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avaritia-apotheosis · 3 years

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Phantom Children Ch.4

In Which: exposition for exposition's sake exists, and Vlad looks way more suspcious than he ought

| AO3 | Prologue | 3 | [4] | 5

VLADIMIR MASTERS. Human male in his mid-forties, and most notably the founder and CEO of VladCo, a billion-dollar industry that mostly specializes in manufacturing weapons and technology. Graduated summa cum laude from the University of Wisconsin despite having to drop out due to a lab accident in his second year, landing him in the hospital. Despite being based primarily in Wisconsin, he made an unexpected move to Amity Park Illinois shortly after reuniting with his college friends Drs. Madeline and Jack Fenton.

Not even a year later, Masters ran for mayor of Amity Park and won the election by a landslide. Suspicious, considering Masters being an unknown and the former mayor Montez being quite popular. It’s during Masters’ tenure in office that reports of ghost attacks to the Justice League steadily died down.

“Why?” Damian asked.

Barbara shrugged, pulling up a few files on the screen. “I originally had a theory that related to VladCo’s buyout of Axion Labs—a technological research and manufacturing company that’s mostly local to Amity—being a factor. Within the last couple of years, they had been experimenting with highly volatile chemicals with hallucinogenic properties. Amity had always been known for being extremely superstitious with its ghosts, and if Axion Labs had somehow accidentally released that chemical into the city, well…” She leaned back into her chair, hand twisting in the air. “You could bet how that ended up. The hysteria around ghosts only grew worse in the last two years, with suspected sightings from once every few weeks to multiple in a single day. Early attempts to capture sightings were unsuccessful, and soon enough Amity Park was just written off.”

Much like the mass hysteria surrounding the urban legend of the kuchisake-onna in Japan in the late 1970s, Bruce thought. He pulled up some news footage from Amity Park dated a few years back of citizens being interviewed about their ghostly encounters. Beside these videos were a few photos taken by a shaky camera, showing bright blurs of light streaking across the sky or vaguely humanoid shapes rising from the ground.

“So VladCo., bought out Axion Labs, improved its security, and slowly helped detoxify the town?” Damian shifted his weight onto his other leg and crossed his arms.

“That’s what I thought, but—”

“But the ghosts ended up being real.” Bruce pulled up a video of a field reporter-slash-weatherman taking cover as a figure dropped from the sky, breaking through the walls of a building. The figure—features distorted by an eerie glow—shot out of the rubble just in time before a green blast hit it.

Oracle enlarged other news footage with a few taps on her keyboard. Beings zooming through the air. Massive plants erupting from the ground. Technology coming to life. Each video more worrying than the last, and most showing some footage of a figure bathed in a white glow. “I’d be hard pressed to call any of these faked.”

It begged the question as to how Amity Park survived this long unscathed. Since, if he remembered correctly, even the Dark Leaguers tended to avoid Amity Park like the plague. “They have their own heroes, then?”

“Think along the lines of vigilantes with unofficial support.” A few more files popped up on screen. One showcased a female in a full-length black and red body suit on top of a hover board. The other was a male; young, perhaps a teenager, with white hair and a black and white suit. Hazmat? “The Red Huntress and the Phantom of Amity Park.”

“Partners?”

“More like enemies working on the same turf. Sources place Phantom as appearing first, though it seems Red Huntress has more government support in the end despite there being no official statement. They seem to be the most effective ghost hunters in town, though far from the only ones. The Fentons of Fenton Works are also acting as ghost hunters, though their track record of success leans more towards their anti-ghost tech than any hunting. The town’s even attracted visitors from the Ghost Investigation Ward; a side branch of Cadmus though a now defunct organization.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” Damian said. “If anything, this should be more than enough reason for a League intervention. Why the Justice League didn’t come sooner is the real question here.”

Bruce’s lips thinned. “That’s because we were warned off it.”

“What?”

While there was no rule against heroes entering another hero’s city, there were certain unspoken rules that demanded that JL members avoid claimed cities or stay just outside of city lines until given permission to enter. Some were especially strict about it such as Batman’s ‘no metas or outsiders’ rule. Others were more lenient, simply requesting a warning before entering.

Amity Park, despite having no listed heroes in the database, was marked with heavy ‘Do Not Interact’ warnings for humans and metas alike.

“Justice League Dark said that under no circumstances should the League interfere in Amity. The situation was never explicitly laid out for us except to say that everything was being handled.”

“Oh yeah,” Oracle chimed. “Constantine even had it bolded, underlined, italicized, and in all caps. The occult community was very clear about everyone staying away—and apparently this decision had support from Amity Park too.” She pulled up another document. “That’s probably what led to the decline in their ghost reports, actually. Amity’s claims were considered bogus and brushed aside. No one outside their town—not even their sister town of Elmerton—believed them, so they simply stopped asking for help.”

Strangely, it reminded Bruce of Gotham. Both cities existed in its own isolated sphere, unwilling to let any outsiders interfere in its business.

“It’s safe to assume, then, that whatever Ra’s al Ghul wants with Amity, it has to do with these ghosts. Do we have anyway to contact the town’s vigilantes?”

Oracle shook her head. “Ghost attacks within the past few months have slowly died down along with sightings of Phantom and Red Huntress. Your best bet is asking Masters directly.”

Damian glowered. “Masters blatantly sent out an invitation for Batman to my father. How do we know that Masters hasn’t somehow found our secret identities?”

“Unlikely,” Bruce said. “Vlad Masters, despite his wealth, has done well to keep a low profile. He’s met Bruce Wayne a total of three times within the last decade and Batman not at all.” That, and with the kind of spyware Batman has, he’d be able to tell when, where, and who was trying to dig deep into Batman’s past. Masters hadn’t even registered as a ping.

“Besides, there’s always a few rumors of Wayne Enterprise’s involvement with Batman. All this tech has to come from somewhere, no?”

“How long is Masters staying in Gotham?”

“Umm…” Oracle leaned forward in her chain and flipped through a half-dozen windows. “Going by his reservations at the Gotham Royal Hotel, he’s leaving tomorrow.”

Bruce pivoted on his heel, heading deeper into the Cave. “We better make this count, then.”

------

According to Oracle’s intel, Vlad Masters was staying at one of the executive suites in the Gotham Royal Hotel. A titanic structure with forty-eight floors, two towers, and the gothic aesthetic that never seemed to leave Gotham’s architecture.

Scaling the building as well as entering the suite proved no challenge for Batman and Robin. But upon entrance, it was abundantly clear that the room was vacant.

“Are you sure you guys are in the right room?” Bruce could hear the clicking of Oracle’s keys through their comms. “Masters had reserved the suite on the west tower.”

“Yes we’re in the correct room, Gordon,” Robin hissed.

“Codenames only, Robin.”

Robin clicked his tongue, sweeping the common room for any hidden bugs or cameras as Batman scouted out the rest of the room. The bed was made to hotel standard and the bathroom towels all completely replaced. There were no clothes in the hotel closet or dresser.

The only thing left that indicated occupancy of the room was an unmarked manila envelope unsubtly tucked within a pillowcase.

Robin tensed at the sight of it. “A detonator of some sort?”

Batman rotated the package, holding it up to his scanner. “Doesn’t seem to be. Regardless, it might be better to take it back to the Batcave and locate Masters ag—” The envelope started ringing. A standard ringtone found in most phones. Quickly, but carefully, Batman opened the manila envelope and dumped its contents onto the bed. A ringing burner phone and a flash drive came tumbling out.

Batman threw the flash drive at Robin before answering the phone, holding it up against his ear but saying nothing.

Silence. Then, Masters’ voice filtered in through the phone with a strange echo-like quality. “Good evening, Batman! I’m so glad my invitation managed to get passed along.”

Batman growled into the speaker, “What do you want, Masters?” He signaled Robin to do another sweep of the room for any signs of Masters they might have missed.

“I sincerely apologize for not being there to meet you myself; incredibly rude of me, I know. But it cannot be helped, the shadows are growing ever bolder.”

“So, you are aware then, of the League of Assassins’ presence in Amity Park?”

“A league of assassins? What a terrifying notion that is.” Batman frowned. It was unlikely that they had misread his words at the gala, so why was he acting unaware now? Could he be watched? “Why such a group would appear in my little town, I wouldn’t even dare to guess.”

Robin came back into the room and signaled back ‘negative.’

“Why did you call for us, Mayor Masters?”

“Do you know what is so very tragic, Batman?”

“This is strange,” Oracle said. “I can’t pick up his signal. He’s not appearing on any of my cameras, either.”

“When someone so young dies much to soon.” A pause. “Could you even imagine such a thing? A parent burying their own child.”

Batman could. He had no need to even imagine it because he lived it.

“Some very close friends of mine have been weighed down by the shadows of death and I require help in providing them the closure they need.”

“Are the Fentons the targets, then?”

Masters paused. Then let out a breathy laugh over the phone. “Oh, if only it were that simple.”

“So a different target.”

“Everything you need to know is in the flash drive I’ve enclosed in that envelope Whether you take up the case is entirely up to you—though I do hope you take it. Regardless, if he is not returned soon then I assure you that a disaster unlike any you have seen before will arrive.”

Batman narrowed his eyes. “Is that a threat, Masters?”

“No,” He laughed. “That was no threat. That was promise.”

The phone line disconnected just as Oracle exclaimed that she finally found Masters boarding his flight back to Amity Pak.

#danny phantom #batman #danny phantom x batman crossover #dp fic #phantom children.txt

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river-bottom-nightmare · 3 years

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Nightwing 83 Review

guess who isn't weeks late this time. my opinion of the series is going up a little bit. it's still not great, but i'm not actively put off by it anymore the way i was after 81. not going to tag as spoilers, but be warned that they are under the cut

i’m sure you all are well aware of this but now, but dear god i love bruno redondo’s art. like, an unhealthy amount. the pink and blue is getting to be a theme with either him or just this run, but i am definitely enjoying it. the movement in this cover is clearly obvious, but well done. you recoznize right off the bat that the cover was drawn to drag your eyes down the page until you get to the bottom, but you enjoy the whole ride there.

also, redondo’s way of drawing a character in stages of action so we can see just how much they’re doing in a split second of movement is quickly becoming something i like to see drawn with dick, and any other character that has that sort of ease of movement and body sense, like cass or sin or maybe a super.

and he’s in action the entire time! there’s shot drawn just to show off a shirtless comic book character, the way nightwing is so often subjected to. he’s shirtless because he’s changing his clothes, and that’s all we see, no more and no less. very practical, very well done. i like it.

he looks so cute right here oh my god. the little squint, the hair curls. it’s adorable.

but also like. unless melinda has specifically outfitted the door spyhole so that the person on the other side can’t see dick looking through it (and in all honesty she might have) then everyone on the other side can see dick looking through that door.

bringing your attention back to the “i can’t see melinda’s fbi file oh no!! it’s redacted!! whatever can we do!!” stupidity. redacted files are child’s play for oracle, and definitely doable for both dick and bruce. so that’s bullshit.

now, melinda apparently grew up with the maroni family, then took down part of the family from the inside. the maroni family is a large and notable presence in gotham, one that bruce pays a respectable amount of attention to. he definitely would have grown suspicious when two members of the maroni family were taken down, and with some investigation, he would have discovered melinda’s plan. and it should go without saying that the majority of things you see batman doing? dick can do it too.

it’s not so much that i don’t like how clever the villains/antiheroes are getting. i don’t like how dc heroes are increasingly written as less intelligent. they seem to be relying on pure fighting skills or luck, which may be the case for a couple heroes, but has never been the case for most of dc’s big name heroes, the bat family included. it’s irritating to me to see this sort of stuff pop up as a major plot point when i know that, if dick or bruce had been written with the amount of skill and power that they canonically possess, this entire mess would have been sorted out years ago.

unrelated but dick and melinda have the same hair

this may just be me, but i was always under the impression that dick doesn’t really have a “double life???”

yes, he’s talented enough to create enough differences between robin/nightwing and dick grayson’s mannerisms, way of movement, voices, and speech patterns so that it’s very difficult to put the two together.

but nightwing has never been separate from dick grayson, not the way bruce and batman is. he’s always leaned more towards clark in that aspect: his hero persona is an exaggerated, stately, larger-than-life version of who he really is. there’s no second persona, no real “dick grayson identity” and “nightwing identity.” they’re the same person with the same goals, ideas, and skills. one just pretends to abide by the law, and one gives up pretense of that.

oh good thank god. if he’d trusted her right off the bat (hehe. bat.) i would have slapped him upside the head. at least he’s still got instincts.

gosh the colouring on this is cool. the red has enough purple and pink tones to it that it doesn’t abruptly ruin the tone of the artwork. but it’s definitely glaring enough to take the reader outside of this personal moment they had slipped into between dick and melinda, to put them back in the present where they’re reminded that oh yea there are people hunting dick down.

the next panel keeps this up too, in a less severe way. melinda’s bodyguard shows up (i forgot her name sorry :[ ) and subtly places us in the middle of an action scene rather than a private, personal scene.

laughing so fucking hard have our little vigilantes grown so accustomed to breaking into places that it doesn’t even register as a crime anymore??? tim coming in through the fire escape to pick bernard up for their date and being very much confused as to why bernard is freaking out.

i really like melinda’s shirt and now despite all the work i have to do and the fucking conference i have to host on monday i want to spend hours scrolling through clothing shops online trying to find this shirt. the mock neck/neckline is so cool i want it

so roland just assumes that a very dangerous vigilante who is highly talented in combat and a very dangerous bodyguard who is also highly talented in combat had a fight that ended with this very dangerous bodyguard being tied up and she looks completely fine? roland just assumes that her having no visible wounds or bruises means that they got into a fight and she lost that easily? uh. aight then

dick what are you doing. legitimately what the fuck are you doing. why are you posing oh my god. you are injured and tired and in absolutely no position to go hand to hand with one of main enemies. jesus christ run away or head to lower ground or something. don’t just stand around letting the floodlights show exactly where you are.

i don’t understand what he’s trying to do here??? blockbuster fully bought the story that dick fought them both, won, tried to get info out of them and failed, then hightailed it out of there. he didn’t have to draw roland out for a fight.

but it does look cool. the way the light just highlights his silhouette and the blue parts of his costume does look badass. he does get style points in my book for this.

w h a t d i d i f u c k i n g t e l l y o u , d i c k ?

very classic superhero line and it does sound like something dick would say in a fit of righteous rage but also it makes me laugh so hard because all vigilantes think they’re so powerful that the law doesn’t apply to them. dick vigilantism is illegal. you’re acting above the law and pretending it doesn’t apply to you. hypocritical much?

it happens so often in superhero movies, tv shows, comics, whatever and it makes me giggle every damn time.

pretty decent comeback but before i start seeing people writing blockbuster as a thug i’m going to remind you that he made a deal with a demon for genius level intellect. if this turns into another bane situation i’m going to be a little miffed. he’s a smart man, which makes him a dangerous and infinitely more interesting enemy for nightwing.

this is so horribly in character i want to scream. (or. at least. it lines up with one of the versions of nightwing i have in my head.) he’s running right towards the bullets, miraculously doesn’t get shot, while making a sort-of pun. i hate this so much. i love him.

this is cool. this art is really really cool.

he leaped from a building right towards a helicopter that’s actively shooting at him, but none of the bullets are touching him. none of the corruption of the city can touch him no matter how hard it tries, because he’s too good to be corrupted. Comic Book Logic Can Be Good Sometimes Actually.

batman’s belt what??? swiss army knife who?? sorry, i only know nightwing’s bright blue escrima.

this is one of my favourite things about heroes with exceptional abilities, even more so if the hero is human. the things they can do are so far beyond the realm of normal human abilities that it’s equal parts terrifying and awe-inspiring every time they act.

he just used modified grappling wires to hook to the door of a moving helicopter, swung around the helicopter safely without hitting the blades, gained exactly the right momentum to swing upward again right through the opening of helicopter, then fought and tied up the men before they had any idea what was happening. that’s near impossible to do.

it’s stuff like this where i just sort of sigh in contentment. no matter how many times they leave out dick’s detective skills or conveniently forget that he’s actually a master planner and team leader and make him out to be this forgetful dude who makes everything up on the fly because of his “circus roots,” at least they won’t ever take away dick’s sheer physical ability honed to perfection.

the art, too! in a few panels, dick’s drawn a little lightened or blurred. he’s moving so quickly and fighting so efficiently that he can barely be seen by the enemy. he’s got perfect form all the way through.

and THIS!

there was a helicopter that had five men shooting at him with what looks like machine guns. most people would be dead. some would run away, and be nimble enough to survive without fatal hits. there are very few people, even in fucking comic books, who can look at that hopeless situation and turn it around so quickly and thoroughly that he benefits from it instead.

i just. love nightwing.

it was funny the first time as a comic reader aware of the meme. it’s really not anymore. why the hell would you, in universe, be wearing a shirt that has a picture of your boyfriend being hit in the face by his father.

okay that was funny.

look at lil bitewing, so concerned for her human!!! love her sm.

also a question as to the timeline of things. is nightwing happening before or after urban legends?

i was so distracted by dick wearing a robe and briefs and nothing else that i didn’t register the second part until later. he slept for two days?? babs, baby, he recently had a very traumatic brain injury. why do you sound so nonchalant?

@TIM X COFFEE SHIPPERS GET FUCCCCKKKKEEDDDDD

ngl i totally forgot about that dude oops

this comic is giving so many reaction pictures. you know how you always use the worst possible picture of your friend for your friend’s contact picture? i’m just getting so many of these.

leslie!!! the titans!!! lucius!!! dick going to go see old friends!!!! the titans!!! this part made me so irrationally happy it really did. gar being the one to just. offer dick solutions with open arms. this was the best

i wish i could just copy and paste this entire scene, but that would take up way too much space, so i’m just going to talk about it instead.

you gave me my name, nightwing, and you gave me some of the best advice i’ve received in my life: beautiful little throwback to nightwing’s origin. you’d be surprised at the amount of people who don’t know where the name came from, or who don’t know how much clark means to dick. and the fact that dick still looks up to clark as a hero, recognizes that clark isn’t always perfect and yet continues to hold him in such high esteem, and still looks back on advice that clark gave him fondly just warmed my heart so much.

for a man who has fearlessly stood up to darkseid, bruce will do a lot to avoid a conversation: “grrr. i’m the BATMAN. i’m so DARK and MYSTERIOUS. nobody knows the true me. no one ever will. i will be LONELY for the rest of my CURSED LIFE. such is the price of a hero. ignore my farmer himbo husband in the background”

but i don’t think there’s anything heroic about being a billionaire: another nod to how much dick follows clark’s example rather than bruce. yes, this was a very poignant and important criticism, and i think it’s wonderful that this was published in a pretty popular comic book. but the thing is, there is a way to be a heroic billionaire, but only in fictional universes. the way bruce, ollie, t’challa only ever use their wealth to help people. they donate massive amounts of money to charities that they themselves create so they know exactly how the money is being used. they hire people who aren’t likely to get jobs anywhere else and pay them much more than what a base living wage is. they use their power to help push progressive laws and social change. they are helping.

dick doesn’t fully see it that way. he spent more than half his childhood the son of a billionaire, but still believes that one could be more heroic when one doesn’t have obscene amounts of wealth. whose example do you think he followed to come to that conclusion?

superman looked up to alfred pennyworth?: i mean yea alfred may have been a wildly irresponsible guardian and one hell of an enabler but goddamn if he didn’t love his kid.

you don’t need my input. you’ve thought it all through: ooooooh this line made me grin. for so long, dick’s treated clark as a mentor and a guiding figure. he’s still seen as a kid, an up and coming, snot-nosed titan with dreams of a better world. clark still thinks of him as a kid, despite watching him grow up. but this little line was something i think dick needed sorely to hear. he doesn’t need anyone’s guiding hand on his shoulder, he doesn’t need to ask for permission. he doesn’t need clark to support him the way he did when he was a teenager. he’s all grown up now, and he doesn’t need clark’s help. i imagine it was a bit of a surprise for dick to hear that.

honestly, i couldn’t think of a better role model: ohhh but it doesn’t stop there. clark just straight up turns the tables on dick. imagine you’re dick, and you’ve looked up to this one hero your entire life, and then one day he turns to you and says that he thinks you’re so kind and smart and worthy of a person that he wants you to mentor his son!? goes to show just how much clark trusts dick.

i swear to god dick probably cries every time he hears clark compliment him because bruce is so rare and sparing with his praise that clark giving him the slightest hint of approval is just a dopamine rush.

also, now deathstroke and superman have both asked nightwing to mentor their kids. the juxtaposition is fuckin hysterical. imagine either of their reactions when they realize what kind of company they’re with

lets talk colours for a second, because i absolutely adore how classic colour tropes have been subverted in this comic, and in this general run really.

