#followed by bus but listen i prefer the subway

[grantgoddard]

Rich man, dead man, radio man, spy : 1995 : John Kluge & Natalie Slepova, Radio 7

He was dead. He was definitely dead, his face turned blue from the extreme cold. His body was lying face-up on the street, at the top of a staircase that led from the subway station below. I was amongst hundreds of commuters that morning who were forced to crowd to one side of the exit to avoid tripping over his corpse. Nobody gasped. Nobody said anything. Nobody stared. Nobody stopped. We all remained focused on our daily journeys to work, trying not to contemplate the precarity of our own lives.

My commute to work was arduous. I had to take two subways and then an overcrowded bus. The subway was complex to navigate and I sometimes discovered I had travelled the wrong direction or alighted at the wrong stop. I always boarded the bus at its rear door without a ticket. Not because I could not afford to pay, but because I had no idea how or where to purchase a bus ticket. The job of the bus driver was simply to drive the bus, not to sell or check tickets. During several years making this journey, I worried constantly that a ticket inspector would board the bus and bundle me away forever for having broken some law. But it never happened.

I arrived at work to be informed that this was a special day. Later that morning, a coach pulled up outside our workplace. It was no ordinary coach. It was huge, the size you imagine a football team might need, and it had darkened windows. I was amongst a line of colleagues stood waiting in the cold, opposite the door of the vehicle. It opened and several men in sunglasses and dark suits emerged, marched around the vicinity and eventually radio-ed that our location appeared safe. They completely ignored us. There was yet more waiting.

Then the coach door opened a second time and a frail old man walked slowly down the steps. He was eighty years old and his name was John Kluge. He had been named number one on Forbes’ rich list in 1987, the richest man in America. The previous year, he had sold his local television stations for four billion dollars to Rupert Murdoch, who had relaunched them as his Fox TV network. Kluge had used part of the cash to acquire all sorts of businesses, one of which he had deigned to visit that day.

Some minutes later, I was surprised to see a young woman coming down the steps of the coach. Despite the cold, she was dressed as if she had just spent the morning in a Venice Beach café. The contrast in age with Kluge could not have been greater. Maybe this was his daughter, I thought. Maybe his grand-daughter? Surely not his girlfriend? His ‘companion’? Possibly a future fourth wife? I am not certain I ever understood her identity. Apart from the ‘men in black’ and the presumed coach driver, this bizarre couple were the only passengers we saw exit the huge vehicle.

In between the parked coach and our offices located in an oversized hut, our American manager Mike Lonneke was warmly greeting his billionaire employer, overlooked by a stone bust atop a column … of Lenin. Extreme communism came face-to-face with extreme capitalism that day … on the outskirts of Moscow. We were in a large, high-security park where, only years before, a powerful Soviet radio ‘jamming’ station had created deliberate interference to broadcasts by the Voice of America and BBC. Post-Perestroika, Kluge’s business, Metromedia International, had acquired a radio station located within the park named ‘Radio 7’. Lonneke led the team charged with turning around the business from the least listened of Moscow’s 30-odd stations to top of the ratings.

Within the line of personnel greeting Kluge that day was Russian citizen Natalie Slepova. Following Kluge’s purchase of the station, its entire staff had been sacked and replaced … except for Slepova. Apparently, Russia’s arcane laws prevented employers from sacking single mothers, so she had remained on the staff. She printed her own Radio 7 business card with her preferred job title. She came to the office when she wanted, such as an occasion like today. A job in Soviet Russia had seemed merely to confer entitlement to an income, rather than an onerous responsibility to perform tasks that would be evaluated. No Annual Reviews there.

My work in Moscow required almost no interaction with Slepova, so it came as a complete surprise when one day she invited me to lunch. It would have been rude (maybe fatal?) to refuse. I was told to meet at her apartment, rather than at the radio station. Most Russian city dwellers lived in horrible high-rise concrete apartment buildings that resembled Britain’s worst post-War council estates. I found her building near the Kremlin to be a mini-palace with high ceilings, enormously wide staircases and gigantic ornate doors sized for giants. Think regal Paris chic rather than Ronan Point. If her circumstances were intended to impress me, they certainly did. But how could a single mother afford to dwell in such opulence?

We ate at a reputedly excellent restaurant in a city centre shopping plaza. The food was predictably awful. Slepova asked me dozens of questions, but not casual enquiries about me and my work. She wanted to know details about how Metromedia was organised and its long-term objectives. The only accessories missing from this inquisition were the rope around my chair and the spotlight in my eyes. I offered her no information, not only out of reluctance, but more so because I was merely a distant foreign contractor to Metromedia who knew next to nothing about its strategy. Despite my years working for the corporation, I never had a contract, a job title or even a letter of agreement. Lunch over, Slepova barely acknowledged me from then on. Evidently, I had proven completely useless to her.

To compare Moscow in 1995 to the Wild West is do it an injustice. It was much more frightening than that. Several unexplained ‘incidents’ I witnessed involved the radio station. Shortly after my arrival in Moscow, its American advertising saleswoman had been dining with potential clients in a restaurant when masked men stormed in, shot dead everyone at an adjacent table and ran off. The next day, she resigned and booked the next available flight back to the States. The restaurant cleaned up and reopened for business as if nothing had happened. So much could be witnessed in Russia that was never reported.

It was evident to foreign observers that Russian president Boris Yeltsin had been demonstrating increasingly erratic behaviour during his foreign excursions. Reputedly an alcoholic, Yeltsin had refused to leave his plane at Shannon Airport to meet the Irish prime minister in 1994. Bill Clinton alleged that, on a visit to Washington in 1995, Russia’s president had been found on the street drunk, in his underwear, trying to hail a taxi to a pizza restaurant. Yeltsin had already suffered several heart attacks and a quintuple bypass operation, so it was perceived as credible that he might die on the job.

I was asked by Radio 7 manager Lonneke to create a procedure for the station’s DJs to follow, should they learn that Yeltsin had suddenly died. He was concerned that, should a presenter continue with the popular music format following the president’s death, it could provide the government with an excuse to cancel the American-owned station’s licence. I wrote a list of instructions for the DJs, scripted appropriate announcements to be read and purchased CDs of sombre Russian classical music. My document was translated into Russian, placed in a plastic wallet with the CDs and taped to the wall of the studio under a large sign: “If the president should die, open and follow this procedure.”

Within a matter of days, I arrived at work to find unusually that the overnight DJ was still present and was upset. Apparently, in the middle of the previous night when he had been the only person present in the building, several men wearing balaclavas had burst into the studio. They seemed to know exactly where to find the instructions I had written in case of Yeltsin’s death, had ripped the plastic wallet from the wall and made off with it. They had neither identified themselves nor explained their actions. It was a dramatic raid on our little radio station.

The walled and barb-wired park in which the station was located always had armed government security guards at its only entrance, to whom I was required daily to show my identify card and clearance document. How had the masked intruders entered the property? The guards could offer no rational explanation. How did the raiders know where the station’s unmarked building was within the park? How did they know exactly where to find the document in the radio studio? How did they even know that such a document existed?

It was apparent that, as a result of us having contemplated the possibility that Russia’s president might die in service, we had attracted the attention of forces much bigger than us. The evidence pointed to the worrying conclusion that the overnight raid could only been the outcome of a knowledgeable informant having observed intimate details about our radio station’s operations. We would never know for sure who that insider could have been.

[thinkingaboutyoungroyals]

Falling For You But You Are Worlds Away: Chapter 3

A/N: I had a day off from school and finished some of my homework so I had some time to write. Please don't expect this consistency, it's a rare occurrence lol

AO3

Simon’s stomach was in knots all day. Several times, he felt the urge to rush to the restroom and throw up.

His first couple of days in New York went fine. His aunt and cousin showed him around all the tourist areas, bought him souvenirs, and took him to their favorite restaurants. He even got a picture with Elmo at Times Square. (Why were there so many Sesame Street characters?!) They also got him a new phone number, showed him how to navigate the bus and the subway, and talked to him in English so he could practice.

Simon’s English wasn’t terrible, per se. He grew up watching shows and movies in English with Swedish subtitles. And he didn’t do too bad in his English classes. But, he never had to speak it 24/7 before.

So, when he walked into his new school with Ana, he was immediately bombarded with all the English words, phrases, and slang – it all made his head swirl. Ana introduced him to some people she knew, they spoke to him in English, and he stumbled through his answers. And, sadly, because Ana was a grade ahead of him, he was left alone to fend for himself when it came to time to go to classes.

He did manage to fake confidence, introducing himself to his classmates and answering a few questions. He could follow the lessons just fine and answered when called upon by teachers (except in American History, he definitely needed help there). But, for the most part, he stayed quiet.

At lunch, he sat with Ana, who introduced him to her friends. All three were girls. Two of them were Latina, Alicia and Luz, and one girl was white, Elizabeth (“You can call me, Liz,” she told him). They spoke to each other in Spanish (even Liz) and it was the first time all day that Simon felt the unease in him boil down to a simmer. It was still there but hearing the familiar language was a comfort.

And he now knew why Ana insisted they packed lunch – the school’s food didn’t look that appetizing. Even Hillerska had better food. (And thinking of Hillerska made him think of Wille, which just made him feel depressed again.)

When his last class of the day finally dismissed them, Simon was ready to go home and take a nap. He was exhausted – physically and mentally. But, Ana had other plans.

“Hello, everyone! As you can see, we have someone new joining us today!”

She gestured to him with a flourish and Simon blushed in embarrassment as many eyes focused on him – curious and interested.

“This is my cousin, Simon, he just moved here from Sweden. I hope everyone makes him feel welcomed. Please don’t scare him off.”

Simon awkwardly shuffled his feet as he waved. “Um… Hi… Um… I’m Simon. Sorry, uh, my English isn’t very good. But, I’m practicing.”

He was met with silent nods and Simon almost sighed in relief. Almost.

“You look familiar!” A guy with long blonde hair piped up from the back.

Simon’s stomach churned and he wanted to run away. No one was supposed to know who he was. They reassured him that the whole thing died down fairly quickly in America. How many of these kids have watched the video?! Did they know who he was as soon as he walked in?!

“You look like a Spanish version of Nick Jonas!” continued the guy.

The churning calmed a little.

Ana glared, placing her fists against her hips. “Shut up, Darren. Simon is not the Spanish version of anyone.” She paused and glanced at him. “But, if he is, he would be Harry Styles.”

“It’s the curls!” a girl with dark hair with pink tips called out with a grin. “They’re really cute!”

Before he knew what was happening, Simon was bombarded with compliments about his hair and face. He could swear he had never been as red in his entire as he was in that moment.

Soon, a different guy stepped up, willing everyone to calm down with his hands. “Okay, everyone, stop simping over Ana’s cousin. It’s time to start the meeting! We have a lot to talk about today!”

Ana nudged Simon and gestured with her head to the back of the classroom. Simon followed her. She took a seat next to the window. The empty seat beside her was across from the guy who spoke up earlier.

As the guy at the front (“That’s Dominic, he’s the president of GSA,” Ana had whispered to him) began to go over the agenda for the day, the guy next to Simon leaned over.

“Hey, I’m Darren,” he whispered with a toothy grin. “I’m your resident pansexual.”

Simon bit his lip and whispered back. “Simon. Do we… have to share our sexuality here?”

Darren chuckled and shook his head. “Nah, you’re not obligated to. Some people are here just as allies but a couple do end up figuring themselves out. So we tend not to label or share labels. But, I don’t give a shit, I want everyone to know they have an equal chance of dating me. So, that includes you.”

He winked and Simon, to his horror, felt himself blush again. He was just gonna end up looking like a tomato by the time he returned to Sweden if he kept this up.

“Darren! Anything you wanna share with the class?”

“Nope, prez. Just welcoming our new member. Please proceed, you know we love listening to your gorgeous voice.”

Dominic raised an eyebrow at him before getting back to what he was saying.

“I’ll get you to say ‘yes’ to me, eventually,” Darren muttered under his breath.

