the end, jealously

A/N: To the anon requester who I wrote Never trust a Luthor, I hope this is more of what you were more looking for!

GIF not mine

Word count: 2.2k

Dating Tim was something that you never expected.

You didn't know that he was secretly Robin. Or that Bruce Wayne adopted him as his own. That he had four brothers and two sisters. You certainly didn't know that he worked on a team filled with superheroes just the same age as you. However, what surprised you nearly as much as all of that, was how insanely jealous he got.

Tim was the kind of person that made you smile without him realizing it. He always thought things through far more logically than needed. Him being the kind of person that got jealous? It didn't seem on par with him, yet here you were.

He didn't show this behavior very often, particularly at the beginning of your relationship. he was subtle with his motives, grabbing your hand if you were talking to someone flirting with you. Asking for a dance at Bruce's gala's when he noticed someone's eyeing you up. You barely noticed it at first.

After a couple years of dating him, his jealously still didn't seem to go away. He knew that he had nothing to worry about - you would never break his trust like that. However, it was the others that he didn't trust. Even when it came to his best friends jokingly flirting with you, he would get angered.

And yet, after all these years, you still didn't seem to mind it. Whenever he would pull you into his arms and kiss you with all of his love, you didn't care that it was an act of jealously, you were just happy to be with him. He made you feel loved, and at the end of the day that was what mattered the most.

Not that you would admit it, but there were times that you purposefully made him jealous - just a little bit. Asking to go to bars with him all the time and dressing down just enough to get attention. Playfully flirting with his best friends - or worse, his brothers. It was always just enough to see that glint in his eyes and know that the second you got home you were going to learn your lesson.

Tim knew what you were doing, and he still fell for it every time.

And then there were the times that you weren't doing it on purpose. You would be being polite and many people took that the wrong way. Tim would step in, making sure that whoever was talking to you knew that you weren't interested.

Gala's were the worst for them to happen. You were always dressed so beautifully and everyone in the room could see it. Old men who had a... distant relationship with their wives would stare you down. Tim no longer became jealous, he became protective. He didn't want anyone to look at you that way, especially some old creep who was only there because he was rich.

There was the odd Gala, like this night, that the sons of rich couples would attend. Dressed in expensive suits and only there to see all the beautiful girls in long gowns and think about what was underneath them. Tim hated nights like those.

"You look stunning, my love," Tim sneaked up behind you. He wrapped his arms around your waist and kissed your cheek. It was the first time that he had seen you all evening - Bruce had been keeping him busy with unrelated Bat business. He tried to make it back in time for you, but things had gotten delayed.

"Busy night?" You asked, spinning around in his arms so you could kiss his lips. Tim only nodded. You trailed your fingers delicately on the faintest purple tinge on his jaw. Only if someone were as close as you could notice it. "You okay?"

"Better now that I'm with you," Tim assured. "How’s the Gala so far?"

"Better now that I'm with you," You mimicked his words. Tim rolled his eyes, kissing you one last time before leading you towards the dance floor. His hand laid out for you to grab, and the two of you instantly starting moving along to the music. Ballroom dancing had never been your thing until meeting Tim, now it was what you looked forward to the most at these events.

It seemed like the second you stepped foot on the dance floor, you gained the attention of everyone in the room. Tim moved you so gracefully across the marble flooring with such love in his eyes that it could be seen by anyone glancing at you. He spun you around, smiling as he saw you get excited.

As the song came to an end, he dipped you ever so slightly, kissing you lips for everyone watching to know that you were his. He wished to dance with you for the next song, but it was Bruce that had whispered something to him. Tim's face dropped as Bruce left the two of you.

"Gotta go?" You asked, already knowing the answer. Tim nodded, promising that he wouldn't be gone for more than twenty minutes. Twenty minutes too long without you and twenty less minutes of being able to stare at your beautiful face. "Love you."

It seemed like the second Tim stepped out of the room, someone had joined you at your side. He appeared no older than you or Tim. Tall, dark hair and a beautiful smile. He wore an expensive suit and he certainly looked like he had the attitude to be at a grand event like this.

"Kind of rude to just up and leave your date like that," He spoke to you. You knew how busy Tim's life was, him leaving like this was nothing new. However, to others, you could see how him disappearing like that could look bad. "I'm Jared, You must be (Y/N) (L/N)."

"You know my name?" You raised an eyebrow. You had been going to these gala's since you and Tim started dating, not once did someone ask for your name. You weren't rich like these people, the only reason you belonged at all was because of Tim. It was a nice change to be recognized but someone.

"Of course," he nonchalantly shrugged. He took a final sip of his drink before setting it down on the table you were by. One hand was slung in his pocket, the other at his side. "I know the names of all the beautiful people in this room. Care to dance? Until your date comes back at least?"

Jared had his hand sticking out for you to grab. You did another look around of the room, hoping to see that Tim was coming back from whatever goose chase Bruce put him on. Unfortunately, you didn't see him or anyone else that you knew. Of course, the massive Wayne family had to disappear just as you needed them.

Reluctantly, you placed your hand in his and he swiftly led you back to the dance floor. More couples filled the space, slowly dancing along to the music that played. Jared stood taller than Tim, he exuded richness but lacked the elegance your boyfriend had. He was a decent dancer.

"So, what do you do?" He asked, trying to fill your silence with a conversation. You didn't wish to be dancing with this man, but it also seemed better than standing along. "If you don't mind me asking."

"Not at all," You assured. Your eyes danced along the people, hoping to see Tim's face among them all. "I go to Gotham University right now. Mr. Wayne said I could work for his company one day if I so wished. What do you do?"

"Lucky, Mr. Wayne is a good man," Jared smiled once more. "I just graduated Gotham University. Chemical Engineering. Hopefully one day I'll get to work at Wayne Enterprises, too." Jared spun you suddenly, you would have fallen over if it wasn't for his hand on your waist keeping you upright. "Sorry."

"No worries," You chuckled. Dancing with Tim, you two were always in sync, you forgot what it was like to dance with someone new. "You don't want to get out of Gotham? It's not the best city to be stuck in."

"Gotham's been home forever," Jared brushed off. His hand was still on your waist. His touch was foreign to you, feeling weird that it wasn't Tim. You hated this feeling, yet chatting with him seemed refreshing. "Wouldn't you leave? There's many business like Mr. Wayne's that I'm sure you could get into."

"That's true, but none of them would be owned by him," You chuckled. Working for Bruce always seemed like the route to go, even before dating Tim. "Besides I couldn't leave T-" You were cut off.

"May I cut in?" You hadn't even noticed Tim rejoin everyone, much less see him stand directly beside you and Jared. The taller man looked down at your boyfriend, registering that he was glaring at the placement of his hands. Aside from the one clasped in yours, his other had move down your waist and towards your hips, dangerous close to your butt. You hadn't even noticed.

Tim glared at Jared, ready to retaliate in any way that he saw fit. His hands were curled at his sides. To his surprise, Jared let go of you rather quickly, and retained the friendly look on his face.

"Of course," Jared gave up your hold without question. "It was nice meeting you (Y/N)." He gave a short wave and a final smile before heading off. Tim took his place, pulling you against his chest in seconds. He swooped down for a long, lingering kiss as well. Seeing you with this other man? It sparked a jealously inside him that he hadn't felt in a while.

"Jealous, much? Or did you just miss me?" You teased. Tim dragged his hands down your waist until finally reaching the curve of your butt. Inappropriate in the setting you were in, but you knew that this was just the sign of him wanting Jared to know, you were dating him. "Tim," You scolded.

"Lets get out of here?" Tim offered. Seeing you dance with someone else, he wanted to take you away. He wanted to be with you and only you where no one else could consider asking you to dance. You knew what his intentions were, taking you away from the gala just to undress you.

Anytime he got jealous Tim would show you just how much he wanted you. He'd kiss every inch of your skin, knowing just the right places that got you excited. Spending all of his time focusing on you, making you feel good at his hand, not anyone else's. You knew exactly what was coming for you.

"I'd like that."

Tim barely had you half way up the stairs before he was pulling you in for another kiss. He refused to part ways long enough to get to his old bedroom at the Manor, yet somehow managing to get both of you there without falling. His tie was loosened and his buttons undone as he placed you on his bed.

You both kicked your shoes off, struggling with not wanting to break your kiss. Tim's kisses trailed down your neck, nipping and sucking right at your pulse point. It was enough to emit a quiet moan out of you. The marks he left would surely be hard to hide the next day, but you didn't care.

"Did you like dancing with that other man?" Tim mumbled against your skin. He finally shed the rest of his shirt, along with the tie dangling around his neck. His beautifully tanned torso was scattered with bruises from his evening affairs, though it didn't seem to slow him down with you.

"If I said I did?" You pondered. Though it wasn't a bad time, you had wished it to be Tim. Tim glared at you, squeezing your ass to let you know he wasn't in a playing mood. As much as you wanted to fuel his jealously, you choose to soothe it. "You know you never have a reason to be jealous, Timmy. My eyes are always on you."

No matter what other man or woman was in the room, Tim was the only person that you loved. Through everything, you were always going to be by his side - he knew that. No matter what situation you were in, he knew that he was going to be the one holding you at night as you fell asleep.

"It's not your eyes I'm worried about," Tim explained as he stripped you of the remainder of your clothes. He trailed kisses down your chest, the inside of your thighs, and then back up to your lips. The hand not keeping his body weight off of you was intertwined with your own fingers. "You didn't see the way he was looking you, undressing you with his eyes."

"Hmm, kinda how I was looking at you tonight, huh?" You smirked. Tim always looked so handsome when he wore a suit and his hair was all combed back. You always admired him endlessly at gala's like these. "Except at the end of the day, it's you that gets to see me naked, not any other man."

"My favourite sight to see."

#tim drake #tim drake imagine #tim drake one shot #tim drake x reader #red robin #red robin imagine #dc one shot #dc imagine #dc #batfam #batfam imagine

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justcourttee · 4 years

Text

The Never Ending Cycle of Proposals

This is a continuation of this post and the idea was presented by @mystery-5-5 . I was so excited to finish it and hope you like it! :)

This was not how it was supposed to go.

Damian had made sure of it. He found and destroyed every contingency plan that Jason and the others had formed. He flew Marinette back to Paris, to her parent’s bakery so that they could be a part of the moment. There should be no possible way things could go sideways.

Clearly he had underestimated the members of Date Duty.

“-and then Marinette fell down the stairs! Can you believe it? It was her big debut at the Wayne Gala as Damian’s girlfriend and this girl got so nervous that she tripped over her own two feet.”

“That’s our Marinette. As graceful as ever.”

A boisterous laughter filled Damian’s ears as the bakery door snapped shut behind him. Checking his watch, he tried to recall how long he had been gone. It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes. How did Jason get to Paris?

“Oh! Damian sweetie, look who just flew in to check in on us and low and behold, he didn’t even know that you and Marinette had the exact same thought! How crazy is that?”

Damian plastered on his best fake smile as his eyes attempted to burn Jason’s smirk off his face.

“Very crazy indeed Sabine. Do you mind if my brother and I excuse ourselves for a moment?”

“Oh! Not at all, we should really be getting ready to open anyways. Please, feel free to head up to the apartment. Marinette should be back from Alya’s soon, but make yourselves at home boys.”

They both nodded as Damian stalked behind Jason, forcing him to take the steps two at a time. As Jason threw open the door, he finally released the laughter that he had been holding back.

“I really didn’t think you were going to make it. If you actually had any powers, I would’ve been scared for my life down there.”

“I don’t need powers to kill you Todd.”

Jason reached out to ruffle Damian’s hair, his smirk only fueling the smaller boy’s rage.

“What are you doing here Todd? This was supposed to be a relaxing vacation for Marinette to see her parents. You are neither relaxing or her parents.”

“Oh don’t be coy with me Dami, I know what you’re really here for, we all do in fact. Did you really think you could get away with proposing to Marinette without getting through us first? You only tore up some fake plans, plans meant to lure you into revealing when you were going to propose. Considering how quick you were to get Marinette on a plane without saying goodbye tells me you plan on doing it this week.”

Damian counted backward from ten as he tried to consider all of his options left. He had taken into consideration that the plans could be fake, but there should’ve been no way that they could’ve tracked him to Paris. He paid in cash at the airport for the tickets and flew economy, economy for crying out loud!

“I thought your whole little club was to protect Marinette from heartbreak, there was no mention of protecting her from proposals.”

“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong Damian.” The look on Jason’s face was unnerving to say the least, but Damian refused to back down. This was his girlfriend, his soon to be finance, and the only woman he wanted to love for the rest of his life. There was no way he would let some street rat like Jason stop him.

“I refuse to allow you to ruin this Todd.”

“Allow implies that you think you have control over this and I can assure you that you don’t. Marinette will not be leaving Paris with a ring on her finger, marriage is out of the question. You are lucky that we have allowed you two to be together for so long. You are too dangerous for her demon spawn and marriage places an even larger target on her back than the one she already has.”

“Are you prepared to be defeated protecting your ideals Todd?”

“Are you Damian?”

Damian felt the low growl in the back of his throat itching it’s way forward. He was so close to Jason’s face, he could end this right here and now, throw him in the guest room and never look back.

“Damian? Jason? What are you two doing here? And alone at that?”

Both turned their attention to the door where Marinette stood, a sheepish expression on her face as if she could feel the tension radiating off the two men.

“Hey princess! I was just stopping by to check in on your parents and I definitely had no idea that you and Damian were here! You two lovebirds should’ve told someone before running off to Paris like that.”

Jason pulled Marinette into a tight hug, sticking his tongue out behind her head at Damian.

“Well, I did. I told Adrien just in case anything happened.”

One look at Jason’s smug expression and Damian knew. One little blonde went racing to his brother before he and Marinette had even boarded the plane.

“Oh that’s good then, I’m glad someone knew. I’ll leave you two alone now, after all, I have places to be and people to see and I’m sure you have a wonderful vacation planned for Damian here.”

Marinette nodded with little enthusiasm as she waved bye to Jason, locking the door behind him.

“Damian, what was that about?”

He shook his head as he pulled her forward placing a small kiss on her forehead.

“I wish I knew habibti.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Damian was on full alert for the next couple of days, unable to relax and enjoy his time with Marinette’s family for fear that one of his nemesis would pop out at any moment and steal the ring hidden safely inside his coat pocket. Every once in a while, he would find his hand absentmindedly searching for the box, just as a reassurance that it was still there.

He wasn’t scared of the members of Date Duty, but he was scared that the moment that he had planned out for so long would be ruined by a handful of imbeciles.

“Oh look! It’s Chloe and Luka! I didn’t know they were in town.”

Damian's attention became hyper focused as he narrowed in on the suspicious couple waving them over. There was no way that two members of Jason’s little club decided to fly back on the same week that he and Marinette did.

He smiled and shook hands with Luka as they chatted idly for a few minutes. Marinette promised to catch up with them later before leaning in to hug Chloe. The blonde turned her attention to him as she leaned in and hugged him bye as well. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing suspicious, nothing-

“Fuck.”

Damian’s hand went straight to his now empty pocket. He searched frantically to be sure that it hadn’t fallen in any holes that he wasn’t aware of, but alas, it was gone. Marinette held onto his hand tightly, concern filling her eyes, but he waved her off.

If that’s how Todd wanted to play, then fine. Damian was ready. It was time for Jason to bring it on. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Damian wasn’t sure how he thought the rest of the week would play out, but this was not it.

Monday he had gone to buy another ring when he ran into Tony Stark. He claimed he was there to get his wife a unique gift from Paris. Turns out a unique gift meant buying her every jewelry store in Paris, or at least majority shares, effectively destroying Damian’s chances of finding a new ring.

Tuesday he decided to just propose without the ring, after all, it just meant she could pick out a new one whenever they hit stateside again. They had made it all the way to the top of the Eiffel Tower, watching the sunset with her curled into his side as they leaned on the railing. He wanted to wait until the tower had cleared a bit, right when the sun dipped below the horizon, but much to his fear a large squeal erupted from the platform.

None other than Jagged Stone had decided to do an impromptu concert on top of the Eiffel Tower. Soon, between the noise and the crowd, Damian couldn’t even think straight, much less make space to go down on one knee. They called it a night with the question still on the tip of his tongue.

By Wednesday, Sabine had caught on to the real reason they were there. She pulled him to the side along with Tom where the both offered her engagement ring. Damian finally felt like he had caught a break. How foolish that was.

They walked into Marinette’s favorite restaurant that night only to find out that it had been bought out for the night by the Agreste family. He apparently decided that this would be an excellent date night spot for him and Kagami.