warm tones have usually (usually, not always) been associated with light and comfort and friendship and,,,,,well,,,warmth. whereas cool tones are usually used to unsettle, or make a scene seem colder and put the reader on edge. this varies if a comic only uses cool tones, or only uses warm tones, but if a comic uses both, this is generally well-used.

that isn’t the case in this run.

dark red, orange, and other warm tones have been used to symbolize danger, action, attacks. hot pink isn’t usually included in this colour group, but it’s definitely part of it in this case. in contrast, scenes that have cool colours give us the impression of slipping into a comfortable, calm scene with babs, tim, the titans, and other allies. even the beginning scene with superman has this blue, but then it transitions into something more golden coloured. dawn broke over dick, as his new idea came to light, and that was reflected in the art (and the sunrise setting.)

have there ever been times when dick’s longed for the comfort of his mask because he didn’t feel confident as dick grayson? i can’t think of any. i may be wrong, but this struck me as pretty ooc.

am i just??? gay and reading this all wrong??

cause i was under the impression that when someone says they are grateful for your friendship you don’t immediately kiss them.

or is this like. normal straight mating rituals.

i mean he’s smiling afterward but still babs aren’t you supposed to at least make sure it’s okay first? you guys broke up a while back after you said something along the lines of “i want to be coworkers with you and nothing more because i don’t trust you or feel comfortable around you as a civilian anymore.” like lmao after you say something like that to someone i would assume that you don’t have the permission to just kiss them whenever you want.

show of hands who else got real sad when they realized dick was talking about himself in this.

sure, he could be referencing the things he’s seen blockbuster pull, and the children on the streets. but “i’ve seen money used for enforcement,” sounds a little too close to dick’s entire life being destroyed by one man threatening the circus to pay protection money for me to completely ignore. and “i’ve seen the poorest and most vulnerable blamed and punished rather than assisted” becomes a lot worse when you remember dick was thrown in juvie for a couple months until bruce was able to obtain legal guardianship, and in there, not a authority figure believed him when he told them his parents were murdered.

he’s lived this before.

a. mother. fucking. typo.

fucking why

i mean i’ve stated my distaste for the batfamily groupchat before but like. this is reaching new levels of ridiculousness. jason sounds like he was written by a fanfic writer. tim sounds like he was written by a fanfic writer. steph sounds like she was written by someone who doesn’t know the first thing about steph and wanted to include her for “family points!!!!!” damian’s supposed to be completely off the grid, and everyone’s searching for him. i do love the way cass texts tho.

well god fuck now i’m crying

dick got a phone call, a sorry, and a thank you out of bruce. i feel so much secondhand happiness for him, if that’s a thing. we’ll just ignore the way bruce looks ugly af and focus on the good parts okay?

and again with the colour symbolism here!

i’m either going to love this or hate this. who knows, we’ll see.

something something hearts something something pink is an evil colour something something. i need to know more about this guy but there’s definitely symbolism there.

is it just me or does this dude look like the backstabbing traitorous absolutely motherfucking piece of shit villain that killed tadashi hamada in big hero 6?

taggggg list: @woahjaybird @birdy-bat-writes @anothertimdrakestan @subtleappreciation @screennamealreadyused @bikoncon @pricetagofficial @catxsnow @maplumebleue-blog-blog @sundownridge @thatsthewhump @xatanna-troy @red-hood-redemption @capricorn-stark @batshit-birds @comics-observer @buticaaba

#river thinks too hard #nightwing #dick grayson #nightwing 83 #dc #nightwing review #nightwing meta #dick grayson review #dick grayson meta #nightwing 83 review #nightwing 83 meta #dc review #dc meta

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akimmito · 4 years

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Heroes are made by the path they choose

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Master List

Chapter 18

Marinette was waiting for the moment when the Gotham vigilantes would show up, they ended up making the decision after she and Felix had a little chat with Silent Hill, she even spoke to John to ask what he knew about the two of them (of course, they had already met Robin, but their meeting was under other circumstances). John was very clear about his opinions, so she was able to have a better point of view when deciding.

They, sadly, would be the first to be recruited knowing the entire team. Unlike other members, they were recruited by two or three incumbents of the miraculous. The Aurore case, which was recommended by Chloe, Marc and Nathaniel; Silent Hill was recruited by her, Felix, and Max; Not in Hell was brought into the organization by Marc and Nathaniel (with approval from Alix and Luka). The others were led by other circumstances, such as John (who was led by her alone), Adrien (who only retired from the team due to circumstances that were out of his control), Jean (Chloe's butler ended up involved after it was done difficult to explain strange behaviors, becoming a great ally), Kim (he was initially recruited to be part of the team, but ended up only an affiliate) and Gina (how could she not realize that her granddaughter was the one who made contact with her? Maybe he couldn't discover her as Ladybug by magic, but there was nothing of the kind involved here anymore. It was easy).

So yes, Nightwing and Robin will be their first victims. The only one who completely opposed the idea was Damian, but she couldn't get any information out of him. Until minutes before meeting them.

"My father is Batman."

Marinette stayed still in those moments, but her son kept moving forward. She saw him draw one of his swords, but she was still processing his words. However, she slides it down and makes sure she doesn't forget to talk to him later. She can't go crazy in those moments.

Damian doesn't know who possessed him to say it in those moments, his mother had been asking the night before when they were alone, but he refused to say a word. And minutes, seconds, before meeting his brothers, it was not the right time. Well, the damage is done.

"You're not welcome." He's not feeling satisfaction in threatening his brothers, not at all, it's simply to maintain an image and let them know that they will not accept his games. It's just that.

Afterward, he just kept watching, watching the interaction, focusing his attention on Nightwing, who keeps his gaze fixed on his mother. He frowns, it doesn't matter if it's inside or outside the mask, Richard Grayson keeps looking at his mother; doesn't like. But his mother wouldn't notice him, would she?

No she wouldn't. She doesn't even give him a glance, she's more focused on Robin, so no, and his mother wouldn't notice Grayson. Even so, he must mark territory, he doesn't want one of his brothers as a father, although them is better than his father. No, he cannot submit to such thoughts, the man who marries his mother must be worthy of it.

When they go through the portal, the little glamor placed on him fades and he heads to the common room, where the others must be.

Marinette watches him leave, curious about her son's visible bad mood.

"Make yourself comfortable." She smiles kindly, in stark contrast to the intimidating image she was giving earlier.

"Suzaku…" She directs her gaze towards Robin, she finds it amusing that the youngest is the one who takes the reins because the responsible adult seems too lost watching her. Oh yeah, she realized, it's not subtle at all.

"Yes?"

"You mentioned that they already knew about us, how did they find out?"

"We have a contact." She doesn't remove her smile and proceeds to settle in front of Nightwing, her place would normally be at the head of the table, but she finds the attention he's giving her endearing. Oh well, what will their expression be when they see who is under the mask? It's not that she knows who they are, but she could guess, however, she will not be wandering in those directions.

“So you have a network of contacts?” Robin seems very excited by the information and seems to want to know more, much more. His curiosity is well received, especially since there is no malice, at least she cannot perceive it. "How do you open those portals? Is it related to heroes?"

"Quiet. All those questions will be clear at the meeting… so Nightwing, you didn't say anything, did a bird tear your tongue out?" This time, her smile changes to a cheekier one. John taught her to smile like that, it's a fun flirting game they have.

"I'm giving myself time to process everything, you really caught us off guard. We wanted to talk to one or two of you, I wasn't expecting us to have a meeting scheduled. ”He smiles humorously, he doesn't lie, sure, but it's not the whole reason.

"Oh, understandable. Although I could swear that the cause of your distraction was me. "Marinette is having fun, the years when she could barely talk to someone she liked, even a little, are long gone and buried, now it's much easier.

He doesn't respond to what was said because they see the others enter, being surprised to see several of them without a mask. Tim quickly recognizes Chloe Bourgeois, how not to do it, she is a MP and they have seen her several times in the news, she has very good press on her part. They also see Felix Graham of Vanily, Dick remembers him from that red carpet that Stephanie insisted on seeing months ago, in addition to the photos that Tim showed her from the newspapers of when Gabriel Agreste was arrested. The others, they don't recognize at all, although there are a couple of faces that they are sure they should recognize.

"Nice to meet you" Luka takes the initiative to say hello, sitting next to Marinette and taking his partner by the hand to take a seat next to him, Damian immediately claims the seat on the other side of his mother, refusing to take off his mask, even though everyone has put it aside.

"The pleasure is ours." Dick is the one who responds, more alert for the presence of everyone else.

"Do you have any specific questions or do you prefer to wait for us to finish explaining?" Felix asks, settling in next to Damian, the center of the table will always be where Marinette is sitting, so he will always be close to her. The Great Guardian is the main focus in any gathering, even if others don't know her importance.

"Just one." Tim responds, driven by his curiosity because he suddenly has these people who take care of his identity coming to use magic for that purpose, showing his face to them too easily. "Why are you showing us your identities?"

"We'll get to that, Robin. We'll start by introducing ourselves. ”Marinette smiles more kindly, taking a more professional approach now that everyone is settled in and the meeting has begun. Only Max is missing, but they know that he is busier with something more important. "It's hard not to recognize myself, people pay more attention to me than I'm comfortable receiving. Everyone knows me as Marie Lenoir, but my friends know my name is Marinette. ”She takes off her mask and Dick chokes on his own breath. Tim is very surprised, but doesn't show it. "He's my son, Damian.”The boy just frowns in his direction and thinks long and hard before lowering his mask.

Dick doesn't know how to feel about the Damian thing, he's a boy, a boy who surely has a lot of training or she wouldn't let him run around, right? In addition, he carries two swords with him, these being his main weapons, from what he could see of his suit, in addition to some other tools that he surely keeps in the thick belt that looks like cloth, the boy is covered in green, black and gray tones; He has even pulled his hood down revealing his tousled dark hair, very different from when he was seen at country house.

"Felix Graham of Vanily, although if you did a little research on the situation from seven years ago, you know who I am."

"Chloe Bourgeois, impossible not to know about me. I go out unnecessarily on television..."

"And I thought you loved the attention, Chloe." Nathaniel scoffs and she in response shakes her head the other way, hitting him lightly with her hair, drawing a little laugh from Alix at their childish fights that never change. "Nathaniel Kurtzberg, I'm not well known.”He shrugs, but smiles at the two guards. "And he's Marc Anciel.”

Marc just greets them with a little shyness, althoug he keeps moving forward and has made great progress by himself, plus he got his own confidence gain in his work and that's something about it that he will always be safe, no matter how uncomfortable he's in social situations.

"Alix Kudbel." She's simple with her presentation, doesn't see the need to focus too much on assuming something they might or might not know about them.

"Kagami Tsurugi, he's my boyfriend, Luka Couffaine." Simple and clear, Kagami wants to move fast to make the rules of the game clear. Having more allies was always a plan that was discussed when the MT started, but it's still a matter that puts everyone on edge. "Ideally, you should show your identities, the information that we will share with you is not something that is said to any random stranger. Mari-hime doesn't trust just anyone and her instincts are rarely wrong, but we need a guarantee."

Can the people they choose be trusted?

------

It's a Nara: We already made contact with Nightwing and Robin

Silent Hill: Oh perfect

Kiss my ass: So everything ready for the reunion on the weekend?

It’s aNara: Yes, hopefully, they will join too

Not in Hell: It will be entertaining

Kiss my ass: Of course it will! It will be so chaotic

It’s a Nara: I hope not, we will deal with serious matters

Oscar de la Rosa: I already booked the tickets for my trip to London

Divine gift: Everything perfectly calculated, excellent, Jean

Oscar de la Rosa: We must ensure that nothing gets out of control

Silent Hill: You guys are very efficient, they remind me of Alfred

Divine gift: No one can beat Alfred

Oscar de la Rosa: But it is an honor that you mention it

It’s a Nara: Who is Alfred?

Divine gift: A butler

Oscar de la Rosa: A Butler

#dick x marinette #dickinette #maribat #mominette

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aconitemare · 4 years

Text

[jaydick] Before That, And Colder

Chapter Four

AO3

Previous Chapter

Dick kicks his foot in the air repeatedly, inspecting the pink flowers on his white Oxfords. He’s pretending to ignore the people around him — possibly, he is actually ignoring them, as the outlines of their bodies blur around his fancy footwear. He leans farther back on Jason’s desk, conjuring the picture of ease. To his left rests Jason’s Red Hood helmet in a gargoyle-fashion. Everyone here knows Jason Todd is the Red Hood, but Dick is just Richie Grayson, D-list celebrity. The sleeves of his pretentiously silk bomber jacket, embroidered with colorful roosters, slip slightly down his shoulder.

“Is this really the best time to be hiring people? Specifically this person?” This question comes from James — or “Wingman,” as Jason earlier informed him of. James is up-and-coming, bat-themed, Gotham-based vigilante who believes the Red Hood is absolutely critical to public safety. Dick has not yet shared this detail with Batman, having only received it an hour before this current meeting, but he’s hoping they’ll share a good laugh over that.

“No time like the present,” Jason says without much concern. He stands beside the desk, a few feet from Dick.

Dick catches James crossing his arms from the corner of his eyes. The defensive body language convinces him to focus more on the arrangement of people. Suzie Su still sits on the recliner, seemingly indifferent. Her sisters, one of which Dick recognizes as the waitress who intercepted him and Miguel earlier, flock around Su either on the couch or near her armrest; all except for Night, Dick’s blackjack dealer yesterday, who now occupies a distant corner of the room by herself. Miguel sits in the recliner opposite Suzie Su, playing with his tie. James stands the closest to Dick and Jason and busies himself with looking like he eats nails for breakfast.

“The son of Bruce Wayne is hardly a sound addition to the Outlaws,” James points out.

Suzie Su’s head swivels towards Jason. “Oh, no,” she says, suddenly invested, “Whatever ‘the outlaws’ is, count me out of it. I’m going legit, you promised!”

Jason takes a page from Dick’s book and seats himself on the corner of his desk. He grips the edge, knees spread, so that he looks like he’s riding a horse. For an unstably diverse crowd, he’s rather at ease at the head of it, Dick notes. Jason holds up a silencing finger and begins his address, “Firstly, the Outlaws are too legit for any mere mortal to handle, that includes you, Su, so stuff it. Secondly, James, you can also stuff it because no one’s inviting Richie Rich onto the team except you, it would seem.”

So, does that mean I don’t get to see the Super Secret Clubhouse and make friendship bracelets? Dick almost says. Instead, he receives a text alert and checks his phone to see Bruce left him a message.

What is your plan of action? it reads.

Dick quickly shoots back a non-committal text, wary of Jason sensing Batman’s concern through the phone. Luckily, Jason doesn’t pay Dick’s texting any mind, preoccupied with his stand-off against Wingman.

James persists, undeterred by Jason’s skilled dismissal. “Batman isn’t exactly in your corner, Todd. He is, however, in Wayne’s pocket. As is Richie Grayson.”

Dick frowns; his current persona is apparently no longer a good fit. He will need to adjust accordingly. Dick sits up straighter on the desk and tucks his legs. “I have my own funds, as a matter of fact,” he speaks up. Jason’s eyes slice into him — oh, right, Dick’s not supposed to talk while meeting the in-laws. Oh, well. He continues, “I work for the Bludhaven Police Department.”

Dick touches his jacket collar and inspects the interior fabrice. “I try to dress nice when there might be cameras so I don’t make Bruce look bad, but most of it’s bought off-price at Marshalls.” This last part is a lie as he rarely buys his own photo op clothes. Bruce has a personal stylist who keeps everyone’s wardrobe at the Manor stocked. Dick hit up his old bedroom on the way to the hotel.

“You’re a cop,” James repeats.

Dick holds back a wince. So much for Agent 37’s kick-ass undercover portfolio. “Every cop’s a little dirty in the ‘Haven,” he says, hopefully smoothly.

Unfortunately, James does not find this comforting. “So not only are you a cop who knows about the Iceberg’s business, but you’re not even a good cop?”

Dick points at Jason. “He murders people,” he deflects.

Jason sighs obnoxiously loud. “Richie has information and contacts,” Jason increases his volume when James looks like he wants to say something else, “neither of which are anyone’s business at the moment but mine. Believe it or not, but I’m pretty attached to my life, in both a literal and figurative sense, and so if I say the guy from that one lady-service Pantene commercial is going to keep my organs safely inside my body, rest assured, I have done my research.”

This standing ovation inspires Dick to wonder whether Jason saw that commercial on cable or some other venue. He tries and fails to imagine Jason watching Friends reruns. Maybe he caught it off some gun review video on Youtube. This is the kind of media Dick assumes Jason consumes.

“Great to know,” says Suzie Su flatly. “So, Richie, who’s trying to whack our boss?”

“No one yet. There have been no attempts on his life thus far,” Dick responds. Then, “Also, you can just call me Dick.”

“Shouldn’t be too tough,” Suzie Su remarks.

“The situation will escalate, though,” James states, “There is no doubt that Red Hood is the final target.”

“Correct. Which is why it’s important that we trust each other,” Dick says. He levels a gaze at everyone in the room except for James, which should indicate to him that he’s the object of criticism without presenting Dick as outwardly hostile. “If we are too busy suspecting each other without any evidence, we allow for outside threats to slip past our radar.” Dick can only hope they will take this to heart; it will be harder for him to investigate Jason’s people if they’re also investigating him.

“Truth,” Miguel agrees as he stands to his feet and walks towards Dick. “Although it kind of worked out for us this time, right? You following me, us following you?” As he approaches, he extends a hand and Dick dismounts from the desk. “Welcome to the team, Dick,” Miguel says, clapping Dick on the shoulder as they shake. His smile is warm and sincere. Dick feels an equally genuine grin spread across his face.

“Alright, alright,” Jason says, leaning from his spot on the desk to bat an arm at them. “What did I just say about teams, dude,” he gripes. Miguel shrugs rather blithely before he returns to his chair. Dick appreciates what he hopes will be the one easy-going personality in this tense bunch.

Jason claps his hands together and stands. “Okay, here’s the deal: I want someone always watching my vehicle for the next, fuck, two weeks, I guess? One week?” He looks to Dick for confirmation. Dick mouths, ‘longer.’ “One week to start, cool,” Jason locks in his answer. “I don’t mean from the cameras, as I really am hoping to catch this person ASAP and get back to my regularly scheduled gangbanging.”

Dick watches the crowd: Miguel gives a whoop, Suzie Su rolls her eyes, one of the sisters not standing in the corner laughs.

“So, that means I need you,” Jason flourishes his arm in the air and brings it dramatically down like a hammer, finger pointing sharply at Miguel, “to physically be in the parking lot.”

Miguel looks around in bafflement. “I’m the owner. That would look weird,” he says, gesturing towards himself.

Jason rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure everyone is lining up for your autograph, too, now come off it. No one here is instantly recognizable except for me, and that’s mostly to do with the helmet,” Jason pats the helmet beside him emphatically, “giving me serious red Darth Vader vibes.”

Dick suppresses a laugh. Jason hears him anyway, but that turns out to be not so bad. Jason’s eyes flicker towards him but they’re absent of reproach, which is how Dick realizes he had expected to be growled at for his humor. But Jason made the joke, didn’t he? He goes so far as to smile, not threateningly, but pleasantly. Dick wants to call it soft even.

Jason’s eyes are back on the ragtag team within the second. He explains properly his reasoning to Miguel. “The subject’s abilities and target range are unknown to us. You’re our safest bet for handling whatever he might be capable of. And you can wear whatever you want.” Dick assumes that last bit is weighted with the implication of a supersuit, although Miguel’s secret identity may very well be known considering the lack of visible confusion on anyone’s face. Of course, that could just be indifference; no one in this room seems particularly interested in each other.

“If you see someone snooping, wait it out. If you see someone put something on my bike, apprehend them and bring them to me where I can then proceed to shoot their brains out,” Jason instructs. Dick tries to say something, but Jason says over his attempt, “If they’re guilty.”

“Not really the problem,” Dick mutters.

“The Su Brigade can, I don’t know, keep doing what you’re doing, I guess? Keep an eye on suspicious figures.”

Dick chimes in, “This time, however, immediately report to Jason or myself. Don’t rush in unless the threat is urgent. Don’t,” he motions to James, “text James, or whatever it is you guys did. That was sloppy and uncoordinated.”

James shifts his weight more evenly. Dick instantly recognizes the implicit challenge and straightens his back. “Text you, huh? What, you the boss now?”

Dick files through his possible responses, weighs the best tone to take, the stance to adopt. Should he pick up the gauntlet and try to assert dominance, or go for diplomacy? He doubts this will come to blows, but the direction he takes this could have later consequences, could affect Jason’s safety even in the long-run.

Dick almost misses the change in Jason’s posture, but it’s instantaneous. “He’s close enough,” Jason has already spoken, no longer leaning against the desk but standing with his hands deceptively plunged into his jeans pockets and his searing green eyes locked on James. “More the boss than you are, at any rate, so yeah, I’d text him.” He sounds almost casual, accent set in a lazy Gotham drawl, yet there’s an angered click to how he sets his teeth. He’s intimidating, alright, the sharp cut of his cheeks complementing his strong jaw. He’s quite Hollwood-esque actually, Dick thinks — at least before he realizes Jason is looking right back at him. Jason raises his eyebrows and spins his fingers in a prompting manner. “Well? Anything else you’d like to derail the meeting with, Dick?”