Simon couldn’t stop a chuckle from leaving his lips. Darren flashed him a grin and, for what it was worth, Simon finally felt a bit at ease.

He snuck a look at Ana, who caught his eye and smiled, encouragingly.

Maybe she was right. He could meet new people here and make new friends. Maybe, for just a few months, he could forget everything that happened in Sweden and just be... back to normal.

He was willing to try. If only this empty feeling inside him would go away.

.........

If Wilhelm thought that Christmas break without Simon was bad, being at school for a month without Simon was worse. Everywhere he looked and turned, he half expected Simon to be there, looking at his phone or eating a clementine or flashing Wilhelm a smile that made his cute dimples appear.

More times than he could count, Wilhelm had run after Sara, practically begging her for any information on Simon. The girl always refused him.

“Give her time,” Felice said to him one day after another failed attempt. “She loves her brother and she’s on his side.”

“I just want another chance to apologize,” said Wilhelm. “I want to make things right. And I want to at least be friends with him again.”

Felice wrapped an arm around him. “You will. Just give it time, okay?”

Wilhelm had agreed, if only to reassure himself that he was going to be fine. Maybe the longing would stop. Maybe he would wake up one day and just accept the fact that Simon was no longer in his life.

He knew it was all a big fat lie but it was okay to dream, right?

Which was why he decided to take his chances that one Saturday. Students were allowed to leave the school grounds on weekends to visit the town, if they so pleased, so Wilhelm took advantage of that. With Johan driving and Malin in the passenger’s seat, they left Hillerska for the day and headed to Bjarstard.

His stomach was filled with butterflies. Excitement or nerves, he wasn’t sure. Maybe it was both. He ran over various things to say in his head. But, when they pulled up in front of the familiar one-story home, he forgot it all.

Nevertheless, he raised his chin and marched with determination to the front door. He hoped Simon was home. That Wilhelm could finally see him. That they could finally talk. He just hoped he wasn’t overstepping any boundaries, that was the last thing he wanted to do.

Clearing his throat, he raised a fist and knocked, firmly and loudly, against the door. It took a minute but, eventually, it slowly opened, very slowly.

Linda peeked out, looking wary and cautious. But, when she saw Wilhelm, the guarded look switched to surprise.

“Wil… Your Royal Highness,” she greeted with a slight bow of her head.

Wilhelm hated it. He preferred Linda’s casual treatment of him as if he was any other kid. He supposed he didn’t deserve that anymore after what he did to her son.

“Wilhelm, please,” he said to her, managing a small smile. “Hello, Linda.”

The woman smiled, fondly, and she opened the door a bit wider. “Hello, Wilhelm. How are you, cariño?”

The gentler tone eased his worries.

“I’m… fine.” He cleared his throat. “Um… Is Simon home?”

Linda’s smile disappeared. “Why?” she asked.

Wilhelm flinched, hating that the guardedness in her voice was back. “I just want to talk to him. He left Hillerska and I… I just want to apologize again and… Please.”

He must have looked rather pitiful because he could practically see Linda’s resolve melting. She stared at him for the longest time, contemplating. Finally, she nodded and let him in.

Wilhelm’s heart skipped a beat and he had to hold himself back from running in and calling out Simon’s name. Malin, dutifully, followed behind him, shut the door, and stood guard.

“You can head on to the living room,” said Linda. “I’ll make us some tea.”

Wilhelm nodded and did exactly that. He made himself comfortable on the lumpy couch and looked around. The place looked neat and chaotic as always. A basket of Simon’s favorite, clementines, was placed at the center of the coffee table. He once told Wilhelm that it was the one fruit he couldn’t live without.

Then, he spotted a new addition against the wall that led towards the bedrooms. Well, not new per se but it was no longer in Simon’s room. (And, thinking of Simon’s room led him down a path of memories that made the longing in him increase tenfold. Where was Simon? Was he out for the day? Wilhelm would wait until night if he had to.)

“Here we are.”

Linda arrived with a tray filled with two mugs of tea and a plate of cookies. She placed it on the coffee table before handing one of the mugs to Wilhelm.

“Thank you,” he said taking it and looking back at the fish tank that was now placed against the wall. “Why did Simon move his fish out here?”

Linda, who was in the middle of placing the plate of cookies on the table, looked up towards the tank. A sad smile graced her lips.

“Well, I have to remember to feed them now so it’s easier if I see them,” she said, picking up her own mug and settling on the couch.

Wilhelm frowned, confused. “Why do you have to feed them? Doesn’t Simon do that?”

Linda looked at him for a moment, sad again, and took a sip of tea before placing the mug on the table. She tugged her wool sweater tighter around herself and crossed her arms at her stomach.

“Wilhelm,” she began. “I want you to know that… I’m not angry with you, okay? And, I’m sure that Simon isn’t either.”

Wilhelm’s stomach churned and he took a polite sip of the tea before following Linda’s lead and placed the mug on the table.

“What happened to both of you… you don't deserve it.” She reached out, probably to touch his hair, but refrained at the last minute. Instead, she patted his shoulder and pulled her hand back.

Wilhelm longed for her motherly touch.

“But, as a parent, I had to protect Simon.”

He swallowed the lump in his throat and brought a hand up to rub at his tightening chest. He didn't like her tone. It was foreboding. The gentle calm before the storm.

Linda’s eyes flickered to his hand and scooted closer. She placed a gentle hand on his cheek. Wilhelm leaned into it.

“Wilhelm… cariño… Simon left Sweden.”

Wilhelm’s world crashed.

“There were stalkers, they kept following him home. And the reporters wouldn’t stop asking him questions and one day… he got hurt.”

The tightening in his chest wouldn’t let up and he rubbed harder.

“I had no other choice. I had to send him away for his own safety.”

Stalkers... Reporters... Simon got hurt because of him. And, now, he was gone. No longer in Sweden.

“W-Where?” he managed to ask.

But, Linda shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you.”

Wilhelm’s eyes stung. “L-Linda… I-I’m s-sorry… I’m so… s-so sorry…”

Finally… Finally… Linda moved closer and pulled him into a hug. Wilhelm couldn’t help himself. He hugged her back and cried into her sweater.

She rubbed his back, whispering, “I know. It’s okay to cry, Wille. It’s okay.”

Wilhelm didn’t know how long he cried but, at some point, he did calm down. Maybe it was because Linda started humming a nice melody to him. Or maybe he was just spent and tired. But, not once did Linda let him go. Despite everything, she still chose to comfort him.

He had to force himself to move away from her arms, guilty and grateful at the same time.

She smiled at him. “Feeling better?” she asked.

God, it reminded him so much of Simon always asking after him that he wanted to cry again. It was clear to see that Simon got his gentle kindness from his mother.

“Yes,” he croaked. “Thank you.”

She picked up his mug and handed it over with a pointed look. He obediently drank the now lukewarm tea. It did little to soothe his sadness, but it was still nice.

“He won’t be gone forever,” said Linda with a smile. “When this all dies down… when the country forgets and moves on to something new, he’ll come back. Just… for now… I need him safe in a place where no one knows him. It’s what’s best for him.”

It made perfect sense. But, it didn’t mean that Wilhelm liked it. Simon was further away from him than ever. At least, if he was still Bjarstard, Wilhelm could still visit. He could still try to rebuild their friendship. And, when he was finally ready, he could ask Simon to give him another chance.

But, now, Wilhelm didn’t even know where he was. And Linda clearly didn’t want to tell him, worried she was about Simon’s safety. (A part of him wondered if she was also protecting Simon from Wilhelm. That thought hurt but it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.)

“Would you like to stay for lunch?” Linda asked. “It’s kind of lonely with just me now, with Sara at Hillerska and Simon...” She trailed off and sighed.

Wilhelm pressed his lips together. “I don’t want to impose.”

She patted his arm and offered a smile. “Not at all. Your bodyguards can join us, too. I have plenty. I’m still not used to eating alone.”

The temptation was too good to resist. Besides, he didn’t want to return to Hillerska and suffer through a meal where August only sat a couple of chairs away, always wanting to talk to him even though Wilhelm never responded.

“Alright,” he agreed, smiling back.

Linda beamed and stood up. “Okay, good. I’m almost done cooking. Make yourself at home.”

“Can I… Can I feed Simon’s fish?” he asked, nervously.

Linda chuckled. “Of course. Their food is right on top. You can just move the cover. Simon says four shakes is enough.”

With one last smile at him, she gathered up their mugs (she left the cookies on the table) and headed off to the kitchen. He heard her extend the invitation to Malin, who thanked her and promised to call Johan in.

Pulling himself together, Wilhelm stood up and approached the fish tank. A small container labeled “fish food” in Simon’s familiar print was on top. He picked it up before carefully moving the cover to the side. He counted out four shakes and watched as the little bits of food floated down towards Olle, Oski, Felle, and a fourth fish whose name Simon never told him (because Wilhelm had distracted him enough to forget).

“I miss him,” he whispered, watching them eat. “I bet you, guys, do too, right?”

The fish ignored him.

Were they mad at him, he wondered? Did they know what he did? Did Simon cry in front of them?

Sighing, Wilhelm put the cover back and the fish food on top of it. Then, he headed off to the kitchen to help Linda set the table.

It was the least he could do.

...

A/N: Yes, I went back to watch the scene and counted Simon's fish lol

[malcyon]

Dusk To Dawn 

Summary: “Alright. You don’t need my help,” Jason says, voice significantly quieter than it was. He glances at Tim hesitantly. “But do you want it?”

*****

Tim didn't mean to meet the Waynes, it just happened.

Ch 1

Read on AO3

___________________________________________

Tim’s dress shoes are too small as he stands in front of his father, trying not to fidget as the man does his bowtie with sharp, efficient movements. Mrs. Drake sits by the vanity, fixing her lipstick and watching him from the corners of her eyes. He wants to say something about how the tips of his shoes are pinching his toes.

She closes her lipstick with a snap.

Tim stays quiet.

Mr. Drake finishes with the tie, taking a step back to inspect his work, and Tim’s mother raises an eyebrow in the mirror. “Are you finally ready, then?”

“Yes, I think so,” the man says, dusting off the shoulder of Tim’s brand new, too big tux. He fiddles with the long sleeves, trying to ignore the itchiness of the cloth against his skin. His father frowns. Tim stops.

He hates parties.

His mother stands, heels clicking like a metronome on the shiny hardwood floorboards as she walks towards him. Janet Drake isn’t a tall woman, but Tim still has to tilt his head up to look at her. She takes his bowtie in her slender hands, tightening it until it’s snug against his throat. Her perfume smells expensive and it fills his nose.

“It’s an important night, Timothy.” She smiles a perfect smile. “Make us proud.”

Tim nods and smiles back.

They go downstairs and get into the waiting car without saying another word to each other.

He knows it isn’t normal to have parents that come and go out of his life the way his do. That show up for a couple of days every few months before taking off on another plane to another city. That don’t know his shoe size. That weren’t home for his birthday for the past four years in a row.

But it doesn’t bother him. It doesn’t.

And it isn’t hard to play the life Tim’s parents have created for him. His classes are relatively easy, and even though he doesn’t have any close friends, he sits at a lunch table with a few of the other kids. He keeps his grades high, just enough to make the teachers like him. He never gets in trouble and never breaks the rules.

And when his parents pluck him up and shoo him to one of their many parties, he smiles and goes without complaint. He charms the old women, makes the men in their stuffy suits chuckle and remember him as a future networker. Plays the room until his head is dizzy from the champagne in the air and his parents whisk him back to bed, leaving in the morning before he can even wake up.

Timothy Jackson Drake is a perfect student, a perfect son.

But Tim isn’t.

He isn’t exactly sure when he started paying attention to Batman. It began innocently enough; noticing the headlines and the news stories, ears perking up when the masked man was mentioned on the radio. And the information just . . . stuck.

He started to track the known locations of criminal organizations on a map in his closet, signed up for computer programming classes at school to learn how to code (and, on his own, how to hack), and started to listen to kids who he knew had familial connections to gangs. But it isn’t anything serious, just something to do when he got bored. Or, it was.