Thursday came and went with no attempts made. He had barely made it out of bed when he heard two voices in the kitchen. Praying to whatever God would hear him, Damian opened the door only to feel his heart drop. Tim and Dick sat in the kitchen while Marinette heated up some coffee, telling her all about the business deal they were taking care of in Paris.

Lucky for them, they had a day off and wanted to spend it with their favorite couple.

As Friday’s sun rolled in, Damian felt defeated.

“Mon amour, are you even listening?”

Damian nodded absentmindedly as he fiddled with the ring in his pocket.

“So do you want to go to this little reunion dinner tonight?”

“With who?”

“With my old classmates? I think Dick and Tim might stop by if they get out early today. Should be fun!”

He attempted a smile for her sake as he sent her a small nod. So on their last night in Paris, they all decided to gather in one spot making it impossible for Damian to sneak out with Marinette. It felt pretty foolproof.

“Damian, why have you been so out of it lately? This whole week you have been constantly checking over your shoulder. Are you worried about something?”

Marinette gathered his hand as she sunk on to the bed beside him.

“I just wanted this trip to be special, but a couple of special idiots have proved to make that nearly impossible. I don’t know how you dealt with them over the years.”

“Well, it felt nearly hopeless. I was convinced I was going to be single forever, but one man swooped in and saved me making me feel like there was nothing those special idiots could do. I’d like to think that he feels the same way when it comes to me. After all, a proposal doesn’t need to be in some big memorable place, it just needs to be between two people who love each other.”

Damian’s mouth gaped like a fish out of water as he tried to stutter out a denial, but it was hopeless. His cheeks felt like they were a hundred degrees as her laughter floated through the air.

“How did you know?”

“Date Duty had been disabled for a year and a half now. For them to all conveniently show up in Paris on the same week that we did? Well I’m not a big believer in coincidences when it comes to that group.”

Damian reached inside his pocket, pulling out the delicate ring that Sabine had given him a few days prior. A few tears formed in the corner of Marinette’s eyes as she covered her splitting smile with her hand.

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng, you have amazed me at every turn since the first time I saw you many years ago. You are a strong, creative, loving and beautifully confident woman. You are my first thought in the morning and my last as I drift to sleep at night. I can’t imagine living with anyone else by my side. Please, will you marry me?”

Marinette nodded as she offered her left hand, allowing him to slip on her mother’s ring. It was no where close to the proposal that he had planned, but as her lips crashed into his, it couldn’t have made him happier.

Maybe when he saw Jason’s little club tonight, he would thank them.

After all, they lead him to the woman he loved and without their persistence, his relationship wouldn’t be as strong as it is today.

He had finally broken the never ending cycle, and man, did it feel good.

Tag List:

@mystery-5-5 @iloveitwhen @fusser90

Permanent Tag List:

@ash-amg @rebecarojas07 @heaven428 @long-lost-peace @thequeenofpotatoeunicornss @moongoddesskiana @nach0ava @iamablinkmarvelarmy @seraphkitty @clumsy-owl-4178 @pawsitivelymiraculous @mialuvscats @leagrey @smolplantmum @mialuvscats

#daminette #maribat #sequel

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thr-333 · 4 years

Text

Mismatch- Part 7

Bio Dad Bruce Wayne Month 2020

A nice family dinner, not that anyone needs to know that (:

First< Previous> Next

----

“I got the feeling this would happen,” Marion shakes his head, looking at Marinette and Damian, both trying to explain how they ended up fighting.

“And yet you didn’t stop it,” Jason was smirking at the adults. Both looked exhausted, probably from listening to Tom for the past hour or so.

“Me? You encouraged them,” Marion scowls at Jason.

“How?” He was already looking down at him, smirking.

“Really?” Marion raises his brow, the two falling into a staring contest.

“If I hadn't they’d also be getting Alfred’s ‘not angry just disappointed speech’,” Jason relents, looking away from Marion, who was silently gloating his victory.

“Oh, Damian told me about that one,” Marion looks over at Damian as he was arguing with Bruce.

“I still can’t believe Demon spawn was willingly talking with you,” Jason muses.

“Rude,” Marion scoffs, trying not to smile as Jason whips around with a panicked look.

“What?- ah no - I meant-”

“I know,” Marion breaks down in giggles.

“You-”

“This garden is beautiful,” Marion cuts him off, Jason huffs and turns away, “Also Mr Wayne is glaring at you,”

“Let’s go,” Jason spins around and hastily walking into the garden. Marion laughs, jogging to catch up.

“That got you moving,” Marion teases as they walk behind a hedge to hide.

“I am not about to get lectured for Demon-spawns decisions,” Jason snarls, glaring back at where they came from.

“Been meaning to ask about that nickname,” Marion tries to lighten his mood.

“It’s accurate isn’t it?” Jason smirks slightly but Marion can still see the anger behind it.

“He doesn't seem that bad,” Marion mutters, making Jason scoff.

“Trust me, that's the best mood I’ve ever seen him in,” Marion can’t tell if he’s telling the truth or not, but he seems to be relaxing.

“Maybe he just doesn't like you,” Marion teases, before realising with horror just how rude it sounded.

“Oh he definitely doesn't,” Jason snorts, Marion tries not to feel uncomfortable as he seems to cheer up.

“I’m sure he does deep down,” Marion can’t help but to try and fix the situation.

“You can only go so deep,” Jason says, with too much bitterness to be humorous.

“Please, I somehow doubt that anyone has to reach very deep to like you, I don't, you seem nice,” Marion misses Jason's shocked look, instead noticing some nearby flowers, “These are gorgeous,”

“Alfred tends to them, none of us are allowed to touch them,” Jason murmurs quietly, as Marion lightly touches the petals.

“Sorry!” Marion jumps back as if the petals burnt him.

“No you’ll be fine,” Jason chuckles, “We were only ban after the incident,”

“The incident?” Marion still doesn't risk touching the flowers. He’s literally holding the miraculous of destruction. “Sounds ominous,”

“There was a flamethrower involved and that's all I’m telling you,” Jason says definitively, walking away from the flower bed.

“Oh come, you have to tell me now,” Marion stands, bouncing to catch up to him.

“Nope,” Jason keeps his eyes forward.

“Please,” Marion comes forward to walk backwards in front of him, giving him the babydoll eyes.

“Not happening, so stop it with those eyes,” Jason looks away, so Marion turns around and falls back into step with him.

“Never,” Marion stops anyway, not wanting to ruin the light mood by making him irritated again.

They keep walking through the garden, in comfortable silence. Marion starts to hum a tune as he looks around at the foliage. He doesn't notice Jason's eyes are on him, not the scenery.

“Can we stop here for just a minute,” He gestures at a bench, “I need to write this down,”

“Sure,” Jason sits down, Marion sitting next to him, bringing out his notebook to jot down some musical notes and lyric ideas as they came.

“So you write music?” Jason asks, after Marion slows down his rapid pace for a more leisurely one.

“Yeah I sing a little too,” He answers, still mostly distracted but not minding the conversation.

“Written any songs?” Jason already knows the answer as he had been watching Marion do just that.

Marion wanted to laugh. He had albums full of songs that were listened to worldwide, but he couldn't share that. Instead he decided to tell him about before he became MCD.

“My friend Luka and I used to make some together,” They still technically did as Luka worked with him as MCD, not that Luka knew it was him.

“Used to?” Jason repeats.

“Yeah, things got awkward,” Marion pauses, looking up from his book, “You want to hear about the worst love square in history?”

“A love square?” Jason looks puzzled and amused.

“Don’t laugh, it’s possible,” Marion defends, closing his book.

“I think I’m going to need to hear this story to believe it,” Jason turns towards him.

“Alright, Lukas sister Juleka is in our class, that's how Marinette and I met him,” Marion puts his notebook away, “Nette had-has a crush on… someone else, but Luka liked her,”

“Right,” Jason nods along, as Marion faces him.

“But I liked Luka,” Marion looks away and tries not to blush at the admission. He didn’t any more but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t embarrassing.

“Is he good looking?” Jason teases, leaning into his field of vision.

“Not the point, but yes,” Marion turns back, matching Jason's smirk with a flat look. “The thing is Juleka liked me,”

“And let me guess the ‘someone else’ that Marinette likes is Juleka?” Jason says, getting in on the love square insanity.

“No, but that would bring everything full circle wouldn’t it?” Marion hums contemplatively, “Anyway, I was the first to confess, ending in a very awkward conversation where everything was brought out into the open,”

“Sounds like a pain,” Jason declares with a sympathetic look.

“Yep, after that things got pretty weird, we didn’t have to see Luka much but Juleka is still in our class, she tends to avoid us,” Marion gives a thoughtful frown. Thinking about how it basically sent Juleka to Lila with a wrapper and bow.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Jason says softly, breaking Marion out of his daydream, “People drift apart,”

Marion smiles, pretending not to notice the bitter edge to Jason's voice. He changes the topic to Jason's hobbies, the two striking up a conversation about books they both enjoy. The two keep chatting until Alfred appears out of thin air, making Marion jump.

“Dinner is about to be served, I advise you make your way to the dining room,” Alfred tells them before swiftly leaving.

“Witchcraft,” Marion mutters, making Jason laugh.

“Let’s go, trust me you don’t want to miss Alfred's cooking,” Jason leads Marion back to the manor, keeping up their conversation. They reach the dining room to find everyone, including Dick and Tim at the table.

“Where have you two been?” Aunt Selina grins, as they take their seats, Marion next to Marinette, Jason sitting on his other side.

“The gardens, they’re beautiful Alfred,” Marion tells the man, as he places dishes on the table.

“I’m flattered you think so,” Alfred, not the cat, says.

“Noticed you conveniently disappeared,” Marinette whisper-hisses to him. “I get lectured, you get lectured, it’s all about balance,”

“I’ve been lectured enough today,” He whispers back, then even quieter, “Also I don’t think that's what Tikki meant,”

“Pretty sure it is,” Marinette mutters as the last dish is set down and they are told to begin.

Tim and Jason immediately start to fight. Stealing food from each other as the other is about to grab it, only for Damian to steal it from them both. Bruce ignores them only sending a warning glare that the three either didn’t see or chose to ignore.

“I am so sorry about them,” Dick apologies, trying and failing to subtly stop them.

“Hmmm?” Marion hums, swooping in to steal a piece of meat Jason had been about to claim.

Jason looks shocked at Marion's teasing smirk. It was probably rude, but hey so was stealing food, Marion went straight for a bite without breaking eye contact. That was apparently a declaration of war as the four of them now started thwarting each other. Marion went for the cooked onions, which he hated, just to stop Damian from getting them. The death glare he got in return had no place at a family dinner.

“I’m so sorry about him,” Marinette parrots Dicks words, completely embarrassed.

Dick didn’t seem to mind so much now anyway, watching their antics with fondness. Bruce had even stopped glaring, instead focusing on trying to keep his amusement off his face. Marion pulled the plate out of reach just as Damian and Tim both went for it. Marinette decides to ignore him. She doesn't attempt to join the fray and instead steals food off his plate. Marion pouts that she didn’t take any of the food he dislikes. Dinner continues like that. The four of them fight over food, taking bites in between, usually as taunts. Meanwhile Marinette had a civil conversation with Aunt Selina, Bruce and Dick.

They finished the meal, it being Alfred who put an end to their fighting by sending them back to the living room. Cat-fred was lying by the fire so Marion goes to sit on the floor near him, petting the purring cat. Damian comes to sit next to him on the floor, while everyone else sits on actual furniture. Marinette next to their Aunt on the couch.

“Marinette, Marion what do you for… fun,” Bruce asks, as if fun is a foreign word to him.

“... I like fashion,” Marinette tells him, once it was clear Marion wasn't going to be distracted from Cat-fred for anything.

“Do you know MDC?” Dick asks, with what Marion unfortunately recognises as fanboy gleam in his eye.

“Uh,” Marionette exchanges a glance with Marion. He looks over to their Aunt who just smiles smugly. “I’ve heard of her,”

Marinette replies bashfully, and Marion's evil twin tendencies kick in.

“Heard of her?” Marion exclaims with a fake disbelieving tone, ignoring Marinette trying to shush him, “She’s MDC’s biggest fan, she's memorised every one of her designs, theres posters and articles all over out room, she knows every event coming up and where it will be, attends all of them,”

Marinette glowers at him with outrage. Marion grins back, he wasn’t lying after all.

“Really? That’s great,” Dick, bless his heart, looks genuinely excited.

“Yeah,” Marintte agrees, still glaring at Marion, “But I don’t like MCD, guy seems like a jerk,”

“Thats where you’re wrong,” Jason snatches their attention, “He's a great guy,”

“I’ve got some pretty good evidence to suggest otherwise,” Marinette glances at him again. If it was meant to make him remorseful, it wasnt working.

“He’s an advocate for super heros, he visits children hospital and orphanages for free, has held numerous anti-bullying campaigns, among others, he donates most of his concerts proceeds to the local charities in the city they are held in, also provides work and recognition to new-

“Well, that isn’t all him, MDC is part of all that too,” Marion squeaks out, face completely flushed, probably to the confusion of every other man in the room.

“Yeah but so is he, so I don’t know how you can consider him ‘a jerk’,” Jason seems genuinely offended and Marion has to hide behind Cat-fred to hide his blush.

“Sorry,” Marinette smiles, not at all sorry, with a teasing edge, “Marion is his biggest and I just wanted to rile him up,”

“You are?” Dick asks, all eyes on him.

“No,” Marion pets Cat-fred, unwilling to meet the others' eyes.

“He knows every song, sings them all the time, and don’t get me started on the dances he's always practicing in our room, he goes to every concert, probably the closest to the stage you can be,” Marinette turns his earlier trick back on him.

“Are you going to the concert in Gotham?” Tim breaks Marion's attention away from Marinette's smug grin.

“Yeah we are, it was Marinete's idea, why she insisted on doing the class trip,” Marion throws in.

“That's not true,” Marinette snaps.

This starts a too long conversation, lead by Dick, about why MDC and MCD are worth the trip. The twins have to spend the next, what felt like an eternity, talking about themselves. Their Aunt seems highly entertained watching them blush whenever a compliment was paid. Marinette tries to ask her to help them out by tapping morse code onto her hand. She finally gives into her pleading and tells them they need to get back to the hotel and rest.

“You two are welcome to stay here, I can make the arrangements,” Bruce offers, walking them out to the car.

“Oh, no that's fine thank you,” Marinette blushes, “We should probably stay with the class,”

“Which we have to thank you for as well,” Marion adds, Marinette looks mortified that she forgot to thank him earlier.

“That’s not necessary, I didn’t play any part in the selection process,” Bruce tells them before Marinette can start apologising, “Although I am certainly glad it was your class who was selected,”

“So are we,” Marinette smiles as they reach the car, “Thank you for tonight, dinner was lovely,”

“It was nice having you,” Bruce watches as they climb into the car, Selina taking the wheel, “Make sure you get some rest,”

“Thank you, we will,” Marinette says through the window. Both knowing perfectly well that was a lie.

They are sent off with a wave and watch as the Mansion travels out of sight.

“Thanks for all the help tonight,” Marion leans forward from the back seat.

“What can I say, it was funny,” Selina laughs, Marinette next to her in the front seat.

“It was embarrassing,” Marion groans, still a blushing mess.

“As if no ones ever talked about you in front of you,” Selina drives along quickly, probably faster than the speed limit would like.

“They have,” Marinette agrees, also blushing, “But that was-”

“So much worse,” Marion hides his face in his hands, peeking through his fingers.

“Worse? Or better?” Selina gives him a sly look from the mirror, “Those boys are big fans of yours, especially Jason,”

“Stooop, I’ve had enough teasing today,” Marion flops across the back seat.

“About what?” Marion realises it was a mistake, letting his Aunt in on gossip.

“Nothing,” Marinette’s tone suggest it was definitely not nothing, “Just ran into his crush for the first time today,”

“Why do you feel the need to hurt me this way,” Marion laments dramatically, making their Aunt laugh.

“Who is it,” She asks Marinette, ignoring him.

“What's the worst way to meet someone?” Marinette asks instead.

“I’d say- wait… Red Hood?” She turns back to him, looking away from the road, much to Marinette’s alarm.

Marion pulls his hood up and over his eyes with a nod. She bursts out laughing.

“Oh of all the-” She shakes her head looking back to the road, “Don’t worry kitten, that's definitely not the worst way to meet someone- I’d know,”

“Not even if you’re wearing his outfit?” Marion says miserably, glaring more than staring out the window as buildings go by.

“Trust me, not the worst thing you could be wearing,” She reaches back to give him a comforting pat on the shoulder, “Is this why you stepped in today?”