And just like that, Jason manages to personally undermine the power he just gave him. Dick is bordering on impressed, restrained only by his sudden irritation. Dick simply smiles and says, “You’re the boss.”

“Fantastic. James! How do you feel about interrogating people you can’t beat up?” Jason proposes to the next member of the non-team.

Dick thinks James could question people without beating them up just fine, especially after the practice he got in while interrogating Dick. James doesn’t comment on whether he’s up to the task, however, but replies, “Who am I interrogating?”

Jason grins and quickly bows his body. “A witness. Exciting, right? Unfortunately, no, not exciting. This will suck for you. Daniel Garcia, the second victim, should be at Gotham General Hospital — fingers crossed he has insurance, because otherwise you’ll have to find out where he lives and talk to him there.”

Dick could be projecting, but he thinks James puffs up his chest at this. “I can find anyone anywhere,” vows James.

“I’ve no doubt, buddy. I just would prefer he not have to relive everything the second he gets home because a stranger wants to hear the gory details,” Jason explains. His tone is slightly scolding. There might be some decency in him yet. Dick immediately feels guilty for being surprised. Jason is a good guy. A good guy. He’s said as much to Bruce. Did he forget to tell himself the same thing?

“Bring some flowers to soften things,” Dick suggests.

“Flowers don’t soften a crowbar, Dick,” Jason disagrees. Still, he adds for James, “But yeah, bring flowers. The family won’t like you for it, but they’ll hate you even more if you don’t.”

“Do we have to do anything?” Suzie Su asks, a little unhappily, it would seem. Dick doesn’t trust her. Then again, would she be so openly disloyal if she was double-crossing? The only person in this room Dick trusts is Miguel — and even then, if there’s one thing Batman has been trying to drill into him for half his life, it’s that trust is a liability. Anyone here could logically be a mole. Anyone here could be loyal, too.

“No, Suzie Su, I expect absolutely nothing from you and that’s why I dragged you to a staff meeting, so you could sit on your ass and pick at your nails,” Jason intones. Suzie Su drops her manicured nails to her lap and glares at him. Jason sticks his tongue out in response. “You and your lovely sisters of questionable bloodline are my ears to the ground.”

“So, same as before?”

Jason cocks his head, shakes it up and down as if weighing the question, and says, “K-i-i-i-i-nd of? It’s like what you were doing before, but not complete garbage. Need I remind you that you let this idiot into my office.” Jason jabs his thumb in Dick’s direction.

Miguel raises his finger. He’s properly relaxed in his cushiony recliner, legs crossed and arms spilling over the back. “Ah, but you let the idiot stay,” he reminds Jason.

Dick twists his lips. “Thanks, Miguel. Or whatever.”

“Or whatever,” Jason decides. “Alright, everyone out of my office and onto the things I demand of you. Dick, you’re coming with me.”

The crowd is already dispersing. Dick hops off the desk and pats the wrinkles from his pants. “Why’s that? I thought you didn’t want me breathing down your neck.”

Jason’s back is to Dick as he fastens his Red Hood helmet over his head, which tips Dick off that some of his people outside the office might still not know who’s under the mask. Jason’s response is rougher than before. “You saw the tapes, didn’t you?” The energy from only a minute ago has melted from his voice. The helmet lights up then and Jason’s next words are modulated, shrouded in static. “That makes you the expert.”

Dick does not miss the irony of this statement.

___________

Dick has Jason drive him to Bludhaven. Jason has many cars and not a single one is worth less than $80,000. “How do you blend in?” Dick asked on the way to his shitty apartment across the pond, Jason looking absolutely put-upon by the half-hour drive. His Red Hood helmet has been stowed away in a personally customized, hidden compartment. “I don’t,” Jason simply replied. Dead guys, according to Jason, don’t need to feign poverty. Especially if those dead guys are better known for their underground empires and resort casinos. However, two rich men in a luxury vehicle don’t have much business commiserating with the family of boys like Terry Weind. So, the two stop by Bludhaven to pick up Dick’s Saturn and allow him to change into less flamboyant clothes.

Dick chooses a threadbare BPD t-shirt and jeans. Jason stays in his signature ensemble of leather jacket and combat boots. He raises his brows at Dick’s outfit, but Dick insists it’s a good choice. Even if they don’t like the police, he’s still out of uniform and unarmed, and they’ll know this isn’t his territory. He’ll seem like a commuter, which might even win him some subconscious sympathy; many people in downtown Gotham have to commute to Bludhaven, albeit usually for a fishery job and not the police department.

Jason waits in the car for Dick to come out. Dick invites him in, but secretly he’s relieved. The place is a mess. If how he keeps his office is a hint, Jason’s habits are immaculate. They would put Dick to shame. Dick taps Jason’s window to signal they’re switching to the Saturn. Jason takes an excessively long time to part with his car, all but cooing at it, but does eventually make it over. He settles into the passenger seat, looking Dick up and down.

“What?” Dick asks, perhaps defensively. He should’ve said something like, “Like what you see?” but it’s too late for that.

Jason shrugs casually, but his eyes flicker to Dick’s hair. “Nothing. You just look normal now.”

Dick jams his keys into the ignition, because he has to be rough for the car to start, and rolls his eyes. “You mean my hair’s not gay?”

“Eh. Less gay.” And then Jason is reaching out and ruffling his hair, fingers curling through the still-damp waves. Dick stuck his hair under the bathroom sink’s faucet before putting his shirt on. He got water everywhere, but he needed to get the product out. He weirdly hopes Jason doesn’t feel any lingering stickiness, that his hair is soft to touch.

Jason’s face abruptly screws up in confusion as if he isn’t sure how he got here. Slowly, he retracts his hand and sits straight in his seat. Dick didn’t notice how open Jason’s body language was just a moment ago, but he notices how it closes. His knees no longer point towards Dick but to the windshield; his arms, once extended towards him, now fold across his chest. Dick stares at him for a moment, trying to piece together the puzzle he suspects they almost had.

Jason’s presence always has that mystifying effect on him, however, like he’s a monument to all the almosts they’ve been. When Jason was Robin, they were almost friends. When he was the Red Hood, they were almost enemies. Then they might have been brothers, could have been, maybe. There had been that night on the rooftop when Dick had managed to slip through Spyral’s many fingers — when Barbara had run away and Damian had embraced him and Tim demanded why, why — Jason had drawn blood as his voice broke because you don’t do that to your. Almost.

They are always on the verge of some new meaning.

“Well?” asks Jason. “Are you waiting for me to set up the GPS? You know the address, let’s go.”

Dick quickly recovers and begins edging out from his spot between two other parked cars on the street. “What are we, drag racing? Jeesh.” They avoid traffic for the drive over but do swing into a corner store once they’re in Gotham again. Jason buys the most expensive bouquet available while Dick fiddles with a rack of playing cards. Pokémon? Magic? Would Terry care about either of those games? He sees Jason head to the counter and grabs a random card pack to check out. His phone buzzes in his pocket just as he finishes counting off the dollar bills. He hands the cashier $16 and unlocks his phone. It’s from Bruce.

Any progress?

Dick begins typing out an answer when he remembers the boundaries he agreed on with Jason. He said he wouldn’t share any details with Bruce unless Jason okay’d it. He could let Jason know Bruce is asking, but even mentioning Bruce tends to sour him. Dick would rather get through this meeting with Terry Weind first. He makes a mental note to inform Jason later and give Bruce a non-answer if he says no.

Ten minutes later and they’re standing on narrow porch steps. The wooden planks are dark and splintery and covered in cigarette butts where an ash tray has been knocked down. Dick squats down and picks it up; ceramic, woodsy-green and leaf-shaped. He sets it atop the paint-chipped banister while Jason knocks on the door. The walls are thin enough that Dick can trace the sound of someone walking down the stairs. It’s summery outside today, the earth baked through by the sun, but he’s thinking of winters down here. Even with a good furnace, these walls must let the chill in.

A woman opens the door in her nightgown, one hand on the knob and the other on the frame. Her eyes are red and the skin beneath them sags. Her skin is almost ashen. She looks tired. She is tired, she’s exhausted, Dick can feel it when he looks at her. Her exhaustion is a heavy substance that spreads out and sinks into his flesh.

“Are you Terry’s mom?” Jason asks. He has the flowers already at his chest. His voice is stiff with emotion. Dick recalls his comment about Daniel reliving trauma and wonders if that’s what Jason is doing right now.

The woman nods and says that, yes, she is, but little changes in her expression. Dick had been expecting confusion, but she accepts the flowers without hesitation. Evidently, they are not remotely the first ones to share condolences. “My name’s Laura,” she says, touching the waxy petal of a calla lily. Her voice is soft and deep as if it’s been anchored to the bottom of the ocean.

“I’m Jason.”

“Dick,” Dick says after him.

Laura opens her mouth silently for a few seconds before carefully telling them, “I appreciate you boys coming here and wishing us well. It’s been hard, but we’re grateful to the community’s response, it’s been wonderful. I hope you don’t mind me not inviting you in, it’s just that I work grave and don’t get much sleep, and Terry’s resting.”

“We understand. But actually, we’re not just here to offer our sympathy — though you do have it, of course,” Dick conveys. He rushes the words of each clause so his speech comes out in quick, nervous chunks. He’s dipping head, taking up as little room as possible while moving closer to her. Jason takes a step back to accommodate him. He wants to represent himself as sincere, perhaps too sincere to the point of being clumsy. People often think inept and trustworthy are the same thing; the logic goes, you can’t be hiding any tricks up your sleeve if you’re more likely to spill them on the floor.

“If you turn us away, we get it, don’t worry,” assures Dick, “but this is our city and our kids are getting snatched.”

Laura begins shaking her head. “Oh, no, he’s not answering any questions — ”

“We won’t ask as many questions as the police,” Dick hurries to say. “We don’t need to. We,” here, Dick breaks off his speech and looks uncertainly at Jason, feigning hesitance. Then he takes a galvanizing breath, readying for his big leap, this information he’s sharing only with Laura. “I work part-time at the Park Row Memorial. I’m a guard, similar work to what I do with the Bludhaven Police. We have it monitored 24/7 so it doesn’t become a high-crime area again.” Dick sighs in frustration and bites his lips. “Laura,” he says firmly, staring into her eyes. Her pupils have dilated along his story. Good. “I saw Terry that night. The police haven’t even asked Park staff yet, they don’t care. But I saw it happen and I think I can do something about it.”

The best cover story is always based in reality. The best lies are true.

Laura’s eyes drop the ground as she thinks. She’s also biting her lip. Dick ponders over whether she does that often and Dick got lucky, or if she’s mirroring him. Either way, he’s won her over. She shuffles to the side and waves them in, her movements less languid than before.

She leads them to the stairwell and says, “If he doesn’t want to answer questions, he doesn’t have to. I’m not going to force him, you got it? Get what you can and hope it’s useful.” With this, she climbs the steps to the second floor, Jason and Dick following at an appropriate distance. They pause at the top step while she enters Terry’s room and explains in hushed tones his guests. She relates Dick’s reason for being here and then there’s a long pause before Dick detects a faint, “Sure.”

Dick and Jason share a look that confirms: they’re in. Laura places a light hand on Jason’s bicep and guides them to the door. “I’ll stand right here,” she says firmly and waves them forward. Dick looks around for a chair, sees none, and settles on the windowsill facing Terry’s bed. He’s faired better than the next two kids, all injuries considered. He was out of the hospital in a month. He lies in his twin-sized mattress beneath a crisp sheet, a blue comforter shoved to the foot of his bed. A square bandage covers his right cheek, there’s stitching over his right eyebrow, and there’s more stitches on the right side of his skull. His right arm and knee have been set in casts. Dick remembers him curling onto his side at one point in the video.

In the wake of the other victims’ hospital records (courtesy of Oracle), Terry’s assault had been carried out with perfunctory brutality. Dick recollects the scene but recalls no hesitation in the attacker’s swings, yet their violence has clearly increased. Perhaps they are doing someone else’s dirty work and the job has just now awakened a taste for pain in them. Or maybe it’s one guy after all and they’re adjusting to the role.

“So, you know the fucker who did this?” Terry speaks up first. His voice is a little rough and definitely fatigued. Despite his current infirmity, Dick can tell he’s a sturdy kid. He’s got the same build Jason had at that age, youthfully broad with natural muscle in the absence of training. A body with room to grow in.

Dick shrugs. “Not personally. But we hold out hope. What did his face look like? Any defining features?” he attempts, even knowing that Terry’s report claimed to make out nothing from the night of the attack.

Terry was looking at Jason beforehand, which Dick can’t blame him for. Jason takes up most of the room as he stands by Terry’s feet, stock straight with his massive arms folded. Dick has a habit of downsizing Jason in his head. In general, Dick’s guilty of subconsciously diminishing certain people’s threat levels, letting his familiarity with them obscure the danger they still pose. He does his best to put himself in Terry’s shoes and see what he might see; he accomplishes this by summoning the first night he encountered the Red Hood before he was also Jason Todd, fallen boy wonder. Even without the vigilante get-up, the man’s intimidating.

Now that Dick has asked a question, however, Terry’s eyes appraise him. Dick once again folds in on himself, tucking his arms closer to his sides and leaning back so he’s as out of Terry’s space as he can be. Then Terry’s eyes stray to the floor and he mumbles, “Looked like nothing. It was dark.” But he doesn’t say it like it was nothing.

“You saw something,” Dick contests. He’s not going to wheedle or coax, he decides, because that would just leave Terry room to equivocate. “You don’t know what you saw, but you saw something, and whatever that is will help us more than pretending there weren’t streetlamps.”

Terry grimaces. The twitch of his battered face reminds Dick of his age and his heart aches. There should be a grace period for children, an exception made for those still new to this earth. He hates that pain is one of the first things they learn. “He was white, I guess,” Terry supplies. His good fingers have found a loose thread on the hem of his pushed-down sheets. He picks at it. “He never said a word the whole time. It was quiet. He — I saw his hands. I thought, I thought the police would find his thumbprints or whatever, on me, but that’s not how it works, they said. They were all fucked up.”

“The hands or the police?” Jason interjects.

Terry doesn’t look up from his loose thread, but one half of his mouth pulls up into a faint, flickering smile. It manages to be bright even so. “The hands. There were old scars all over the knuckles. Dry, too, like he never heard of lotion.”

Dick supposes the attacker could work in manual labor, but it’s unlikely if there were truly that many scars and all old. “Just the knuckles?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

Dick guesses he’s experienced with combat. The ugly, close-up kind. Still, just the knuckles, that sounds more like punishment than accident. And the dry skin? That could easily be eczema, although wouldn’t a seasoned killer think to cover up, prevent skin follicles from falling into a lab tech’s hands? It is summer, but Gotham runs more humid than dry, so perhaps they’re dealing with a foreigner. “And the face?” he prompts.

Terry abruptly drops his hand from the nervous thread and sighs raggedly. “Nothing, man. I couldn’t see anything, okay, it was,” Terry falters, “confusing.”

“Confusing how?” Jason asks.

“I don’t know!” Terry’s voice pitches in frustration. “It was weird, all swirly and shit.”

Dick can hear the criticism leak into Jason’s tone when he curtly repeats, “Swirly.”

Terry backpedals. “I said I don’t know,” he mutters.

Swirly voices sound familiar to Dick. He used to have one for a time when he played James Bond for Spyral. “I think we might have a contact, Jay,” Dick muses.

“Really?” Jason says with noticeable surprise. “Swirly’s our big break?”

“Emphasis on the might and ixnay on the big.” To Terry, he says, “Tell me, does tsuchigumo ring any bells?”

Terry’s face scrunches up. “Does what huh?”

Dick will take that as a no. “Oh, well. Still worth looking into,” he says. Dick stands and retrieves the card pack from his plastic bag. He holds it up for Terry to see before setting it down on the bed. Terry takes it immediately and brings it up to his face for inspection. “Your mom has the flowers. I wasn’t sure what to get you, but let me know if you need or want anything. Oh.” Dick swivels his head around the room. There’s not much to it aside from a bed, a dresser, and a box T.V. collecting dust. “Do you have something I can write my number on?”

Jason chooses that moment to step forward, sliding between Dick and where Terry lies. He leans across, a crisp, laminated paper balanced between his index and middle finger. “Here’s my card. Let me know if you have any more information or if either of you need help,” he explains. Terry sets Dick’s gift down and gingerly accepts the card. He flips it over: no logo, just a phone number.

“That’s it?” says Terry. “What contact? Who did this?”

“It’s too soon to tell. I wish I had more to give you two,” Dick says sympathetically to Terry and Laura, the latter of whom hasn’t left her post by the door. She rests her cheek on the frame and watches on.

Terry has more questions though and he’s edging on excited. “Are you P.I.’s? Why do you even care? I bet you fucking did this, or one of your boys — ”

“I understand your distrust,” Dick says over him. He glances nervously at Laura to gauge what she thinks of the accusation and if she’s about to step in. She’s a little straighter, body no longer depending on the wall, but her face is still impassive if alert. Dick hurries to smooth this over. “You don’t know us well enough to understand why we care. We have to prove ourselves, I get that. And we will. Until then, you’ve got nothing to lose, right? All we know is you didn’t see anything.”

Terry stares at him silently, suspicion darkening his eyes. There is risk in coming here, of course, depending on how well Terry’s attacker can trace Jason’s footsteps. But Dick has already weighed the risks and he’s betting that Terry’s part is done here insofar as the criminal is concerned. Luckily, Terry can’t identify what he’s got to lose or how much he has told them between the lines, so the charges drop like that.

There’s a few beats of silence before Jason starts fidgeting. “Yea-a-a-h, we’re going to go now,” he announces, pointing over his shoulder towards the window. Dick could cringe, he’s so awkward.

“Thanks to both of you,” Dick says and smiles as warmly as he can. He trails closely behind Jason who shuffles towards the door, his body too tall and too broad to fit comfortably in the modest room. Unthinking, the pads of Dick’s fingers feather over Jason’s back as if to guide him forward. As Jason moves, Dick lets his fingers linger in the air, covering up the touch with empty space. He curls his fingers in and tucks them behind his back. Laura follows them out.

“Thank you again,” Dick says at the door. “We’ll be in touch if anything develops,” he promises. And he will be; if not as Dick then certainly as Nightwing.

Laura thanks them half-heartedly. Dick suddenly feels self-conscious about the Pokémon cards. He may as well have given them a box with nothing inside it or a flashlight without a bulb. He heads back to the car, feeling Laura’s heavy gaze on his shoulders the whole way.

Dick is buckling himself in when Jason opens the passenger door. “Mind sharing with the class what information was so decisive you had no further questions?” he asks as he climbs into the car.

“No questions Terry could answer. This is the best we can do for a lead,” Dick explains. He needs to make a call, but that will have to wait until they’re on the road and not idling outside a victim’s house. Maybe he can take them to a restaurant, buy Jason a drink, a friendly gesture. Would Jason want to drink with him though?

“Yeah, about that,” Jason says as the car shoots off, “what lead?”

Scratch the drink; neither of them are lightweights, but on principle, they shouldn’t drink during an ongoing investigation. Still, he could buy them some sub sandwiches. He used to buy food for Tim all the time back in the day, as a reprieve from the typical Batman and Robin style of accidentally fasting until the case is resolved.

They reach a redlight almost immediately. Dick drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “Spyral uses this tech called ‘Hypnos 2.0.’ They slide in kind of like contacts? They’re eye implants basically, but they transmit information between your brain and the brain of whoever’s looking at you. Their most common application was hiding your identity. If someone looked at you, they’d just see a scrambled mess instead of a face.”

Jason’s face scrunches up as he stares out the windshield. He scratches his head. “Scrambled like Picasso or.”

The light turns green. “More like a spiral,” Dick says lightly, nodding conversationally.

“Thematic,” Jason comments.

“Very. And the uniforms weren’t too shabby either.” He adds the joke more to test the waters than anything, gauge how delicate a topic Spyral is between them. Everyone in their family has a slightly different relationship with Dick’s double life. Bruce and Damian’s have been the easiest, marked by faint curiosity about his activities and begrudging acceptance of help from associated colleagues. The others have been noticeably more dodgy and uncomfortable regarding for Spyral. Dick’s stint as as Agent 37 has made everyone evasive, even for bats.

If Jason would normally have an emotional reaction to Spyral, he’s too preoccupied for one now. Dick can practically see the gears in his mind turning as his eyes narrow and his chin falls to rest on his hand. Dick feels simultaneously relief and shame; of course, Spyral is just a lead. Spyral may have been Dick’s life at one point, but to Jason, it’s just an organization. At best, contacting Spyral could save his life. At worst, well, Dick’s not expecting Jason to unpack whatever baggage Dick left in Gotham.