Tim was two when his parents had taken him to the circus. He still has the picture from that evening on a shelf in his room, him sitting on the lap of an older boy wearing a colorful costume. That same boy would go on to perform the Quadruple Flip of Doom as the rest of the Graysons flew through the air around him, all their tricks done without a net.

They should have had a net.

He had nightmares about it for weeks. Gave the nanny a heart attack every night when he woke up screaming. The tragedy was seared into his soul, branded into his brain.

And maybe that’s why it was so easy to put the pieces together. To figure out Robin.

Richard John Grayson. Formerly an acrobat prodigy at Haly’s Circus, currently operating as Nightwing at the Teen Titans base in New York City. Adopted at eight years old by billionaire Bruce Wayne after the tragic performance that left his entire family dead.

Adopted by Batman.

The realization was like a slap to the face.

It was hard to believe at first, that the man Tim had seen fall into his own fountain could be the same man that punched criminals through windows and dressed up like a giant bat. But the longer he thought about it, the more it made sense.

There was more to Bruce Wayne than he initially thought, and Tim had to know more.

So he watched. Started sneaking out of the house at night and catching the late bus, not like there was anybody that could stop him, a backpack slung over his shoulder and a camera clutched in his hands. And by now, Tim is sure he knows the city better than most people who live in it.

He isn’t an idiot, stays well away from the East End and Crime Alley. He even keeps pepper spray in his bag and a small pocket knife within reach, even if he hasn’t had to use them yet. Most people don’t even notice him as he slips in and out of the subway and bus stops, a tiny ghost among the city’s dim lights. Despite that, Tim keeps to the shadows, has figured out how to blend in with the darkness that appears at street corners.

That particular talent has kept him out of trouble more than once.

It isn’t like he’s seen anything horrible, just glimpses of gang brawls here and there, the Bats attacking one of their Rogues. Not that he sticks around long enough to learn what happens in any of those situations, Tim prefers to not end up as another smear on the sidewalk, thanks.

But still, he can’t help but wish that he could do something. Fight back, somehow—the way Batman does.

He’s never gotten close enough to really watch the vigilante work; it’s hard enough to guess where the man’s going to pop up. But still, hours of monitoring social media sites, searching the depths of the GCPD’s public records, and simply listening to street talk has gotten him pretty far. Sure he doesn’t see Batman and Robin a lot, but he’s seen them far more than anybody else in Gotham.

There’s a pointed cough in front of him, and Tim straightens from his slouch, thrust back into the bitter reality that he isn’t going to be on Gotham’s streets tonight. His mother leans over from where she’s sitting next to his father, plucking a microscopic piece of lint off his shoulder. He tries not to flinch.

Four and a half hours. He just has to make it through the next four and a half hours.

His father says, without looking up from where he’s tapping on his phone, “There are going to be several people I want you to meet tonight, Tim. Future connections. So smile, be polite,—” his dark eyes flick to Tim, once—“and do not be an embarrassment.”

The words are cold and Tim wants to say something in return, but his voice sticks in his throat. Instead, he swallows, nods, and goes back to staring out the limousine window.

It’s not often that Wayne Manor itself is used to hold the city’s annual charity gala, and his parents had pounced on their invitation, ready to primp and preen under the spotlight. They had flown in from his father’s digsite only yesterday, barely spared him a glance as they chattered about who was going to be there and was worth talking too.

He doesn’t know how they do it, this act they put on. Parading him around, telling the other rich socialites how, “Oh, yes, Timmy’s at the top of his class; he’s just so clever for a boy his age,” as if they even bother to check his report cards. Still, he goes along, beaming with every lie that comes out of his mouth about his wonderful, perfect family.

It makes something curl up and wither in Tim’s ribs, playing this game. Rotting him from the inside and making his smiles more brittle with every gala.

He wonders if this should be how most kids feel when their parents come home, like their chest is about to shatter as if made of glass. Like they’re going to snap. Tim stares at his reflection in the car window.

Only four and a half hours.

*****

Dick is already regretting this decision, and he hasn’t even entered the house yet.

The glittering lights and press blend together as he strides through the Manor’s front doors, offering the photographers a bright grin as he goes past. Their cameras light up like fireworks in response.

He ignores the questions yelled out to him (“Mr. Grayson, what brings you back to Gotham?”, “What’s your relationship with the model, Kory Anders?” and the favorite, “What caused the fallout between you and Bruce Wayne?”). Just keeps walking despite the stares burning into his back. The attention is almost tangible as it weighs down on him, and while Dick doesn’t mind being in the limelight now and then, the scrutiny makes him feel like an insect under a microscope. He suppresses a grimace as one particular older woman leers as he goes by.

There’s a reason he’s never liked these things.

Dick doesn’t stand in the front parlor to soak up his old home’s warmth, forcing himself to keep moving with the other guests down the roped-off path that leads to the ballroom. He doesn’t look at the walls, either, doesn’t want to see if Bruce has kept any of his pictures up.

His steps are fast on the old floors, whispers following in his wake as he enters the gala. He ignores them.

The party isn’t anything special, just another one of Bruce’s charity fundraisers. Dick can already feel himself growing bored with the backdrop of expensive velvet dresses and smooth jazz playing in the corner. He scans the people around him as he strolls through the crowd, looking for Jason or at least a familiar face.

Hell, he’d even take Bruce.

He keeps his head down as he passes millionaires and models alike, praying that nobody will recognize him for several more minutes. It doesn’t work.

The first woman seems nice enough, with long, dark hair and a blush covering her cheeks. She reaches up and straightens the bowtie around his neck, a blue that Kory had picked out. She’d told him it ‘matched his eyes.’

But the woman in front of him only says, “Your father really shouldn’t have let you out without fixing this first.” He smiles on reflex, but his stomach turns cold, and her words ring in his ears as several other party-goers quickly approach. Your father.

Their compliments and questions overlap and their faces meld together as Dick stares over their heads at the far wall.

Your father.

The first woman tugs lightly at his arm and he blinks, grinning to let her know everything is perfectly fine. She doesn’t look convinced.

He almost jumps when he feels a hand clasp his shoulder. Dick glances backward, relaxing as he realizes it’s only Alfred. The butler frowns, pulling him away from the small crowd that had gathered.

“I wasn’t aware that you would be making an appearance tonight, Master Richard.”

He shrugs and avoids the older man’s gaze. “It was a last-minute decision; Jason persuaded me.”

Begged was more like it. Alfred raises an eyebrow. “And Master Bruce’s invitation had nothing to do with it?”

Dick shrugs again. The expensive paper had stared at him from his nightstand the past week, a hesitant peace offering he’d received in the mail, one that he wasn’t sure he wanted to accept. At least, until Roy had practically kicked him out of the Tower, telling him to go sort out his daddy issues.

Dick had nearly pointed out how hypocritical that statement was but decided that being petty wasn’t worth getting shot with an arrow.

Alfred says nothing in response and only gives him a quiet smile. Dick returns it and lets the butler guide him in the direction of the desserts. No matter the problems he and Bruce have, Dick won’t bring Alfred into them. After all he’s done, trying to keep their broken family together, the man doesn’t deserve it.

As they pass tables laden with food, Alfred subtly nudges him in the direction of one of the columns in the room’s corner. Jason stands behind it, furiously tapping something out on his phone, and carefully hiding from prying eyes. Dick flashes the butler a grateful look and hurries over, trying not to grab anyone’s attention as he takes cover behind the pillar.

Jason glances up at his sudden entrance and his face splits into a blinding grin. “Holy fuck, you actually came.” Dick beams back and wraps his little brother up in a one-armed hug before ruffling his hair.

Jason grumbles and ducks out of the embrace, face scrunched in embarrassment, and Dick’s smile becomes a bit more real. Settling next to Jason, he says. “Course I came, wasn’t going to miss out on a chance for free food.” He gestures to the phone in Jason’s grip. “What’s that all about?”

Shoving his phone into his pocket, Jason mutters under his breath, “Just some bullshit.” Dick nods, words swirling around his mouth as he tries to figure out how to respond to that. He takes a stab in the dark.

“Girls?” Jason gives him a glare, and Dick flounders, tries again. “. . . Boys?”

Jason chokes, turning an interesting shade of red, “Jesus, no, no, I . . . Rena’s trying to get back together.”

“That girl in your social studies class? I thought you were still dating,” Dick says, tilting his head in question. A small part of him withers with his lapse in knowledge; when was the last time he had talked to Jason? Actually talked to him.

He knows that some of the other Titans worry about his little brother: Donna mothers him constantly, and Gar always tries to coax him out of his shell. And it’s helped, sure, but a small voice in Dick’s head whispers that Jason will look over his shoulder for the rest of his life. That no matter how much he trusts them, he’ll always be waiting to get stabbed in the back.

And that . . . that makes something deep inside Dick curl up and hurt. And the worst part is that some of Jason’s struggle is because of him.

Dick isn’t blind; he knows the comparisons people make between him and his adopted brother. He sees the wince Jason hides behind his smiles when they talk about ‘the new Robin.’ Forget the fact that Jason has held the title for years now; he’s always the one being dissected with every move, always in Dick’s shadow.

Not that he was always there for Jason either; Dick can own up to the fact that he was a petty asshole the first few months Jason had been taken in. A mixture of hurt, jealousy, and anger made it hard to even look the kid in the eye, knowing that whatever Dick had been as Robin, he hadn’t been good enough for Bruce. That his adopted father had decided to try again with someone new.

It took him too long to pull his head out of his ass. To personally give the kid his blessing and officially hand down the costume. Why the hell Jason even talks to Dick is beyond him considering how much of a jerk he’d been. He’s been trying to own up to it, stealing time for his brother when he could. Maybe that was why he came to the party and—God, he doesn’t want to think about that. That coming here tonight was just out of some messed up guilt for Jason’s sake.

He focuses back on Jason’s sour expression. Girl problems, he can do that. Maybe even give some advice. Isn’t that what older brothers are supposed to do? Give advice?

Dick raises an eyebrow and Jason shrugs, scuffing the floor with a polished shoe. He tries a grin, “Well, if you need any help, I’m only a phone call away.” Jason snorts.

“I think I’ll go to Barbara first, thanks,” he says, then freezes as the words catch up to him.

The air around them chills. Dick looks down.

Jason is the first to break the silence. “How . . . is she?”

He shrugs, ignoring the tight fists his hands have become. “ . . . Adjusting.” Jason nods, eyes flicking through the area around them, and Dick can suddenly see Robin doing the same thing on Gotham’s streets.

“Wanna talk someplace quieter?”

Dick forces a smile that he knows is too sharp. “Lead the way.”

Jason stares at him for a second, and Dick catches something fleeting and sad in his eyes before he turns away. They stay silent as they weave through the room, ducking and avoiding the attempts at conversation thrown at them.

Dick runs a hand through his hair, tries to focus on the back of Jason’s suit as they enter the areas of the house that were off-limits to guests. Distantly he realizes that Jason is leading him to the library, the one right next to Bruce’s study. He glances up at a picture frame as he passes by and openly winces at seeing his own, younger grin behind the glass.

He should have stayed home.

As soon as they enter the room, Jason shuts the door behind them before leaning against it to take a breath. Dick can’t blame him; parties were one of the worst parts about getting involved with Bruce Wayne.

Silence settles between them, and Dick bitterly watches the dust that floats through the air. Jason glances at him. “Seriously. How’s Barbie?”

Dick laughs, harsh and quiet. “Well, she’s lost all feeling in half of her body, so I’m pretty sure she’s not that great, Jason.” The other boy flinches, and Dick screws his eyes shut, rubbing his temples. Fuck, he’s not good at this. “Sorry, I’m . . . that was a shitty thing to say.”

He lets his head fall back against a bookshelf behind him, and Jason shrugs, but Dick can still see the hurt in his eyes. “It’s fine. I know you get tense when you’re around here.”

“Shouldn’t have said it, though.” Jason shrugs again. Dick takes a breath. “Babs is . . . upset.”

“No fucking shit.”