“No,” Marion frowns at her, once again, teasing tone, “It was just the right thing to do,”

“Hmmm, I feel it’s probably not the best example to agree with you,” She hums, turning a corner, “But, I’m glad your first instinct was to help people,”

“So-”

“And no, you can not bring that up next time you get in trouble,” She cuts Marinette off, pulling over in front of the hotel, “Now go straight upstairs and get some sleep,”

“Yes Auntie,” They both say mischievously, jumping out of the car leaving her with a suspicious glare.

They wave goodbye, planning to go straight to the roof. They don’t even get off the elevator before Marinette is giving Marion her scarf to turn inside out into a mask.

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andromedia5 · 4 years

Text

What’s in a Dance

They’re speaking.

The ballerinas are speaking with their bodies, so over exaggerated that she understands everything and it takes nothing. None of the words that have to fight through her mind to get to her mouth. Just pretty dresses and quick feet and music without words and it’s . . . beautiful.

She reaches for Bruce’s hand and squeezes, letting him anchor her to the world as the colors and the light and the life wash over her. He’s smiling at her; happy, calm, nervous.

Always nervous around her, but different nervous, hopeful nervous.

Hopeful nervous again, when she opens the ballet studio door to see him, sitting there waiting for her. He gets up, folding his newspaper under his arm.

“How’d it go, Cassie?”

She’s flung her arms around his neck before he can get another word out.

Bruce knocks at her door a few weeks after she starts ballet lessons with Madame Naomi while she’s lying on her bed listening to Tom Petty. Not just listening, listening with both headphones in and the volume up and her eyes closed letting Wildflowers wash over her and block out the rest of the world because she’s safe. He sits at the foot of her bed when she motions for him to come in and tugs at her feet teasingly, so her knees drop back down onto the bedspread. Cassandra pauses her music and takes her earbuds out, pushing back the hair that had gotten tangled in the wire.

“Good morning,”

“It’s not morning,” he points out, tilting his head towards the clock on her bedside table proudly displaying that it is in fact 2:25 and therefore; not morning.

“Happy see today,” That isn’t right, she knows it isn’t, it’s not complete and her mind starts to chase after the right words. Bruce runs a thumb over her knuckles soothingly.

“Take your time, sweetheart,”

Cass tries to slow down the words running through her mind so she can see them clearly. “Happy first time seeing me today,”

His eyes crinkle at the sides and he kisses her forehead “That, I am. Can you come down to the library with me for a second?”

She nods and swung her legs off the bed, following him out the door. Last time they had gone down to the library for a second it had been when he had given her that pair of his mother’s earrings. They had belonged to her grandmother before her and he had thought she would have wanted her granddaughter to have them but if she didn’t want them it was completely fine and they were old anyways and she didn’t even have her ears pierced so- at which point she had stopped listening to his rambling in favor of staring at the delicate gold flowers with the sapphires in the centers. Dick pierced her ears in his apartment a week later with a sewing needle and an ice cube and while he argued with a livid Alfred over the phone about how “It’s completely safe” and “That’s how I got my ears pierced at the circus,” Kory helped her put in the earrings and that glorious sense of belonging had washed over her, again.

The library smells of almond and old paper, sunlight drenching the leather armchairs and bouncing off the old grandfather clock. Cassandra lingers at the doorway watching as Bruce strides over to the old record player, carefully lowering a record onto it and turning to her. “You said you wanted to come to the gala this Saturday?” Something in her brain clicks as she realizes why they’re here and rushes over to him eagerly. “You don’t have to go if you changed your mind” he continues, “But I thought you might want to learn,”

“Different dancing,”

“Alfred made me go to lessons when I was your age but the last teacher filed a restraining order after I tried to send Jason when he was fourteen and he . . . well, you know your brother, you can imagine,” he turns and sets the needle on the record. Piano notes begin to play, simple and elegant like the way Tim’s fingers move across the shiny white and black keys.

“Clair de Lune, it’s a waltz but a very slow one, it’s easier to learn.” Bruce extends one of his hands and she holds it. Their hands look funny together, one tan and small, with uniform circular calluses and the other large and scarred with a thin dusting of hair up the back of his palm. “Now you put your hand on my shoulder,” he instructs as he rests his other hand on her waist and lower back, a bit like a hug.

She does so, albeit a bit impatiently “This isn’t dancing,”.

Bruce laughs and she pokes his shin with her toe as if it would wake his feet up and make them move. “We’re getting there. Now a waltz is mostly just a box step. There can be other elements but at its core it's just a box step. So we move back,” he gestured for her to take a step backward and then followed her with a step forward. “To the side,” they both side stepped in unison, “Foreword for you, back for me. And then to the side again and we’re back where we started.”

Cassandra looks up from where she had been tracking the movement of their feet in an attempt to memorize. It was surprisingly like a kata, or the five positions in ballet, simple. Maybe it was just that what she had seen had looked more like dancing than it actually was.

“That’s it?” she asks, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice. He rolls his eyes and begins the box step again but faster this time, and this feels like what she’s seen other people do, the almost rise and fall of it, like a carousel. She trips over her feet a little but he holds her, not letting her fall until she’s memorized the rhythm of the steps. The same rush of euphoria she always gets from dancing comes swooping in as her father spins her into the light shining through the curtains.

They’re whispering, always whispering.

Cass has learnt a lot since leaving Cain. She’s learnt to speak English, she’s learnt to speak. She’s learnt that people don’t like her. Not for the bad things she’s done, not for Cain. Just don’t like her.

Jealousy.

That’s what she’s told causes it, first by Alfred, who merely pats her cheek and makes a passing remark about the green eyed monster coming after kind, pretty girls.

She can tell he’s lying.

Then again by Steph, “Bruce is rich, Cass. All rich people want to be richer. Well, except your dad, but maybe he’s so rich it skips him. That’s why those harpy faced bitches with earrings that could pay my tuition don’t like you. Ignore it,”.

She isn’t lying. But Steph hasn’t seen.

Jason doesn’t say it’s jealousy. Jason doesn’t really answer, just laughs that laugh where he doesn’t really think it’s funny and mutters something in Spanish.

“Gringo cabrones. They never fucking change, do they, Cassie?”

She learns the way she learns a lot of things that no one could even begin to explain to her; a combination of TV and Tim. An episode of Boy Meets World and now she at least knows what questions to ask, which he answers. Cold anger and no small amount of what’s either sadness or guilt (it might be both) in his pretty eyes as he does his best to explain. He has the same look now, knuckles white as the old women sitting at the table near them get drunker and louder. Like birds on a tree branch, but the birds that like to sit outside her bedroom window don’t say her name quite so often or so mockingly. Tim stomps away while one of the board members she and Steph have christened “Mr. Suckup With The Sex Offender Mustache” is in the middle of saying something and walks straight to her.

“Dance with me?” he asks, much louder than he needs to. Tim’s hand is cold in hers but it’s there and he follows her into a waltz, the four corners of the invisible handkerchief marking out the box step. “Can you let me lead?” he whines and this is that thing Barbara says about the elephant. When people don’t talk about something they both see. But it doesn’t feel like lies and it doesn’t feel uncomfortable anymore. It feels like that pushing at her chest; the growing pains because she’s still adjusting to loving someone this much.

“Little brother,” she reminds him just in case he wasn’t getting ‘not a chance’ from her face, and Tim grins and squeezes her hand. Cass isn’t sure if the whispering stops or if she just can’t hear them anymore.

#when will cass and bruce's father daughter adorableness return from the war?#cassandra and bruce wayne #cassandra wayne #cassandra cain and tim drake #batfam #cassandra cain #my writing #bruce wayne #tim drake #dickkory #bat siblings #black bat #dick grayson #jason todd

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cdelphiki · 4 years

Note

Was re-reading ‘In for a Penny’ when I read this sentence “if we do not rescue Damian today, “Clark said, finally speaking up, “I have a feeling we will one day face him in battle”and thought what if Bruce wasn’t able to find Damian, instead meets him again when he’s ten, how would he feel?What would happen? Damian holding a sword to the father he doesn’t remembers throat, dick finally seeing his brother again. Memories, baby things left untouched in the manor. Would love to hear your thoughts-M

The years since Damian’s kidnapping had not been kind to Bruce.

Dick left him. When he was barely eighteen. Packed up and moved to Bludhaven, where he still lived some six years later.

Bruce couldn’t blame him. Not really. He’d not been much of a father, once Damian went missing.

Then Jason came along, and Bruce had tried really hard for that boy. He’d worked on himself, worked on his availability. Adopted him, right from the start.

It hadn’t mattered.

Because in the end, Jason had left him, too. In the most painful way possible.

At least Damian was out there.

Somewhere.

Growing up, living his life.

Jason’s had been cut short.

After that, Bruce had sworn off kids. He wanted nothing to do with children ever again, because brining a child in his life just meant he’d love that child, and life didn’t let him keep the things he loved.

He wasn’t sure how many more times he could go through that.

Those he loved suffered in the worst ways possible, and how could he do that to another child?

Then Tim came around. Kind of forced his way into Bruce’s life. Reluctantly, and completely against his will, Bruce had come to love Tim, as well. Had adopted him, when the opportunity arose, as tragic as it was.

Talia had made herself scarce in the years since stealing Damian away from him. He’d tried to find them. Many times. But they always evaded him. Were always too well hidden.

He hadn’t… given up.

Per se.

But as Damian grew older, Bruce’s hope dwindled. He’d not even been two yet, when Talia took him away. There was no chance he’d even remember Bruce at five.

Or eight.

Or the ten he was now.

What right would Bruce have to swoop in and steal him away? Rip him away from the only family he remembered?

To him, Bruce was the absent father, living on the opposite side of the planet, and as much as he wanted to see his son, as badly as he wanted to hold his baby in his arms, he was a stranger to Damian.

He had no right over him any more.

All he had left of his little boy were pictures and a stuffed cow.

He’d given away everything else. To Clark, when Lois was expecting Jon.

To Selina. When she was expecting Helena.

Damian was too old for baby things, anyway. And walking past a nursery was painful.

They’d turned that room into Jason’s.

It wasn’t any less painful, now.

Bruce tried not to think about any of it. Tried not to think about Damian.

But it was hard, when Talia al Ghul kidnapped him while he was on mission in England.

Strung him up and got right in his face.

Hers was not a face he wanted to see.

“Talia,” he snarled, flexing his hands, testing his strength against the bat-thing that held him tight.

It would take a remarkable show of strength to free himself. He wasn’t sure he could. Even if he did, there were half a dozen more of the bat-things all around him. He knew himself outnumbered when he saw it.

He was just thankful Tim had taken the weekend off, rather than accompanying him on this trip.

“What do you want, Talia,” he spat, when she came too close, running her fingers across his chest. He had no interest in her. And she should know that by now.

She had killed any chance of there being anything between them eleven years prior.

And then burned it to the ground when she stole their son away from him.

“It’s nice to see you, too, Beloved,” she drawled, pulling away from Bruce and drawing her sword. She toyed with it, staring at the blade in her hand, without saying anything further.

“What. Do. You. Want,” he ground out. Games were also not something he was interested in.

“Hm,” she hummed, still toying with her blade for a moment before finally asking, “You remember our son?”

“How could I forget,” he growled. If she had merely kidnapped him to taunt him…

He might need to call in Clark to hold him back. He pulled at his arms again, and could feel the give in his captors’ hold. Knew, if he pulled his arms in just the right way, kicked his legs back at just the right moment, he’d be able to free himself easily.

“Hm. Yes, well,” she said, waving a hand at him, as if dismissing his anger, “He has grown wild. I can no longer control him.”

His sweet little baby?

Unlikely.

“What did you do to him?” he shouted, seriously contemplating calling in Clark. Because he was not sure he’d be able to control himself if he found out Damian had been mistreated in any way.

And he couldn’t think of a single other explanation for his Damian turning ‘wild.’ Not his sweet little baby who loved animals and was so gentle. So empathetic. So kind.

“Do not be so dramatic,” Talia snapped, “I thought you’d be happy.”

“Happy about what.”

“He needs… taming,” she said, twirling her sword around, a little, before she sheathed it again, “He lacks discipline. I had hoped some time with his father would straighten him out.”

“Time with,” he started, only to fumble over his words.

Was she…

Introducing him to Damian?

Why… why would she… after all these years…?

What was her game?

“You’ll hear from me soon, Beloved, though I’ll imagine you’ll be busy. I intend to hold the whole world hostage.”

Bruce tried to look back up at her, to ask her what the fuck that meant, but his head was pushed forward by one of the man-bats, and the entire world seemed to freeze.

Because a small child had materialized before him.

A… boy.

His boy.

In the eight years since he’d seen Damian, he had changed so much, but at the same time, not at all.

He had the same nose. The same… little button nose he’d had, as a baby. The same bright green eyes.

The same scowl.

“Damian,” he whispered, looking Damian up and down, trying to commit every little detail to memory.

“Father,” Damian responded, pushing his sword forward, almost touching Bruce’s neck, “I imagined you taller.”

“You-“ Bruce started, but had to stop. Because he was overcome with laughter.

The man-bats let go of him, and Bruce slumped to the ground, right to his knees, only keeping himself upright with his hands as his laughter turned a tad hysteric.

His little boy.

His little boy, was standing right in front of him. Was… Was within reach.

Was coming home with him.

“You are the great warrior Mother has told me about?” Damian asked skeptically, his sword now sheathed.

That was enough to pull Bruce back to the moment. He sniffed, and sat back so he could get a good look at his little boy.

“Hi, Damian,” he said, smiling a little, to force the overwhelming urge to weep to go away.

Damian scowled, a little, and shot Bruce as critical look. “How do you know my name?”

“What?”

Out of all the things Damian could ask…

“My name. Mother said you did not know of me. She did not tell you my name just now. How do you know it?”

“I- What?” Bruce repeated.

“You are not as intelligent as Mother claimed. Shame.”

“Damian,” he said, slowly, “You- you lived with me. For almost a year, as an infant.”

“Tt,” he huffed, rolling his eyes dramatically, “Now you are suggesting my mother is a liar. She has done a lot of things, but she has never lied to me.”

“Just, come here,” Bruce said, looping an arm around Damian’s shoulders and tugging him close, “I have missed you so much.”

Damian tensed in Bruce’s arms, but didn’t push him away. That is, not until Bruce started crying.

Bruce didn’t blame him. He’d be uncomfortable, too, if a stranger claiming to know and love him started crying into his hair.

They had so much ground to recover.

- - -

Damian was a massive brat.

Bruce felt like a terrible parent for thinking such a thing about his own son, but Damian was downright horrible.

He did nothing but yell and scream and throw things around. He fought with Alfred. Fought with Bruce.

Hated Tim.

Considering the boy had attempted to push Tim off the top level of the cave, that first night Bruce brought him home, he couldn’t trust Damian anywhere near Tim.

And Tim hated Damian in return.

Or, at least, considered him to be the ‘son of satan’ and avoided him at all costs.

Bruce wasn’t sure how to make his family all mesh together. Wasn’t sure how to get Damian to calm down and give them all a shot.

All those years Bruce had imagined, fantasized with it would be like to get Damian back, never once had he considered he might not like the boy.

He still loved him, of course. Loved him so much it hurt.

His son was finally home, and his home had been thrown into pure chaos.

Handing Damian the cow had been a difficult decision.

For eight years, that cow had been all Bruce had. The only physical reminder he had of the little boy he’d lost.

Damian and Cow had been inseparable, when he was an infant. Bruce had bought three more, the very second he realized how attached to the dumb toy Damian had become. He had four of those cows, and when Talia’s men took Damian, they’d taken none of them.

It’d been a stab in his heart, every time he looked at cow. Knowing how scared Damian would be without it. How upset.

Knowing Damian likely cried for weeks, if not months, for that stupid cow.

And in the eight years since Damian’s kidnapping, Bruce had become a little attached to the cow, himself. It sat on his bed stand. Right next to his favorite photo of Damian. He pat cow’s head every night, as if doing so would be telling his own little boy ‘good night, I love you.’

Just like he’d done every single night Damian lived with him.

Handing Damian that cow was difficult. Because Damian destroyed everything he was given. He was violent. He threw tantrums.

And he was, above all, not a child.

But Cow belonged to Damian, and Bruce was unable to put it off any longer.

“Damian,” he said, knocking on his boy’s door, allowing it to creak open as he did, “I wanted to give you something.”

“What is it now,” Damian started, but paused when he got a look at the toy in Bruce’s hand. Bruce walked over to the bed where Damian was reading and held it out, for Damian to take.

But instead, Damian just said, “That’s… Mr. Cow.”

“Yeah,” Bruce said, laughing a little to cover up the desire to cry.

Because Damian remembered.

“I—“ Bruce started, “He was yours. When you lived here. I’ve— I’ve kept him in my room, ever since you left. To remind me of you. But, he was yours, so I thought I should give him back.”