Dick resists the urge to grimace at his own thoughts. He’s overthinking. Can one overthink a ruthless spy agency that up until a year ago controlled his every movement?

Jason’s voice, slow and thick with the sound of a city that’s always been his, reels Dick back to shore. “Dare I ask what the uniform entailed?”

“Cargo pants,” Dick answers simply. He’s watching the road ahead, but he can hear Jason make a pleasantly surprised noise. They pass a fire hydrant painted to look like a sunflower. Dick thinks it’d be nice for Bludhaven to do that and makes a note to push the idea at city hall after the case.

“So, you think that this guy is from Spyral?” Jason asks.

Dick shrugs. “That, or he’s connected enough to snag some tech. We should check first with the other two victims, see if their descriptions match up with Terry’s. If they do, it’s probably Spyral and not some low-grade black market street vendor. Nine of out ten optometrists do not recommend mind control contact lenses.”

Jason slams his hand down on the middle compartment. “Mind control?” he exclaims. When Dick glances at him, Jason’s expression is mostly shock with a sliver of what might be plain rage. But that would be an overreaction considering all the other crimes Spyral is guilty of. All the crimes they’re guilty of, especially Red Hood, although making that argument would be more trouble than it’s worth.

Dick tries not to let Jason’s sheer judgment weigh on him. Dick has far more pressing guilt elsewhere to torture himself over. Still, it’s hard not to feel righteous rage on Jason’s behalf. He often forgets this part of Jason’s character, this abrupt sense of justice that powers him, but it’s no less prominent than it is in Bruce or himself. It might actually be stronger in Jason, a little left of center, but bleeding red nonetheless. Unfortunately, car safety dictates Dick not be on the receiving end of justice, so he replies as casually as possible, “Well, that’s what Hypnos is, essentially.”

“No way.” Jason points an accusatory finger that Dick sees from his peripheral. A street corner features a hot dog stand. Dick nearly pulls over, but the finger might kill whatever buzz a chili dog can offer. “Don’t ‘that’s-what-Hypnos-is-Jason- obviously ’ me. You just said it transmits info.”

Dick did not think his tone had come off condescending in the least. But if that’s what Jason got from it, then perhaps he missed casual and landed on dismissive. Bludhaven must be eroding his tact already. “Sorry. When I said it transmits information, I meant it as a blanket statement for everything it does. Hypnos can alter memories, which is more-or-less how the identity protection works, by modifying one’s memory of a face. It can send someone a location address or really anything you have stored in your own memory, which is helpful. It can also send orders.”

“Yeah, I bet that’s helpful, too,” Jason derides. He looks like he smelled something bad. Was Dick this perturbed by Hypnos when he first joined Spyral? He doesn’t think so. He had been so quickly embroiled in so many terrible things. What was a little crowd control in the face of cold, efficient, and constant murder?

The guns. The feel of one is his hand like death itself, how they loomed in his bedroom and among his gear, beckoning him closer to an edge everyone wanted to push him off of. The guns had overshadowed all else for him.

“Either way,” Dick carries on, “it’s unlikely this guy has his hands on Spyral tech without Spyral knowing something about him. They keep close enough watch over people that have nothing to do with them, let alone people that have access to their technology. He could be anywhere from an engineer to a passing contact, but he’s no ghost.”

“Terrific. Exactly what I need, a mind-controlling stalker from an quasi-omniscient spy organization hellbent running around on the streets of Gotham.”

Dick shrugs. “Gotham’s had it worse.”

“Have I?”

“I don’t know. Have you?” Dick retorts.

Jason scowls. “Wouldn’t be my first assassination attempt, I suppose,” he concedes.

Dick perks up and offers him a grin. “And it won’t be your last!” he crows.

Jason just stares at him, utterly perplexed. His brows are furrowed and his mouth is curled above his teeth in bewilderment.

“Because you’ll be alive,” Dick hurriedly explains. “You know, like, woohoo!” He takes one hand off the wheel to pump the air triumphantly.

“Woohoo,” Jason repeats hollowly. “Insanity.”

“What?” asks Dick. They will be coming up on the grinder shop soon. Should he suggest lunch to Jason or just drag him in? He’s leaning towards dragging. That seems more effective.

“That we’re all just living to hopefully get killed a day that’s not tomorrow,” Jason observes.

It’s not more cynical than funny, but something in Jason’s tone — the utter resignation, perhaps — makes Dick laugh anyway. “Everyone on earth’s on borrowed time, really,” he says, not unhappily. Death hasn’t frightened him since he was young. Exposure therapy, he called it once during some Titans mission that feels a lot farther in the past than it is. “The reckless and foolhardy like us, we’re just more aware of it.”

Jason blows air out from his nose in a mix between a snort and a laugh. “And here I thought vigilante-types were less aware of their own mortality.”

“Are you kidding? You have to know you’re walking towards death to find that exact path each night. Snatched purses, drug rings, elitist assassins dressed as owls, fear gas and escaped convicts and murderous clowns — and we run right towards them with open arms,” Dick says, irony guiding his grin as Jason smirks back at him.

“And open chest cavities, half the the time,” Jason tacks on.

Dick nods fervently. “Yes, let’s not forget that,” he tries to say seriously, but laughter trips him on the last word. “I don’t know. I think it’s all very sane, actually, to see what’s going on and get involved, do what you can to make everything a little bit better. But too much sanity can look like insanity, for sure.”

Jason does snort this time. “Keep moralizing like that and you’ll sound straight out of a conversation between the Joker and B.”

Dick wrinkles his nose. “Ew. I hope not.”

“‘We’re the same, you and I,’” Jason croons in a wispy, sing-song voice. “‘Sane and in-sane.’”

Dick can make out the small, white-background-red-letters sign of Hester’s Grinders a few yards down the road. There’s just enough room before the fire hydrant — this one plain, chipped red — to safely park. “Alright, alright, I get it. I’ll keep my philosophies to myself. And so long as we’re changing the subject — hungry?”

Previous Chapter

#jaydick #dickjay #dc #fanfiction for the void

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violetsmoak · 4 years

Text

Pieces of April [11/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21099044/chapters/50202530

Summary: On the anniversary of his death, Jason’s second life takes an abrupt new turn and he’s faced with a challenge that neither Batman nor the All-Caste prepared him for.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

Warning(s): Past Jason/Isabel, kidfic, minor canon character death (pretty sure you can guess who), I’ll add more warnings/tags as I think of them.

Canon-Compliance: Takes place in between the two RHATO series, so after Roy and Kori and before Artemis and Bizarro. Jason and Isabel Ardila

First Chapter

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As expected, Jason doesn’t sleep that night.

His eyes remain trained on the ceiling of the guestroom while his subconscious drags him along a tilt-a-whirl of anxious and circular thoughts. He can barely process what they are with how fast they manifest and vanish again to be replaced with new ones. And before he’s really aware of it, the sun is streaming through the window that he forgot to pull the shades over, and he hears movement outside the room.

Figuring he might as well get up, he heaves himself out of bed and ambles down the stairs, skirting the piles of baby supplies he somehow forgot about while drowning in his night of circular thinking.

Tim is standing in his kitchen doing up his tie, nodding and humming with a frown on his face. Jason’s about to ask until he notices the hands-free earpiece in one ear. That could be either for work or to cover the Bat-issue comm; he probably has the latter plugged in permanently the same way Bruce does.

Tim notices him, and his mouth quirks upward in a not-quite smile of greeting.

“I’ll be in shortly, Lucius,” he says distantly. “We can discuss it before the meeting.” He taps the earpiece, hanging up, and then addresses Jason. “Good morning. You look like shit.”

“It’s the ‘I-didn't-sleep’ chic, which you should recognize since you invented it.”

“You’re just jealous you can’t make it look as good as I can,” Tim quips, and maybe if Jason were well-rested, he’d have a better retort for that. Instead, he narrows his eyes to study the younger man.

Tim Drake is polished and put-together, the epitome of perfect Wayne heir. Damian might throw around the words ‘blood son’ at every opportunity, and Dickie might be the first and favorite son, but Tim’s the one actually carrying on the Wayne legacy. From what Jason’s heard, he does it better than Bruce ever did.

Goddamn workaholic. And that suit probably costs more than rent for one of my legal apartments.

“I’m heading out,” Tim announces needlessly, taking a sip of what must be coffee from a travel mug. “I’ll try to get home before four o’clock, but it really depends on how much work Lucius decides to pile on while I’m still in town.”

“Because it sure as hell won’t get done if B is the only one around,” Jason agrees, earning a sharp grin in reply.

“Exactly.”

And there’s the cocky little bastard Jason’s been waiting to re-emerge after a day of being hidden by the scarily competent functioning adult façade.

“Feel free to stick around here and play the game system or raid the fridge or whatever. It’s up to you. The security system’s biometric, but I can give you an override code—” Noticing Jason’s disgusted and somewhat insulted look, he huffs, “Or not. Whatever. You’ll figure it out.”

He leaves without saying anything else, and suddenly Jason is well and truly alone for the first time since waking up on the anniversary of his death with his only thought being to get black-out drunk.

Funny how much twenty-four hours can change.

Except it’s really not.

Jason doesn’t want to spend another day thinking over all of his problems and the infinite possibilities of how the situation can become even more screwed up or confusing, so he busies himself with breaking into Tim’s hideout.

That occupies him for a little while, figuring out the security codes to the false wall and then to the locks on his computer system. He spends the morning wandering around, getting to know the frankly sweet set-up of the place, testing out the training room and looking under the hood of the cars in the garage.

Wonder if Timbers would help me outfit my bunker.

He’s been squatting in an old subbasement beneath GCPD headquarters for a few weeks now; the place was cut off from the main building during the Cataclysm a few years back and for whatever reason, everyone seems to believe it was caved in beyond repair.

Jason’s cleaned the place out and set up his own operation, but it doesn’t have the tech or necessities of an actual Cave. Which, frankly, isn’t fair, since everyone else has their own Batman-free getaway to hide in when the old man gets in one of his moods. Hell, even the new kid has a place beneath the Fox center.

As soon as the thought enters his mind, Jason scowls.

What the hell am I thinking?

None of this is even going to matter for a while anyway, now that he’s about to be benched. Might as well say goodbye to the state-of-the-art vigilante tech now and spare himself the disappointment.

He leaves the Nest (was Drake born without the ability to be original or something?) and returns to the living area, examining the place with a more critical eye this time around.

He still ignores looking at the pile of baby supplies.

Jason’s first impression the day before was of a barely lived in space, meant to show any would-be-intruders how a normal local celebrity might live. He learns he was only half-right when he spies smaller, more personal touches in the décor as he wanders through the house. There are photographs arranged along most of the walls, which on first glance he assumed were the kind you picked up at Ikea to make a place look classy, but he realizes as he studies the black-and-white images that they are shots of various locations in Gotham.

Locations a normal person can’t actually get to.

Which means Tim must have taken them himself; it’s just innocuous enough that a regular visitor would only admire the clarity of the shot. To someone like Jason, it’s impressive for completely different reasons; not least of all the danger inherent in achieving just that right angle. Two pictures he knows could only have been taken by hanging one-handed off a Gotham Trade Centre gargoyle.

The whole thing says more about Tim’s personality than any human detritus or strewn personal belongings could.

Though he does have those, too.

The shelf beside the television has a copy of what might be every video game known to man, across three different platforms. The study is filled with vintage board games and robot figurines and piles of tech magazines. Everything is scary neat—the professional, unnatural Stepford kind of neat that speaks of someone paid to clean it—with the exception of Tim’s bedroom. Jason pokes his head in there for like a second before shuddering and walking away from it.

How has Alfred not murdered you yet, kid?

Back downstairs, he studies the faux mantle above the electric fireplace where he sees artfully placed personal pictures of other recognizable personages. Tim with his Kryptonian and speedster friends, then him along with his generation of Titans. There’s one of him as a child with two people Jason assumes are his parents at a high society event of some sort, as well as a wedding photo of him much older; the man beside him is the same, but the woman in the veil is different. Stepmother, probably.

Jason pauses to smirk at the one of Tim and Dick on a beach somewhere, both ridiculously sunburned; it’s in the same folding frame as one with them both sitting beside Bruce on a beach chair. The older man is asleep, or at least pretending very well, and they’ve used sunscreen to write ‘I hate this place’ on his chest. Alfred obviously took that one.

The family butler is in the next image, standing beside the entry stairway of the manor with a thoughtful expression on his face. It’s so clearly staged to seem as distinguished as possible.

Guess Alf never did get over his dislike of having candid pictures of him taken.

Moving on, there’s a four-strip photo of Tim and Blondie stuck in the frame of a larger one with all three Batgirls past and present in what he supposes is Barbie’s apartment, with them trying to show Cass how to make a duck face. Beside it, one of Tim and the Thomas kid arguing over what looks to be a disemboweled computer; judging by the thumb shape in the corner it was taken sneakily and probably by Dick. Hell, there’s even one of the demon brat there, conked out on a couch in Bruce’s study with a black and white cat curled up on his chest.

Family’s all here, he thinks with a grim sort of humor. All except yours truly.

He’s not sure if he would have expected different, given his and Tim’s relationship. They might partner on occasion, and he works better with Tim than any of the other Bats he sometimes teams up with, but it’s not like they’re actually close. He doesn’t go out of his way to spend time with him outside of the mask, and then there’s a chasm of tense history between them.

He’d actually be surprised if—

Something catches his eye as he turns away from the fireplace, if only because next to all the gleaming frames its’ ordinariness makes it stick out. There’s a faded paper propped up against the wall behind a decorative clock, and when Jason reaches to pick it up and examine it, he finds himself staring down at his own grinning face.

Sort of.

It’s him from years ago.

The Jason Todd before Bruce stopped trusting him; before finding out his entire life had been a lie and before the Joker destroyed him. And it’s not so much a picture as a clipping from a newspaper.

Little Jason grins up at the photographer, missing his right canine and the same side of his face slightly puffy. Jason vaguely remembers the fight with Two-Face the night before, faster than he recalls sitting for this photo. He’s wearing a school uniform, can now recall the harried little man asking if he was sure he didn’t want to wait for picture retakes so they could get a picture when his face wasn’t bruised (“Bruce tried to teach me to ride a horse. They need to make those things closer to the ground!”) and him refusing because he earned these colors, thanks very much—

Jason can’t figure out how this photo ended up in a newspaper, though; the only pictures of him still extant in public are the ones they drag up on television every few years when Bruce does some bit of charity for orphans. Reminders of the poor dead orphan.

But this one—no, now he remembers.

This was the photo the press used during the custody case when Bruce was publicly battling Natalia Knight for guardianship of Jason. It’s not a copy, printed off the internet or digitally finished as a photograph. There’s yellowing around the edges and the paper quality is thin and grainy the way an actual newspaper is when it ages.

But why the hell does Tim have this?

He’s been back from the dead for years now, and with the Bat propensity for stalking and surveillance footage, if Tim wanted a photo of him, he could certainly have gotten all manner of material. Why this one? And why include it here at all, if it’s hidden away behind the others like a dirty secret?

The whole thing is vastly unsettling, and as he remembers Tim’s words from yesterday—

“We’re too complicated to be family. But we are Robins. And in a lot of ways, I think that’s stronger than us being part of the Family.”

—his chest starts to experience that vicelike pressure he’s been having on and off since learning about Isabel and the baby.

He’s struck by the very pressing need to get out of here.

Fleeing the apartment for the hidden Nest once more, Jason finds the exit protocols and manual overrides for Tim’s system, then borrows one of the bikes in the garage area. Tim did say he was free to do ‘whatever’ and though Jason doubts that includes absconding with his wheels, he doesn’t entirely care. He doesn’t even bother looking for the tracking beacons he knows are hidden on them.

He’s not running away, he’s just…clearing his head.

Or clearing it as well as anyone can while navigating the construction and traffic-infested roads of Gotham.

An open highway would be the most ideal way for him to lose himself and avoid his complicated feelings, but he supposes that option has its own dangers. Like just driving straight to California and pretending the past day has been nothing but a bad dream.

Instead, the constant roadblocks and detours Jason’s forced to take through the corners of the city jog his brain back into thinking. Back into reasoning and solving problems and improvising like he usually does.

First of all, he needs to stop letting Tim do everything for him.

Jason is capable—has survived on his own his whole life; it’s time to get his shit together. And to do that, he has to find someone who can take care of the baby.

His daughter.

He needs to get used to saying it, whether he stays in her life or not.

Jason isn’t entirely sure what he’s looking for in terms of the plans Tim suggested to him the night before. There’s merit to all the ideas, but he’s stuck between getting her out of Gotham or finding someone here who knew Isabel.

Or at least someone who knew she was expecting a kid. Any kind of connection to her mother would be better than nothing.

In theory.

Jason’s pretty sure that it’s a rare kid—himself included—who would have been better off without knowing anything about their birth mother. But Isabel is not Sheila, and the situation isn’t anything like that one.

He’s not even sure where to start looking for potential guardians.

Though Isabel’s friend Safiya said she would be looking into it, it’s once again putting Jason in the position of letting others deal with the consequences of his own actions. If only he knew more about what frame of mind Isabel was in before all this started…

Jason didn’t live with the world’s greatest detective for three years of his life without learning how to build a profile on someone. And the best starting point for that is where she spent most of her time.

He pulls over in the parking lot of a Bat Burger to unlock the fancy computer hidden within the bike’s dash (obviously one of Tim’s own design) and linking to the Bat-network’s backdoor to Gotham General’s patient records. Then it’s a simple search to bring up Isabel’s personal information, including her latest address.

Turns out she moved a lot closer to Gotham General than she was before; as he revs the motor and takes off again, Jason wonders if that was pre-emptive.

Isabel’s place is on the edge of Midtown, where the business district turns residential. The condominium itself seems well taken care of, especially in contrast to the fixer-uppers Jason’s used to in his own neighborhood, but in Gotham, that means next to nothing.

Though clearly Isabel’s been doing well if she’s able to afford a place here.

He’s not entirely sure what the average flight attendant’s salary is, but maybe she was just good with money.

Her apartment is on the highest floor of the apartment building, reachable by the fire escape. He scowls a bit at the idea that just anyone could get in here if they so choose, and if she thinks that’s a good enough deterrent than—

Jason has to stop and shake his head and remind himself that Isabel is gone. She’ll never have to worry about break-ins again.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, he jimmy’s open the window and slips through.

⁂⁂⁂

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#jaytim #jaytim fanfiction #jason todd #tim drake #babyfic #accidental baby acquisition #enemies to lovers #slow build #slow burn #coping with big news

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cxramel-cat · 5 years

Text

(SUPERBAT WEEK 2019) day 01

Chapter Title: I Saw Daddy Kissing Superman Day One: Omegaverse & Secret Relationship Rating: Teen and up Audiences Warning(s): None Word Count: 2818 Summary: Bruce adopted young Richard Grayson. There is a lot for the adoptive father and son to learn about each other. For example; the secret identity and (possibly) new dad. Side-note: Written for @superbatweek Other link(s): AO3 | Wattpad | Fanfiction

“Who is that guy with glasses?”

Bruce glanced against his shoulder in surprise. He hasn’t realized that Richard had sneaked behind him. The boy pointed a curious finger at the contact in his phone and zoomed the picture.

“You called him ‘sweetheart’.” Richard looked up at Bruce. “I thought your Alpha was Batman.”

Before the child could scroll up to the conversation, Bruce pulled the phone out of his reach. “What makes you think so?”

“Everyone in Gotham knows you have something with Batman. And I can prove it.” The boy pulled a Batarang from his pocket. “How can you explain the batarangs or the cowl I found in your rooms? Or the fact sometimes you have his smell on you. He must have been a constant visitor. I just haven’t had the chance of catching you guys in action.”

“Dick, that’s rude.” Bruce breathed out a sigh, shaking his head. He should have taken extra caution with his tools. Before this, he had too much convenience in dumping his stuff around, since there were only Alfred and him in this big mansion. But now, it was different. There was a new addition in the house – a young curious beta pup – and Bruce was not, mentally and physically, prepared to reveal his secret identity to the boy yet. “I am telling you the truth. I’m not in a relationship with Batman.”

“Really?” The boy seemed to not believe his words. His eyes were glued on the screen of Bruce’s phone. “So, he was your alpha? That country-looking guy with glasses and in the flannel shirt who you called your ‘sweetheart’.”

Yes. The word was stuck on Bruce’s tongue. He was never good with his words. He knew there was nothing to be embarrassed about – his relationship with Clark. However, he was still struggling with his words. It took a lot of courage to speak up, but instead, the boy took his silence the wrong way.

“I will not criticize your choice, Bruce.” Dick smiled in the most uncomfortable way that Bruce had ever seen him pull. “I am an open-minded person. Mom always told me that there is nothing wrong with whoever you love, no matter their biology or races. So, it doesn’t matter to me if your alpha is the vigilante of Gotham or a random country guy, I am fine with that as long as you have made your choice!”