Dick actually snorts at that, stares at the ceiling. “God, it feels like everything is falling apart, you know? Including the Titans, I mean, Garth won’t talk to anybody about Tula, Roy is spending less and less time with the team, and he won’t fucking say why. Wally is literally running himself to death trying to live Barry’s life and–”

He stops, looks at Jason’s bewildered face, then presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. Makes a note to not unload this bullshit on the kid. Jason has his own problems, he doesn’t need Dick’s too. “Shit, I’m rambling, sorry. It’s just that I usually talk to Kory about this stuff, but we’ve been arguing lately.”

“I thought you guys were cool?”

“We are, this is the first time we’ve fought like this and—” He shakes his head—“Come on, aren’t I supposed to be giving you relationship advice?” The younger boy rubs his foot against the ground again.

“Maybe you should talk to her anyway,” Jason says carefully. Dick raises an eyebrow and he quickly continues, “I mean. . . Kory will always be there to listen and she probably wants to listen even if you’re fighting. You just gotta talk.”

Dick looks away and closes his eyes. “Yeah, maybe.” He frowns, forces his thoughts away from Kory and their differences and a million other things. “Speaking of talking, how are you holding up with B?”

Jason hesitates and opens his mouth like he wants to say something else, but a thump followed by laughter echoes from behind one of the walls, makes him pause.

The door connecting Bruce’s study and the library suddenly swings open, and Bruce stumbles out, a giggling blonde latched onto his arm. Jason curses under his breath and Dick straightens up, jaw tensing.

Bruce freezes in the doorway with the woman still laughing into his neck. His gaze darts between them, the shock on his face snapping into a drunk smile. “Delphine, I believe we may have some company.”

The lady blinks up, looking over at Dick and Jason in surprise then back to Bruce with a bemused expression. “You need to talk with your children, yes?” she asks in a heavy French accent. Dick’s stomach lurches in a slow roll, and he forces himself not to look away from where Bruce’s gaze narrows at him.

He knows she doesn’t see the tightening of Bruce’s smile when he answers, “Yes, I’ll meet you in the ballroom. Save me a dance?”

She presses a red kiss to his cheek. “Of course, mon chéri.” The woman turns from Bruce, and Dick opens the door for her as she whisks past with a playful, “Merci.”

He nods his head and locks the door behind her, the metal knob chilling against his palm. Steeling himself, he turns back around.

Anything left of Brucie’s drunken facade is gone, and the man in front of him appraises Dick with familiar calculation. Dick can see Jason resting against the book-covered wall next to him from the corner of his eye, trying to appear relaxed but not quite pulling it off. Several tense seconds pass, marked only by the ticking clock above the dark fireplace.

Bruce looks him over. “Dick. I wasn’t expecting you.”

Dick stiffens, the words he wasn’t even going to say stilling on his tongue. “Wasn’t expecting me? You . . . You sent me an invitation, Bruce.”

The man blinks, looks between him and Jason slowly.

“I didn’t send you an invitation,” Bruce says, confusion barely marking his voice.

Something inside Dick goes very, very cold. Of course, he didn’t. Stupid, stupid, stupid, it must have been Alfred, or maybe his name had gotten mixed in with the invites somehow. It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t fucking matter.

He glances over at Jason, who seems just as taken back, eye flicking between him and their adopted father like he’s watching a flaming tennis match. Dick bites his lip and tries not to squirm under Bruce’s stare as he scrambles for words.

“Oh. Well, I . . . I guess there’s no reason for me to stay, then. I can be gone in ten minutes.” He reaches back to open the door, and the handle jiggles in place. Fuck, he’d locked it, right. He fumbles, manages to get it open even though his hand is stiff and clumsy. “Just got to call a cab. Tell Lucius and Leslie I said hello.”

Shit, shit, shit, he needs to run. Has to get out of this house. Heat is crawling up the back of his neck, horrible and burning and he needs to leave.  

Jason starts desperately, “Dick, you don’t have to—”

But he’s already gone.

His steps are clipped and fast on the wood floor, heart thumping in his ears. He feels sick; hot and cold all at once, and, God, he never should have left New York. Fuck.

He doesn’t know why he thought it’d be different this time. Doesn’t know what he even expected by coming here tonight. An apology, maybe? But Bruce doesn’t do apologies, never has, probably never will. He should have known better.

Dick doesn’t even register the footsteps behind him until a large hand is on his shoulder and turning him around.

It’s Bruce. Face pinched and awkward and looking like he would rather be anywhere else, but it’s Bruce.

“I—No, no, don’t leave. I didn’t mean it like that, Dick.” His voice is cautious, gaze less intense than it was several seconds ago. “Stay, Alfred can make some tea. He’s missed you, I’ve— . . . We all have.”

Dick stares at him, brain scratching like a broken record. He can make out Jason peeking at them from behind the library door, expression hopeful. The younger boy locks eyes with him and nods meaningfully.

He shifts uneasily, looking back at his former mentor and noticing the red stains on Bruce’s cheek. “Don’t you have a dance with Delphine? And a party to attend?”

Bruce almost snorts but not quite. “I’m sure she’ll understand. And I host several parties every year that raise millions of dollars to keep this city running. Who gives a flying shit if I miss this one?”

Dick laughs, choked and a bit wet, and Jason makes an admonished noise from where he’d quietly joined them. “Why do you get to curse and I don’t? That’s total bullshit.”

Bruce deadpans, “And that’s a quarter in the swear jar. At this point, I might as well just put your allowance in there instead of giving it to the middleman.” Jason grumbles and lightly shoves at Bruce’s side. The man smiles at that and gives Dick’s shoulder an awkward squeeze. “You two can wait in the library while I hunt down Alfred for tea. I’ll be back.”

Dick manages a nod, head swimming with twenty different things he wants to say and not knowing how to begin. In the end, he doesn’t say anything at all and just watches as Bruce’s form retreats down the hallway. He looks back at Jason, who’s grinning from ear to ear.

Carefully, Dick lets himself smile back.

*****

It’s not even eleven yet, and Tim is already exhausted. As soon as they arrived, his parents were practically shoving him into the laps of old, rich ladies and men alike. The kind of people who would humor a small boy who gushes about his father, saying ‘how he wants to be just like him when he grows up.’ And when Jack Drake eventually comes up behind him, smiling cheerfully as he talks his way into these peoples’ money and minds, Tim looks away.

He’s used to feeling like a means to an end, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it.

Still, he goes when his father prods him in his mother’s direction. She’s talking to a group of younger women who are wearing jewels as big as his fist. He quietly moves to her side, knowing the game by heart at this point.

On cue, right after Janet Drake makes a particularly witty comment that sends the other women into laughter, she lays a hand on Tim’s shoulder and pulls him to the front. It’s a matter of minutes before he has the ladies wrapped around his finger while his mother watches like a hawk right behind him. There’s no room for mistakes tonight.

Eventually, she nudges him back to his father. And Tim goes.

This is how these nights always play out, moving from group to group. Gathering possible investors and shyly introducing them to his parents. It’s not difficult, if anything it’s mind-numbing, repeating the same conversations over and over like they’re an everyday routine.

So Tim can forgive himself for zoning out for the first couple of hours. It’s not until he’s standing near the refreshments table, after sneaking away to grab some water, that he actually starts paying attention again.

To be fair, that could be because he’d just turned around and walked face-first into a wall of something hard.

Tim yelps, stumbling back, thankfully not into another person, and looks up at the man wearing a now soaked suit. The floor underneath Tim falls away as Bruce Wayne stares back.

Batman. Tim just ran into and spilled his drink all over Batman.

He can practically see the Bat in the seams of Wayne’s dripping, black tux. In the sharp cut of his jaw and brow. His hair is pushed back from his face, which is clean-shaven and a bit tired around the eyes. Tim clambers for an apology, refusing to let the words get stuck in his throat. But all he can think about is how he watched Batman take a bullet to the chest five nights ago during a gang shootout. He does his best not to stammer.

“Mr. Wayne! I’m so sorry, I didn’t see—” Wayne holds up a palm. Tim’s mouth goes dry, and he has to tuck his hands behind his back so the man won’t see how they’re shaking. The handle from his empty water glass is cold against his fingers. Bruce Wayne considers him, then shrugs.

“It’s fine. This is why I have a butler. And please don’t call me Mr. Wayne; it makes me sound old. Just Bruce will do.”

Tim blinks.

“You have a specific butler for when people spill stuff on you?”

The corner of Bruce’s mouth twitches. “No, just one butler that does general butler things. Actually, I’m looking for him at the moment, have you seen him?”

“I—uh, no?”

Bruce sighs, “Damn. I was hoping he could keep my CEO off of my back for the night. Or help me make tea. I’m not sure which one is more important.”

Tim scratches the back of his neck. He hadn’t mentally prepared to talk to Batman tonight. This wasn’t a great first impression. “What’s he look like?”

“Who? My butler or my CEO?” Bruce has to tilt his head down to make eye contact with him.

“Your butler, not your CEO. Though you probably shouldn’t avoid your CEO, that sounds like business mismanagement.” Tim says and then nearly claps a hand over his mouth. Questioning the host at their own party is probably terrible etiquette; his mother would be mortified.

The corner of Bruce’s mouth twitches again. “Not business mismanagement. Lucius just likes to criticize my life choices. You’re the Drakes’ son, aren’t you?”

“Timothy.” He instinctively holds out his hand for a shake. Bruce looks at him for a second before engulfing Tim’s hand with his own. The calluses on his palm are hard to miss, and Tim can’t help but wonder how Bruce explains them.

“Timothy Drake, huh?” Their hands drop, and both corners of Bruce’s mouth are pointed up now. Tim quickly backtracks.

“Yeah, but you can call me Tim. You know. If you want.” Bruce considers him again.

“Alright, Tim. What do you know about tea?”

*****

“Are you sure that’s the right amount?”

“That’s what the box says.”

“The box is wrong.”

“I’m starting to understand why your CEO criticizes your life choices.”

“You’re twelve; you’re not supposed to understand life choices yet.”

“I’m thirteen.”

“You sure?”

“ . . . Yes?”

Bruce squints down at him and looks back at the teapot on the stove. “To be honest, all children under the age of twenty-one look the same to me.”

Tim frowns from where he’s sitting on the kitchen island’s countertop. He ignores the pounding in his brain that keeps reminding him that he’s sitting in Batman’s kitchen because if he focuses on that, he might start hyperventilating. It’s a very nice kitchen, to be fair. It’s warm with yellow walls and a wooden floor. Not very Batman-like, though.

Tim starts to swing his legs back and forth. “I thought you’re an adult when you turn eighteen.”

Bruce doesn’t look away from the teapot. “Legally, yes. Ethically, no.”

“So . . .  when do you ethically become an adult?”

“Thirty-five.”

Tim stares hard at the back of Bruce’s neck. He can’t tell if the man is making fun of him at this point or not. “How old are you?” Tim already knows the answer, but he waits patiently.

Bruce thinks for several seconds too long. “Thirty-three.”

“And you consider yourself to be an adult? That’s kind of hypocritical.”

“I never said I considered myself to be an adult. Lucius and Alfred would find it hilarious if I called myself an adult.”

“Alfred?” Tim asks innocently.

“My butler I told you about earlier. The one who was supposed to be helping me with this.”

“Oh . . . Why aren’t you looking for him right now, then?” Why ask me to help instead? Tim doesn’t know the answer to this question. He tries not to scoot to the edge of his seat.

Bruce shrugs and looks over a shoulder at him. “I asked if you knew how to make tea, and you said yes. Also, you’re probably the best conversationalist I’ve talked to all night. Is there any way to make this heat up faster?”

Tim struggles to hide his beaming smile from the compliment. “It’s already turned up as high as it can go.”

“Don’t know why you didn’t let me microwave it.”

“That’s not the right way to make tea.”

“There are only so many ways to boil water. It would have been faster.”

“You had a spoon stuck in there with it. It could have caught on fire.”

“Well, then I could call the fire department and get rid of all the drunk people in my house.”

“It’s a good thing you have a butler. I don’t think you can take care of yourself all alone.”