“Why,” Damian said, slowly, in the least snotty tone Bruce had heard yet, “Why do I remember a stupid toy but I do not remember you?”

Bruce sighed, and sat down on the bed next to his son. He placed Cow down in Damian’s lap, even though Damian made not move to take it.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. He’d been a little distraught when none of the photos had jogged anything.

He hadn’t specifically expected Damian to remember things from when he was 20-months-old, but to have his own boy accuse him of doctoring the photos, just to “get into his head” and “paint his mother as the liar” had hurt.

“You were young. Most people don’t remember much from before the age of three, and you weren’t even two when you left.”

“But I remember the cow.”

“Yes,” Bruce said, placing his arm behind Damian as he leaned back, “You couldn’t sleep without the damn thing. My guess is you cried for it every night for months, after you left. It probably stuck with you because of that.”

“Oh.” Damian placed his hand on cow’s head and stroked. Just once. Before his cheeks flushed and he yanked his hand away sharply.

“I’m really happy you’re back,” Bruce said, moving his hand so it was sitting on Damian’s shoulder. Damian still didn’t let him hug him, but at least he didn’t shrug his hand away. “I hope you know that. I want nothing more than to get to know you.”

“Thank you, Father,” Damian said crisply, then faltered before adding, much less confidently, “I have always wished to… know you.”

Bruce couldn’t help it. He pulled Damian in by the hand on his shoulder, and wrapped his arms around. “Well, I’m glad we have this chance, then.”

For once, Damian didn’t fight him. He did fidget, a little, with Cow started to fall, but he caught the little toy and held it a little more securely while Bruce rested his head down on Damian’s hair.

And when Damian didn’t push him away for several minutes, Bruce started to think… maybe Damian wasn’t a hopeless case, after all.

#this is your fault #also it turned a little sweeter than I first thought it would so :)#happy ending #i'll post this to ao3 in a couple days #or maybe tomorrow #idk #wanna put some time between the new chapter and it #damian wayne #bruce wayne #batman #robin #batfam #batfamily #fanfiction #c writes #pennyverse #sort of alt universe #remember i aged dick up for this fic #Anonymous

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suitofvibraniumarmor · 4 years

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If You Just Realize

Part One: Blindsided

Summary: Sebastian’s close friend stands by his side as he and his family say a sad goodbye and face new obstacles in the days and weeks to come. Pairing: Sebastian Stan x Reader Word Count: 1900 Warnings: Death, angst, sadness. Lots of creative licensing, I’m sure. Square Filled: This entire series will fill my realized feelings square for @marvelfluffbingo. A/N: I’ve much enjoyed writing this series, and I hope all of you enjoy reading it! The tag list is open; requests to be added can be done so here. There are bits and pieces of Romanian throughout the series, mostly from Google Translate and the few things I’ve picked up as I learn the language. Happy Reading!

Dismal notes sounded together in morbid harmony throughout the church as funeral attendees greeted each other in the lobby. The people filed together toward the sanctuary, offering condolences to the family as they passed. Sebastian did his best to be cordial, but between his grief and looking out for the one other person he needed to be there, he feared he wasn’t doing so well interacting with the guests.

“Calma, Sebastian,” his mother soothed, rubbing a hand over his back before she went to accept the outstretched hand of another guest. “Y/N will be here. She said she will be here, she will be here.”

Sebastian nodded and gave the next person in line a tight, sad smile. He knew that Y/N would be there; she always was when he asked for her support. The unexpected circumstances of his life, however, made him anxious for her presence.

In the last few days, Sebastian had thought often of a song released sometime around his senior year of high school. The real troubles in life, the spoken-word song warned, are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at four P.M. on some idle Tuesday. The hour was earlier than four in the afternoon, but it was a Tuesday when he received the call telling him that his sister Irina had been involved in a fatal car accident on her way to work that morning. The doctors had been optimistic taking her into surgery, but her injuries were more extensive than the hospital staff had been able to read on x-rays and CT scans. While on the operating table, Irina’s heart stopped. The surgeon had been unable to restart the organ.

A pleasantly feminine, floral scent invaded his nostrils as soft fingers intertwined with his, pulling him from his thoughts. He looked to his side to see Y/N Y/L/N next to him. Her eyes met his, and she squeezed his hand.

“I’m so sorry I’m late, Seb. LaGuardia was a disaster.”

He leaned to kiss her cheek. “Don’t apologize. Thank you for coming. I’m not sure I could have done this without you.”

“Even if you could, I wouldn’t have let you,” she returned.

Finally, the last of the guests had filed into the sanctuary, and the family could take their places at the front. Sebastian’s mother stepped out of line to hug Y/N and thank her also for being there. Y/N replied in Romanian, something she had learned after becoming friends with Sebastian all those years ago. She wasn’t fluent, but she could comfortably hold a conversation.

“Trebuia să fiu aici.” She had to be there, not from a sense of obligation, but because she wanted to support Sebastian and his family in whatever way she could.

When they were all seated, Sebastian between his mother and Y/N, and his stepfather on the other side of his mother, the priest began the service. Sebastian hadn’t let go of Y/N’s hand since she had intertwined their fingers when she arrived. Occasionally, he would squeeze her hand, and she squeezed back every time. If he needed the reminder that she was there, then she would give it.

After the eulogy and the singing and the praying had all wrapped up, Sebastian stepped out of the pew with the other pallbearers to carry his sister’s casket to the church parking lot where the hearse was waiting to take her to the cemetery. He clenched his jaw in an effort to hold back the tears glazing over his eyes.

Y/N walked behind his mother and stepfather in the processional out of the sanctuary but hung back with the crowd when the walked to the car at the front of the line of cars. Georgeta turned and motioned for her to join.

“We know what you mean to my Sebastian,” the older woman assured. “Irina would want you with us as much as possible today.”

Y/N gave her a tight smile and followed the family into the black limousine. Sebastian joined them a couple of minutes later, sliding onto the seat beside her. He took her hand again.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he told her quietly as the driver pulled out of the church lot.

She nodded once. “Your mother said Irina would want it this way. I was going to ride with someone else, or take a cab.”

“No, you should be here with us. Mom’s right, Irina would want it this way. But I mean here. For the whole thing.”

She squeezed his hand and held his gaze. “Seb. There’s no way I wasn’t going to be here. I’m around as long as you need me to be, okay?”

He swallowed down the lump in his throat and kissed her forehead. Besides his mother and his sister, no woman was close to him like Y/N. They had become friends when they both had bit parts in the same movie, extremely early on in their careers. The friendship had clicked so easy, they kept in touch and grew closer as the years went on. The media had speculated for years that they were more than friends, but romance had never been a part of their relationship.

After the burial, the day was only partially over. Sebastian was ready to go home and rest, but there was a whole wake to get through yet. He hoped the gathering would pass quickly and maybe he wouldn’t be required to interact with too many people.

Guests were busy eating the well-catered food, which gave him the opportunity to visit more with his mother and stepfather. Y/N had gone to the bathroom to freshen up, giving his mother the opportunity to bring up an issue that she hadn’t wanted to stress her son over until they got through the burial.

“Irina and I talked once about what to do if something like this happened,” Georgeta began. “It was not long after the baby was born. She was supposed to get it in writing, make it all legal. But she was going to school, raising her daughter. She didn’t get it done. And now …”

Sebastian licked his lips and picked up his water glass. “Now it’s too late.”

Georgeta nodded. “She wanted you to take Milena.”

Some mechanism in the swallowing process malfunctioned when his mother made the announcement. He coughed and attempted to clear his throat without causing too much of a scene. He had all but recovered when Y/N returned to the table.

“Everything all right?” she asked, patting him a couple of times on the back. Nobody said anything. She raised her brow, waiting for Sebastian to come clean.

Before he could answer, the sound of little feet running in their direction put a halt to the conversation. A little girl in a black dress with curly pigtails was rushing towards them, her arms outstretched.

“Uncle Seb!”

“Milena!” Sebastian exclaimed, stepping out of his chair and swooping the toddler up into his arms. Her chubby little hands squeezed his face so that his lips puckered like a fish. Sebastian laughed and switched his hold to balance her on his hip. “I’m so glad you’re here, munchkin. I missed you.”

She leaned her head on his shoulder and whispered, “Miss you.”

Georgeta and Anthony greeted the little girl, but she refused to be held by anyone except Sebastian. Once her grandmother and grandfather were distracted in conversation by the woman who had brought Milena to the reception, the girl pointed to Y/N.

“Uncle Seb, who that is?”

Sebastian smiled and sat with Milena so that she could be closer to eye level with Y/N. “This is my very good friend, Y/N. You met her before, but you were a tiny baby, so you probably don’t remember.”

Y/N smiled kindly at the little girl. “Hello, Milena. Your Uncle Seb told me you were pretty. I like your dress — you look just like a princess.”

That was all it took to win the little girl over. She settled comfortably on Seb’s lap while they adults spoke, smiling often at Y/N and asking a couple questions here and there. Y/N was making faces in an effort to make Milena laugh, and distract her from the somewhat heated conversation that seemed to be erupting between the woman who had brought Milena, Sebastian, and his parents. When the voices really got loud, Y/N reached out to take Milena.

“Are you hungry, princess? We can see what snacks are left at the food table.”

Milena went willingly, walking hand in hand with Y/N, who winked at Sebastian over her shoulder as they walked away. He gave her a grateful smile and turned back to his parents and Milena’s paternal grandmother, Alice.

“I know that Connor didn’t want to part of Milena’s life,” Alice was saying, “but that doesn’t mean Tim and I don’t want to be. My son’s choices are his own. I think we should explore the option of joint custody.”

Anthony sighed. “We don’t want to keep Milena from you, certainly, but Irina’s wishes were for her to be with her uncle. My daughter was very clear on the matter. Since Connor signed his rights away when the baby was born, I think it best that we honor what her mother wanted for her.”

“I can give her a very good life,” Sebastian interjected, “and you can see her whenever you like. I live right here in the city.”

Alice pursed her lips. “And when you’re working? I know you can afford to give her a good life, but there’s more to raising a child than the financial component.”

Sebastian bit his tongue. He had a lot to say, but none of it was kind or productive. None of it was going to help his case. He leaned back in his chair, letting his parents take over from there. As he glanced around the room, he saw Y/N and Milena standing by the food table. Both of them were smiling, and Milena was pointing to all the different things she wanted to try. Y/N held the plate with two hands as she crouched down so that Milena could pick up a grape in one hand and a cube of cheese in the other. Milena took a bite of the cheese then grinned up at Y/N, wrinkling her little nose.

The scene comforted him in a way he didn’t think was possible up to that moment. As he continued to watch his best friend and his niece interact, the seed of an idea was planted in Sebastian’s mind. He immediately told himself he was being ridiculous, but the thought tugged at his heartstrings and pulled on one end of his mouth, almost evoking a smile.

Y/N locked eyes with him as she followed Milena back to the table, a silent warning that any arguments needed to come to a stop. As the conversation between Alice and his parents didn’t seem to be slowing down, Sebastian pushed out of his chair and approached them.

“How about I take my two favorite girls to the park across the street? I know a little girl who loves to swing,” Sebastian smiled.

Milena clapped her sticky hands and reached for Sebastian to pick her up. He obliged, and once she had set Milena’s plate of snacks on the table, Y/N followed them out to the park.

AllOfTheThings: @captain-s-rogers @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan @letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked @hurricanerin @horsesandbandsforlife @im-not-an-armrest-im-short @captain-rogers-beard @shynara51 @sea040561 @pinknerdpanda @xtina2191 @jackryanplz @beakami @heartsaved @fullprunerebelstatesman @blackwidowismyhomegirl @averyrogers83 @jennmurawski13

IYJR: @elsatxx @tanelle83 @amanda-teaches @etherealwaifgoddess @kmuir1 @ntlmundy @jayankles @rebekahdawkins @denise1605 @rhadigen

#marvelfluffbingo2020 #sebastian stan #fanfiction #reader insert #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian x reader #fluff #angst #drama #tw: death #queue and i remember budapest very differently

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jinmukangwrites · 4 years

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Whumptober 2020, Day 1

Waking Up Restrained / Shackled / Hanging

Ao3

Warnings: descriptions of torture, violence, dislocated shoulders, referenced child trafficking. This fic is mature. Please read responsibly.

-o-o-o-o-

When Dick wakes up, he's on his side; his cheek pressed against cold and grimy cement and his shoulders pulsing with a discomforting ache.

He groans, his body feeling like tar has been stuffed between each of his joints—which makes it difficult to begin moving. His stomach rolls, and the sharp pain near the temple of his skull isn't helping much.

What… happened?

He remembers… he remembers patrol. Leaving his apartment and swinging towards the streets to fight the constant stream of crime Blüdhaven is so willing to supply. His memories get hazy the more he tries to think about what happened during and after the patrol, making the pain in his head twinge torturously.

Deciding that there's not much he can remember at the moment, he resolves to try and figure out his situation—because even though he has little memory, just the information that he was on patrol is enough for him to realize he's in his Nightwing suit. He recognizes the familiar skin tight feeling of the kevlar.

What he notices immediately with just a few agonizingly slow movements is that his gauntlets and boots are missing. Which is not good. He twitches his nose and he relaxes only slightly when he feels the sharp edges of his mask. His anxiety, however, only rises when he realizes that his hands are stuck behind his back.

Okay. Captured and restrained. The cuffs are heavy and thick, at least a few centimeters thick. There's a small length of chain between the cuffs that can hardly be called a "length". There's not much space between his two wrists, perhaps only three or four thick chain links spanning between the shackles.

He goes to move his fingers and test just how tight the shackles are on his wrists, but he realizes quickly that his fingers are stuck; curled into an uncomfortable fist and held in place with something cold and plastic.

Okay. Alright. This is fine. Dick can still work with this.

He opens his eyes, slowly, to not agitate his headache nor his rolling stomach. He figures that if no one has revealed themselves to Dick so far then he must be alone. He hasn't exactly been quiet walking up, which is something Bruce might be disappointed by but come on. There's only so much Dick can do when confronted with what's definitely wavering effects of some sort of tranquilizer. Nausea, aches, groggy and slow movements, feeling like shit in general.

The first thing he sees through half-lidded eyes is the grimy floor he's laying on top of, and since there's really not much to see here he moves on to the rest of the room.

And scratch that. There's not a whole lot to see in the room at all… at least, not from his position on the ground. Nothing but walls in front of him that are made of dark brick stone.

Dick shifts, curling up slightly to get his shoulder positioned under him so he can work his way up so he's sitting. It takes a minute, a minute filled with panting breaths and barely contained gagging that makes his stomach want to show him what he had for dinner. Eventually, he makes it, his back pressed against the wall and his legs strewn out in front of him and his head leaned back so he can catch his breath and try to make his stomach settle.

Don't throw up, Dick. He doesn't want to be covered in his own sickness by the time his captors decide to show themselves. It will be totally embarrassing and Dick had a cool, pretty boy reputation to keep up after all.

And besides, when he blinks his eyes to look at the rest of the room he's in he finds that it's rather small and compact; throwing up here would make the smell linger horribly.

His stomach rolls and he decides to do his best to not think about throwing up. Starting… now.

He brushes his eyes throughout the room he's woken up in. Besides the stone wall and the heavy looking door, there's not much to see besides a singular bulb installed in the center of the room above him.

That; and a chain hanging right besides it.

He frowns at the chain. The end has a singular clip hook attached to it. From where it's hanging—about three feet from the ground—it travels up to some sort of makeshift pulley system; composed of various eye hooks that run along the ceiling so the other end of the chain latches next to the door.

The clip at the end looks strong too. Something that would be used for lifting heavy equipment.

Now that he's studied the room to its extent, he shifts so he's looking over his shoulders to his hands. Duct tape, he finds, is what's keeping his hands in a fist; multiple layers of aluminum colored tape preventing him from messing with the shackles or breaking a joint to slip out of them.

Alrighty then.

He should probably work on getting his hands in front of him. Just to give himself a little bit more of a fighters chance.

And of course, when he goes to do so, his hands are stopped by another freaking chain that he hasn't noticed till now. It's attached to the tether between his wrists and then it connects to the wall; like a leash, but an infuriatingly short one. There's hardly any give. He's stuck to the wall and he's not going anywhere.

He lets his head fall back against the bricks behind him once again, cursing that sometimes criminals are smart about things.

Then, with that flawless dramatic timing most criminals often have, the door opens.

Dick brings his legs up to his chest, positioning himself so he's less vulnerable, as a group of three masked men—judging by their body types—make their way inside the room he's trapped in. He glares at the one that steps closer to Nightwing as the other two hang back. One by the door, one by the chain connecting to the wall.