I told you, I’m not in a relationship with Batman! Once again, the words were stuck in his mouth. Instead, Bruce smiled back in the best way he could – although he wanted to frown at Dick’s words.

It seemed like it was time for Clark to meet with Dick soon.

“I think it’s time for you to meet Richard.”

Clark almost thought that he had misheard what Bruce said. He looked at his omega in surprise, seemingly malfunctioned for a while as he tried to process through the words.

“You mean it? Really?” He couldn’t bottle up the tingling happiness within him. All along, the relationship between Bruce and him had maintained as a secret. As Bruce said, it was better to keep the relationship low profile to avoid being overwhelmed by the media.

Clark had always respected Bruce’s wish, since he knew that the media loved to report any rumours related to Bruce Wayne, the rich and most well-known omega in the world. It was Bruce’s way of protecting him, as he didn’t want Clark’s reputation as a reporter to be stained by his. However, that didn’t mean that Clark had never wished that he could tell the world about how much he loved Bruce and how the man was not as described by the media.

When Bruce first adopted Dick, Clark had been excited to introduce himself to the boy. However, Bruce had told him that was not the right time yet. The child was badly traumatised with the loss of parents, and the comfort of a parental figure was more important than letting him meet the partner of his new father then. Clark, being the understanding and patient partner he had always been, had agreed to it.

“What’s the sudden decision? I thought you agreed that I will meet with him after another six months.”

“Because he has been going on some weird theories which have been making me uncomfortable.” Bruce turned around, looking at Clark with a frown. “Just this evening, he told me about how he thought that I was in a relationship with Batman. Can you believe it, Clark? Then he was giving me that look – the one that was like he is trying his hardest not to judge me, because he thought that I am probably cheating on my partner with another man. Exactly how the media has always judged me.”

“Oh, I’m sure he didn’t think so, Bruce.” Clark placed an arm over Bruce’s shoulder, pressing a kiss on the man’s head and taking in his scent. “I’m sure he will understand once you explain it to him. He will understand. I believe in that.”

‘Easier to say than to be done,’ Bruce thought, giving out a huff.

“I’m going to get killed by Bruce…”

Dick looked around his surroundings nervously. He had been too excited since this was his first visit to Metropolis. Without Bruce’s permission, he had sneaked out of the man’s office and went for a walk. He thought that he had recognized his way home, but he had been wrong. He was so occupied with playing around that he had lost his way. And now, he was stuck outside – no money since he had spent most of his allowance on the desserts and games... and without a phone.

Dick sat underneath a tree, biting his nails as he tried to find a way to get home. Suddenly, he took notice of the stray cat beside him, who was peacefully taking its nap.

Well, this is Metropolis, where the Superman lived. Rumours said that the man of steel will help no matter how small the issue is, even if it was just a cat stuck in the tree. I will do it as gentle as possible, and no feline shall be harmed in the process…

Okay, maybe he had thrown the cat a little too harshly. The cat gave out a surprised meow when it was suddenly grabbed by the tail and throw upwards towards the tree. Then, Dick sat under the tree, burying his head in his knees as he awaited the arrival of the man of steel.

Not more than ten seconds, there was a gush of wind as a figure floated downwards, holding the traumatized cat in his hands. “Is this your cat, kid?”

“No, but thank you anyway, Superman!” Dick grinned. His heart racing at the sight of his idol standing in front of him. But of course, this wasn’t the right time to be excited! He’d summoned the superhero for a very important reason!

“I had lost my way home, Superman. Can you… uhm, lend me your phone, Superman?” There was the alternative way, allowing Superman to fly him back to the Wayne Enterprise. But Dick wanted to be able to get the contact number of the superhero!

And Clark – Superman – didn’t know why he did think it was a good idea, to pull out his phone and lend it towards a little child he didn’t even know. He just assumed that the child’s parent was around, and all he needed was a quick call to get that parent back to him. However, when the boy started to dial a very familiar number, Clark’s eyes widened.

‘Hold on. Why is he dialling Bruce’s number?’

‘… why does Superman have Bruce’s number saved…?’

By the time his phone vibrated, Bruce felt relieved to pull himself away from the meeting for a while. It was too boring, and he was tired from dealing with those two-faced men who were just trying to dig a hole in his pocket. When he looked over at the screen of his phone, he was amused to see that it was Clark who was calling since it was rare for the man to call during work hours.

“What is it, my darling?” With a hint of playfulness, since he wanted to maintain his reputation as the flirty Bruce Wayne in public, Bruce answered with sweet name-calling.

There was a moment of silence at the other side of the phone, and Bruce was ready to ask if there was something wrong with Clark, when an unexpected, familiar voice answered his call.

“B-Bruce…?”

…Dick?

“Bruce, you called Superman darling.”

“Yea, I guess I do.”

“But… you have Clark listed as your sweetheart in your phone.”

“Yea… I did.”

“… it’s not right.” Dick whispered close to Bruce’s ear, frowning. “Clark is a nice man. He might not be shining like the Superman, but… you shouldn’t cheat on him, Bruce! You should only choose one! Clark deserves loyalty and respect!”

Clark knew he shouldn’t eavesdrop – superpowers were strictly restricted in Wayne Manor – but he couldn’t help but snicker at the boy’s words. He tried not to make it seem too obvious, so he bit back his laughter. Alfred, who noticed the man’s chuckle, could only shake his head at the mess that had been created by his own master.

“… I think I understand why Batman break up with you, Bruce.”

“Dick, I already told you –” He caught Clark snickering, and Bruce swore, if it wasn’t for Dick being next to him, he might have thrown the glass of water in his hand at the Kryptonian for laughing at his miserable situation.

It happened during one peaceful night – Dick was in his room sleeping, when he was suddenly being awakened by a noise downstairs. Out of curiosity (and concern, of course), he walked downstairs – only to meet with a sight which caused him to wonder if he was still dreaming.

“It’s okay… you’re safe now, you’re home…”

Superman was holding someone in his arms. Dick couldn’t really recognize the person in his arms, since the person’s face was well hidden by the red cape. When he stepped close enough, the beta had caught the heavy sweet scent which was emitted by one of them.

‘It smelled familiar… It smelled… smelled like Bruce…?’

Just as the thought crossed Dick’s mind, Superman stepped upstairs and almost bumped into him. The man halted back just in time; his eyes widened at seeing Dick.

“D-Dick? Why are you awake at this hour? You should be in bed!”

Due to the closeness between both of them, Dick finally managed to have a good look of the omega in Superman’s arms. It was Bruce, but he was wearing Batman’s suit.

“B-Bruce?!” All of his curiosities were swallowed back in his stomach. He was overcome with worry upon seeing Bruce in agony. “Oh my gosh, are you okay? Can you hear me? Bruce? Bruce!”

“Young master Dick.”

Dick turned around at the call. Alfred was standing behind him, seemingly more calmed down than Dick expected him to, with Bruce in such pain. “Master Bruce is in safe hands now. There shall be nothing you should be worried about.” Alfred placed a hand on his shoulder, guiding the teen downstairs. “Come, boy, would you like a cup of warm milk?”

It tasted sweet, the honey-milk Alfred had fixed for him. Dick took another sip of the warm beverage as he tried to process what had happened so far.

Superman brought Bruce home. Bruce was wearing Batman’s costume. Bruce was sick.

Somehow, none of the information seemed to connect with other parts. Who was the real alpha of Bruce? Superman?

‘Well, having a superhero as my adoptive step-dad is not bad.’ Dick shrugged at the thought. Superman was the well-loved superhero of the whole world. He was a public figure, just like Bruce, so they would make a great pair together! Not to mention, Dick should feel honoured, since he had a superhero as his adoptive step-dad, right?

‘But Bruce was wearing Batman’s costume!’ Dick remembered, Bruce was attending a bachelor party tonight. Alfred had helped him pick out his favourite three-piece suit. That should have been what Bruce was wearing, right? Why was Bruce wearing Batman’s costume now? Was it perhaps because he was taken away by the crusader, in the middle of the night? What could both of them have possibly done?!

‘And Clark?’ Dick glanced down at the piece of cookie he had taken from the jar. It was Clark’s handmade cookie, and the man had baked a jar just for him. Clark knew how much Dick loved his chocolate chip cookies! Clark was always so kind to him, making him delicacies while Alfred refused to let him have more than he should. Clark played soccer with him when Bruce couldn’t. Clark also helped Alfred with the chores just to lessen the butler’s burden. How could Bruce have possibly cheated on such a kind person?!

“Alfred, the adult world is complicated,” Dick sighed out, biting off a huge chunk off the cookie.

Thanks to Alfred’s interruption, Clark could finally get Bruce back in his room – where the omega felt the safest whenever his heat arrived. It should have been another two weeks before the actual heat arrived. However, it had been quickened due to Ivy’s sudden attack at the night party which Bruce attended.

In the process of stopping Ivy, one of her plants had sprayed Bruce with its pollen. The effects hadn’t shown until later, when Bruce had handed Ivy over to Commissioner Gordon, that his scent had started to spread out wildly.

Clark, who stayed at Bruce’s side when all of this happened, had immediately sensed that Bruce’s heat had arrived early. In his greatest effort of making sure that Bruce’s identity wouldn’t be revealed, Clark had wrapped the man up in his cape and brought him home before he had bumped into with Dick.

There would be a lot of explanations to give with Dick tomorrow, but for now, the issue on hand was Bruce.

“Bruce? Can you hear me?” Clark gently patted on Bruce’s face. “Bruce, I’m going to help you get rid of your suit, okay? Everything will be alright ̶”

An arm reached out and pulled Clark into the bed. Bruce kissed Clark hard, their teeth clashing. It was obvious that the omega had been driven mad by his heat, and now, what he needed wasn’t gentle emotional comfort. He needed something more physical.

“Clark,” Bruce panted through the kiss. “Shut up and fuck me.”

“Bruce?”

Dick knocked on the door once, awaiting a reply from the man. Usually, the man would have answered– even a sleepy groan would count. But today, he was quiet. Too quiet.

“Bruce, can you hear me?” Dick called out louder this time, knocking on the door a few times. Again, there was no reply. The teen thought worriedly.

“I’m coming in,” he announced, twisting the doorknob as he took a peek inside. There was no one on the bed, but there were clothes scattered around the floor, which indicated that someone had been here – at least before he came in.

Dick looked around the room, feeling confused. When his search came up fruitless, he was ready to leave, when his sharp hearing took notice of a soft groan which was above him.

Immediately, Dick looked upward. And there they were; Bruce, who was still sleeping soundly, and Clark, who was holding on Bruce tightly, floating as he met Dick’s gaze nervously.

“Hey, Dick…” Clark tried to steady his voice as he spoke. “I will explain to you later. Could you… tell Alfred that Bruce and I will be back soon? Thank you for coming up to wake us, and uh, sorry, for what you had to see.”

Dick was staring, his mouth gaping wide in shock. There was a moment in which he couldn’t progress what he had seen, but once he regained his senses, he didn’t know what he could have said.

“C-Clark?!”

On that fine Sunday morning, Dick had a two-hour long conversation with Bruce. They talked about everything that Bruce had hidden from him since the beginning – Bruce’s secret identity as the dark crusader, his relationship with Clark who was actually Superman, and the Birds-and-Bees Talk which came in a matched set with the Safe Sex Talk.

Nevertheless, to say, Dick felt utterly betrayed (and flustered for the final two topics) upon realizing how much his new father had hidden from him.

“I thought we were family, Bruce!”

Aside from being saddened by the fact that Bruce had hidden his secret identity from him, Dick wasn’t bothered or disappointed at the fact that Clark was Superman.

In the end, Bruce and Clark took the boy to Haagen-Dazs to cheer him up.

#superbat #superbatweek2019

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lyonrhodes · 6 years

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One Bad Day #5: Paint the Town

Red Hood x OC, Batman/DC Fan Fic

Summary: Dora has lived in Gotham her whole life and is accustomed to the rampant crime and corruption. Her life gets worse when Black Mask takes over the city. She thinks all hope is lost but a new vigilante appears, calling himself the Red Hood. However, he’s not your typical knight in shining armor. Dora must decide: does she dare fall in love with a revenge-driven killer? (Romance, Crime, Action)

Chapter 5: Paint the Town

Two days later, Dora went to One Police Plaza to make her official statement—Red Hood was that big of a deal, there was a task force dedicated to taking him down working out of the GCPD’s central headquarters in Old Gotham. Dora arrived at the giant building only to find the entrance roped off by yellow tape. There was a crime scene right on the front steps. Cameras flashed and people chattered in the large crowd that had gathered as close as they could get. At the fringe of the scene, news reporters discussed the event in front of cameramen. The crowd was so dense, Dora couldn’t see what the fuss was about.

“Hey, you!” Bullock stomped up to her from a food truck he had been standing by, tossing aside his half-eaten gyro.

“What?” she asked.

Bullock snarled. “What do you mean ‘what?’ Your boyfriend dropped off a little present for the GCPD.”

She had no idea what boyfriend Bullock was talking about because she had been single for well over two years. However, the familiar contemptuous look on his face quickly made her realize he was talking about Red Hood—and she didn’t like that.

“What’s going on? Why the crowd?”

“As if you don’t know,” Bullock spat impatiently.

Bullock was too bitter to tell her, but after he escorted her inside the GCPD building—roughly by the arm—Montoya took over and shooed Bullock away. He snorted and stomped away, muttering under his breath. Although Dora wasn’t fond of either of them, she preferred Montoya over Bullock. She was still wary not to be fooled by their good cop/bad cop routine. At least Montoya believed Dora hadn’t deliberately sicced Red Hood on the men harassing her—she hoped.

While recording her statement and filling out a stack of paperwork with some mousy intern from the DA’s office, Dora learned from Montoya that Red Hood wasn’t keeping every head he took as a personal trophy. Regarding the incident she had walked in on when she arrived at the GCPD, Montoya told her—over her morning coffee—that it appeared Red Hood had dropped off the head of a corrupt businessman named Adam Hunt on the GCPD’s doorstep in order to send a message. This Adam Hunt had allegedly—and Montoya emphasized the word allegedly—laundered money for many of Gotham’s criminal organizations. He had been on the GCPD’s watch list for years, but they could never gather enough evidence for a solid conviction, let alone enough to charge him with any legitimate crime. When the DA intern left, Montoya offered her theory that Hunt’s lawyers were just too damn good, and revealed that she suspected the ADA and a few judges were in Black Mask’s pocket.

“I guess Red Hood doesn’t care about the burden of proof,” Montoya told Dora while they filled out yet more paperwork in the bustling bullpen. Uniform cops, detectives, and jail guards were scrambling around the office, shouting at perps, into their phones, radios, and each other. “This Red Hood guy considers himself judge, jury, and executioner. I’m not sure if he’s deranged or just sick of waiting for justice to be done. If the latter’s the case, I can’t blame him cuz kinda get it. Pero no le dices a Bullock que yo te dije eso.”

Dora didn’t promise anything, but she and Montoya shared a lingering look that made Dora think Montoya was as frustrated with the corruption and ineffectiveness of Gotham’s law enforcement as she was.

After filling out all the paperwork, the detectives set Dora loose and didn’t bother her again. She assumed they were too busy chasing after Red Hood, who was literally painting the city of Gotham red and watching it burn.

Day and night, everything Dora heard and read on the news was about either Red Hood, Batman, or Black Mask—or any combination of them. It was a veritable free-for-all, each one pitted relentlessly against the other two. However, it was plain to see that who everyone feared most was Red Hood. As the newcomer, he was the most unpredictable and therefore the most dangerous. There had been dozens of arsons in his name. In some cases vehicles and whole buildings were blown up. Gotham’s citizens were afraid to leave their homes for fear that any public place they visited or transportation they used might be rigged with one of Red Hood’s bombs. The city was being terrorized and demolished, one building at a time, by an unhinged pyromaniac in a red helmet. Wherever Firefly was nowadays, Dora mused, he was being put to shame; and Batman was struggling to keep up.

What the media didn’t know (and apparently the cops were keeping quiet) was the fact that most of the buildings that were bombed were fronts, hideouts, drug labs, brothels, casinos, speakeasies, and stashes of Gotham’s worst gangs. Not to mention the steady stream of severed heads that were dumped almost daily on the steps of One Police Plaza were those of crime bosses and their highest-ranking lieutenants. Dora knew this because it was all the Alibi’s customers would talk about. She even noticed that the shadiest and most delinquent of her clientele weren’t coming around the bar as often.

It was plainly obvious that Gotham’s criminals were scared shitless. They were scrambling, like rats trapped in a box, panicked into a frenzy, desperate for survival.

Despite the seemingly rampant destruction reported in the news, all the innocent Gotham citizens that lived on Park Row and the other impoverished neighborhoods were beginning to feel safer. Outside of Red Hood’s own crimes, organized and petty criminal activity in Gotham had actually decreased since his debut. In the week after the massacre in the alley, it seemed like Red Hood was gaining more notoriety, yet getting further away from being caught.

The streets were buzzing with support for Red Hood, and Dora noticed it everywhere—from bargoers in the Alibi to people waiting in line at Starbucks and all over social media. The common topic of conversation now was whether you should support Batman or Red Hood. The people that favored Red Hood had taken to wearing red hoodies and baseball caps. Still, some people insisted neither Red Hood or Batman were the answer, believing that the GCPD and the courts were the only legal way to fight crime and protect the innocent.

But to Dora, there could be no mistake. Her neighborhood of Park Row was now a safer place to live. Whenever she needed proof to reassure herself, all she had to do was open her bedroom window at night and take a moment to listen to the city. She no longer heard drug dealers and addicts yelling at each other in the alleys, the hookers and johns catcalling on the street corners, or gunshots and sirens echoing through the air—all things she used to hear on a nightly basis before Red Hood came along were now gone. No one had to take her word for it, everyone in Park Row noticed how quiet it had become.

And Rochelle thought so, too. After initially being scared—literally to death—of Red Hood, it seemed like Rochelle had become one of his biggest fans in the weeks since his first appearance in that alley. She wore red to work nearly everyday.

“Well, he comes on a little strong, yeah—but you can’t deny the effect he’s had on the town, Dee,” Rochelle told Dora one night at the Alibi after last call. “Crooks are too scared to try anything. Maybe that’s just what it takes in a shithole like Gotham. The city’s so infested with monsters, we needed a bigger one on our side. Batman and his crew weren’t enough. And I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems like he’s sighted around here in Park Row more often than anywhere else.”

Dora found Rochelle’s about-face somewhat confusing, remembering just how afraid she had been when she first encountered Red Hood, the same night Dora had. When Dora asked her about that, she answered, “Well that was before I realized what he was doing, y’know? He’s made life much better for Ben and me.” (Ben was Rochelle’s fiancé.) “I’m not sure what Red Hood did, but he came around our building once, then our landlord suddenly wasn’t threatening us to call ICE on me anymore.”

“Yeah, that’s great, I guess,” Dora replied. The jury was still out in her own mind. In the days since Sergei’s murder, she had felt the relief that came from knowing she didn’t owe Black Mask half her profits every month, but it was only because of a vigilante that was basically a terrorist and mass murderer, nevermind that he only targeted other criminals. She still had nightmares and recurring pangs of guilt about what happened that night. And she hadn’t forgotten that she owed Red Hood protection money instead of Sergei and Black Mask now, however much less it was. She didn’t want to think what Red Hood was capable of if she didn’t pay up. What made it worse was that for some reason she still hadn’t quite figured out, she had hidden that fact from both the police and everyone else, including Rochelle and her own family. Dora had no idea what kind of trouble she would be in if they found out. It was like she was in the middle of another gang war, and she had barely survived one already.

After relieving Rochelle for the night, Dora was in the process of locking up, when someone knocked on the Alibi’s front plate-glass window. Dora saw Holly’s face beaming at her through the smudged glass pane. She undid the locks and let her in.

“Damn, Dee. How many locks do you have on this door?”

“Six deadbolts,” Dora replied, exasperated as she locked them all again. “Can never be too careful in this neighborhood... But hey... I haven’t seen or heard from you all week.” She noticed that Holly was favoring her right leg as she walked in. “Are you okay? What happened to your leg?”

“Oh? This? It’s nothing. Half-healed already.”

“Why haven’t you been replying to my texts?”

“Texts?” Holly looked confused for a moment. She felt around her pockets for a phone but came up with nothing. An amused expression appeared on her face. She said, “Oh. You only had my old work number. I threw that phone out.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t need it anymore. Gotta get myself a new phone, I guess...”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’m no longer turning tricks!” Holly pulled Dora into a tight hug, giddy with laughter, a bubbly noise that Dora had never heard from her before. Holly seemed like a wholly different person.