Bruce looks offended. “I am an adult, Tim. ” Tim stops kicking his feet and grins. Bruce closes his eyes. “And now I’m a hypocrite.”

“Really good thing you have a butler.”

The water starts to boil, and the tea kettle squeals. Tim slips down from the counter and straightens up the teacups waiting on the prepared tray. Bruce carefully pours the water into the teapot before adding the tea. Tim tries not to compare the movement to Batman combining chemicals.

Bruce glances at him. “Your parents, they’re not looking for you, are they?”

Tim stills. “They’re not. They’re . . . busy.”

Last he’d seen, before ducking out of the ballroom with Bruce, was his mother engrossed in a business conversation and his father drinking from a nearly overflowing champagne glass. Bruce stills and studies him for a second. In turn, Tim picks up a teacup and meticulously stares at the delicate flower painting on its side.

Bruce looks away. “Well, then. I suppose you wouldn’t mind joining my family and me for tea, would you?”

Tim nearly drops the cup. “Me? ”

“You. Grab the sugar off the counter, please.”

Tim does as he’s told automatically and sets it on the tray. Bruce picks it up. “Um, you sure? I don’t want to intrude or anything.” Or embarrass himself, Tim kind of feels like passing out right now.

“They’ll like you, don’t worry. Besides, my eldest is visiting, and I need someone to fill in the awkward silence.”

Tim’s stomach swoops. Dick Grayson. He’s going to talk to Dick Grayson. Nightwing. And Robin. Jason will be there too, won’t he? He leans heavily against the counter when Bruce turns and starts to walk out of the room.  

Tim takes a slow breath and follows him.

He tries not to openly gawk as Bruce leads him through the halls, especially now that he’s already walked through them once. But it’s hard not to; Tim’s wanted to explore Wayne Manor since he figured out the Bat’s identity ages ago.

One of the paintings on the wall catches his eye. “Is that a Renoir?”

Bruce glances back at him, both brows raised. “It is. You’re a fan?”

“My parents have me read Art World Today. They like to keep me up to date for conversations and stuff,” Tim mutters as he stares up at the artwork. He pretends he doesn’t see the look that enters Bruce’s eyes.

“Your parents seem like they—”

“Brucie!” They both turn around to find an extremely drunk woman teetering down the hallway towards them. Bruce curses too low for Tim to hear.

“Can you take this?” He asks in a voice Tim hasn’t heard before, something cheerful and almost fake, before quickly handing the tray to Tim. Bruce barely manages to catch the woman when she stumbles heavily into his arms. “Delphine, you seem to be having much more fun than when I last saw you.”

She giggles into his shoulder, and Tim pointedly examines an Erte statue across the hall while Bruce tries to straighten her up. “I met the most charming man, Bruce. Jack Drake? We had a contest to see who could drink the most champagne.” She smiles wide and dazed. “I won. Évidemment. Oh! But then he told me all about his business and—”

Bruce must say something in return, but Tim can’t hear it over the rush of blood in his ears; the pounding in his brain as his grip on the platter turns white. Getting women drunk to turn them into investors.

It doesn’t even surprise him.

His eyes burn into the painting in front of them, because he can’t look at Bruce. Can’t see his face when the man realizes he has a Drake by his side. Tim’s head feels hot and dizzy; he trembles a little bit.

So maybe that’s why when Bruce touches his shoulder, Tim nearly jumps out of his skin. The teacups clatter, but nothing spills. The result of honing his reflexes on Gotham’s streets, Tim’s sure. He swallows and forces himself to meet Bruce’s gaze.

Whatever he’s expecting isn’t there. Bruce just looks troubled, with something sad at the corners of his eyes. Tim looks away first. The awkwardness is broken only by Delphine’s mutterings in French as she continues to cling to Bruce’s side.

Bruce clears his throat.

“I think . . .” Tim winces, and he stares down at his too-tight shoes, cheeks burning. Bruce pauses and almost seems to reconsider something. “I think you’ll have to meet the rest of my family alone. I’m so sorry, Tim, but—” the lady sways again, nearly falling face-first onto the carpet— “Delphine needs to lie down somewhere. You can find the boys in the library; just keep going down this hall until you get to my study, the last door on the right. It leads to where they are.”

He carefully leans forward, pulling from one pocket a small key. Placing it on the tray and giving Tim a cheerful grin that’s more Brucie than Bruce, but still kind in a way, he says, “Here, this should let you in. And if either one of them gets too annoying: feel free to pour tea on them.” He gives Tim a wink and tucks Delphine under his arm before whisking her down the hall and quickly out of sight.

Tim blinks down at the tray and then up at the painting across from him. He allows himself five full seconds to freak out.  

Feeling slightly ill, he finally forces his feet to move through the hallway, his small steps echoing in the empty space. He tries not to notice the clinking of the teacups as the tray in his hands shakes. Meeting the Waynes was not supposed to happen tonight.

Last door on the right, last door on the right, last door on the right . . .

He hesitates when he gets there, cautiously takes the key Bruce gave him, and places it into the lock. The hinges swing without a sound, showing a polished study and a Persian rug. He takes a breath and enters. The door clicks shut slowly behind him.

The library entrance is at the back of the room and it’s far more intimidating than it has any right to be. As he walks towards it, something catches the corner of his eye.

A grandfather clock. Old, tall, and quietly ticking away as Tim pauses in front of it. He stares, something deep inside him saying that he should take a closer look. He’s barely moved forward when raised voices suddenly come from behind the library door, startling him. Tim steps back.

Shooting the clock a final glance, Tim focuses back on the task at hand and reluctantly turns away. Cautiously, he nears the closed entrance that muffles unintelligible yelling. He inhales shakily and raises his fist, knocking softly on the wood.

He almost drops the tray when the door is slammed open.

“Bruce! Tell Dick his argument against Hamlet is completely wrong and—Oh.”

A boy stands in the doorway.

Fifteen years old, expensive tux, black hair, and eyes with too much green to be a true blue. Eyes that scan Tim up and down like he’s figuring out every single secret Tim’s hidden away in the back of his mind and examining them one by one. And all Tim can think about is how he once saw Robin take down five crooks before leaping out of a sixty-fourth-floor window, how Robin could end him in the blink of an eye.

Jason Todd raises a brow.

“You lost, kid?” Tim opens his mouth, but nothing comes out, so he shakes his head instead. Jason looks down at the tray in his hands. “ . . . Did Bruce kidnap you and have you make tea or something like that?”

“Something like that,” Tim says, managing to not trip over his words.

Jason blinks, glances him over once again. A horrified, blank expression crosses his face before he half turns and says, “We left B alone for five minutes, and he already got a new kid!”

There’s a strangled yell of, “What?” then the sound of stumbling footsteps as another boy appears in the door. Tim’s knees go weak.

Eighteen with a messy blue bowtie that’s the same shade as his wide eyes. The same shade as the Nightwing suit, too. Tim remembers the first and last time he went to the circus, remembers the photograph he still has.

Dick Grayson stares at him in shock.

“Oh my God. He did.”

Jason looks up at the ceiling in exasperation. “Do you think he just wanders around and collects the first lonely dark-haired child he sees? Is it just a thing he does?”

Dick shrugs, his gaze still locked on Tim. “Once is a mistake. Twice is a pattern.” He points a finger at the youngest boy. “Three times is a habit.” He glances at Jason with a frown. “Think we should stage an intervention?”

“Maybe,” Jason mutters, eyes narrowing. Dick hums and notices the tray in Tim’s hands with delight.

“Hey, he brought tea!” Dick bends forward, gently taking the platter out of Tim’s nearly quivering hands. He smiles down at him. “What’s your name?”

Tim swallows past his dry throat and channels years of socialite skills into not seeming like a complete idiot. “Tim Drake. Mr. Way—Bruce told me to come here? He got caught up with some lady, though. Delphine, I think?”

The two older boys share a look. Dick rolls his eyes. “Yeah, that’s not surprising.” He nudges Jason out of the doorway and beckons Tim inside. “Come on; you can help me remind Jason that Romeo and Juliet is way better than some play about a depressed prince.”

“Romeo and Juliet is nowhere near Hamlet, and you know it,” Jason mutters, but shoots Tim a friendly grin as Dick sets the tea tray down on a coffee table.

“If you read the whole thing as a satire about teenage stupidity and dumb love, then it’s hilarious,” Dick fires back and glances over at where Tim has barely entered through the doorway. “Right, Timmy?”

Tim shuffles his feet, not used to this kind of attention. “Um, I’ve only read Macbeth, and that was for school so . . . sure? I don’t know; Shakespeare always seemed kind of overrated to me.”

Both boys freeze.

Jason makes some sort of offended sound. “Oh my God, don’t ever let Alfred hear you say that.”

Flushing, Tim hurriedly continues, “I just prefer novels over plays, you know? Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, that kind of stuff.”

“Mysteries? Jesus, no wonder Bruce kidnapped you. He used to read Sherlock Holmes to me before bed when I was a kid.” Dick mutters with a shake of his head.

“Huh, I got Jane Austen,” Jason off-handedly adds as he moves to grab a teacup, not putting anything in the drink. Dick takes two spoonfuls of sugar in his. He looks up and sees that Tim still hasn’t moved away from the door. He smiles gently.

“Hey, we don’t bite.” Dick sets another cup down on the table before sitting back on the plush couch. Tim hesitates, his mind screaming out useless facts his mother had told him about etiquette and manners that he’s quickly learning won’t apply to the Waynes at all, and gingerly moves into the room.

He picks up the teacup and carefully takes a place in the chair next to the sofa. Dick beams at him like he’d just found the solution to world peace, and Jason shoots him another half-smirk-half-grin while he moves over to the empty fireplace.

“So, Tim,” Dick starts while Jason tosses several pieces of wood into the grate, “the Drakes, huh? Don’t you live down the road?”

He nods, relaxing his fingers’ grip on the cup’s handle. “Yeah, about fifteen minutes away, I think.”

Jason glances back at him from where he’d successfully lit a fire, gaze curious. The light flickers warmly over the floor and Tim lets himself sink into the chair just a bit. “Really? Don’t hear from you guys that much; most of our neighbors are always asking about the next party and whatnot.”

“Oh, well, my parents aren’t usually in the country for most of the year,” Tim says, taking a sip of his tea before wrinkling his nose. Too bitter.

Dick pauses from where he’s lifting the cup to his lips, and Jason stops adding logs to the growing flames. They share a glance over Tim’s head. “Really?” Dick asks, continuing with his sip of tea. “I’m guessing they’re pretty busy, then. With running a company and all.”

Jason stands and moves back towards them, taking a seat in the chair opposite of Tim. “Yeah, isn’t your dad some kind of archaeologist, too? He sponsors a lot of stuff at the Natural History Museum downtown.” Dick pauses, both brows raised at his younger brother, and Jason shrugs defensively. “What? I paid attention during a school trip.”

Tim distractedly adds several spoonfuls of sugar to his tea. “Yeah, he’s usually flying from digsite to digsite most of the year. And my mom spends her summertime in London or Paris, and winter in the Caribbean, so he’s always visiting her. Plus, they have to travel for business all the time, and every month they go—” He freezes upon looking up from where he’d been stirring his drink. Jason and Dick are staring at him, looking as if they’d just been forced to swallow a very bitter pill. Tim hurriedly adds, “It’s okay! I’m—I’m busy with school anyway, so it’s fine.”

Dick sets his cup down with a gentle clink that makes Tim wince. “It doesn’t really seem . . . awesome, Tim.”

It takes everything within him to maintain eye contact and not stare down at the rug underneath his feet. “It’s fine.”

Jason leans forward, elbows on his knees, his eyebrows furrowed together to make a little crease between them. “You’re not . . . alone, right? You seem pretty responsible, but it’s not just you—”

“We have a housekeeper,” Tim tells him, voice clipped. He tries not to think about how he doesn't even remember the last time he saw her. “And I’m at school most of the day.”

“Boarding?” Dick asks.

“Usually, it would be. But it’s only a few minutes away by bike, so why pay to stay there when I could just come home?” Tim keeps his tone even. His grip on the teacup is tightening.