One man, who must surely be the leader, stops just outside of Dick's kicking range and kneels down to the balls of his feet. The balaclava he's wearing covers his entire face besides a section for his dark eyes, but Dick gets the feeling he's smirking.

"Alright," Dick says, shifting so he's sitting straighter while making sure his tone is unbothered and bored and not at all as groggy as he feels, "let's get this out of the way. M'names Nightwing, I like long walks on the beach, and I'm not going to tell you any secret identities."

"Which would be a shame," the man in front of him says, "if we cared for secret identities."

A bolt of confusion shoots through Dick at the sentence as the man stands up, folding his arms across his chest and tilting his head. He isn't interested in secret identities? That's… a new one. Most villains who capture him practically beg for his name, that way they can get Batman's name. The first time Dick's been beaten with the reasons of secret identities, it was scary, sure, but now that he's older he's just sorta… gotten used to it at this point. A villain who wants to know his name is a predictable villain.

One who wants something different is a dangerous villain.

"You see, Nightwing," the man continues, "all we want is information. We have a couple questions for you, and if you cooperate you won't be hurt."

There's no we'll let you go . Just you won't be hurt . Dick doesn't know who these guys are or what they want, but whatever it is, it can't be good.

Dick flashes a toothy smile. "Oh, a few questions? Is that all? Ask away."

"Does the name The Silence ring any bells?" The man asks, and Dick fights a scowl because it does ring a few bells.

They are an international, underground human trafficking organization. Grabbing kids from all over the globe and selling them to various rich assholes for a multitude of disgusting reasons. Dick's fought them before, in fact, they had a station in Blüdhaven that he worked with the police to raid and rescue the kids trapped inside.

But that was three weeks ago.

"It sounds familiar," Dick replies slowly, wishing the man wasn't wearing the stupid balaclava so he could judge the facial expressions better. He can't tell anything with just the eyes. "But they were taken down weeks ago."

Keep it vague. Do not let them know that you know more than the bare minimum.

"We both know that's not true, Nightwing," the man says with a sigh. "The Silence has reaches across the entire globe and for the past decade they have gone entirely unnoticed. Until now, where you took down the base in Blüdhaven twenty days ago." He pauses, then gives Dick a hard look. "Until when, just a day ago, another base in San Francisco was taken down by none other than Red Robin and all those other powered brats."

Shit. Shit . They caught on way quicker than what anyone was planning. The moves on them were supposed to be "accidental". Like Dick "stumbling" upon the warehouse, expecting to find some other crime and instead finding a massive group of child kidnappers and sellers. Like Tim and his team just happening to catch wind of the base and taking it out because it was in his city. Bruce really isn't going to be happy about this one. Dick really hopes Jason's okay. He's the one who's undercover and getting the base locations.

"Look, I don't know anything about this, I just saw what was happening and took it out of my city," Dick says, flexing his fingers in the tape they're wrapped in. This is going to get messy fast, he can tell.

"Anyone with a brain can see the bats are connected to this," the man says with a sharp edge to his voice. "And I'm not in the mood to pretend you don't know anything. What we want to know, Nightwing, is where you're getting your information and how many other bases you know about."

So… Jason hasn't been found out yet. Good. That's good. There's no way Dick will sell him out, not when they have close to fifteen other major locations and are currently working with the local authorities to take them out in one fell swoop.

Dick takes a breath. "I really have nothing to tell you."

The eyes of his captor hardens and Dick fights to keep his heart steady. He knows where it goes from here. Even before the leader motions to the other two men. "Then you have decided to make this difficult for yourself."

Then, the two other men approach. The moment one of them gets close enough, Dick lashes out with his legs, kicking him in the shins. But, because this guy is 1. Huge and 2. Has a friend , Dick's quickly overpowered as his shoulders are grabbed and he's shoved so far forward his nose almost slams into his knees. His shoulders protest angrily as his wrists remain attached to the wall by the short leash, but that discomfort doesn't last long before his shackles are disconnected from the wall and he's hefted up to his feet by two pairs of meaty hands on his biceps.

His head spins as they frogmarch him past the leader into the middle of the room, right next to where the chain is dangling. The lightheadedness quickly fades though with a dosage of adrenaline as he's held stiffly in place.

When his hands are grabbed and he's turned so his back is to the chain, he fights down a fit of panic and desperately ignores his rolling stomach. "What are you doing?"

There's the clinking of metal links, a snap, then one moment turns into another and Dick is left standing in the middle of the room with the slack between his shackles attached to the hanging chain.

He glares at the leader and watches out of the corner of his eyes as the two other men return to their positions—one by the door, the other by where the very chain Dick is now tethered to is latched to the wall.

He has a very bad feeling about this.

A very bad feeling that he knows exactly where this is going.

"Last chance, Nightwing," the leader says, "tell us what we want to know and you won't be harmed."

Dick shuffles his feet and rolls his shoulders, mentally preparing himself for what's about to happen. This is going to suck .

"I'm telling you, I don't know anything," Dick tries, making his voice sound as genuine as he can so hopefully they believe him and not torture him for the next who knows how long. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, he has no such luck as the leader turns towards the man by the chain and nods.

Now Dick, he isn't lightweight. Sure, he's short for his age and quite lean compared to most people, but that flat stomach and slim shoulders are made entirely out of muscle . And muscles are, in fact, heavy . Yeah, he's nowhere near Bruce's record weight of 210 pounds, nor around Jason's outstanding 230, but come on. Dick's almost six feet of pure 145 pounds and that's heavy .

Which is why it shocks him so much that Mr Man over there takes the chain from the wall it's connected too and manages to successfully yank the chain down so hard that Dick's feet leave the floor for a minute. He just manages to curl up with his back keeping contact with his fisted hands, but without the purchase of his fingers added with the weight of his own body, he quickly finds his shoulders burning with strain.

Dick's an acrobat. He can hang from many positions safely for long periods of time, but there's nothing safe about strappado. His shoulders are on fire, and it's only been a few seconds. His chest is tight and the metal bites into the skin of his wrists, and just when he feels like his ribcage is going to burst he finds his knees hitting the floor roughly.

He's painfully aware of every nerve and cell in his shoulders, he can feel the blood pulsing with a sharp agony that has him swallowing gasps.

And of course, before he can even recover, the chain is yanked again loudly and violently that has him stumbling to his feet, his wrists held so high above him that he's forced to bend forward and stand on his tip toes.

Dick's flexible. He can twist and contort unlike anyone other.

But let it be put on the record that some joints are not meant to bend certain ways. The shoulders shouldn't be pulled back and up like this.

It's agonizing. A pain that's way more biting than what he expected. He hasn't been tortured like this before—which admittedly is a terrible thing to say because it implies he's been tortured before but in other ways… which is a correct assumption, but still —and honest to the gods and to mother nature, it's like his entire upper body is on fire.

His stomach threatens rebellion as he's held upright in this new stress position. His chin is suddenly grabbed and Dick soon finds himself glaring through the strands of his bangs at the man in charge of this fun play date. Dick wants to vomit on him.

He keeps that just to his thoughts. He'd actually rather not.

"Where did you get your information?" The man asks, eyes cold and glaring. Dick bites back a wince as the chain jerks slightly, sending pings of pain into his shoulders and neck.

"No one," Dick hisses through clenched teeth. "No one told me. I was scoping out the warehouse and just happened to find- Ahg-!"

His chin is released and he's in the air with one mighty tug. He chokes back a cry as he's suspended awkwardly above the ground. It's even more painful this time. It came more of a surprise and he didn't get to prepare himself. His abs strain as he attempts to curl up to relieve a little bit of the tension in the socket's of his shoulders that are bending way too far in the wrong direction. He just manages to catch sight of the two other men both holding the chain before his vision is obscured by the leader approaching him.

If Dick wasn't so concerned with not having his shoulders ripped from the socket's, he could kick him in the face right now.

But he doesn't, he can only force himself to not cry out and keep his face a straining level of nonchalant as the man speaks above the ringing in his ears.

"Where did you get your information?"

Dick grinds his teeth and shakes his head.

Which is thankfully answer enough, Dick's pretty sure if he opens his mouth he'll scream.

Though, because it's the answer they don't want, Dick's lowered just a bit and then jerked right back up.

He'd be lying if he says he doesn't release a choked off shout. It's horrible . The strain, the tugging, the constricting, the weight. It's a miracle he hasn't dislocated a shoulder or two yet.

He's held up there for what feels like an eternity but in reality must have been just another minute or so before he's lowered back to his feet. He tries to keep standing, but his mind is so hazed over with pain that he falls to his knees once more, his heels hitting his ass as he leans forward and gags—the nausea in his stomach finally winning.

Thankfully, it's more like just an acidy spit-up. No past meals to be seen. Regardless, there's a horrible taste in his mouth to match the horrible ache in his body and the humiliation of throwing up at the feet of a captor.

A hand in his hair. A tug on the chain.

"Where did you get your information."

Dick doesn't bother answering, and the force of the chain lifting him up is so great that he feels the back of his biceps hit his head right before…

Crack .

Pure, unhinged agony pounds into him as his left shoulder finally gives out. He yells through clenched teeth, his feet scrambling for purchase that isn't there, and then, there's a second horrible pop as his other shoulder dislocates as well, and he's not able to hold back this scream.

Dick's hanging now, his wrists fully above his head in the worst way imaginable, gasping choking on his spit—his upper arms and the area around his neck burn like hellfire. He can't breathe. He can't even try. It's all pain pain pain pain that sends bolts to his fingertips and down his ribs. The meat of his shoulders press against his ears, and all he can do is dangle as his brain tries to process the horrible signals that's being sent though every burning nerve.

"Was wondering when that would happen," someone says all faraway. The leader or one of the other two, it doesn't really matter. All that matters is that his eyes are blurry and he can't focus on anything other than the dislocated joints that are already becoming oh-so-worryingly numb.

He's dislocated his shoulders before. He has . But this is different. This is awful. This is… this is…

"Where did you get your information, Nightwing," the leader yells through the haze. Dick blinks rapidly, trying to focus, trying to find the present though the maze that is torture. His head hangs, the nerves in his neck feeling like he's pinched them all individually, but he does manage to at least look up and mumble.

"What was that?" Someone asks.

Dick tries again, but only mumbles and grunts escape.

The leader leans forward and Dick does the only thing he can do, he spits the biggest wad of phlegm he could gather right onto his enemy's face.

The leader howls in disgust, yelling something too loud for Dick to process. He only has a moment to silently celebrate a victory when the tension holding him suspended in the air is suddenly lost, causing him to once again fall to the floor. Only this time, he crumbles all the way down, landing awkwardly onto his feet, down to his knees, over to his side and right on top of his right shoulder.

Everything goes white then. Ringing. Nothing but lightning bolts of angry, poisonous red as the pain envelops him.

He gasps, choking on air, trying to crawl back to his eyes and ears to see what is going on around him, trying to ignore the invisible knives that slice into his upper body.

He fails. Dramatically so. He passes out from the pain, and the pain remains even in sleep.

So much so, that the only reason he can tell time has moved when he wakes up is that he's no longer in the middle of the room, but shoved back against the wall. He's laying on his side, but he can't feel anything in his shoulders. His fingers itch below the layers of tape and he doesn't have any strength left to even check to see if he's connected to the wall again.

He releases a shaky breath and remains limp on the ground, praying that someone will come and that this will all be over soon.

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peppersonironi · 4 years

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Batfam/Avengers Crossover Chapter Three: Morning Routines

Tagging: @the-fair-maiden-of-fandom

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Category: Gen

Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types

Relationships: Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne, Natasha Romanov & Damian Wayne, Clint Barton & Cassandra Cain, Tim Drake & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tim Drake & Duke Thomas, Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel, Tim Drake/Kon-El | Conner Kent, Dick Grayson/Wally West, Roy Harper/Koriand'r/Jason Todd,

Characters: Bruce Wayne, Selina Kyle, Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, Damian Wayne, Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown, Barbara Gordon, Justice League (DCU), Alfred Pennyworth, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Clint Barton, Thor (Marvel), Bruce Banner, Peter Parker, Alfred the Cat (DCU), Bat-Cow (DCU), Goliath (DCU), Selina Kyle’s Cat Isis, Kate Kane (DCU), Duke Thomas,

Additional Tags: Batbrothers (DCU), Avengers Meet The Batfam, MCU/Batfam crossover, Crossover, no beta we die like robins, rated T for Jason’s language, I bleeped it out though. Just to be safe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, canon? What’s canon?, Deaf Clint Barton,Deaf Character, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Happy Batfamily (DCU), Birdflash and joyfire are implied/referenced,

Summary: Now that the Avengers have begun to settle into the Manor, they get to know the inhabitants.

Notes: Yo, I do take requests for scenarios, pov’s, and characters to show up!

Steve awoke in one of the most comfortable beds he had ever slept in. For a moment he was relaxed as the sun streamed in through the large window. Then he sat straight up. How did he get here?

Then he remembered. After the Justice League had left, Batman - he still felt weird calling him Bruce - led them into an elevator which emerged in a richly adorned sitting room. The entrance to the elevator being in the Grandfather clock which lay to the side of the room. A butler - a butler! Even Tony didn’t have one of those - had met them there. Batman had informed him that they would be staying for a while, and the butler had quickly led them to free rooms, assuring the Avengers that clothes would be provided before dinner. He had spoken the truth, as a change of clothes were provided shortly. Steve suspected they were pilfered from the manor’s residents.

Steve got out of bed and went over to the neatly stacked pile of clothes, and got dressed. He had been given cargo pants and a gray t-shirt. He then left his room and began to follow the smell of breakfast - a heavenly mixture of coffee, maple syrup, bacon, and blueberry pancakes.

Nat, Tony, and Clint were already in the kitchen when he arrived. They were sitting on stools at the island along with Tim Drake and Cassandra Cain. The Butler was placing a heaping pile of pancakes on the table whilst handing Tim a pot of coffee.

Steve walked over and sat down. "Good morning," he said. "They look great sir, thank you."

The Butler smiled. "Call me Alfred, everyone else does." He spoke with a crisp british accent, which Steve hadn’t noticed the evening before.

Steve nodded as he took some pancakes and bacon. Everyone else started chowing down as well, with the exception of Tim. Tim looked horrible, if Steve was being honest. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his lids were drooped.

Tim was about to pour some coffee, when Steve noticed he was clearly going to miss the mug. Steve opened his mouth to say something when Cassandra Cain reached over and casually pushed the mug over.

Tim filled up the mug. He either hadn’t noticed, or hadn’t cared.

Cassandra went back to her seat. "You sleep?"

Tim shrugged. "No more than usual. I had patrol, then worked on that eastside murder case."

Cassandra frowned. “ Sleep ,” she said vehemently.

"What's patrol?" Clint asked curiously.

Tim frowned. “We go out and patrol Gotham. Take care of crime. Typical vigilante stuff.”

This gave Steve pause. “You handle petty crime?”

Tim blinked. “You don’t? I thought you said you were superheroes?"

Natasha nodded. “So you’re like Peter. He protects Manhattan. The rest of us only got together due to an alien invasion. We’re what you would call the . . . heavy hitters.”

Cassandra nodded. “City needs us. Without . . .” She pursed her lips and moved her hands around. “Bad things happen.”

“Once you have finished, might I suggest you explore the manor or cave?” Alfred said as he placed more bacon on the table. “Master Bruce has a full gym and training areas in the Batcave which you are welcome to use. After all, if you are to stay here, you might as well have something to do.”

Steve stood up from his now finished meal. “Thank you Alfred, I believe I will. I think I remember the way to the cave. Thank you for the meal.”

Tony nodded. “See you down there, I guess.” Clint and Natasha agreed.

*****

Steve entered the cave to find that he was not the first one there. Standing on the main platform was an honest-to-god cow.

It was brown and white, with stubby horns and a baleful look. On its forehead was a brown patch that looked suspiciously like a bat. The cow mood.

“Bat-Cow! Get away from the invader!” Damian Wayne swooped in out of nowhere and landed in front of the now named Bat-Cow. “What are you doing in the cave?” He asked, his sword drawn and pointed at Steve’s chest.

“The butler - Alfred - said I could come down here to workout,” Steve replied. He was still trying to get over the fact that a cow was in front of him, being guarded by an eleven year-old in black training clothes that looked a lot like a ninja’s.

“T-t,” Damian replied, clearly unimpressed.

“Well, um. . . Is that a cow?” Steve couldn’t help himself.

“Yes of course. Are you blind? This is Bat-Cow. Bat-Cow, this is one of the invaders by the name of Steve Rogers. Stay away, he’s probably not even a vegetarian.” With that, the boy and the cow strolled away, and Steve turned to go.