“What? Are you serious?” Dora pulled Holly away, and looked her up and down properly. The younger girl wasn’t dressed in her usual outfit—a form-fitting dress that left nothing to the imagination. Tonight Holly was wearing sneakers, jeans, and a t-shirt—and no make-up whatsoever. She looked like the sixteen-year-old girl that she actually was—poignantly reminding Dora of just how far Carla could fall if she didn’t get her act together soon.

“Serious as a heart attack.” Holly laughed again. “This Red Hood guy, Dee… He saved my life.”

“Yeah, I was there, remember? He saved my life too. And Rochelle’s.”

“No, I mean aside from that first time. You know Stan, right? My pimp?”

Uh oh. Dora felt her stomach drop. She could only nod, but the feeling of dread was already weighing down her stomach. Red Hood killed him.

“Well, Red Hood came around and… just…” Holly rolled her eyes, but the smile never left her face. “He tore Stan a new asshole, let’s just say—”

“Is Stan still alive?” Dora had to ask. Does he still have his head?

“Yeah, Dee, don’t sweat it. He’s still breathing.” But Holly snorted and shook her head, smirking. “Barely.”

“And you saw him? You saw Red Hood do it?”

“Yeah! After taking care of Stan and his goons, he rushed all the girls out, and rigged the brothel to blow.” A blush bloomed on Holly’s face as she massaged her ankle. “I tripped down the stoop and hurt my foot, so he picked me up, threw me over his shoulder and fucking parkoured his way down the block until we were safe!”

Taking a second to imagine it, Dora found herself impressed. The next second, she actually felt a twinge of jealousy. Rochelle and Holly had both been helped by Red Hood, both once more than she had. But almost immediately she was ashamed of herself. Get your head out of your ass. Think straight. That dude is dangerous.

Then something else occurred to her. She frowned. “Wait. Hol, what are you going to do now? With Stan gone, you’re out of a job, aren’t you?” If Holly were a little bit older, she would offer her a job at the Alibi, but it was already bad enough that she had let her drink there.

“Not quite.” Holly grabbed a bottle from the bar shelf and some tumblers from the counter. “Red Hood took over. With Stan gone, he set the girls up in a new place, with a new front, and a new madam. We have a madam, now, Dee! Not a slimy old pimp! How classy is that? Her name’s Ma Gunn. I’ve never heard of her before and she’s super old, but she’s legit as fuck. Turned tricks herself back in the day, was in the high-end escort biz for years. She’s Australian and posh as fuck, and doesn’t traffick and doesn’t force anybody on dates they don’t want to go on.”

“That sounds great, but if you’re not going on dates, what kind of work do you do for her?”

“I’m too young for dates she says, so I take care of matchmaking and scheduling mostly.” Holly put a cup of vodka in Dora’s hand, her smile beaming brighter. “Ma’s still having girls work the corner and the bars and her new brothel but she’s trying to set up an escort service for the whales and high rollers. I set up dates, book drivers, restaurants, hotels... I guess I’m basically a sex concierge now.”

Holly clinked glasses with Dora and downed her shot in just one gulp. However, Dora didn’t do the same. She never had a taste for vodka thanks to Sergei and his men. “Congrat—” Dora was interrupted by a loud bang muffled by the walls.

Holly wheeled around. “What was that?”

“I think it was the backdoor. Sometimes it swings open when it’s windy.”

Holly frowned. “I was just outside. It’s not windy tonight, Dee.”

Dora recognized the sound of the back door slamming closed. Someone had come into the kitchen. “Maybe it’s Rochelle,” Dora wondered aloud. “Or my mom.” Those two were the only other people than Dora that had keys to the Alibi. “I’ll check it out.” Dora made sure her pepper spray was hanging from her belt loop, then grabbed the aluminum baseball bat from under the bar. She had almost reached the kitchen door when it swung open. A short person burst out of it.

It took Dora a moment to recognize the figure because they were wearing an orange hoodie with a backpack strapped tightly to their back. “Carla?” Dora gasped.

Her little sister slid to a halt, pulling off her hood, her sneakers squeaking on the floor.

“Carla? Your sister?” Holly asked, head bobbing between her and Dora. “Aw, she’s so cute, Dee. She looks just like you. But, oh… Hey, what’s wrong?”

Carla was frantic, sweating bullets, out of breath, with a bone-chilling look of dread on her face.

“What are you doing here?” Dora asked. “What’s wrong?”

Her little sister didn’t answer any of their questions. Instead she vaulted over the bar and pulled open all the drawers and cabinets.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Dora yelled. “You’re not allowed back there! Stop!”

“Where’s Dad’s gun?” Carla shouted desperately. She fumbled underneath the counter. “Where is it?”

“What the heck do you need Dad’s gun for?”

“I…” Carla looked up at Dora, finally holding still for moment, but the quivering tears in her eyes made it clear she was panicking.

She looked her age now, or less, Dora thought; every part of her was shaking. “Carla, talk to me,” she asked as gently as she could. She handed Holly the baseball bat and held Carla’s face, wiping the sweat from her forehead and the tears from her cheeks. The girl trembled in her hands. “Talk to me, it’s okay.”

Carla didn’t look at Dora, but at Holly instead, blinking her wet eyes in confusion.

“That’s Holly. She’s my friend. She’s cool,” Dora explained.

Carla whimpered and shrugged off her backpack. “I’m sorry, Dee…” She unzipped it. Dora looked inside and her jaw dropped.

Holly peeked over her shoulder and gasped, “Holy shit.”

The backpack was stuffed full of bricks of white powder, tightly wrapped in plastic.

“That’s a lot of fucking coke!” Holly exclaimed. “What the fuck, Carla? How’d you get your hands on all that?”

“I was running product for my crew, but then some guys from another crew tried to steal it… I ran… but I don’t know if I lost them. I’m so sorry, Dora!”

“You’re part of a gang?” Dora didn’t know whether to feel angry, sad, or disappointed. What was certain, though, was how worried she was about her little sister. “Carla…”

But a loud banging penetrated the walls again. Carla yelped and jumped out of Dora’s grasp. “No! They found me! Fuck, Dora, we have to get out of here!” She grabbed a handful of Dora’s t-shirt and pulled her toward the front door. “They got guns! We have to run!”

Ptnng! Ptnng! Womp! The sounds made it clear that the men after Carla had shot the lock or hinges off the back door. The sound of several heavy footsteps came from the kitchen.

Dora looked at the six deadbolts locking up the front door all the way across the bar. She cursed. At the rate it usually took her to fumble through them, they would never escape in time. They were trapped.

[v0.3.15.1]

#red hood #redhood #jason todd #jasontodd #dccomics #dc comics #batman #red hood x reader #jason todd x reader #red hood x oc #jason todd x oc #fan fiction #fanfic #fanfiction

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shewhorunswithfandoms · 6 years

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Resistance Chapter 1

So. I’m going to regret this later. But this is the first chapter of a Young Justice fanfiction I’ve spent a long time writing. It features an original character (albeit a bit of a cliche one) but here you go~

Tags: @writing-yj @imagineyoungjustice

It used to be different. There used to be a time when people would laugh at the concept of real life superheroes. They didn’t appear all at once; they popped up slowly. It began with rumours in Gotham City of a vigilante, then Metropolis was attacked by aliens and Starling City gained a vigilante when they changed to Star City. At first, people didn’t believe the rumours. As more sightings headlined in their respective local newspapers, however, we began to believe, to hope. We began our downfall.

It all started when the Flash, Central City’s Scarlet Speedster, died. President Luthor is who everyone knew was behind the death; but any evidence implicating him would mysteriously disappear before it could be used against him. The Justice League wasn’t seen for nearly a week, assumed to be in grieving of one of the founding heroes.

We were wrong though. In our blind trust of these heroes, we forgot they weren’t perfect. We thought they had retreated to simply let the news sink in, but we could have never known they were really plotting. They call it Liberation Day, June 20th, 2009, or the day Superman murdered President Luthor and took over the government. He had melted Luthor where he sat, on the chair in the Oval Office. We laughed hesitantly, so very sure it was just a prank in bad taste. Our illusion shattered quickly, as we screamed in terror of these false gods.

Liberation Day was six years, nine months and twenty days ago. The Justice League and the golden days of safety are just fading memories to the younger generations. The Justice Lords and terror are our new reality. They rule with an iron fist, our every action watched by their cameras and spies.

Murmurs of a resistance sometimes catch my ear before they are quickly squashed. Murmurs saying the Bat isn’t dead, that he is trying to fix what happened nearly seven years ago. They are hard rumours to believe though, no one has seen even the Bat’s shadow since Liberation Day.

Batman wasn’t the only one to disappear. On that one day, on June 21st 2009, every single superhero who was opposed to the Justice Lords’ new rule just vanished. For the first few days, Gotham was a madhouse. The villains and gangs reigned superior. We all cowered like dogs and hid in our houses until the streets outside went silent. We watched as, one by one, every villain outside was systematically slaughtered by the Lords, only a few being left alive to go on and serve as deputies. The citizens of Gotham watched in horror, unbelieving that our so called heroes could do such a thing. Me? I watched it just as they did, with confusion and shock. I had grown up with these heroes. Superman was Uncle Clark to me, he was the nice one who always snuck me cookies. He was the one who helped convince Bruce to let me aid him as a heroine.

This was my family murdering people on the streets. I had shamed myself, saying I should be out there defending my neighbors as the blood filled the streets. Bruce’s order to give up my cowl and lay low had overridden any thoughts I had of running out there. I cried myself to sleep every night, hearing people cry out for the caped crusaders who had defended them before this. I cried because my friends, my family, were no more. I cried because this was not how it was supposed to be. We were here to protect people, not massacre the ones who dared to defy.

It hurts still, even now (six years, nine months, twenty days). Today is the day I’ve always been fearing, since the takeover and Bruce’s disappearance. The news was blaring out the headline Gotham rebel arrested and a picture of my former brother in arms, Richard Grayson. They had put out wanted alerts for every member of the Batfamily the moment we went underground. I hadn’t seen him in so long (six, nine, twenty) but I would know his crystal blue eyes anywhere. They didn’t have the same sparkle as they had before, he had grown a beard and looked so very thin.

“The notorious rebel Richard Grayson has been apprehended by Happy Harbor police this week. He has been #2 most wanted since Liberation Day almost seven years ago. He is being arrested for acts of treason, being an illegal vigilante in Gotham years ago and assaulting one of the Justice Lords. They are still searching for Bruce Wayne and Alexandria Kyle, #1 and #3 Most Wanted respectively. Please call your local police if you have seen either of these fugitives.” The news woman read off the teleprompter in an almost dead monotone, the screen switching to show pictures of the other fugitives. I blinked, hardly recognizing my own photo. I had not seen myself since I changed my appearance, and not heard my true name in just as long. I went by Abigail Ramone now, and looked nearly completely opposite of Alexandria.

My shocked gaze at the ancient television screen was interrupted as my phone rang. All use of cellphones had been forbidden, and contact restricted to only phone lines the Lords could monitor. I hesitantly crossed into the hallway off my living room, hovering over the phone as it rang a few more times. I had waited a tad too long, however, and the answering machine kicked on with a whirring, creaking, groan.

“Abby, it’s your Uncle Moony. I was hoping you could meet me at the park down the street from your mother’s old home tonight three hours before curfew.” A gruff voice crackled out of the machine, soundly awfully familiar for some reason. I didn't have an Uncle, let alone one named Moony. I glanced back to the living room, where the flat voice was still reading facts about Dick, Bruce, and Alexandria. It was suspiciously timed, a phone call from a fake Uncle and Dick getting caught.

“Most knew the three as former vigilantes in Gotham. They were the notorious Batman, Nightwing, and Feline. They all vanished after Liberation Day, and have not been seen until now. Wayne is believed to be somewhere around Keystone or Central City, while Kyle is believed to be in Coast City. In other news..” I turned the television off. I didn't get my hopes up on Bruce being near Central considering how off my supposed location was. I had stayed in Gotham because I knew that was the last place they would expect me to stay, and because I couldn't bring myself to leave the only city I’d ever known.

It was almost surreal still, seeing the Gotham of now. Don’t get me wrong, Gotham was still the most crime infested city in the nation. It still rank of corruption and drugs, but it didn’t hold a candle to the Gotham of yesterday. No more villains such as Poison Ivy and Riddler interrupted our days. Some had survived the first wave of massacre, fleeing to Arkham Island; but the Lords had actually been trying to drive them there. They sank the island, with all of it’s occupants. They hadn’t just killed some villains; they kill innocent workers and guards who had done no crime against them. All of the big bads had been there, Joker and Harley, Penguin and Killer Croc, Riddler and Ivy, Freeze and Scarecrow, Two-Face and Firefly. All of them gone the instant Lord Orin had commanded the ocean to swallow Arkham Island whole.

There was anarchy at first, various gangs trying to get their piece of Gotham until Lord Diana established her Amazonian deputies as the Gotham Queens. Most of the big cities had a ‘patron Lord’, which were the heroes who used to protect them. Metropolis became the new capital, with Lord Kal at the helm. Washington DC was destroyed when the Lords bombed the Hall of Justice to keep people from gathering there in protest. Lord Diana had chosen Gotham when Batman and his heroes went into hiding, knowing we would be formidable if we ever decided to try and take back Gotham. Lord Oliver had assumed Star City, establishing his deputies as Roy Harper and Ray Palmer when Dinah Lance had vanished. Lord Orin had returned to Atlantis after the Lords established their hold and hadn’t been seen since. Lord J’onn remained, to my knowledge, in the floating satellite the League had once called home, presumably to monitor any intergalactic threats. As for the rest of the world, all travel outside the country had been prohibited; our contact with the outside forbidden. We knew nothing of what happened to the rest of the world six years, nine months and twenty days ago.

I glanced back at the answering machine. The house that was listed on my forged papers as my childhood home didn’t have a park anywhere near it. The only place I can remember having a park nearby was my true home, which frightened me. Whoever that had been knew who I really was. These cover identities were secrets, shared only with the fellow protectors of Gotham. They were all set up when we first became heroes, and we worked hard on making them believable. We added paperwork to the trail, growing the covers as we grew ourselves. A glance at the clock told me I had just enough time to get changed and arrive early in order to get a good hiding spot to figure out who ‘Uncle Moony’ really was.

#youngjustice #fanfiction #batman #justice league #meg writes

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batfam-imagines · 7 years

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Paramedic Batsis Fic

Alright so this is the fic that @headless-creativity sent me! This whole fic is from them, I just did a little editing!!

If anyone else wants to do stuff like this just let me know! I’ll be glad to read and edit anything you guys send me

Gotham was in no sense of the word a ‘safe’ city to live in, you’ve lived here for twenty years so you’ve witnessed first hand how bad it can get. Sadly you grew up in one of the poorer areas which of course came with a higher crime rate as a result. You grew up in a small apartment with your mother who didn’t let you go outside much unless it was for school. She had told you from a young age that Gotham was dangerous and even your neighbors shouldn’t be trusted. When your mom had work she’d often have to take you with her since she couldn’t afford a sitter.

She worked as a nurse at a Wayne Enterprises Hospital and every day it was bustling and busy full of injured civilians and sometimes even criminals who needed emergency care and were later arrested. So busy in fact your mom often worked very long hours from six am till eleven at night. You knew it must have been hard, working so tirelessly every day, but you also admired your mother, she worked every day helping save the lives of people who didn’t even know her and probably didn’t care to.

Once you reached high school age you realized you wanted to be a part of that. You wanted to help save lives just like your mother! So every day after school you stayed at the library until your mom would pick you up after her shift. You started with the basic first aid and tried to learn as much as you could from there. However before you could make it to sophomore year that’s when things got harder. You were called to the office because you had gotten an emergency call from the hospital about your mom. She was on her way to work after dropping you off at school when a sudden building explosion caused large rubble to fall and crush your mother’s car. She was rushed to the ER by emergency responders but by the time the police had dropped you off she was in surgery. You sobbed in the waiting room, you were only fifteen! You weren’t supposed to lose your mother at this age!

After five hours of intensive surgery the ER doctor came to you and explained that your mother was alive, however she was in a medically induced coma and they weren’t sure how long it would be until she woke. You were at a loss of what to say, think, even do at that moment. That is until the doctor asked you if there was anyone for you to call? You explained through broken sobs that it’d just been you and your mother your whole life you didn’t know your dad or any of your mother’s relatives, it was just you two always. Now it was the doctor who was at a loss of what to do. You whimpered out a request to see your mother and the doctor really had no option than to let you until they figured something out. So you stayed by your mother’s bedside holding her hand and gently talking to her. You had read somewhere that it was important to speak with coma victims because they might actually be able to hear you and some doctors say they think it really helps. Even though you know she won’t wake up because the doctors are the ones keeping her in the coma, you can’t but hope that she hears everything you say.

After maybe two days of sitting and sleeping in your mother’s room you were visited by someone you’d never met. He told you his name was Bruce Wayne, he apologized to you about your mother and explained that he had met her once when she was working here. He said your mom was an amazing nurse and all her patients were always happy to see her. Bruce also told you that he wanted to help you by offering you a place to stay while your mother recovered. You were of course hesitant, you didn’t know this man, well you knew of him. His name was everywhere; one the news, on most billboards, on this very building you mother has worked in since before you were born. But you still had no idea of who the hell this guy was, outside of his billionaire persona he faced the world with, no idea who the man behind the flashing lights and big smile really was and that scared you.

He seemed to notice your concerns and combated them with a clearer explanation of his offer. “I only wish you repay your mother’s great work by giving her only daughter a home until she wakes up.” That’s what he said. You didn’t know what to do besides accept his offer, you had no home without your mother and no one had made a better offer to help you out You had heard that Bruce Wayne had adopted children before, two boys who didn’t have homes and they seemed to be living well. So, you accepted Mr. Wayne’s offer and allowed him to give you shelter just until your mother woke. You placed a kiss on your mom’s forehead and nodded to Mr. Wayne.

You arrived at the manor maybe half an hour later? It was very large about twice as big as the whole apartment building you and your mother had lived in. Bruce explained to you that he’d send someone to your building to collect some clothes and personal belongings for you. You nodded and handed him the spare key your mom gave you for emergencies. At the manor you met Bruce’s two sons; Richard “Dick” Grayson age nineteen and Jason Todd age sixteen. They were nice and welcomed you like a friend but you assumed that was only because of your situation. That day you were giving a guest room to stay in and you put your backpack by the bed sitting there wondering exactly what you were gonna do.

At about noon an older man knocked at your door he asked you if you’d like to have dinner with the family or if you’d rather have it in your room alone. You chose to take it in your room and thanked the man, now known to be Alfred, before he left. Eating your dinner of spaghetti, garlic bread, salad on the bed you wondered how long you’d be staying here. Hopefully not very long, you hope your mom would wake up before the week the school gave you to get sorted was up. Your hopes were squandered however when the week passed and you had to return to school while your mother still laid unconscious in her hospital bed. You tried distracting yourself with school in hopes of passing the time quicker but still made sure to visit your mother once daily.

It was a month later that the Wayne manor received a call very late on a rainy night that your mother passed away due to a brain aneurism caused by head trauma from the accident. You were woken by Alfred to the news and were of course completely devastated. Everyone tried their best to comfort you that night which to this day was one of the hardest nights of your life. The funeral the following week was small, just you and the Wayne family. You left your mother with a kiss to the forehead and a rose before she was lowered into the ground. Bruce opened his arms to you and you shakily slid into his embrace, the embrace of your new father who from that day on promised to take you in and raise you like he did Dick and Jason, as one of his own.

You continued high school for another two years and started your EMT training during your senior year. You had thought long and hard about what field you wanted to get into and you chose Paramedic because you wanted to be a First Responder, you wanted to be the person to help the wounded civilians get the emergency care they needed before reaching the hospital. You knew giving people this critical care was often the deciding factor in the survival rate of their emergency surgery and care. Paramedics were the same people who pulled your mother from the rubble and rushed her to the hospital.

When you went to college and got your two-year degree you went immediately to apply at the same hospital your mother worked in. You were given a job relatively fast which made sense you were once of the top trainees in you courses and you were very light on your feet. You knew you’d be busy and worked to exhaustion just like your mom, maybe even more so, Gotham’s crime rates have only risen since your mom worked there even with the constant help of the vigilantes Batman, Robin, and occasionally Nightwing and Red Robin. Still you knew you’d do everything you could just like your family has always done. You quickly gained a reputation as an outstanding Paramedic, one of the best in the whole of Gotham and you’d only been working eight months. You were also known for having a heart of gold since whenever a patient was in recovery and had no one there for them at the time you would step in and sit with them, keep them company when you were off shift.

You spent a good portion of your time at the hospital and that’s how you met Dr. Lillian Carson a heart surgeon who had been working there for two years and stole your heart in only half of one.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

You groaned and shifted away from the blaring alarm clock on the nightstand. Burrowing into the blankets further you tried desperately to try and regain some fraction of the peaceful dream you’d been having. A shift in the weight on the side of the bed you didn’t occupy didn’t really help with your efforts. A calm sigh came from above you as a body leaned over you and stopped the alarm with a simple press of a button. More weight shifted and then completely left the bed which left you with less body heat to accompany you in your blanket cocoon. Finally opening your eyes you let out a frustrated whine and sat up. A giggle was your response and you knew you’d have to get ready as well.