“It just . . . sounds a little lonely, that’s all. I got bored all the time when I was your age, and that was with Bruce and Alfred around to keep me company,” Dick quickly adds, soothing Tim’s raising defenses. The last thing he needs is the Bats getting nosy about his home life. Or rather, absence of one.

Tim shrugs. “I’m used to it.”

The brothers share another look, too fast for him to know what it means, and Jason tilts his head in a way that strangely reminds Tim of when his father would strike a business deal. “Hey, I know we just met, but, uh. . . You could come over here sometimes, if you want.”

Tim’s eyes widen, and his brain almost shuts down as he tries to make sense of what Jason just said. After several confused seconds, he manages to choke out, “What?”

“You know, if you ever need anything,” Dick swiftly continues, gaze steady and far too kind. “Like help with homework, stuff with school, or uh . . .” He glances at his brother. “Advice for girl problems?”

“You need advice for girl problems,” Jason mutters back. Dick kicks at him but looks over at Tim meaningfully.

“I’m living in New York right now, but I know you’d be welcomed here anytime.”

Jason nods in agreement. “Seriously, feel free to drop by. Bruce has already kinda adopted you, and I need Alfred to change your opinion on Shakespeare, so come over sometime, yeah?”

Tim stares at them, throat strangely tight. He hesitates. “I—”

The library door swings open, and Bruce walks in. Tim straightens up immediately, and from his peripheral vision, he can see Dick and Jason do the same. They all stare at each other for a moment. Bruce speaks first. “I’m not interrupting, am I?”

Jason shrugs. “Nothing we can’t continue later, B. How’s Delphine?”

“Sent her home with her friends just a few moments ago. She’ll be fine except for one hell of a hangover in the morning.”

Jason hmms and takes a sip of his tea. “You still have lipstick on your collar, by the way.”

Bruce glances down and curses, rubbing at the stain with his thumb. Dick snickers and Tim doesn’t even try to hide his shaky smile. With a sigh of defeat, Bruce glances over and meets Tim’s gaze with an amused expression. “Try not to embarrass me in front of our guest, if you can help it, Jay.”

“Sorry to break it to you, Dad, but you’re capable of doing that all by yourself,” Jason shoots back, amused.

Tim nearly misses the bitter look that crosses Dick’s face, and it’s gone before he can figure it out. His eyes flick to Bruce, who almost seems frozen in the firelight, a warm expression melting over his features as he stares at his youngest son. Jason takes another sip of his tea, his gaze resting on the fireplace and not focused on the two older men.

Tim glances between them and shifts in the strange atmosphere. The sound of the ticking clock is the only thing breaking the quiet.

He looks at his drink.

A different voice ends the silence. “Master Bruce, young Mr. Drake’s mother is asking for him. I believe he will be leaving for the night.” Tim glimpses at the open door. A tall, thin man stands there; his arms folded neatly behind his back. Tim doesn’t think he’s ever seen someone so British before in his life.

Alfred Pennyworth. Tim subconsciously straightens his suit, hoping the man won’t notice its wrinkles.

His eyes rest on Tim for a second, brows raising for half a second before his expression reverts into unreadable neutrality. Still, Alfred offers him a small smile that Tim quietly returns. Then another figure enters the doorway and Tim’s stomach freezes.

His mother stares down at him. Her lips curl upwards, all picture-perfect and white teeth. “Mr. Wayne, I’m terribly sorry for any distraction my son has caused tonight.” She holds out a polished hand. “Come along, Timothy, it’s late.” He makes himself look at her face.

Her blue eyes are ice cold. Furious.

His feet feel like lead when he stands, but his hands are still as Tim places his now-cool tea on the coffee table. He meets Jason’s gaze as he moves away from them. There’s something quiet and worried in his eyes, and Tim turns his back on both the older boy and the warmth of the firelight.

He isn’t expecting it when Dick moves with him, though, smoothly walking over and coming close enough to put a firm hand on his shoulder.

“He wasn’t a bother at all, Mrs. Drake,” Dick says, and apparently Tim isn’t the only one who’s learned how to play the smiling socialite. The man even shoots his mother a playful wink as he continues, “If anything, we should be apologizing for keeping him, just lost track of time.”

His mother narrows her eyes at Dick, glares down at Tim, and then settles back on Bruce. “It’s no matter; actually, I’ll have to thank you for making sure my son stayed out of trouble.” Tim slips out of Dick’s comforting grasp and moves silently to stand by her side. She reaches over and takes him by the arm, polished, red nails digging into his skin. Dick’s smile fades. “He tends to find it quite easily.”

Dick doesn’t even blink, only looks her up and down in a way that’s too cold to be mistaken for flattery. “Some might call that curiosity.”

“And polite company would call it meddlesome,” she clips back, words barbed. Dick stiffens, and his hands clenching, and Tim can see the tension in his jaw even from where he’s standing. He grinds his teeth and looks away from his mother.

He isn’t deaf and is well aware of what plenty of people really think of Wayne’s adopted sons. Two charity cases drudged up from the bottom of Gotham’s classes: street rats. He didn’t think his mother would sink to that level, though. Tim risks a glance at where Jason is still sitting.

The other boy is frozen in his chair, tea forgotten. His teal eyes glare daggers into Mrs. Drake, and Tim knows Jason must be biting his tongue to keep his insults to himself. Dick opens his mouth to reply, probably with something just as scathing, but Bruce steps in front of him with a tight smile.“Mrs. Drake, as you said, it’s getting late. Would you let me escort you to your car?”

Dick steps away, gaze bitterly burning into the back of his adopted father’s head, but he whips around to face Jason, and Tim can no longer see his expression. His mother exhales pointedly.

“No need, Mr. Wayne. You seem to have your hands plenty full here, and I’m perfectly capable of finding the way back myself, thank you.”

She tugs sharply on Tim’s arm, and he desperately looks at them, not sure what to say. Dick and Jason both stare back, brows furrowed, and he sees Bruce take a step forwards only to hesitate. He can feel Alfred watching him from the side. Tim swallows past his dry mouth, his mother pulls again at his sleeve, and he quickly gets out, “Thanks for the tea.”

“Oh, come along, Timothy,” she snaps.

And then Tim’s being marched down the hallway, trying to keep pace with Janet Drake’s long strides but not quite managing it. Moments later, he’s ushered into the car, and they’re driving away. But he can’t tear his eyes away from the Manor as it’s left behind, a spot of shining light in the surrounding darkness.

The taste of tea fills his mouth the entire ride home.

*****

“You could have let me say something,” Dick snaps as soon as the two Drakes are gone, and Alfred’s closed the door behind them. He sort of wishes the butler stayed.

Bruce exhales, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “It would have only made things worse; you shouldn’t have gotten involved in the conversation, to begin with.”

“You saw his face when she came into the room, Bruce,” Dick mutters back, fuming. Next to him, Jason watches them silently, and Dick forces himself to take a breath. “What kid looks at their own mother like that?”

“ . . . I don’t know either Janet or Jack Drake personally, but they have a reputation for being ruthless,” Bruce says, still staring at the door. He turns around and looks between his sons measuredly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that behavior carries into their family life as well.”

Dick seethes, ears still burning from Mrs. Drake’s comments. ‘Polite company.’ It could have meant nothing but combined with her curled lip and icy gaze; it didn’t.

He rests a hand on Jason’s shoulder, either to comfort the kid or himself, Dick isn’t sure, and Jason doesn’t lean back from it. He wonders if what she said got to his brother, too. Probably not. Jason has always been better at letting shit like this roll off his back. Still, he doesn’t move his hand away just in case.

“I told Tim he was welcome here anytime,” Dick says pointedly, Bruce stiffens. “And he better be.”

“Dick, you can’t just—”

“It was my idea, actually,” Jason interrupts, and both of them turn to stare at him. Jason glares back, unflinchingly. “And don’t pretend that you couldn’t care less, B. You were the one who invited him in here, not Dick. Besides,” Jason takes a smooth sip of his tea, “I think he’s lonely. Could use someone to talk to. If he comes over, I’ll handle it.”

Bruce looks at him for a long moment, several unnameable emotions warring across his face. He seems to settle on blankness.

“Very well,” his gaze slides to Dick, still unknowable. “I’m going to have to turn in for the night. Alfred’s been wanting to redo several stitches and is threatening to drug me again if I don’t let him. Tea will have to wait for another day.”

“Oh,” is Dick’s only response. The disappointment isn’t anything new as it settles in his stomach, but it still hurts. He glances at the door, trying to figure out the least awkward way to leave, then Bruce clears his throat hesitantly.

“However, Jason and I are planning a bust on one of Penguin’s shipping operations later this week. Feel free to join us, if you’d like.”

Whatever frustration Dick has left in him drains away as he and his brother gawk at the other man. Bruce waits for several seconds but is only met with silence as his adopted son blinks at the hanging invitation. Dick starts. “I . . . Okay, I can do that. Uh. Does Saturday work?”

Bruce nods. “Come by the Manor around nine, that’ll let you have some time with Alfred. He’s been wanting to catch up.”

“Right,” Dick says numbly, and as Bruce turns to leave, he and Jason share a glance. The younger boy raises his brows, and Dick can only shake his head in response, mind whirling.

“And Jason,” Bruce adds, both of his sons snapping to attention. Bruce opens the door, smoothing his collar in such a way that the lipstick on it somehow becomes less noticeable. Dick tries not to be impressed with that. “If you’re going to have Tim over here, give him something to eat. Lord knows he needs it.”

They stare as he leaves, the library door not quite swinging all the way shut behind him.

Jason speaks first, “That was . . . unexpected.”

Dick looks at him. “What? That he invited me, because yeah—”

“No,” The other boy interrupts, voice purposefully monotone. “Of course he was going to invite you, he’s been trying to figure out how to do that for months, now.” Dick’s eyes widen, and he glances back at the door. Jason doesn’t seem to notice. “I just didn’t expect him to invite me.”

Looking back at him, Dick frowns. “Why wouldn’t he? You’re Robin. ”

It says something about time healing all wounds because it doesn’t hurt to say that out loud anymore. But Jason stills, his gaze moving to Dick before resting on the flames within the fireplace. “Yeah, and Robin’s benched.”

Shit.

Just add that to the list of things he can feel guilty not knowing about.

Dick is frozen, looking over Jason’s form and frantically trying to figure out what happened. “You got hurt? Where? How bad?”

“I didn’t get hurt.”

Jason still won’t look at him. Slowly, Dick shuts his eyes. “Little Wing, what did you do? ”

That wasn’t the right thing to say. Jason spins around to face him, expression twisted into something painful and hurt and Dick did that. “Are you serious, right now?”

“Jay—”

“Look, I know you’re a fucking Golden Boy up on Bruce’s goddamn pedestal, but at the very least you could try to—”

“Jason.” Jason stiffens with his brother’s raised voice because Dick doesn’t yell. Not at him. Dick rubs a hand over his face. “Jay, just tell me what happened, okay? I won’t judge you for it, I promise.”

The younger boy’s glare hardens for a second before molding into something unbearably tired. “I didn’t . . . Look, I need you to get that I didn’t push the guy, okay?”

Fuck, this wasn’t going to be good. Dick breathes out, “Okay.”

Jason searches his face for a second, eyes falling back to the fire. “We were working a case, there was . . . Our perp was this asshole, Felipe Garzonas, and his father was some kind of ambassador, and he had diplomatic immunity because of fucking course he did. And he . . .” Jason takes a breath. “He raped a girl, Gloria, and was responsible for her death.”

Dick swallows. “So, he got away with murder?”

Jason shakes his head, continuing, “No, she . . . she killed herself. But he was behind it, threatened to keep hurting her and she . . . He got recalled, too, you know that? We busted him on drugs, and he was leaving the fucking country and wouldn’t have been able to touch her ever again. But she didn’t know, and he called her before we did and . . .”

For a long moment, Dick only stares, the pieces coming together to make a grim picture. “You were the one to find her, weren’t you?”

Jason shivers, jaw clenching. “She was already gone by the time we got to her apartment. Hung herself. She was only . . .  a couple of years older than me. Younger than you.”