*****

Steve found the gym platform and set to work. It was quite nice equipment, and Steve enjoyed using it. He wasn’t the only one, as both Jason Todd and Stephanie Brown were there with him in gym clothes. They both wore gray sweatpants, but Stephanie also wore a purple sports bra, almost the same color as her suit. Stephanie was using some resistance bands and Jason was bench pressing.

Steve walked in muttering about cows, which gained a smile from Jason, who inevitably heard him.

“If a cow surprises you,” Jason said between lifts, “then wait till you see Goliath.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Steve asked as he settled into a warm-up.

“One of Damian’s other . . . pets.” Stephanie said, a grimace on her face. “But boy, I can’t wait till I see your face!” She laughed as she finished up, and moved onto chin-ups.

Steve frowned, but let it slide. There was silence after a while as he settled into his routine. Eventually he moved over to bench presses. He began to set up the weights, glad there were so many, as he usually needed a lot more than the average man.

Steve looked over at Jason, who was still pressing. On closer inspection he was benching almost 400 pounds.

“Do you have super strength,” Steve asked before he could help himself.

Jason snorted and finished up his last few reps, setting the bar down then sitting up. He wiped his face as he answered Steve. “Nope, I don’t need superstength to get these babies.”

He lifted up his arms and flexed. This sent Stephanie into a giggle fit. “You,” She said between snorts, “Jason Peter Todd, are utterly ridiculous.”

Jason smiled as well before turning back to Steve. “But really, none of us bats have super strength. All we have is skill, and kicka** personalities.”

Steve frowned, but nodded anyway. He went to begin bench pressing when Stephanie asked him, “That Stark guy said you were a supersoldier, I assume that super strength comes with it?”

“Yup. There was an experimental serum that the scientists of World War II chose me to test. I worked in the army for a while, before I got frozen in ice due to taking down a Nazi ship. I got rescued and joined the Avengers to help stop an alien invasion.”

Jason muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “cheater.”

Stephanie glared at him. Before standing up and speaking cheerfully “Well, I’m going to go spar with whoever’s available. See you later?” Stephanie walked off, grabbing a purple water bottle on the way out.

Jason nodded. He moved on in his workout, and Steve went back to his bench presses. After a while, Jason had left to spar. Steve finished up himself, then decided to follow. He remembered seeing a fighting area on his way down, so he left the gym and started his search.

*****

Steve didn’t have to search for long, as the platform in question was easily the most crowded. It was the largest, with some thin mats on the floor. Steve wasn’t sure that they would provide much protection.

Thor was standing near the center, holding Mjolnir, and looking quite uncomfortable. He was seemingly being questioned by Damian, Jason, and Cassandra. Tim, Duke, Peter, Nat, Bruce (Banner), Tony, Bruce (Wayne) and Clint stood to the side. Their faces were a mixture of worry (Nat, Bruce Banner, Tony, and Clint), Amusement, (Tim, Dick and Duke), and confusion (Peter and Bruce Wayne).

Steve walked up to Nat. “What’s going on?” He asked.

“They're questioning the technicalities of being worthy of the hammer,” She said with a frown. “Specifically how many and how often you murder to be excluded.”

Steve frowned right along with her as he turned to the conversation.

“But is there a time frame?” Jason was asking. “Like say you don’t kill for like two weeks, and you’ve been super good? Would that get you points?”

“Uh. . .” The look on Thor’s face was priceless.

“T-t,” Damian said. “What about the technicalities behind the actual murder? Perhaps if a seven year old went on a killing spree? Would age exempt him?”

“I’m not sure a child would-”

“Not their fault?” Cassandra asked. “Forced? Didn’t know?”

Jason frowned. “Yeah, would the kid be declared unworthy if they were forced to kill? Or they didn’t know what they were doing?”

“Well, I-”

“What about mind control? Manipulation? Amnesia?” Jason asked.

“I’m sorry, but -”

“Do the more you kill, the more unworthy you become?” Damian asked, “Or until you hit a certain body count, it's a free-for-all?”

Thor sputtered. “Free-for-all?!”

“Or what if they were really bad people?” Jason asked. “Like other murderers? Pedophiles? Rapists? Drug dealers who sell to kids? If they did something wrong, would that cancel out your own wrongness?”

“These kids are hard-core,” Clint muttered.

“They raise a good point though,” Duke replied.

Tim nodded. “Ten Bucks its Damian who throws dear Thor off the edge.”

“Cass is feisty though.” Dick replied

Duke snorted. “Hah, never bet against Jason!”

All three exchanged handshakes.

“Okay,” Jason said, waving his arms about as he spoke with the utmost seriousness. “Does the way you kill affect how bad it is? Like would slowly and painfully bleeding to death be worse than a bullet to the head? Or say a sniper rifle compared to a handgun? Since one is more personal?”

Thor gaped at the young man.

“ Why kill.” Cassandra asked. “Told? Want? Accident?”

“What if it was to save yourself?” Damian asked. “If it was self-preservation, would that account for anything?”

“What if you were saving someone else?” Jason added. “Either directly, or just making the world a safer place?”

Thor frowned. “I do not speak for Mjolnir, but I assume all murder is murder.” The kids looked disappointed, so Thor continued. “However, if you wish to try to lift it, You have my permission to do so.”

“Naw, it's okay,” Jason said as the kids walked off looking dejected. “Doubt we could anyways, as Thor here just clarified.”

This caused the most uproar out of everything else in the conversation. Thor looked stricken, along with Peter, Bruce Banner, and Tony. Natasha and Clint looked at each other worriedly, Bruce Wayne, Tim, and Duke just rolled their eyes. And Steve was just confused.

“You kill?” Steve asked, as he started to worry if this universe was much more different than he had originally thought.

“Cassandra, Damian, and Jason had … unusual circumstances.” Bruce Wayne said simply. There was a silence after that. Then Bruce continued. “Well, we were about to start some sparring. If you’d like to join us, you are more than welcome to.”

Steve stood straight. He’d been looking forward to seeing them fight. “Sure,” he said as Tim, Dick and Duke exchanged ten dollar bils. “Sounds fun.”

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dessarious · 4 years

Text

Misconceptions, Miscommunication, and Misinformation Pt75

Inspired by @ozmav Maribat AU

AO3 Beginning Previous Next

As his siblings finally got tired of teasing Jason, Damian found himself the center of attention again. He was not thrilled to say the least.

“So Demon Spawn, you want to stay in Paris in case they break up so you can swoop in? It’s a good strategy, not a lot of relationships last at your age.” He didn’t even bother looking at the idiot.

“That’s crass even for you Todd. I believe you’ve heard Marinette say, multiple times, that I’m not interested in her that way and I’m not.” Dick came over and put an arm around his shoulders that he immediately shrugged off.

“Friend zoned huh? A lot of people will tell you you can’t come back from that but it’s not true. You just have to be patient.” Damian could feel his eye twitching. If these morons didn’t shut up he was going to finally kill them. Then Brown had to jump in as well.

“Don’t listen to them. If you want something you should go after it. If you can come between them their relationship isn’t strong enough to survive anyway.”

“Enough! All of you just shut up. I don’t like her romantically and I’m already in a relationship so back the hell off!” He groaned internally as he realized what he’d just shouted, for his entire family to hear. He suddenly remembered all the other reasons besides Luka that he wanted to stay in Paris.

“Now that’s just sad Demon Spawn. If you want to make her jealous you’re going to have to come up with something better than a fake girlfriend.” He tossed one of his throwing knives without conscious thought but did smile slightly when Todd cursed as it bisected his earlobe.

“I do not have a girlfriend, fake or otherwise. I am however content with the way things are currently progressing with my boyfriend.” Dead silence. He’d finally gotten them all to shut up even if he knew it wouldn’t last. His entire family was just starting at him in shock while Marinette gave him an encouraging smile and Chloe actually gave an approving nod. He was honestly too scared to look at Luka though he’d never admit that.

Damian expected an explosion when they came to their senses. They’d be yelling all sorts of nonsense at each other and him. He didn’t expect them all to turn to Drake, obviously upset with him.

“How could you not tell us that? Honestly Tim, that's a need to know information.” Drake could only blink at Dick for a moment. Most of them would take it for sleep deprivation but Damian knew he was stalling though he wasn’t certain why.

“Damian’s private life is his and none of us have a right to it unless he wants to share.” He was certain Drake didn’t know about him and Luka, but he was going to let the rest think he did. Damian wondered how much of it was to help him and how much was to keep the others from teasing him about not knowing about something that was right under his nose.

“A boyfriend?” Damian turned to his father. He looked confused more than anything else. “I can’t say I expected that, granted you haven’t shown much interest in anyone at all. When do we get to meet him?” The words ‘you already have’ luckily didn’t make it out of his mouth. He had no idea if Luka was out, or if he’d want anyone to know they were dating. He didn’t seem like the type to hide but it wasn’t something they’d discussed.

“When he’s ready. I’m hoping that day never comes given the likelihood you’ll all run him off. If I’ve learned anything from the rest of you bringing home dates it’s that the level of crazy in the family is something no one else wants to be a part of.” A couple of them looked ready to argue but Cass shrugged at him.

“That’s fair. I’d start sweeping everything I own for bugs after this if I were you as well. I’m pretty sure Dick already stuck at least two in your bag.” And that was why Cass would always be his favorite. Dick had that fake innocent expression on his face that fooled absolutely no one.

“You’ll all leave Damian alone until he’s ready to talk to us.” Damian could only frown at his father. The man literally felt the need to know everything. There was no way he was just going to let this go until Damian was ready to talk. “Honestly half the reason you all end up single every time someone meets the family is because of all the research done beforehand. It’s rather creepy to sit down with a bunch of strangers and have them tell you things about your life you forgot. I’m not about to have you all ruin possibly his only chance at a relationship.”

Damian couldn’t decide whether he should be touched or insulted. As his siblings started in on each other about who’d ruined the most relationships Damian was able to chance a look at Luka to see how he was handling the craziness. He almost sighed in relief when his boyfriend just gave him a calm smile. Just the fact that he hadn’t bolted from the room was promising given some of the ways most people reacted to his mentally unstable family.

They were going to have to have a long take when they got back to Paris. So far everything had been just between them. Sure Marinette and Chloe knew they were dating but neither one was invasive about it and they’d all been friends first. Now everything was going to get complicated because no matter what his father said his family would do their best to make his life miserable. He needed to know where Luka’s boundaries were, not to mention find his own.

AO3 Beginning Previous Next

Ko-Fi

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#maribat #marinette dupen chang #Damian Wayne #bffmaridami

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snappedsky · 3 years

Text

Borderlands: Skies the Bodyguard 4

Skies and Timothy spend the day at Sanctuary.

*Links to previous and next chapters in reblog*

Chapter 3

It’s a long drive from Old Haven to Sanctuary, but it’s a good one. Skies sticks her head out of the technical, letting the wind blow through her long, messy brown hair as they drive through the Arid Nexus. When they reach the highway connecting to the Eridium Blight, Timothy makes her sit back down.

Things have quieted down recently in these parts. Since Jack’s death and the fall of Helios, most Hyperion facilities in Pandora have shut down because nobody cares enough to keep them up anymore. So with no turrets, the only threats in the Eridium Blight are swooping rakks and the slag ash in the air- really not much different from anywhere else on Pandora.

Skies is in a far better mood by the time they reach the Dust, as she and Timothy dance to the music playing over the radio. The desert sun beats down on them as they tear through the sand, not a care in the world.

They reach the Highlands within a couple hours and soon Overlook, the only connection to the flying city of Sanctuary. Timothy parks the car and they head through the quiet town to the fast travel station. One by one, they teleport to the city.

Timothy and Skies exit Pierce Station, chatting happily, but they’re quickly cut off when they bump into the Vault Hunters: Maya, Axton, Salvador, Zer0, Krieg, and Gaige.

“Ugh, great,” Axton says with visible disgust.

“Hi, Zer0,” Skies waves happily then adds with disdain, “and not Zer0s.”

“Hi, Skies,” Zer0 chimes.

“What are you guys doing here?” Gaige asks accusingly.

“Just here to chill at Moxxxi’s,” she replies, “play some slots, maybe eat some pizza- or at least what Moxxi calls pizza. I’m pretty sure the crust is cardboard. But hey, it’s edible.”

“Alright,” Maya grunts suspiciously, “just stay out of trouble; and away from the Vault Key.”

“Like we care about your damn Vaults,” Skies snorts.

“Yeah, get over yourselves,” Timothy scoffs, rolling his eyes. Skies laughs as the two of them slip past the group and head to Moxxxi’s.

“Heya, Moxx,” Skies chimes as they sit at the bar and sticks a wad of cash into her tip jar. “Tell me something good.”

Moxxi smirks with amusement. “You’re both a lot cuter now that you have a bunch of cash to flash around.”

Timothy chokes on his spit, turning away as he coughs into his fist. Skies grins at him then faces Moxxi. “Two drinks and pizza please.”

“Coming up,” she replies.

Skies and Timothy spend the afternoon lazing about at the bar, nursing their drinks and munching on the pizza. The lounge is about as busy as usual, with Sanctuary citizens relaxing in the booths, playing the slot machines, or dancing to the music.

Skies gazes at Timothy for a while, almost mesmerised. He notices and grins, “what?”

“Your hair is fascinating,” she comments.

“Oh, yeah, I know,” he nods as he smooths back his messy Handsome Jack coif. “It always stays in this like general shape. It doesn’t seem to grow and I can’t cut it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Did you know he had a soul patch?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen old pictures.”

“Well, it took me forever to get rid of it,” Timothy explains as he rubs his chin. “Lots of struggling with a knife. Almost took my lip off.”

“I could try cutting your hair for you,” Skies suggests as she draws her large machete.

“Ah, no thanks,” he replies nervously. “I don’t wanna risk getting scalped.”

They both laugh, but they’re cut off by a loud, slurred voice. “I tol’ you- I’m tha king of darts!”

Skies scoffs with disgust as she glares at the drunk man by the darts board. He’s been bragging about his skill and forcing people into dart games for the last hour. “This asshole won’t shut up.”

“He’s got some skill,” Timothy comments, “but I bet if he went up against someone who’s a trained shot, he wouldn’t be so cocky.”

“Yeah,” she grins and stands up. “I’ma knock him down a peg.”

“Hey, douche canoe,” she says as she walks up to him. “I’ll face you in darts. But if I win, you gotta leave.”

The man snorts, “no way. Wouldn’t be fair. You’re like part robot.”

“Okay, alright, fair enough,” Skies nods agreeably and looks around. She spots someone passed out in a nearby booth, wearing a scarf. After swiping it and ripping it in half, she uses one piece to cover her robotic eye and gestures to Timothy with the other. “Tim, tie my arm behind my back, would ya?”

Timothy obliges, smiling with amusement as he ties back her robot arm. Then Skies faces the darts man. “Enough of a handicap?”

The man nods, grinning. “Alright. Le’s play.”

“Okay, you go first.”

He picks up his three darts and carefully throws them. Despite being wasted, each one gets fairly close to the bullseye.

“Beat that, lil’ lady,” he purrs.

Skies picks up all three of her darts with her left hand. Moving them dextrously between her fingers, she throws them one at a time. The first one hits dead center; the second one lodges in right next to it.

Skies pauses for a second with the third, taking a deep breath, then whips it. It rockets through the air, cracking the board as it hits the bullseye and knocking all of the other darts to the floor.

“Yeah!” Timothy cheers while the rest of the onlookers are speechless.

“Whoa,” the man croaks.

Skies grins at him, fist resting on her hip. “Beat ya. Now you gotta leave.”

He stares at her, stunned for a second, then scoffs. “Fine, whatever. Who needs this stupid bar anyway.”

“Hey, don’t take it out on Moxxxi’s,” Skies scolds as he stumbles by. “It’s a lovely bar…kind of.”

After untying her arm and eye, Skies and Timothy sit back down at the bar, where Moxxi gives them two more drinks.

“On the house,” she says, “for that display.”

“Aw, you’re a treasure, Moxx,” Skies comments. She and Timothy cheers and continue drinking.

With all of Skies’ troubles washed away by drink, pizza, and chill times, the day seems to be wrapping up into a good one. Then a sudden shudder runs through the ground, making everyone stumble.

“What was that?” Timothy asks worriedly.

“Ah, don’t worry about it,” Moxxi replies, “probably just the city’s engines. This place ain’t exactly the safest flying city.”

Everyone starts to settle back down when screaming erupts outside.

“There are ships!” somebody shouts as civilians are seen scattering around.

“Ships?” Skies questions and she and Timothy quickly stand up and look outside. They catch a glimpse of two large ships lowering past the buildings into the town square.