You watched from the bed as your girlfriend shuffled around the bedroom picking yours and her clothing off the floor and putting them in the hamper before making her way to the bathroom. You took the opportunity to grab some fresh clothes from the dresser and get dressed before starting breakfast for the both of you in the kitchen, you didn’t have work today so it was the least you could do for her. When she emerged from the bathroom she smiled at you and sat at the kitchen island to eat. You watched her with a smile, you always thought yourself very lucky, to have such a gorgeous and intelligent women by your side. She was taller than average for a woman of only twenty four about 5’8, she had long wavy black hair that was more often than not held up in a bun to keep from falling into her eyes at work, her skin was a pale olive accompanied with various little freckles, and lastly her eyes they were a warm deep brown color. Those same kind inviting eyes you’ve had the pleasure of seeing almost every day for the past year.

“So Doctor Carson, how many patients are we thinking today?” you asked smiling over your cup of coffee. She returned your smile with her own genuine grin she’d often give patients when giving good news. “There shouldn’t be too many actually, I have a lot of patients to look over but only two scheduled surgeries for today. If nothing comes up I should be home by nine thirty this evening.” You both found this good news, it wasn’t often she got off before eleven on good days, which meant today was an especially great day. “Well I don’t have patrol tonight so… wanna order in a bunch of your favorite take out and laze around at my place to kickstart the weekend?” you offered hoping you’d get some proper alone time with your girlfriend without work keeping you both busy.

“That sounds really nice.” she grinned and leaned in to place a soft kiss to your lips. “It’s a date.” She beamed before getting up to gather her keys and purse to head off to work. She waved to you as she left her apartment, you’d been staying there a lot recently and you’d both discussed just moving your things into hers but you hadn’t gotten around to packing up yet. Speaking of your apartment you needed to stop by and clean up the place for your date.

After cleaning and a few other house chores were done you took most of the rest of the morning to read. At noon you left to visit the manor and your brothers. It was spring break for the schools at the moment so Damian was probably home, Tim was there for sure but probably won’t leave his room, Jason was usually there on Fridays to get updated on any new possible crime activity, and Dick was probably working at the moment but he usually stops by for lunch. Pulling into the driveway you saw Damian sitting on the porch with Titus. Climbing the steps you smiled at the young Robin.

“Hey Dami. Why are you out on the porch?” You asked leaning down to pet Titus and hug Damian. He half smiled returning your embrace. “Hello (Y/N). I am waiting for Jon to arrive, he and I are to have lunch together and train before heading out for patrol tonight. Father is allowing us to work together tonight without his and Superman’s supervision.” He explained. This concerned you, Bruce was letting the boys go out alone on a night patrol? Damian must have sensed the shift in your demeanor and explained further. “I had to promise father that we would not engage any of Gotham’s more notorious criminals, just petty crimes, anything bigger than a one man armed robbery is off limits.”

You nodded and smiled at him. “Well, be careful okay? If you get in over your heads you know you can stop by anytime.” You ruffled his hair before heading inside. Lunch went by very quickly and you decided to spend a few hours at the manor to catch up with the family about their lives outside the vigilante world. You saw them four nights a week on patrol but work often kept you too busy for much else. So you tried your best to stop by at least twice a week to hang out. You were planning on bringing Lilian to dinner at the manor and introduce her to the family after you’d moved in with her and gotten settled. Hopefully that’d be soon too, you were really excited for her to meet them because you knew they would absolutely love her, well Alfred and Bruce would, the boys would probably do the protective brother thing at her first but then they would definitely like her. She was witty and didn’t take crap from anyone so you knew she’d be able to handle them with ease.

When the clock said it was four fifteen you decided to leave and start to get everything ready for your date. You pre-ordered take out from a few of Lillian and your favorite restaurants and had them ready to pick up at nine. You also put together a couple snack foods like nachos and cookies that Alfred taught you how to make. Turning on the tv you pulled up (favorite show) for the two of you to watch together. You’d gotten her into it and now you were watching in together on your lazy days. It was funny because she often teased you for being into it but got caught up in it after watching only one episode with you. After checking if everything was ready you checked the clock; eight forty-five, time to pick up the take out.

Pulling back into your apartment building’s parking lot you noticed your window was open and shadows moving in the light. You grew worried, Lillian wasn’t off for another half hour, you really hoped it was one of your brothers and not someone robbing you. Grabbing the take out and climbing the stairs up the third floor you came to your apartment door and took a breath before quickly opening your door. At that moment you really wished it had been a robber and not what you actually opened the door to.

“Damian! Oh my god!” you shouted and quickly slipped in and closed the door behind you to prevent any prying eyes from seeing anything they shouldn’t. Throwing the take out to the side you examined the situation with a careful eye. There was Damian in his Robin get up laying on your couch holding a towel from your bathroom to his side with blood seeping through slowly, he was applying pressure to slow the bleeding best he could. Jon rushed from the bathroom with more towels in his arms and a scared look all over his face. He looked to the door where he heard your yell. “He said you were the closest and that you’d be able to take care of it!” Jon said running up to you.

You quickly grabbed the emergency medical kit you kept under the kitchen counter to patch up your brothers and sometimes yourself, it held more than normal medical kits for bigger injuries. You ran to Damian’s side and gently grabbed his hand holding the towel to his side. You looked Damian in the eyes, “Buddy I need to move your hand for a second okay? I need to see the wound so I can assess the damage and fix you up okay?” You tried really hard to keep the worry out of your voice like with all your patients but this was your little brother! Damian moved his hand slowly and hissed at the spike of pain caused by the movement. You quickly but gently lifted his shirt and examined the wound. You quickly placed another towel over it and told him to apply pressure again. He had two bullet wounds at his side, they didn’t look to have hit any major organs but there was a lot of bleeding. You had dealt with bullet wounds before but didn’t have the proper surgical training to remove the bullet closer to his organs. And by the looks of the bloody towel and the blood on the floor he’d need a blood transfusion. You needed help. “You can help him right?” Jon’s worried and trembling voice interrupted your thoughts.

You turned to the boy, he looked close to crying and he was looking to you trying his best to not look at Damian’s bleeding body. “Yes and No. I need to get him to the Batcave for a minor surgery but he needs a transfusion too and the cave is too far from here.” You explained. Jon started to shake a little, he was scared, more scared then he’d ever been. “What do we do then?” You had to think fast you couldn’t let Damian die like this. Then it came to yours and Lilian’s apartment that was only three blocks away and you’d get there in a barley a few minutes in your car. You crouched at Jon’s side and grabbed his shoulders. “Look Jon I know you’re scared but I need you to be brave okay?” He looked you in the eyes and nodded. “Good I need you to very gently but quickly carry Damian to my car okay? I’m gonna drive us to a friend who can help.” Jon nodded again and gently picked Damian up and, with his super speed, rushed him quickly through the building and put him in the back of the car. You rushed out the door of the building with your cellphone at your ear and medical kit under your arm.

It rang twice and Lillian picked up. “(Y/N)? I was just about to head over I’ll be there-” “No! Lily stay at your apartment I need your help with a wound!” You rush out as you climbed into the driver’s seat and quickly pulled out and sped off. “What? Are you okay?” She replied through the phone. “I’m fine! It’s Damian! He’s been shot twice and I need you to take out the bullets while I start a transfusion! He’s losing blood quickly and he won’t make it to the Batcave or Hospital in time. I need you to prep the medical kit you keep there and clear everything off your guest room bed! I’ll be there in a minute.” You rushed out your words and hung up before glancing at the back seat from the rear-view mirror. Damian was still conscious but had started breathing heavily. You pulled into the parking area so quickly you didn’t really even park you just skidded into an open area and quickly got out directing Job to rush Damian to the second-floor apartment 106 as you ran behind him.

When you came in through the open door you slammed it behind you and rushed to the guest room when Damian was already on the bed with his wound showing. You rushed to his side as Lilian assessed the damage. “Grab the anesthetic from my kit and numb his wound.” she ordered without looking away from Damian. You rushed to the kit on the side table and placed yours down next to it before grabbing the anesthetic and filling a needle. You moved to the bed and looked injected the drugs close to his bullet wounds causing Damian to bite down on a cloth you assumed Lily had given him. You grabbed his hand and gave in a sentimental squeeze before moving to start a transfusion while Lily grabbed her tools to start the removal of the bullets. Luckily you kept O- blood at her apartment after needing a transfusion yourself a few times. You have Jon hold the bag up while you and Lillian worked together to remove the bullets in Damian’s side. Luckily with Lillian’s help the bullets were out and Damian was stitched up within the hour and you were now cleaning his wound and wrapping it up. Damian passed out soon after the stitches ended. Lily said he should be fine but we needed to monitor him closely for the night. You’d sent Jon to the living room to rest after insuring him Damian would be just fine.

You let out a sigh and stood after finishing dressing the wound. “Thank you Lily. You saved my little brother.” You hugged her tightly and let a few tears slip from your eyes. She hugged you back and gently rubbed your back. “You helped too. We both saved your brother (Y/N).” She smiled at you and kissed your cheek as she pulled away. Turning to him she sat at his side. “You call your family I’ll keep my eye on him.” You stepped into the master bedroom and used you ear com, used on patrol, to contact Bruce and the others and informing them of what happened and where you were. Mere minutes later the boys, Bruce, and Alfred were all at the door. They rushed in when you opened it and immediately questioned you.

“What happened?” Bruce asked. “According to Jon he and Damian were trying to stop a petty theft that concealed a weapon, by the time they had noticed he’d already pulled it out and shot twice at Damian. He got away but Damian needed medical attention badly. I couldn’t to everything on my own and the clock was ticking so I brought him here.” You explained. You allowed them into the room and they gathered around Damian. Lily stood next to you and watched the family fret over the baby bird. Bruce stood, coming over to Lily and shook her hand. “Thank you for saving my son.” He smiled at her. She grinned back at him and shook back firmly. “I didn’t do it alone sir, and it was really nothing.” She pulled away and slid her hand into yours. “Though this isn’t exactly how I expected to meet the bat himself.”

Bruce didn’t visibly tense but he was quiet for a second. “(Y/N) told me all about who you guys are.” she explained. Then all eyes turned to you including Damian’s who had woken up ten minutes after the family showed up. “Right” you sighed and scratched the back of your neck. “I was gonna introduce you guys after I’d moved in with her but this;” you motioned to Lily with your free hand. “Is my girlfriend Lilian. She’s a heart surgeon in the hospital I work at and we’ve been dating for six months.” You told them. There was silence for a few moments before Alfred walked up and grabbed Lillian’s hand, taking it in both of his and smiling at her. “I could not ask for a better women to be by Madam (Y/N)’s side, thank you again so very much for helping master Damian.” The others all started to pipe up with gratitude and greeting and Damian even smiled at her and said he was glad to have another place to come when he is hurt.

Then next morning everyone, including Jon, had left and had taken Damian to the cave for the rest of his recovery. Alfred had also had you promise to bring Lillian to a proper dinner with the family as soon as Damian was fully recovered. Sitting on the couch with Lily you pulled her close and sighed. “Sorry our date night didn’t go as planned.” she giggled at your comment and brought you into a passionate kiss. Pulling away she smirked at you, “Don’t worry it was exciting to say the least… and you can always make it up to me.” She winked at you. Blushing you hid your face in her neck and placed a small kiss there pulling her closer to you. Placing your forehead against hers you gazed into those warm brown eyes you loved so much. “Yeah, yeah I can.” you smiled at her and pulled her into another kiss. Later you’d have to clean the guest room and go to your apartment and clean the mess that awaited you there but for now you wanted nothing more than to focus on the amazing women you loved so much.

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batfamscreaming · 7 years

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Damian as TT Animated Robin

Robin’s family was a bit of a mystery. The Teen Titans knew and respected that as best they could. It was just hard sometimes.

Or: five times the Teen Titans wondered about Dick Grayson without knowing they were wondering about Dick Grayson.

TT AU with Damian as 16 y/o TT!Robin, mostly grown up and much more comfortable than his eleven year old canon self.

Starfire and Raven were the two newest to the world—growing up in another dimension or another planet entirely was definitely a pretty good way to avoid TV news and pop culture.

While Raven put effort into getting to know her new world, it was a rather localized affair. She made a point of knowing what nightclubs and cafes had open poetry mics, an overview of the governmental systems currently in place, how to obtain a library card, and other such things that directly affected her day-to-day existence. Starfire seemed to enjoy the thrill of discovery and the inevitable subsequent sharing of culture that would occur whenever her teammates discovered something she had not previously encountered, and likewise enjoyed telling her teammates of similar practices on Tamaran, or the lack of them, as the case may have been.

Usually, their lack of connection with Earth culture (and very specifically, urban, Pacific Coast, United States culture) meant very little in the grand scheme of things. If they were caught off balance, most civilians gave them a pass because slightly strange faux pas were hardly the worst or strangest thing costumed heroes had done, and the Titans at least were sanctioned. Someone would explain things, get it all cleared up within a few minutes, and any destruction of property was written off and paid for in the cash pool specifically set aside for the inevitable accidents a group of superheroes would cause. So long as their mistakes didn’t cost anyone their lives there was compensation, and the lack of Earth knowledge was an eternal work-in-progress.

All things considered, it should have been expected that neither Raven nor Starfire knew about Nightwing.

After her trip to the possible-future, Starfire had been so eager to explain and the rest of them spent the whole tale so rapt that the detail of Robin’s future identity was dismissed until the Boy Wonder himself sat back on the couch, fiddling with his Blorthog necklace, and said, mostly to himself, “So… ‘Nightwing,’ huh?”

“Oh! Yeah! I wanted to ask about that, Rob; isn’t Nightw—mmph!”

Cyborg froze midway through completing an online pizza order for the Tower and clamped a hand over Beast Boy’s mouth.

“Uh,” Cyborg said, “’Scuse him. I think he’s still a little weirded out that he’s gonna be bald at thirty-one.”

Beast Boy gave Cyborg a flat look, morphed into a goat, and bit his hand. “Yeow! Not cool, BB, not cool.”

“Enough,” said Raven, hair swaying ominously around her face despite the utter lack of wind in the tower. “It’s Blorthog. We’ve already fought enough today.”

Starfire nodded empathically, looking very pleased as Beast Boy shifted into a small, guilty-looking dog. Cyborg muttered an agreement, even as he nursed his slightly dented hand.

Robin’s lips twitched upwards just a bit, watching them. Situation successfully diffused, he said, “Cyborg, finish up that pizza order and I’ll go pick it up. It should be ready by the time the commute’s over. Anything else I should get while I’m out?”

Robin left the tower a few minutes later, stowing a Blorthog necklace and a laundry list of snack food into one of his many utility pockets.

Only once the R-cycle left the garage and reached the mainland of Jump City did Beast Boy dare to speak again. He turned to Cyborg, eyes wide. “Okay, but dude. You don’t think?”

“We shouldn’t be having this conversation,” Cyborg said, shaking his head but not covering Beast Boy’s mouth again. “You know Rob don’t like talking about home.”

“Uh,” Raven said, looking up from where Starfire had her weaving together a few more necklaces with her telekinesis. It was a surprisingly soothing task. “Is there something we should know about?”

Cyborg and Beast Boy exchanged long looks again.

“Dude,” said Beast Boy, “Literally everyone knows. It’s not like it’s a secret.”

“Is something the matter?” Starfire said, floating in closer to their conversation.

Cyborg groaned and shook his head. “Naw, no, it’s nothing wrong, or dangerous, or any of that. It’s just about—”

“—Nightwing,” Beast Boy said, leaning off the couch and splaying his fingers wide on either side of his head. “Robin becomes Nightwing? And you’re totally sure it was our Robin?”

“Of course!” Starfire said, nodding firmly. “Why would it not…?”

When she trailed off, Cyborg sighed and said, “Because the name ‘Nightwing’s already taken.”

000

Robin didn’t talk about home.

None of them did, really. They all just sort of assumed that whatever had forced them onto the streets of Jump City that fateful day months ago, it wasn’t anything they wanted to talk about all that much.

No one was really surprised if Starfire would rather talk about the parts of her life on Tamaran she enjoyed rather than explaining how she wound up on a slaver ship and why she didn’t feel like going home was an option.

Cyborg had half his body replaced with electronics, including half of his face and all four other major limbs, and no story with that as its conclusion was a particularly happy one.

Raven, for all they knew, might’ve just emerged out of a particularly dark and grumpy shadow one day, fully formed with the complete works of Edgar Alan Poe already memorized.

Beast Boy was similar enough to Robin—he’d arrived on the hero scene young enough that no one really questioned who he’d been before he were a hero, but no one really split off from their team, their family, without something having gone down.

The difference between Beast Boy and Robin was this:

Beast Boy told stories about his time in the Doom Patrol. For the first few weeks of their acquaintance, all he could do was make and explain inside jokes, retell adventures and victories, stumble through anecdotes, describe places he’d been.

A kid. That’s what Beast Boy was. A sad, lonely kid, away from his family for the first time ever, and feeling entirely that it was his own fault. He kept talking about them as if it would bring his old family a little bit closer. He kept telling those stories, making those jokes, until his affection for his fellow Titans became more genuine than a desperate bid for companionship. Then he made new jokes, started retelling their own victories, and settling into something like a routine, as haphazard and chaotic as it might have appeared from the outside.

Robin did not talk about his old team, despite being at least as well known if not more famous than the Doom Patrol. Despite his name being attached so heavily to a city on the other side of the country.

It was almost a policy in the Tower by their sixth month together—to the point where, once the Titans East was being formed and Honorary Titans started being a thing they wrote up reports about, guests in the tower were specifically told that the topic of Batman and his allies were strictly off limits.

Robin occasionally received mail from the East Coast, but no phone calls. There was only an emergency contact number. Robin’s standard emergency contact number was Titan’s Tower itself, but his emergency emergency contact was apparently connected to a very secret phone that they all liked to imagine as a bright red dial phone on a pedestal with a spiral cord connecting it to the wall.

That emergency contact number was, of course, to only be used in a suitable crisis. The Titans understood that by ‘crisis,’ Robin meant that by the time he admitted some of his allies from Gotham might be useful, all telecommunicative technology, satellites, and electricity must have been down for at least several weeks.

It didn’t seem to be out of malice, and that was the strangest thing about it.

“Maybe it’s pride,” Cyborg offered up one day, cooking in the kitchen with Beast Boy sitting on the counter, watching him.

“There is no shame in reliance upon one’s k’norfka,” said Starfire, fidgeting with her hands clasped in front of her chest. She hovered on the steps midway between the kitchen and seating area, unsure of where to settle.

“No,” said Beast Boy shaking his head, “But sometimes you gotta… you know.”

“No,” said Raven from her place on the couch, not looking up from her book and her voice monotonous, “we don’t know.”

“Okay,” Beast Boy said, looking down at his own kicking feet. “Maybe you don’t. But I get it. Sometimes you just… gotta do it alone. To prove you can. You know.

“Why must he prove such a thing?” Starfire looked horrified. “Robin’s k’norfka should know best of all Robin’s capabilities! He should have the most faith in him!”

“Maybe he’s not provin’ it to Batman,” Cyborg said, blinking like someone walking into a room and not expecting the lights to be on.

“Who, then?” Starfire said, a faint green glow encircling her in a way that threatened great harm to whoever had the power to hypothetically make Robin feel he had to prove himself.

“Well,” Cyborg glanced towards Beast Boy, “We shouldn’t be talkin’ about this. It’s his life. But there are rumors. You know. About Gotham’s vigilantes.”

Beast Boy nodded enthusiastically, a smile splitting his face the way it always did when they stumbled upon topics he had a particular interest in. He held up two fingers. “Gotham’s hero team is famous for two things: being reeeallly secretive, and infighting!”

“Uh,” said Raven, “What?”

“Not in front of other heroes when they can help it,” said Cyborg, quickly raising his hands like he had something to protect. He glanced around a bit, maybe in paranoia that Robin would be watching the video feeds, but considering no birdarangs flew through the room and no grumpy shortstack appeared in the doorway, it appeared they hadn’t yet been discovered. “They’re really, really careful about presenting a united front to the outside hero community and their villains, but Nightwing and Batman’s fights are legendary. There’s shadier rumors too, about… Joker? I think? That this mass murderer called Joker’s somehow connected to ‘em, or someone connected to Joker is connected to them? Like I said, secretive. If you get an answer out of one of ‘em, assume they’re not even giving you the whole truth. Probably only original-staff Leaguers know half of what’s going on in that family. But that team? They’re close, and they play stuff close to the chest.”