Dick winces and closes his eyes. “God, Jay that’s . . .”

“I’m just tired of seeing it, you know? Shit like this happened all the time back in Crime Alley, yeah, but now I finally have a chance to stop it, and I fucking couldn’t. I couldn’t save her.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Jason snorts bitterly, gaze not wavering from the fireplace. Dick sighs and sits back down on the sofa to rest his head in his hands. It’s a shitty lesson, learning that you can’t rescue everyone. They both wait in the library stillness for several minutes, watching the light from the flames flicker across the floor. Dick looks up.

“Okay, then what?”

Jason exhales. “I went back to his apartment and he was up on this fucking balcony drinking and I . . .” Dick waits quietly as the boy finds the right words. “I dropped down too quick, spooked him. And he stumbled, slipped over the railing, and it . . . Fuck, Dick, it happened so fast.”

Dick nods but frowns. “And Bruce benched you because . . .”

“He thinks I pushed him.”

Shit.

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

Dick runs a hand through his hair, the strands falling back into his face. Advice. That’s what he’s supposed to do. Older brothers give advice. Fuck. “Okay, look, Bruce is a—” His phone rings, the emergency tone for the Titans echoing throughout the library, and Dick jumps—“Son of a bitch,” he finishes instead, grabbing his cell.

Jason raises his brows, a weak grin etching across his face. “Don’t think Martha would appreciate that.”

A distracted chuckle leaves Dick’s throat as he stares at the message on the screen in annoyance. Deathstroke. Of all the people who hate the Titans, it couldn’t have been someone the team could handle without him?

He glances at his brother but Jason is already waving him away. “Yeah, I get it. It’s fine.”

“It’s not.”

“Just go, asshole. We can deal with this another day.”

“I don’t ‘deal with you’, Little Wing. I like talking to you, come on, and we are gonna finish this conversation.” Probably. When he can figure out what to fucking say. Dick stands as the alarm on his phone goes off again. “Just not today because I need to go kick Deathstroke’s ass.”

Jason follows as his brother jogs into the study and both of them stop at the clock. Dick opens the case, moving the hands as Jason watches silently. Seconds later, the wall is sliding open and Dick is praying that Bruce has the Tower’s location already set up in the zeta-tube. The sound of feet hitting stone echoes as they run down, and Dick doesn’t even stop as they reach the cave, doesn’t look to see if anything’s changed.

The zeta doesn’t have the Tower’s coordinates pulled up and Dick spends too much time pressing buttons for his liking. As the damn thing finally starts, he gives Jason a half-hearted grin and ruffles his hair. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

Jason smiles tiredly as Dick steps into the tube. “Punch Wilson in the face for me.”

And Dick doesn’t have enough time to respond because the world dissolves into blue and then he’s in the Tower, Roy yelling at him to ‘fucking move his ass.’

In the end, he does manage to punch Slade in the face, which is awesome. And they also save New York for the third time this month which is doubly awesome. But when they’re finally out of costume, and Garth’s calling up their favorite pizza place and Donna is laughing into Roy’s shoulder at some joke Vic made, Dick’s stomach is still in knots. He’s still staring at Jason’s name in his phone with no idea of what to do.

And looking around their rec-room, at the bright grins of his teammates, he can’t dampen the mood with his own ridiculous feelings. It’s stupid. He knows it’s stupid, because it’s just Jason. Still, he only pokes at his huge pizza slice that Raven’s dropped in front of him, the argument between Vic and Gar about meat and tofu fading into the background.

Hesitantly, he glances over at where Kory is sitting across the room. Too quickly she meets his gaze and they both look away. He’d thrown the tie she gave him somewhere on the floor of his bedroom while suiting up. Can’t be sentimental when assassins want to kill the mayor.

He’s not sure if he’s relieved or not when Wally drops down next to him, nudging Dick’s arm with his own and forcing a soda can into his hand. He doesn’t say anything either, only gives his friend a smart grin and lays back on the sofa, draping his legs over Dick’s thighs.

Dick rolls his eyes but pops the tab of his soda anyway.

The team trails off one by one, either to train or sleep. Kory doesn’t look at him when she leaves and Dick doesn’t call out either. Eventually, the only ones left are the founders, but then Garth has to take his nightly swim and Donna wants to finish editing her photos and Roy needs to fix a faulty sonic arrow and Wally . . . stays.

They’re quiet for a long time, which is weird for the speedster, but he knows when to let Dick think. Doesn’t stop him from eventually kicking the other’s leg and pointing at his untouched pizza, though. “You gonna eat that?”

Dick grumbles and hands it to him, and Wally laughs. And that’s . . . at least he knows he can do something right.

Wally takes a bite and the pizza is gone. “So. It was that bad?”

“How can you tell?”

“Because you’re doing that thing—” Wally does a scrunched serious face that makes him look slightly constipated—“that you do when you’re having an internal crisis.”

Dick’s scrunched serious face becomes scrunchier. “I’m not . . . crisis-ing. I’m fine.”

“Wow. Are you really trying to bullshit me, right now?”

Dick pinches his thigh and Wally yelps, kicking in retaliation. They grapple, and Dick pushes the other boy off the couch only for Wally to grab his arm at the last second. He lands on the floor with an oomph and a speedster crushing him. But one of them was trained by Batman and that one isn’t Wally, and Dick’s got him pinned in seconds.

“You suck,” Wally moans into the rug dramatically.

Dick grins. “Your hand-to-hand has gotten better.”

“Fuck you.”

Dick’s smile widens and he lets up, Wally kicking at him again for good measure. They sit across from each other, legs tangled together, Dick against the sofa and Wally with his head tipped back onto the coffee table. Dick chews his lip for a moment.

“It wasn’t bad. Just . . . a lot of stuff happened.”

Wally glances at him, but doesn’t move his head. The angle kinda makes him look stupid. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Dick sorts through the night for a moment. “Bruce didn’t even invite me.”

“Wait, seriously?” Wally actually lifts his head up, brows raised towards the ceiling.

Dick nods. “Figures. It was Alfred, probably, or my name got thrown in or . . . I don’t know, doesn’t matter because it was still awkward as fuck. Almost left, but then he kind of apologized? And asked me to stay for tea? It was weird.”

“The guy who dresses up as a bat to fight clowns is weird? Who would’ve guessed,” the speedster deadpans.

A laugh bubbles out of his chest and Wally knocks their feet together. “Yeah, but then he disappeared for a bit and instead of coming back with tea he sent a kid? Like? One second I’m arguing with Jason about something dumb and then there’s this tiny child with a tea tray in the doorway? He looked confused.”

Wally grins. “Can’t blame him.”

Dick shakes his head. “His name’s Tim Drake. His parents own some big medical company and his mom is kind of a bitch.”

“What’d she do?” Wally asks, blinking in surprise. Dick never talks like that.

“Rude as shit when she came to pick him up and . . . God, the look on that kid’s face when he saw her . . . There’s something wrong going on in that house. I don’t like it. But Jay told him he could come to the Manor if he ever needs anything.”

“You think it’s that bad?”

“She grabbed him, too,” Dick mutters, turning away to glare at the floor. “Jason said he’d handle it and I trust him. And I think B’s worried, he caved on letting the kid come over pretty quick. Then he invited me on a bust on Saturday.”

Wally blinks. “Like . . . to bond?”

Dick shrugs hopelessly because he honestly has no idea how Bruce’s brain works anymore. “I guess? Apparently, he’s been wanting to ask for a few weeks, according to Jay and—” Dick pauses, eyes widening—“Dude, Jason got benched.”

“Benched as in hurt?” Wally asks and sits up straighter. Dick shakes his head, thoughts whirling.

“Benched as in Bruce thought he pushed a perp off a balcony.”

Wally’s mouth drops. “Holy shit. Did he actually—”

“Jason said the guy had been drinking, was startled when he dropped down, and slipped over.”

“You believe him?”

Dick hesitates too long at that. He remembers the look on Jason’s face, the crack in his voice as he talked. He also remembers the sound of bone breaking under Robin’s fist. He tugs at a loose string on the edge of his shirt.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

Wally shrugs. “I don’t know him as well as you, but . . . I don’t think Jason would go that far. Kid’s too good for that.”

Dick smiles, but it quickly fades away. “He’s got issues, though. Not that I blame him, we all do—” Wally snorts—“but I don’t know how to help him. I don’t know what to say.”

“He’s just your brother. It’s not like you have to write a speech or something.”

“ . . . That’s actually not a bad ide—”

“That was a joke. Please don’t do that. You talk like Bruce when you lecture, and it’ll just freak him out.”

“Shit,” Dick mutters, slumping back into the sofa behind him. The fabric is kind of itchy, and he shifts, thinking. “What if I mess up?”

“Then you apologize and try again.”

“How do you know that’ll work?”

“It’s what Barry did whenever he messed up with me,” Wally says quietly and something inside of Dick wilts. The speedster looks away, fiddling with the ring on his hand. Barry’s ring. The ring with a costume that wasn’t supposed to be Wally’s. Not ever.

“ . . . He’d be proud of you.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Join the club.”

“No thanks, there’s a major dick in there.”

“You want me to pin you again?”

“No,” Wally answers, but he’s smiling, so Dick takes it.

“Seriously, he’d be proud.”

Wally closes his eyes, looking too old for someone who’s only eighteen. His freckles have been fading away, adulthood coming on faster than either of them would like to admit. Dick doesn’t know how he hadn’t noticed that before. “And I seriously don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Then we’ll not know what we’re doing together. And we’ll make a club. Roy can join.”

“Ew.” Dick laughs, really laughs, at that, and Wally’s expression lightens. He bumps their legs again. “You should talk to Jason soon, though. He’ll probably get anxious if you don’t.”

Dick nods. “Yeah.”

They fall silent again, and Dick lets himself drift for several seconds, listening to the distant city outside. Wally hums in thought, the tune vaguely familiar but Dick can’t quite place it. Maybe something from when they were kids. He stares for a moment.

“Hey.” Wally glances at him, green eyes quiet. “Thanks.”

He gets a grin in return, one that’s too teasing to be truly genuine. “And if we’re talking about emotions . . .”

“No.”

“Dude, you were staring at her all night.”

“Was not!”

“Were too!”

“Was—No, we’re not doing this.”

Wally sticks his tongue out at him. “You have feelings, she has feelings, you’re making it complicated.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Would Kory?”

Dick opens his mouth, then shuts it with a click. Wally points a finger at him in triumph and Dick glowers with resignation. He still tries. “She’s—I’m—we’re both just so—”

“Different isn’t always a bad thing, bro. Haven’t you heard of opposites attracting? You’re just scared of getting hurt, which is ridiculous because she’s head over heels for you.”

Dick sighs. “Can we go back to talking about my Bruce issues?”

“No. Just have a conversation with her.”

“What if I—”

“Mess up? Didn’t we just finish that discussion?” Wally asks, voice flat. “I’m not above locking you two in a closet, don’t push me. You’re both pining and it’s gross.” Dick opens his mouth again. Wally sighs. “What if I tell you it’s upsetting the team dynamic.” Dick’s mouth closes, and the other man groans, head falling into his hands. “Oh my god.”

“Is it? Because that’s really important—”

“It’s not; it’s just fucking awkward, Jesus Christ.”

Dick exhales, steels himself. “Fine. I’ll talk to Kory. And Bruce. And Jason. Happy?”

“Yeah, actually. Jerk.” Wally sticks his tongue out at him, and Dick returns the action.

“Now tell me about your love life so I can make fun of you.”

Wally perks up, starts talking about some hot girl in his Advanced Chemistry lecture, and Dick settles back against the couch. It isn’t too itchy if he doesn’t think about it. Besides, Wally’s leg is warm against his, and, for now, that’s enough.

*****

Tim is picking at his cereal when his parents enter the dining room. Jack still in slippers with the morning paper tucked under his arm, and Janet wearing a silk robe. Last night certainly hadn’t helped with the tension between them, with his mother’s angry mutters and his father’s chilled gaze filling the car ride home. Tim had rushed up to his room, not bothering with a ‘goodnight.’ He doubts they’d even noticed.