Before they are able to check it out, they hear a mass of rapid footsteps and turn to see a group of armed soldiers coming into the bar’s front entrance. Civilians start screaming as they point their guns around.

“What the hell is this?” Moxxi barks.

None of the soldiers respond, but she’s answered by Lilith’s voice playing over an intercom speaker.

“This is Lilith. Sanctuary is under attack. All civilians, evacuate the city immediately. Crimson Raiders, to me!”

“Shit,” Skies sighs and draws her pistol.

#borderlands #borderlands 2 #tales from the borderlands #borderlands fanfiction #borderlands au #myocs #myart

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jowritesthingss · 4 years

Text

Excuse Me Sir This Is My Emotional Support Eldritch Being

Fandom: The Magnus Archives

Pairing(s): n/a

Rating: Teen (for swearing)

Content Warning(s): rabbits, food/drink, mild(ish) swearing, not!Sasha, eldritch beings, spoilers through early s3-ish

Length: 2,190 words

Brief Summary: The archival team adopts a rabbit. (Part one of the Emotional Support Eldritch AU!)

AO3 link in reblogs bc Tumblr is a biatch!

“What is it?”

Jon levels a suspicious glare down at the fluffy blob comfortably stretched out in the middle of the overstuffed break room couch.

Tim blinks owlishly at him from behind his mug of tea. “A...rabbit?”

“Yes, but are you sure it’s a rabbit?” Jon asks insistently. “Not a—a spirit, or...an animated doll, or a clown in disguise or something?”

Sighing, Tim sets his tea down on the counter. “Look, I get the whole ‘suspicious of us being murderers’ thing—no I don’t, actually, but that’s beside the point—it. is. a rabbit.” For a good measure, he walks over to sit on one side of the rabbit, reaching a hand out to the little guy’s fluffy head. If a rabbit could smile, he suspects this one would be doing so as it leans up into his hand.

“No fleas or ticks...or worms, so it’s not some Jane Prentiss Pet Sematary crossover, I promise—” Tim rolls his eyes, “—the veterinarian confirmed as much when I brought the poor thing in. Out of the mud and the rain of the gutter,” he adds, not even attempting to hide the guilt-trip. He wishes Martin were here, with his ridiculously effective puppy-dog eyes.

Tim knows this is Jon he’s talking to, but surely even he can’t be that cold-hearted. He rather thinks that Jon will enjoy not being alone anymore down here during all his late nights. If he’d let himself, surely Jon would enjoy having company in the form of a teeny tiny creature that can’t and won’t harm him—which, uh, certainly is not why he’s lying about his current flat not permitting pets, no siree.

“...Fine. Whatever.” Jon points an accusing finger at him. “But we’re not keeping it,” he stresses. “The moment you find it a different home, it goes. The moment.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Tim chirps, although as he begins a staring contest with the rabbit’s curious red eyes, he has no intention of actually doing as Jon says.

Martin chooses this moment to walk through the door. His eyes light up. “Aw, is that a rabbit?”

“No, this does not mean you’re allowed to bring in more strays,” Jon snaps.

The light in Martin’s eyes fades. “Okay,” he says mournfully as he crouches to pet the rabbit, sulking.

“So what should we name him?” Tim asks Jon when the Head Archivist comes into the break room the next morning.

“Oh—my—” Jon startles where he stands by the counter, attempting to make himself some toast with the Archive’s horrible fifteen-year-old toaster—toast that now splatters across the floor. Somehow in his sleep-deprived stupor he must’ve missed Tim sitting on the couch with a white rabbit on his head. He never seems to really notice Tim, but at this point it’s fine enough; Tim has accepted that the guy has impossibly poor taste.

The rabbit clambers down from Tim’s shoulders, jumping off of the couch and padding over to investigate the new human(?) and the mess he made.

“How about Thumper?” Tim puzzles aloud, stretching leisurely and acting as if he doesn’t notice Jon frantically scrubbing up raspberry jam and trying to avoid the rabbit’s investigative snuffles all in one. “No, no...that’s too cliché.”

“I really don’t see the point in naming it when it shouldn’t be here more than a few weeks,” Jon comments, shooing the animal in question away before it can try to lick up any jam.

“Maybe Joe?” Tim continues loudly, as if he hadn’t heard the other. When the rabbit ambles back over to him, he scoops them up, pressing their noses together. “Ligma?” He shakes his head at the rabbit. “No, no. We need to have more sophistication as we go about this.”

“You could do with applying that sophistication to your work,” comes the grumbled retort.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Jon abruptly turns to burn another piece of bread in the toaster.

“How about Marshmallow?”

“What on Earth—” Jon shrieks, jumping in his desk chair, and a sheaf of papers is sent flying around the office.

“The rabbit. Should we call him ‘Marshmallow’?” Tim smiles as innocently as he can manage, standing out in the hall with his head peeping into his boss’ office. “Marshie for short?”

“I am in the middle of a statement!” Jon sputters. “Get out!”

“Okay, okay....” Tim fluidly shrugs his shoulders. “What about ‘Bob’?”

“Out!”

But Tim continues to pop into Jon’s office unannounced throughout the day, tossing out name suggestions. He even manages to rope Martin into doing it too, and notes with savage delight that between the two of them and his work, Jon doesn’t get much more than a moment to wallow rest for the remainder of the day.

Between the two of them Tim and Martin manage to compile a surprisingly long list of names:

Snowball,

Posy (Martin is partial to this one because he thinks it’s cute),

Bungen Leitner,

John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt (“is that too American of a reference for a fanfic taking place in the UK?” “what?” “what?”),

the Bunholding,

Michael (Jon is especially averse to that one for some reason),

Cottonball,

Fluffy Bastard (Tim’s own favorite),

Bugs Bunny,

Eldritch Horror (Tim tosses that one in as a joke; no way the rabbit that eats his own shit is some kind of otherworldly being),

Big Bungus (“it’s a play off Big Chungus!” “d’you seriously think anyone else here even knows what memes are”), and

the Vampiric Count Sir Maximillianus-Who-Is-Also-A-Werebun

(Despite badgering Sasha multiple times in an attempt to get her thoughts on the matter, the only name she offers up is “Dinner”, which makes Martin cry, so that one is out.)

None of the names quite seem to fit the little white puffball that has now taken over the realm of their break room, however—so Tim and Martin find themselves going back to the drawing board. They reluctantly leave the Institute at the end of the day, still without having decided upon a name.

“JON JUNIOR!” Martin screeches excitedly the next morning as they’re congregating once more in the break room, zombie-like before their tea and mid-morning snack time (primary schools don’t get all the fun, okay).

Jon and Sasha startle, and for once even Tim himself jumps. The rabbit doesn’t seem to care much where he is, nibbling at some hay in his corner litter box.

“I—what?” Jon asks, flabbergasted, although he manages to not drop his toast this time. Character development.

“We should name him Jon Jr! After you!” Martin explains eagerly.

“Absolutely not,” Jon tries to say, but before he can finish, Tim is jumping in.

“I think that is an excellent idea,” he says, grinning broadly. “Thoughts, Sasha?”

“I’m not emotionally invested in this.” Sasha shrugs, uncaring. “I’m going back to my desk.” She takes her drink and walks out of the room, letting the door slam shut behind her.

“All right, since Sasha doesn’t care, I’ll decide her vote for her,” Tim says, carefully containing his glee. “So that’s three votes for and one against, then. Majority rules.”

“What? No!” John protests, but Tim is too busy looking at the rabbit for confirmation.

“What do you think, little guy?” He walks over, bends down, and lightly boops the rabbit’s nose. “Are you a Jon Jr?”

The rabbit twitches his nose in agreement and poops.

“Well then!” Tim stands, clapping his hands together. “That’s been decided upon.”

No, it hasn’t,” Jon insists, but Tim cares little for his boss’ objections. He’ll accept his fate as Jon Senior eventually.

To Tim’s utter surprise and fascination, it happens sooner than later.

Jon, Tim quickly realizes, is a lot like the one dad who says “no dog” and then ends up loving the dog more than he loves his own children.

Despite his initial objections, the daft fool ends up getting caught up in Jon Jr’s big, innocent, rabbit-y gaze (worse than even Martin’s puppy-dog eyes, they conclude gravely), and by the end of the day Friday Jon has announced that he supposes the rabbit can stay with him over weekends and holidays.

“We’re still not keeping him,” Jon reminds them all, even as the rabbit gathered in his arms, giving his nose kisses and knocking his glasses askew, says otherwise.

He gets caught trying to sneak the rabbit into his office on more than one occasion, but Martin raises a fuss about it.

(“He’s all of ours! Jon Jr is our department’s mascot now,” Martin protests defiantly. “You can’t take him away from the rest of us.”

“Yeah,” Tim adds, mostly just to stir up drama—he doesn’t particularly care one way or another. “You can’t just swoop him up and file him away like one of your statements.”

“Just don’t let it get out and chew at my electronics,” Sasha says, distractedly typing something on her phone, probably to that weird new boyfriend.)

To stave off the imminent coup, Jon Jr becomes an officially-declared resident of the break room. He slowly amasses chub around his middle and a cardboard kingdom of bunny toys, houses, blankets, and treats. A rabbit could want for nothing more.

And perhaps—perhaps a human could want for nothing more, too, Tim thinks as he looks down at the figure curled up on the sofa, rabbit nestled against his chest.

He doesn’t love the man, not by a long, long shot—doesn’t even particularly like him half the time—but Tim can’t deny that the scene is adorable. And, regardless of his very vocal protests, Jon Jr may very well be what Jon Sr needs to finally process things and move the hell on with life.

Tim smiles grimly. It’s about damn time.

He quietly closes the door to the room and heads back towards the Archives. He’ll leave Jon to wake himself up.

(And to discover for himself that Jon Jr has peed on his pants leg.)

Of course, this is the Archive we’re talking about, so naturally the peace is abruptly shattered, and everything goes horribly, horribly wrong.

Tim isn’t entirely certain what happens or why, but all of a sudden Sasha isn’t really Sasha, and he and Jon have gotten backed up and cornered in the tunnels as this not-really-Sasha stalks towards them, predictably with the intent to kill, just like the rest of the spooks they are so lucky to deal with.

Tim and Jon Sr slowly back away until they hit a dead end. Meanwhile, Jon Jr licks at Tim’s arm—he’d been scooped up as they ran into the tunnels, Tim doesn’t entirely know why—and despite the fact that they are most probably about to, y’know, die, the little kisses almost feel strangely reassuring.

The thing-that-is-not-Sasha cackles, her—their?—its?—voice distorted and echoing throughout the tunnels. It stalks towards them.

All of a sudden, Jon Jr wriggles loose and leaps smoothly down onto the ground. He scampers in front of Tim and Jon, heading towards bitch-give-me-my-Sasha-back.

“No! Get back here!” Tim hisses at the rabbit, even though he knows it’s pointless. He hates to admit it, but he’s becoming rather fond of Jon Jr, even if Tim mostly brought him in to piss off and totally not help Jon. Jon—who, speaking of, seems to be equally fond now, judging by the deflating tire of a terrified squeak he makes, and the adorable immature grabby arms he makes at the little bugger.

“Junior,” Jon calls out, sounding like a toddler who’d just been told Santa wasn’t real (he is, they have the statements to prove it, he is). And Tim wants to laugh, albeit hysterically. The first time he sees his brick wall of a superior cry and it’s over a rabbit, and he’s not even going to have time to gloat over it because they’re about to die. “No! You’re going to—”

Jon Jr stops and sits in front of wholly-absolutely-totally-not-Sasha-what-the-fuck, who looks down at him, bemused through its murderous bloodlust.

The rabbit lifts a dainty paw up to his mouth, and suddenly—suddenly it’s twisting and huge, towering up to the ceiling of the tunnel, its skin hairless and tinted a sickly, glowing gray, with five, six, seven...a whole lot more limbs than a rabbit is supposed to have.

The not-rabbit unhinges its now meters-long jaw and snaps up the creature.

Tim and Jon stare at each other, wide-eyed.

There is a loud gulping sound, then a deafening crack, and suddenly there is a very normal white rabbit sitting in front of them again, carefully cleaning one paw with a very normal pink tongue.

“Wh—” Tim chokes on his own words.

The holy-shit-it-really-is-an-eldritch-horror-after-all stretches, yawns, and flops over in a dead sleep.

“...We’re keeping the rabbit,” Jon says faintly.

“I—yeah.” Tim nods, light-headed. “We’re keeping the rabbit.”

Jon Jr the rabbit-slash-eldritch-abomination gets a very hearty dinner of romaine lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumber peels that night.

(Tune in next time* for the terrible, terrible realization—“Jon Jr is a girl?!” (Also why is there another dead body again, dammit, can’t we go one week))

Fin

First || Next

(There may or may not actually be a next time. It depends. )

Behold. What very well may be the stupidest thing I have ever written. Ahem. Did I say stupidest? I meant most brilliant. Clearly I meant it’s the most brilliant thing I have ever written. Obviously.

Let me know if you enjoyed this! I have a bunch of ideas to continue this ridiculously silly AU of sorts, but idk if I’m going to quite yet and am not certain that I’ll be continuing to write for TMA. atm I’m focused on a different fandom, and I’m only on s3, so the really big idea I had has to wait, anyway.

Want to chat or be added onto any of my taglists? Shoot me an ask or a message here or via my other social media!

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haberdashing · 4 years

Text

Unraveling All The Mystery

TMA mental time travel AU; Jon gives the rest of the original archives crew an explanation for his erratic behavior. Inspired by this post and this fic of it.

on AO3

“Jon...”

“...this is an intervention.”

Jon couldn’t help but burst into laughter when he heard those words.

He’d known something was up when all three archival assistants had joined him at once in his office early that morning, had half-suspected that they were going to ask in unison about how he had been acting different ever since he had the memories of his future self (well, of his no-longer-future self, hopefully) dumped into his head, but that phrasing...

It reminded Jon of an entirely different “intervention” directed his way, and while he knew he needed to take this situation seriously, it was still a far sight for being confronted for stalking his coworkers and accusing them of murder.

(To be fair, two of the four people he’d seen as murder suspects at the time had in fact killed someone, but Jon knew well enough that that didn’t entirely excuse his actions.)

Martin’s brows furled together in that way Jon had always secretly found adorable as he asked, “What’s so funny?”

Jon tried his best to school his expression back into something approximating neutral before he replied. “It’s... it’s a long story.” Technically true, that, though he knew it wouldn’t get him far to say that alone, knew he wasn’t the only one here hungry for answers (at least metaphorically speaking). “Never mind that. What is this... ‘intervention’ regarding?”

Sasha, Martin, and Tim all exchanged a look that Jon couldn’t quite decipher for a silent moment before Sasha spoke up.

“All three of us have noticed that you haven’t been acting like yourself lately.”

And of course it was Sasha telling him this. Sasha who he had two sets of memories of now, one of the real her and one of a being that had taken her place, the two already starting to blur together in his mind when he wasn’t face to face with the real thing.

Jon knew that her point was a fair one, but he still wanted to know more, wanted to know what exactly had changed, what had revealed to the rest of the world his internal change, wanted to know if it was something Jonah Magnus might have already noticed, so he raised an eyebrow and asked, “How so?”

Tim blurted out “weird” right as Martin blurted out “nice,” with Sasha waiting a beat before adding, “Weirdly nice.”

“...fair enough.” Jon could feel a smile sneaking back onto his face as he spoke. “I do know what you’re referring to there, and I, I do want to explain it all to you, but... do you mind if we take this conversation- er, this ‘intervention’ elsewhere?”

“...this is your office.”

“Exactly. Hardly neutral ground, is it?” Especially with Jonah Magnus doubtlessly watching their every move from his office, but Jon wasn’t very well going to mention that bit... “How about we go to that ice cream parlor we went to for Martin’s birthday? My treat.”

Sasha eyed Jon warily. “I had breakfast two hours ago.”

“Are you really going to turn down an offer of free ice cream and answers because of that?”

The three assistants exchanged a few pointed glances and slight shrugs before Tim said with a wide grin that may or may not have been entirely genuine, “You had me at ‘free ice cream.’”

“Glad to hear it.”

Jon got up and grabbed his bag, but before he could finish leading the way out of the Archives, a thought occurred to him. “Somebody bring a digital recording device with--laptop, phone, whatever, just so long as it’s digital. This won’t be a statement per se, but talking about it all will probably mess up the recordings as badly as the real statements do, and maybe that’ll help prove that this truly is the supernatural at work.”

There was a brief silence for a moment before Martin asked, “Jon, what d’you mean by real statements?”

“You know what I mean.” Jon sighed softly. “The ones with something solid to them, the ones you can’t easily rationalize away... not that I haven’t tried. They never record digitally.”