“That’s why Robin leaving was such a huge deal,” Beast Boy said, still grinning wide. His swinging legs had really gotten out of control, and his ankles banged excitedly against the counter. “It was all over the internet for months. There were TV reports about it! And he’s ours.”

“Yes he is,” Starfire said with pride, perhaps because she wanted the reassurance, and perhaps because the thin strands of information she’d been given thus far only made a cold weight settle in the pit of her stomach, and she found her feet drifting inch by inch closer to the floor.

000

Starfire started paying closer attention to news reports— and if Raven quietly showed her how to pick out truth from lies, and Cyborg printed out relevant articles for her, and Beast Boy showed her how forums worked?

Well. That just meant they were becoming closer as a team.

It was a low energy pastime. The sort of thing she enjoyed when she wanted to hang out with Raven, and Raven simply wanted to meditate, and as peaceful as it was to meditate, Starfire had a horrible time calming her thoughts. So sometimes, when she wanted to be around her dear friend and still respect Raven’s wishes for quiet, Starfire pulled out news reports. Usually, she found very little worth to them, but they passed the time, and felt better for trying. She thought they all feel a little better for trying, but if reporters in the exact city of a vigilante couldn’t keep track of their local heroes, what hope did she have, clear across the country?

Especially if she had more pressing things to attend to.

Robin never behaved rationally around Slade. It began with the same sort of frustration that Starfire felt over her useless news articles, but grew fully out of control within the first month of contact with the mysterious masked man.

Robin has a temper. They were all very aware of that—he tried to control it, but even little things like messing up a maneuver with Cyborg or a few repetitive jokes sometimes set him off. It was something he’s visibly worked on. Something the Titan have learned to understand, that they must learn to work around to be a functioning team just as much as Robin tried to work at controlling it.

Nothing compared to his temper around Slade.

Nothing compared to the way he exploded when Slade called him that name.

Raven looked more startled than any of them, for some reason having assumed Slade was speaking to her—perhaps she had been the target of such cruel words before?

But there was no need for a break in battle to explain the culture surrounding the word. Starfire had learned her English from Robin.

Each human had a personal vocabulary built up over the course of their life. A vocabulary of words whose meanings were not necessarily inherent to the rest of the world. The quirks of an individual person’s vocabulary would fade the more people learned from, and the more complete an understanding of language a Tamaranean could obtain, but Starfire had learned her English only from Robin, and Robin’s personal dictionary had a horrendous amount of emotion informing Starfire about the phrase, ‘demon spawn.’

Between her borrowed fury and the original source, the sladebots didn’t stand a chance.

Robin didn’t kill—he stuck to that rule viciously, regardless of the damage a criminal had caused. It was something Starfire didn’t quite understand, but it was a limitation she could admire. He did not kill, but he certainly could, and that was most apparent when he was fighting enemies he knew he was in no danger of causing mortal peril to.

The sladebots were the most common victims of this. There were so many of them that day, and Slade already had him worked into such a state—

He moved like a surgeon. He wielded his bo staff like a sword. Explosions followed him like echoes of his battle cry. He didn’t endanger anyone’s life but his own the whole time, or if he did, it was unintentional.

He carried the hurt personally when he endangered another’s life, as if he considered his skills so honed he should no longer be capable of making mistakes.

000

Raven said Robin’s aura was yellow like a sun, once. Flickering. Bursting. Starbursts. Full of energy and desire, and he pouts. And does a backflip.

He practiced flips in a different way than he did the rest of his training regimens. He trained himself hard enough as it was, but the flips were—set aside, somehow. He kept mostly to the ground, but when he was stressed or had an arm injured, or somehow in a state where his typical training patterns of pushups, and katas, and shadowboxing did not soothe him, he practiced flips.

“He’s so not made for air,” Beast Boy, whose mouth had just finished emerging from his hummingbird beak, helpfully informed them.

“Shut up,” Robin said, with the sort of clipped fondness that had long since stopped sounding threatening and verged far more into exasperation at this point. “So I’m not Nightwing. We can’t all be— ridiculous.”

But he huffed and dropped back into handstand pushups, and Beast Boy looked sorry he said anything.

If nothing else, Robin seemed to like flipping. Liked being able to do it.

000

“Popular opinion says Nightwing is Robin’s older brother,” Cyborg said. “No one really knows anything about him. Not where he came from, what his real name is; nothing ‘cept that at some point he trained under Batman, same as Robin did. If he’s not in Gotham, he works a city called Blüdhaven nearby.”

“Wait, dude,” Beast Boy said, brow suddenly furrowing. “How long has Robin been active?”

Cyborg paused to consider that. “…well.”

Raven frowned, looking up from her book. “Please don’t say something stupid.”

“Dude,” Beast Boy said, eyes growing wide. “What if there’s, like, multiple Robins?”

Raven groaned and buried her head back in her book.

000

It was months later, after Raven coaxed a hallucinating Robin out of the ventilation shaft, that they spotted the poster hung on the wall in his room.

They kept it quiet, but they were all moments away from using his emergency contact number that night.

Never before had they been so close to using it. Not when he was being blackmailed into apprenticeship, not when Terra nearly killed them all and leveled the city, and not when any number of other crises came and went. But that night, when Robin was shivering and hyperventilating and jumping at the shadows he usually blended with amicably—if Raven had not been able to enter his mind, they had only one other plan. Because any other plans they could think of were too extreme to even consider.

Raven didn’t tell the other Titans about the things she saw in Robin’s mind—a breach of trust that great would never be reparable, and they understood that. So she said nothing about the dark, tense cave filled with whispered oaths of justice. She said nothing about the light always at his back. She said nothing of the shoreline, long, sandy and tropical, with a warm breeze that both smelled like ocean salt and tasted like tears, though the face worn in the memory was dry.

She helped carry Robin to his room once it was all said and done, once the toxin was out of his system, once they knew the only other thing they could do was let him rest.

His room was impersonal, to say the least. Robin had done very little decorating. He’d brought very little with him to Jump. It was hard to miss the poster, under such circumstances.

She had seen a circus tent in his mind, yes, and the shadowed silhouette of a memory that was more sketch and imagination than the vivid trauma it would have been had it been his own—the folds of the tent matched exactly to what she recalled in the mental pantomime.

She asked Robin, privately, quietly, once he was conscious. Asked if she could ask about that poster.

Robin shrugged and looked askance, but smiling as if he’s trying hard to not let her in on some private joke. “It’s nothing. They’re just—the Flying Graysons. They’re some of the few people as worthy of admiration as Batman.”

Something tugged at Raven’s lips, because it sounded like a joke. It felt like a joke. It would taste like one, if she said it to herself. She’d only gone as shallowly into Robin’s mind as she could while still managing the connection, but it was enough to identify the golden flecks of emotion curling off his shoulders as private, warm laughter.

The bond was there, now. It wouldn’t ever be removed, but she’d done her best to skim over things as lightly as possible, not that minds and memories were particularly simple things to comprehend at a glance. She could spend hours going through a simpler, organized mind. Should could spend days trying to piece out one part of a person.

But there were somethings that shown brightly in his might. Bright enough they couldn’t be ignored. Splashes of blood off a sword. A small, red monster. A year of atonement. A whisper for the best you that you can be and a hand on his shoulder, turning into a hug, and tears, and—separate, distinct from that last memory?— the silhouette of a Batman whose a voice, made wispy by memory but still bright and sweet, laughed, and talked about flying.

000

It was Beast Boy who broke the silence. It was Beast Boy who, seeing Robin seize up about Slade one winter night, said, “Dude, no, we will actually call Batman this time if you do something crazy again!”

Robin’s mind left Slade immediately, which was good, but no one was immediately sure if the cost was going to be worth it. “’This time?’”

Beast Boy stuttered once and turned into a clam.

Robin rounded on the rest of the Titans, all looking away and whistling, distractedly twiddling their thumbs. They all knew when he arched his eyebrows. “This time?”

It was very hard to keep looking away.

“Friend Robin,” Starfire said at last, turning to fidget badly and finally made eye contact, “We have been… concerned. And very curious over where you come from. But very much concerned. And somewhat confused.”

“She’s sayin’ that sometimes we gotta ask questions, dude, but it’s hard to know when you really need help if you never say anything,” Cyborg said. “We all keep worrying about if it’s just gonna make stuff worse!”

Raven spoke just a moment after him, her usual monotone perhaps a slight bit faster than usual. “We understand that it’s a hard topic, and you have a lot of reasons for not wanting to approach it. But we’re your team now, and with how often this has come up, we can assume it won’t be a one-time thing. It’s natural to be curious, but even though we want to respect your privacy, there are some things that would be much easier if we knew what you needed before a crisis arose.”

Cyborg nodded. Beast Boy’s clam turned into a crab which clattered its claws vigorously.

Robin sighed and looked down at his shoes. Fingers curled in his cape. “Fine… maybe we should…. Talk.”

000

It wasn’t easy to decide how to approach the topic.

Robin’s caginess about Batman was something that had lived in the tower as long as they’d had a tower, and he’d gone to some lengths to distance himself from his mentor. Jump might’ve been the only place on Earth where his name didn’t come after, ‘Batman and…’.

That meant something.

It was hard to break down the barrier that had been erected between Jump’s sanctuary and the rest of the world, where people still asked Robin where his mentor was whenever their missions took them outside city limits.

Eventually, after about a week of toeing around each other, Raven lost her patience. They were having the talk, or they were going to sit down and talk about how to have a talk, but some progress would be made on the tension running through the building or she would hex them all into oblivion.

(They were all fairly sure she wouldn’t, but no one was willing to call her out on it right now.)

So, after sitting down together and having a talk about how to have a talk, they figured out how they were going to do this: over pizza.

Everything worked out better over pizza.

The team would ask questions, and Robin would answer (or censor himself, if necessary), and that way, the Titans would get their questions answered without Robin having to talk about Batman more than necessary or reveal too much accidentally by just not knowing what to say, since there apparently wasn’t really a ‘standard Batman and allies information briefing’ that he’d been trained to give. They really didn’t get out of Gotham much except to hang around the JLA, which was already so integrated to them that a briefing wasn’t necessary.

For that world, Robin breaking away from the family to go work elsewhere without connections to anyone but his other young heroes really was… new territory.

Some might say there would be an issue of eavesdropping or security cameras, having a talk in such a public place, but—well. The regulars at their favorite pizza place were fairly used to ignoring the Titans, or at least giving them a wide breadth, and Raven’s mere presence could do a pretty good number on security cameras, so they weren’t all that concerned.

Still, despite all their worry about how are we going to do this, despite the relatively viable plan they’d come up with, it was still hard to get started. Hard enough that by the time their pizzas arrived, they were still fidgeting and glancing around the table, waiting for someone else to start.

They were still being awkward and quiet when Robin paused, a slice of pizza half-dangling in his hands and his mouth partly open. “You know. Nightwing, was the first person to do this with me, actually.”

“’This’?” said Beast Boy, eyes suddenly alight as he rolled up his slice of pizza like a burrito and struggling to chew through three layers of crust.

“Pizza,” Robin said, setting his slice back down on the plate and shrugging. “Eating pizza. Going out to eat pizza. In uniform. Out of uniform. After patrol. He was the first person to do that with me. Ever.”

“Dude, ever?” Cyborg said. Then he paused, his face falling thoughtful before he leaned forward over the table, pointing a finger. “Wait, no, this is a misdirection thing, isn’t it? How old were you at the time?”

“Ten.” Robin grinned.

“No pizza until ten,” Cyborg said, breathless. “Seriously, man?”

“Very seriously,” Robin said. “I think we made the papers when we did it. Robin and—well. Him. Caught eating in a pizzeria after patrol. Still in full costume. I think we were banned from the premises after I broke the plate, but I don’t think the owner could’ve stopped us from coming back if we’d wanted to. The next place we found liked us better, though. I think they enjoyed the publicity.”

“Can I look it up?” Cyborg said. “I mean, not to invade privacy or anything. I haven’t looked anything up before! Like. Just to clarify. But you made the papers?”

“We might’ve,” Robin said, then hesitated again. “….I doubt you’ll be able to find it.”

Cyborg took the hint and closed his arm screen.

“Why not before?” said Starfire. “You seem to enjoy the pizza very much.”

“I do,” he said, finally taking a bite and swallowing quickly. “And that is very confidential.”

“Oh,” Starfire said, before shaking off the slight frown on her face and pulling out a bag of her personal condiments brought from the tower to start adding to her slice of pizza.

“Why did you leave?” Raven said. “I think that’s what everyone really wants to ask. Why come to Jump?”

They all expected him to say it was confidential as well. Instead, he sighed a bit and leaned back in his chair, abandoning the pizza once more. “…I needed to leave.”

“Needed?” said Beast Boy through his mouthful of burrito-pizza.

Robin nodded. “…It’s complicated. There were too many voices in my head. I had to get some time for myself. Sort myself out. Become my own person without someone hovering over me all the time.”

“So you came to Jump of all places?” Cyborg said at the same time Beast Boy said, “Voices?”

“Well, Batman actually suggested a monastery,” Robin said, his eyeroll audible in his voice as he propped his head up on his palm. “…which I might’ve spent a little time at when I was thirteen. But no, Nightwing suggested just going out, finding somewhere that needed me, and settling down. That’s what he did. I just don’t think he expected me to go quite so far. His rebellion still left him in a thirty-mile radius. Obviously, I had to one-up him.”

Robin was grinning, relaxing whole table some as he finished speaking. “So I discarded everywhere on the East Coast; wanted somewhere warm and bright so I traveled around some, and when I came here, I… ran into you guys.”

“Voices,” Beast Boy repeated again, before anyone else could comment. “Expand on the voices.” Robin’s second eyeroll was just as pronounced as the first. “Not literal voice, BB.”

Beast Boy narrowed his eyes. Robin huffed. It might’ve been a sigh.

“Look, ever since I became Robin, I’ve had people telling me what I am and what I’m not, proving myself, and… it was a lot. G—Nightwing and Batman got some warning so they wouldn’t panic and think I’d regressed or something, and I left.”

“Dude, did you just say G’Nightwing?” said Cyborg.

Beast Boy picked up another piece of pizza and giggled, “G’Nightwing.”

Unfortunately, Starfire adopted his one-word questioning tactic and asked, voice full of concern, “…regressed?”

This time, Robin shifted uncomfortable and twisted one of his arms around, trying to think of how to answer. “Let’s just say they don’t call Hood ‘the mean Robin’ anymore.”

He really wasn’t sure what to make of the slow-spreading grin on Beast Boy’s face. “I told you there was more than one Robin!”

For a moment, the whole table was silent. Then, Robin started laughing.

Which was alright at first!

And then he kept laughing.

And then he fell out of his chair.

Whatever respect or camaraderie kept the citizens of Jump from eavesdropping was severely tested as the few tables filled around them glanced over nervously at the boy wonder rolling breathlessly on the floor.

“Grayson’s well into his thirties!” Robin gasped out once he could crawl back into the chair, still gasping out laughs in the face of his friend’s stunned silence. “My predecessor’s finally reached the twenties—”

“I told you so,” hissed Cyborg as Robin’s laughing tremors finally died down somewhat.

“Did you…” Robin said, still regaining his breath from his laughing fit and clutching his stomach. “…did you really mistake me for the first Robin?”

“Uh,” said Raven, “I think he mistook you for all Robins.”

“You gotta admit, dude, Batman hasn’t exactly announced that he took in a lot of partners,” Cyborg said. “…or, well, I guess he has a lot of allies. But not partners.”

“All his allies are his partners,” Robin said, grinning, and climbing back up the table to try and get into his seat. “It’s awful. You really mistook me for the first Robin?”

“Your costumes are confusing!” said Beast Boy, throwing his hands up.

“Our costumes are totally different,” said Robin, leaning in over the table. “Cyborg, find some footage of Robin from two decades ago. You’ll see. People just haven’t noticed because the change is always so gradual, and unless you’re in Gotham watching, no one really comments. Though the GCPD always threw a fit, apparently.”

Starfire made a curious noise.

“They never liked how young we were,” Robin said, still grinning.

“You are warriors, though,” she said, cocking her head.

“I am,” said Robin. “But most ten year old humans are just kids.”

“Oh, wow, he looks nothing like you,” Cyborg said, staring at his arm computer. Robin snorted.

“Thanks.”

“I meant it in a good way!”

“So did I!”

“He lacks Robin’s bo staff,” Starfire said, leaning over to watch the footage with interest.

Robin nodded, looking away from the footage to address her instead. “He can use it, but he prefers escrima. My predecessor used the staff, mainly. I took it up to piss him off.”

Raven huffed in what was probably repressed amusement. Robin grinned beside her, saying, “Never underestimate the power of infighting.”

“May we see him, as well?”

“There’s not much footage of him as Robin, as far as I’m aware,” Robin said, pulling out his phone and flicking a video hosting website. “He was way too camera conscious. But… ah. Yes. He was too emotionally compromised when he started out as Red Robin and got caught on camera several times.”

He turned his phone over to the center of the table and began to play the video.

Cyborg winced as a particularly loud thwack! sounded from the footage. “Oh, geez.”

“Like I said. A little emotionally compromised,” said Robin, not sounding sympathetic in the least.

“…what was goin’ on at the time?” Cyborg asked, hesitant but clearly dying to know. Robin pressed his lips together and thought that one over again.

“Ah… I… had only just become Robin, and… it’s confidential. Just. Something bad had happened to Batman and no one was handling it particularly well.”

“Right,” Cyborg said, nodding, and clearly trying to find a question that wouldn’t be quite so volatile. “So you all… you’re Robin and then, one day, you what, graduate? Like a weird substitute high school?”

“Er,” Robin said, tensing again and struggling to find an answer. Cyborg’s teasing smile faded as the rest of the Titans glanced at each other. “That’s… complicated enough to be called confidential, but… no one’s left the Robin position in happy circumstances.”

“Oh,” said Cyborg. Then, deciding he wasn’t doing too well with asking questions and watching his friend get upset, said, “Sorry, man.”

“It’s fine. I plan to be Robin for a long time yet.” He paused and glanced down at the table. “Though they did, too.”

No one was really sure what to say to that. The conversation fell into silence, and they ate their pizza.

Alternate Ending: Immediately after ep 61, “Revved Up,” where Ding Dong Daddy steals an attaché containing something secret that is “extremely precious” to Robin, and challenges the Titans to a race with the case as a prize. Red X arrives before the call to villains even goes out, spends the first part of the race trying to defeat Robin. However, he crashes due to sabotage, but after being saved by Robin and reassured that whatever is in the case is “extremely personal/important” X disables the other villains competing so that Robin can face DDD alone. He vanishes soon after. At the episode’s end, Robin opens the attaché, allowing the Titans to see what is inside.

“All of you took a risk to help me protect this. It’s only fair that I show you what’s inside.”

“You don’t need to do that, Robin. Sometimes, secrets aren’t meant to be shared,” Raven said from behind him.

“Even with your best friends,” said Cyborg stepping closer.

“I used to think that,” Robin said. “But not anymore.”

He opened the case.

Then, just as he was about to let go of the top half of the case, he hesitated.

“I trust you,” he said, still partly blocking what was in the briefcase with his body. “I can only hope you’ll accept this, but I’ll accept responsibility for showing you.”

“Is it really that big of a secret?” Cyborg said, leaning in closer. Despite his words, he was very clearly curious about the ‘personal secret’ that had so upset their leader by its absence.

“It’s the most important secret I have,” said Robin, and then he stepped aside.

In the briefcase, shattered into three parts, was a sword.

It was cushioned by papers. Photographs. Newsclippings. But the sword lay above those all, drawing the attention of all the Titans. It was curved slightly, with a woven handle and diamond hilt.

“Dude,” said Beast Boy, “That’s it?”

Cyborg elbowed him in the shoulder.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Starfire said, kneeling down beside Robin, not looking at the sword, but at the Boy Wonder himself. “Can you explain?”

“This was my sword,” Robin said, voice flat and harder than it had been since the early days of the Titans. It wasn’t an angry tone, but it was very serious, and what he usually defaulted to when his emotions were running high. Starfire sent a worried look towards Raven, who shook her head. “I wasn’t always a hero.”

Hesitantly, Cyborg put a hand on his shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze. “What d’you mean?”

“Slade wasn’t the only one who wanted me to be an assassin,” Robin said. At the name, all the Titans stiffened. “Before I met Batman, I was raised by a man called Ra’s al Ghul.”

Of all people, it was Beast Boy who gasped at that, eyes widening in understanding as he said, very quietly, “No...”

“Ra’s al Ghul?” Cyborg said, glancing between his two best friends, concern growing on his face. Robin nodded to Beast Boy when the boy’s wide eyes met his own masked ones.

“Ra’s al Ghul is the head of the League of Assassins,” Beast Boy said, his voice a whisper.

His eyes were wide and afraid.

#dun dun dun there you have your season 6 #teen titans #teen titans animated #damian wayne #robin #starfire #raven #beast boy #cyborg #beatext #beafic #fanfiction

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