“I’ll go get a camera then.” Sasha darted away, and as she did, Jon could practically feel Martin and Tim’s gazes boring into him.

“So you do know there’s a difference.” Tim said.

“I didn’t think you believed any of them!” Martin added.

Jon sighed again. “I’ve... I’ve always believed in the supernatural. Well, perhaps not always, but for decades now, long before I got hired by the Institute. That’s why I wanted to work here in the first place. The skeptic act was always just that. An act, because it felt safer than the alternative.”

The awkward silence that followed was broken only by Sasha returning triumphantly, camera in hand. “Got it!”

“Great, let’s go.”

For a moment or two, as Jon’s feet obediently traced their way towards the ice cream parlor despite part of his brain insisting that it’d been years since he’d been to the place, Jon thought that was that.

Then Martin spoke up, his voice tentative but clear. “Care to share why you started believing in the supernatural, then?”

“Not particularly.” Jon paused, considered his options a bit more. He needed to be open with them, to trust them, he knew that, but... but that didn’t make talking about supernatural childhood trauma any easier. “Let’s just say it has to do with my distaste for both Leitners and spiders and leave it at that.”

Martin scrunched up his nose, and Jon’s heart ached at the sight of it. “Fair enough.”

The ice cream parlor wasn’t terribly busy this time of day, which was probably for the best, as Jon figured the less chance of being overheard, the better. After a bit of teasing and decision-making, Jon paid for the order as he’d promised, with both him and his assistants getting one scoop of ice cream each (though Tim had jokingly threatened to buy a scoop of every flavor the place had to offer just because Jon would have to foot the bill).

“What’s with you and rum and raisin ice cream, anyway?”

Jon glared at Tim. Tim glared back.

“What do you mean? It’s good.”

“If you’re eighty years old and have no taste buds left, maybe. Seriously, if you made an objective ranking of ice cream flavors-”

“That’s literally impossible, Tim, everybody has different preferences-”

Tim raised his voice a bit as he spoke over Jon. “Then you know that in dead last would be-”

“Anything with marshmallows in it?”

Martin looked up from his scoop of rocky road, pointing his spoon at Jon accusingly. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Jon couldn’t quite look Martin in the eye as he continued, so he focused his gaze on Tim instead. “The texture is all wrong for mixing with ice cream, they’re disgustingly sweet, and do you know what marshmallows are made out of? Because I don’t consider that appetizing, especially in a dessert context.”

Martin scrunched up his face again. “...I try not to think about it.”

“So we’ve established that Jon’s taste in ice cream is just wrong in general, I see.” Sasha chimed in.

“Exactly! We weren’t discussing Martin’s taste in ice cream here-” Tim started to gesture wildly with his own spoon, flecks of moose tracks coming perilously close to falling off as he flailed it around. “We’re discussing Jon’s, and specifically how horrible it is.”

“Technically, we didn’t come here to discuss anybody’s taste in ice cream.”

“Said like a man who still hasn’t explained what the deal is with him and rum and raisin.”

Jon weighed the pros and cons of trying to change the subject more forcefully versus just flat-out telling the truth before settling on the latter.

“My grandmother used to buy it for me as a treat. We’d sit side by side on the couch and share a pint as we watched nature documentaries on the telly. It was as close to a family tradition as we had, I suppose.”

“Oh.” Tim’s gaze softened a bit. “Alright, I’ll give you that one.”

“So it’s not because you’re eighty and have no taste buds, it’s because your grandmother was?” Sasha added.

“Hey!”

Sasha stuck out her tongue, turned bright pink from the strawberry ice cream she was eating, her expression clearly unapologetic.

“Can we talk about what we’re actually here to talk about now?”

Jon’s voice came out a little louder than he had intended, and his near-shouting seemed to shut down the friendly banter that had been surrounding him in one fell swoop. Sasha closed her mouth, a few awkward glances were exchanged (none of which were directed at Jon himself), and silence fell.

“...sure thing, Jon. Go right ahead.” Martin eventually replied.

“Start the camera, please?”

Sasha futzed with the camera for a few seconds before nodding and shooting Jon a thumbs-up. Before Jon could speak up, though, Tim beat him to the punch.

“Statement of Joe Spooky, regarding-”

Jon pressed one hand against his temple, though he was struggling to hold back a laugh as he did so. “I told you, Tim, this isn’t a statement. Not a proper one, anyway. We’re damn well not going to be filing it away in the archives, at least.”

Even with his hand half-covering his eyes, Jon could see Tim’s raised eyebrow and amused expression clearly enough. “Not even going to mention the Joe Spooky bit?”

“Wasn’t planning on it, no.” Though Jon couldn’t help but think of the other time Tim had grabbed a recording device and made a joke about the statement of Joe Spooky... but that was why he had to explain all of this, so that they could work together, so that they could prevent Prentiss’ attack on the Archives and all the horrible things that had followed it the first time around.

“Smart man, knows better than to quibble with some quality wordplay.”

“That’s not wordplay, Tim.” Sasha interjected. “That’s not even a pun, just a first name and the word ‘spooky.’”

“Like I said, quality wordplay right there.”

“Please let me actually talk about this?”

Once again, as Jon spoke up, the others went eerily silent. Jon set his hands on the table as he weighed his next words.

“So, do you want to hear my explanation first, or the proof I have to back it up?”

Tim spoke up first. “Proof first. Given how much you’re building this up, I doubt I’ll believe any of it before you’ve given me a reason to believe this isn’t just some elaborate prank.”

“Usually you’d be the one pranking me, not the other way around. I’m not exactly the pranking type.”

Tim shrugged slightly. “Well, maybe you’ve finally snapped, decided to get your revenge by launching a prank for the ages.”

Jon thought about disputing the idea that he would ever prank one of his assistants, let alone Tim--Tim who he knew from back in Research, Tim who was his friend, Tim who probably knew him better than anyone in the Institute (Jonah Magnus notwithstanding)--but decided against it. “Fine, so that’s one vote for proof first. Anyone else?”

Martin raised his hand before speaking, as if he were still back in primary school, and Jon knew that there had been a time not that long ago when he would have made that very comparison in an attempt to dismiss Martin, in an attempt to prove that at least he was more mature and competent than one of his coworkers. But that time had come and gone now, and Jon was just grateful that Martin was willing to take turns rather than everybody trying to speak over everybody else all at once. “Er, I’d rather have the story first, personally. Hard to establish proof if we don’t know what’s being proven to begin with.”

“Alright, well, that leaves you with the deciding vote, Sasha.” Jon pointed at Sasha, using his finger rather than his spoon for the gesture.

Sasha shoved a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth right as Jon pointed her way, dramatically drawing out her consumption of it before finally swallowing and saying with a mouth still tinged bright pink, “I say proof first. Between working in Artefact Storage and in the Archives, I’ve heard more than my fair share of horror stories; I’d like to know we can trust you, trust that you’re not some creepy doppelganger or something, before we get to the meat of whatever this is.”

Jon nodded. “Very well. Proof first it is.” Jon drummed his fingers on the table for a moment as he thought. “I can’t directly prove what’s happened since there’s no physical evidence, but I can prove that I know things about each of you that you haven’t told me, things that I have no way of knowing unless something supernatural is going on.”

“Go for it, boss.”

“Tim, I... god, there’s no easy way to say this, is there... I know what happened to Danny.”

Tim’s whole body tensed up at the mention of Danny’s name, and he glanced over at Sasha briefly, the two evidently having a silent conversation through facial expressions and minute gestures. Once, Jon would have been able to Know what it was they were saying, Know the meaning of each wink of the eye or tilt of the head, but now he could only make a few educated guesses.

“I know the whole story about your trip to Covent Garden Theatre, and your run-in with Joseph Grimaldi there. I know you want revenge on the circus more than anything in the world, even your own life. I’ll make sure you get that revenge, that the circus is destroyed, though hopefully this time you won’t be lost in the process. And I’m... I’m sorry for your loss.”

Tim blinked rapidly a few times, shifting his gaze from Sasha to Jon. His spoon fell from his hand into his cup of ice cream, though he didn’t seem to notice it, even when a few flecks of mostly-melted ice cream fell onto his shirt. “...shit.”

“Wait, you know about that?” Sasha said, tilting her head slightly to one side.

“I do now. Due to... well, I’ll tell you the story, but I don’t think I’m quite finished with the proof bit yet.”

“Right. Well, keep at it, I suppose.”

“Of course. Sasha...” Jon reached out to grab his own hair, but ended up with more empty air than actual strands of hair in his grasp. How had his hair ever been this short? “I wish I knew more about you, the, the real you. Besides arguing about how to pronounce calliope-”

“Cal-ee-OH-pee.” Sasha corrected, a weak grin on her face.

“Ca-LIE-oh-pee-” Jon returned Sasha’s grin with one of his own, one that he wasn’t sure he could stifle even if he tried. “And your distaste for Artefact Storage, though that apparently won’t stop you from going there in an emergency... Terrible idea, by the way. Don’t go in Artefact Storage, and especially don’t go check out that web table alone.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.” Sasha shivered exaggeratedly at the thought.

“But I, I do know, actually, that you and Tim have talked about how you’re more qualified to be head archivist than I am, that you should’ve been the one to get the position instead of me.”

This time, Sasha was the one to start the silent conversation between her and Tim.

“And honestly? You’re absolutely right. I came across a tape Gertrude left for her successor--far too late for it to help me directly--and she made it very clear that she expected that successor to be you, Sasha.”

Sasha stopped her silent conversation with Tim to stare at Jon. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. And based on what I now know, it’s entirely possible Elias chose me in part because you really would have been better at this job than I am.” Jon punctuated the statement with a sharp, bitter laugh.

“Why would Elias do that, though?” Martin asked.

“That ties in to the bigger picture stuff a fair bit, but suffice it to say that when Elias was looking for an Archivist, he had a lot more in mind for the position than actually taking care of the files in the Archives. There’s a reason Gertrude left it in such disarray, and there’s a reason he has so many inane rules about how to go about organizing what remains.”

“So he’s sabotaging the place?” Tim looked a little less shaken than he had been a moment ago, though he still hadn’t cleaned up the ice cream staining his shirt and was now fiddling absentmindedly with his spoon, half-eaten ice cream forgotten.

“Essentially, yes.”

Tim snorted. “Explains a few things, actually.”

Martin raised his hand again. “D’you have any spooky impossible knowledge about me, then?”

Jon laughed, loud and long. “Martin... the question isn’t whether I know anything about you, the question is where to start.” Jon shook his head, rapping his spoon against his cup as he considered what to say next.

“I know... I know you lied on your CV to get in here, that you don’t even have a degree, let alone the Master’s in parapsychology that you claimed to have. I know that you don’t have a middle name, middle initial notwithstanding. I know you’ve got a second tape recorder stashed away in document storage, that you use it to record poetry you wrote, because you think it gives a, a certain lo-fi charm to the recordings...”

“H-hang on a minute!” Martin’s face was red, but Jon didn’t think it was entirely out of embarrassment this time, and Tim and Sasha had their shoulders raised, as if they felt they were being attacked somehow...

“...oh, that sounds bad, doesn’t it? I promise this- this isn’t me calling you out, or, or attacking you, you don’t need to get defensive about all this-”

“Really?” Martin sounded skeptical; Jon couldn’t really blame him.

“For one thing, I couldn’t fire you even if I wanted to. And for another, I absolutely, positively don’t want to. Martin Blackwood, you’re stuck here with us for the long haul.”

“Great.” There was a sharp sarcasm to Martin’s tone, but Jon elected to ignore it.

“I also know that... that you notice a lot more than people think, that you do a lot more than people give you credit for. Including me. Especially me. I’ve taken you for granted... all of you, really, but especially you, Martin. And I’m sorry about that, I really am. I know better now, I swear.”

“...thanks?”

“Don’t mention it. Literally, don’t mention any of this when we’re in the Institute. I don’t want to risk Elias overhearing what I’m going to tell all of you.”

“Elias doesn’t come down to the Archives that much...”

Jon shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Still don’t talk about it.”

“Fine. Won’t mention it.”

“Good.” Jon took a deep breath and let it out before saying, “Proof?”

A few more glances were exchanged between the three assistants before all three nodded in agreement. “Proof.”

Sasha adjusted her glasses slightly before asking, “So what exactly is it you’re proving to us, then?”

“I, uh.” Well. No use beating around the bush. It was going to sound ridiculous no matter what, but hopefully he’d done enough to establish beforehand that he wasn’t just imagining things or making things up. Hopefully he’d done enough that they wouldn’t dismiss his experience the way he’d dismissed so many others.

“I have memories of the future.”

“You’re talking about time travel?” Sasha says, the bright gleam of her eyes visible even though her glasses.

“Not exactly--I didn’t physically go back in time, just, just mentally, just the memories I shouldn’t have yet.” Jon stared down at his hand, the same hand which he clearly remembered being covered in scars from worms and flames and stabbing, but was now utterly unblemished. “And they’re not... not memories of this future. I mean, I didn’t have this conversation before, it doesn’t work quite like that. I remember a future where I didn’t have these memories to work with--so it’d be some sort of changing or branching timeline, not, not a stable time loop...”

“I see.” Tim’s expression suggested otherwise, suggested that despite what his words might suggest he was caught somewhere between confusion and disbelief.

“I suddenly got these memories overnight not long after Martin...” Jon hesitated, unsure how to delicately phrase the next bit of what he had to say, how to refer to Prentiss’ siege on Martin’s flat without risking upsetting Martin in the process. “...started living in the Archives. So I imagine that’s when I started acting weird, or, or nice, or weirdly nice, or however you want to put it. I don’t know why it happened then, exactly, but maybe it has something to do with me growing into my role as Archivist--late enough that I’m already getting comfortable in the position, but hopefully early enough that I can prevent the worst of it from happening all over again.”

Martin held up his hand, though less in a way reminiscent of a primary schooler and more in a way reminiscent of such a child’s crossing guard telling an oncoming car to stop. “I’m sorry, I was trapped in my flat for almost a fortnight, under siege by, by some sort of flesh worm hive thing--are you honestly saying that’s not ‘the worst of it’?”

Jon laughed and shook his head brusquely. “I wish it were, Martin, but unfortunately that’s just the tip of the iceberg here.”

Sasha tilted her head to one side, some strands of hair falling into her face as she did so. “What’s the iceberg then?”

“Well, there’s a lot of it, as the metaphor rather implies, but I’ll try to keep it short... Prentiss attacks the Institute-”

Martin’s face visibly paled at the mention of Prentiss’ name, and Jon scrambled to reassure him.

“Even in the future I remember she didn’t directly kill anyone, and I’ll make damn sure she doesn’t get a chance to do so this time around, but, well, that is what happened. And when Prentiss attacks, Sasha runs over to Artefact Storage, messes with the web table when nobody else is around, and gets killed and replaced by the monster bound to it.”

Jon started to put one finger out for each major event he lists off, as if keeping a tally, though he has no idea what the final count should be.

“Martin finds Gertrude’s body in the tunnels. I accidentally release the thing that replaced Sasha when I meant to kill it, and it almost kills me in turn. I get framed for murder, get kidnapped three separate times within a few months. Tim stops the circus from completing their ritual, but blows himself up in the process. Martin almost gets lost to the Lonely. I accidentally end the world, try to make it better, can’t make it better, send my memories back right as everything’s entirely going to shit. There’s more to it, but those are the most important events, at any rate.”

At least, they’re the most important events relating to Martin, Sasha, and Tim. No need to tell them about things like Melanie getting shot by ghosts in India, or Daisy getting stuck in the Buried. The big picture is complicated enough as it is.

“...I know you’ve made a few cock-ups in your time, boss, but ending the world is a new one even for you.”

Jon couldn’t bring himself to laugh, or even to meet Tim’s eyes, instead staring down at the sad dregs of his ice cream, long since melted. “It’s really not funny. Billions of people--just about everybody in the world--were suffering, stuck in a seemingly-endless torment, and it was all my fault.”

Martin bit his lip anxiously for a moment before speaking up. “I’m sure it wasn’t all your fault.”

Martin’s words brought a slight smile to Jon’s face, but he still shook his head in response. “It was. Trust me, Martin, it really was my doing. We had this argument enough after it actually happened... rather than discuss that further, I’d rather focus on preventing it this time around.”

“Do you have an actual plan for making sure the world doesn’t end for us, then?”

Jon looked up, looking into Sasha’s dark eyes, before breaking into laughter and grinning.

“What exactly do you think I’ve been doing all this time?”

#tma #tma au #tma fic #tma fanfic #the magnus archives #the magnus archives au #the magnus archives fic #the magnus archives fanfic #personal #my writing

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