Still, it’s a new day. He tries to smile at them but he knows it comes out wrong. His parents pause in the doorway for a second, staring at him like they’re not sure what to say.

Jack breaks the quiet, “Morning, Tim.”

“Good morning,” he answers back hesitantly. The words are strange in his mouth. Unfamiliar.

His mother sits across from him as his father takes the head of the long table. Neither looks particularly comfortable, but Tim isn’t either, so he won’t judge.

Most of his breakfasts take place by the kitchen counter or on his way to school. Rarely in the dining room, with its empty chairs and arching windows. It’s always been too cold for Tim’s liking and he can count on one hand the number of times he’s had a meal in here.

So he shifts in his seat, Janet catching it out of the corner of her eye. “Posture.”

His father opens his newspaper, sips his dark coffee. Tim can’t decide whether or not he likes the overpowering smell of it. “Dear, it’s first thing in the morning. Let the boy relax for God’s sake.”

“He was plenty relaxed last night,” she snaps and Tim stills, his spoon halfway to his mouth. She isn’t looking at him as she adds strawberries to her plate, but her movements are sharp. “I don’t know what you were thinking, Tim. Bothering Bruce Wayne of all people and disappearing to Lord knows where halfway through the night to talk to those children of his. Left us having to brush off questions about your whereabouts, and you certainly lost us several investors—”

“He asked for my help.”

Both of his parents freeze. Tim, too, after he realizes his interruption, his eyes quickly moving down to stare at his bowl. Janet slowly places the spoon in her grip back into its dish. The harsh clink of metal against china echoes in the silence, Tim’s teeth gritting at the sound. Her hands fold neatly on top of the table.

“What was that, Timothy?” Her voice is frigid. Tim hesitates, eyes darting to his father to gauge his reaction. He’s met with blankness.

Tim takes a breath and continues, “Bru—Mr. Wayne was looking for his butler to make tea, but then I told him I could do it. And then he thought that I’d get along with his sons so I just . . .” He gestures helplessly and his mother sighs, rubbing at her temple.

“We’ll try again Friday. I have a presentation with the board, but your father is going to the annual GCPD charity luncheon at Wayne Enterprises. You’ll go with him and pay attention to the other businessmen this time, don’t be completely useless and run off somewhere.” She stands, her chair scraping against the floor.

Both Tim and his father open their mouths to protest, but are met with a harsh look, the kind that Janet Drake gives people during meetings when somebody dares to challenge her. Tim slumps into his seat, but Jack does not. “He’d be missing school, might not send the best message.”

“If he goes with you he’ll be learning more important things anyway. And besides,” she stares down at her son pointedly, “he’ll make sure to stay out of trouble. Won’t you, Tim?”

His head is heavy when he nods, but Tim manages it. “Yes, ma’am.”

“You see? It’s fine, Jack. Besides, don’t you have more important things to worry about anyway with that damn exhibition coming up?” she snaps at her husband. Jack’s lip curls, but he doesn’t respond as she swirls out of the room, silk robe flowing behind her. She leaves her untouched plate of strawberries behind.

Tim hesitates. His father turns back to the newspaper. Several more minutes pass by.

“What’s the exhibition for?”

Jack glances up at him for a second before returning to his article. “Just uncovered a few things for the museum downtown. Nothing exciting for your mother to host a celebration party for, so she’s bitter over it.”

“Oh,” Tim says, awkwardly poking at his bowl. There’s more to it than that but he knows when to hold his tongue.

He counts the seconds as they tick by, waiting for an appropriate amount of time to pass before escaping the room. His father flips to the next page of the paper. Tim leaves without a sound.

When he bikes to school, he goes as fast as he can, legs and lungs burning. He relishes the feeling. At least, out here, he can finally breathe.

*****

Friday comes both too soon and too slow.

His parents will be gone this afternoon and while the house is still quiet with them there (apart from the ever-louder arguments that Tim can hear echoing through the halls), it’s nevertheless nice knowing that he isn’t alone anymore.

But he’d be lying if he said he didn’t miss sneaking out at night. Based on what he’d last heard when he was out on the streets, Penguin is going to bring in a huge shipment tomorrow, and Tim’s dying to get a few decent shots of it. If he gets an especially good one, he might even mail it to Gordon. Anonymously, of course.

He knows they use his photos as evidence sometimes. Had heard the Commissioner mention it to Batman, once on a slower patrol. That the resolution of his camera picks up details that security footage can’t make out.

Tim hadn’t stopped grinning the rest of the night, and Gordon had gotten seven extra photos that weekend.

The elevator pings open, and Jack Drake’s shoes squeak on the polished marble floor. Tim’s never been in Wayne Tower before, and he stares as they walk by gleaming offices and busy people. It’s a beautiful place, with tasteful decor and huge windows lining the halls. Everyone around them moves like clockwork and Tim would be lying if he said that he wasn’t impressed. He’d always thought that running a business would be boring, his parents never seem to enjoy it. But . . . Tim wouldn’t mind working here.

He almost runs into his father when the man stops in front of a pair of glass doors. Looking through them, Tim can see a long room with balconies and official-looking men and women standing around.

A few are in uniforms, members of the GCPD. Tim pretends not to notice, pretends that he doesn’t know exactly who each of them is. His father looks down at him.

“Don’t embarrass yourself or me. And don’t bother the Waynes, understand?”

Tim nods, and his father exhales, pushing the doors open. Several businessmen come up to Mr. Drake at once, and Tim knows he’s not supposed to get left behind, but they’re all moving and chattering and suddenly he’s alone in a room full of people. He glances around frantically, but he only sees the same dull suits and stiff dresses no matter where he turns.

Hesitantly, he moves to the lunch table. Pretends that he has everything under control. And it’s almost funny that he’s more comfortable on the dark streets of Gotham instead of this crowded place. He pours himself a cup of water and carefully makes sure nobody is behind him when he turns around. Especially Bruce Wayne.

His drink spills anyway.

The man who just ran into him blinks down in surprise, like he wasn’t expecting someone so short to be there. “Excuse me, Mr. . . . ?”

“Uh, Tim,” Tim answers, trying to straighten his wet suit. The man curses under his breath and reaches up to his chest, handing Tim a handkerchief. He looks up at the man again. Brown eyes behind smart glasses and greying at the temples. Well-cut suit, looks far more comfortable here than Tim does, and Tim knows he’s seen this guy before somewhere and oh . . . Oh.

“I’m Lucius Fox. Are you lost, son?”

“I—uh, no? No, I’m fine, thank you. My dad’s just . . .” Tim looks around desperately, but the universe doesn’t seem to be on his side today.

Lucius studies him for a long moment and something clicks behind his gaze. “You’re Drake’s son, aren’t you?”

Tim blinks. “Yeah, yeah, how did you . . . ?”

“You look like your mother. And she is . . . “ Fox furrows his brow and hesitates, “Hard to forget.”

“That sounds about right,” Tim mutters, carefully folding the handkerchief back into a neat square. It’s silk and a crisp white and Lucius places it back in its pocket despite the fact that it’s still wet.

“Mr. Wayne mentioned you this morning when I told him your father was invited to the luncheon.”

Tim blinks again. “He did?”

“Said you and Jason got along. And that you make better tea than our new Keurig.”

Tim’s brain melts.

“When he mentioned you to me he said that all you do is judge his life choices,” he says without thinking, then freezes horrified. Fox stares at him. Tim starts, “Sorry! I didn’t mean—”

Lucius laughs, true and deep enough to make several people nearby glance at them. Tim doesn’t move, unsure whether to keep apologizing or join in. He goes for a nervous chuckle instead. After a few more moments, Fox settles and smiles at him. “I do judge his life choices, believe me, he deserves it.” He straightens up, looking around for Tim’s father. “Apologies, but I have to check up on a few things. Not sure where your father went, but Jason and Ms. Gordon are back there if you’d like to talk to them.”

Tim’s eyes follow the direction Lucius subtly points at. “Ms. Gordon?”

“The Commissioner’s daughter, Barbara.” Yeah, Tim knows who she is. “I think you two will get along, trust me.” He shakes Tim’s hand, grip strong but not unkind. As if they were equals. Tim likes him. “It was nice to meet you, Tim.”

“You too, thanks,” he manages, watching as Lucius blends into the crowd. Then he turns and tries not to walk too fast to where the man had steered him. At least now he has somewhere to go.

It isn’t hard to spot them in the tucked-away corner, Barbara’s hair is bright in the sunlight, and Tim remembers how it looked when she flew through the air. A shock of red against the dark sky. Batgirl. The Batgirl.

He almost forgets until he sees the wheelchair.

The papers had blown up with the news, every other story focusing on the Gordons or the Joker or Batman. Looking back on it, it’s amazing that no one made the connection between her and her vigilante identity. Amazing no one still has.

Neither of them seems to notice as he quietly approaches, engrossed in their conversation. Barbara’s hands are folded very tightly on her lap and Jason’s shoulders are tense. Tim stills, tries to blend in with the background like he does on the streets. Even from this short distance, he can barely make out what they’re saying.

“—looked at the hospital’s records. Her name wasn’t on file, and they listed Catherine and your father as your guardians, no one else. I’m sorry, Jason.”

Jason slumps. “That doesn’t make any sense, the certificate’s damaged, yeah, but my mom didn’t have an ‘S’ in her name anywhere.”

“B said you were narrowing down a list of women? Based on your date of birth and your father’s associates?”

“Yeah, I’ve got three names. Gonna try and locate them, and then reach out, I guess.”

Barbara reaches out and touches his arm. “Hey, take it from someone who knows; it’s okay not to have . . . I just don’t want you to think you’re worth anything less than you are. There’s nothing wrong with you, and you don’t have to prove yourself to anyone. Especially not to her.”

Jason stares at her, swallows. “I know that, I do, and I already have a mom. Catherine was my mom. This lady, whoever she is, I just . . . I just have some questions I’d like her to answer, you know?”

Barbara hesitates and then nods. From this angle, Tim can’t see the expression on her face. “Okay, but be careful. I don’t want you to get hurt by whatever you find.”

A grin spreads across his face. “Aw, Barbie, you do care.”

“Shut it, brat.”

“That’s not a very nice thing to—” Jason looks up, eyes landing on Tim and then widening. He hides it quickly, but Barbara sees and she spins around, already an expert with her chair. Jason walks over, and Tim stiffens, wonders if they know he’s heard everything; but the older boy only throws an arm around his shoulder. “Tim! Didn’t expect to see you here.”

Tim tries not to stumble as Jason leads him back over to Barbara, who watches them with arched brows. Tim scrambles to come up with anything. “Sorry, you guys looked like you were talking about something, and I didn’t want to interrupt.”

Both of them relax a touch. Tim does too.

Jason lets the weight of his arm drop. “It wasn’t anything important, don’t worry about it.” He gestures to Barbara, moving to her side. “Barbie, Tim Drake. Tim, Barbara Gordon. All you gotta know about her is that she’s smarter than everybody else in this room combined.”

Barbara scoffs. “Stop trying to be charming, it’s weird.”

“Not charming anyone, just telling the truth,” Jason responds primly. She swats at him, and he grins widely in return. Her clever gaze moves to Tim.

Tim decides that Barbara Gordon is very pretty and very, very scary. There’s a high chance that even while wearing her expensive silk dress and sitting in a wheelchair, she could beat him up and not let a hair get out of place. But she also reminds him of Lucius, with the way her eyes sparkle behind her glasses. They shake hands.

Strong grip, but not unkind. Equals. Tim decides he likes her, too.

“So,” she starts, a smirk at the corners of her mouth. “You skipping, or did school let out on a half-day like the nerd over here?”

“Hey!” Jason protests, scowling as Tim’s face breaks into a grin.

Barbara scoffs. “Please, like you would ever skip school. Remember when you tried to sneak out when you were sick so you wouldn’t miss a test?”

Jason’s ears turn pink and he rolls his eyes. This only seems to bemuse Barbara more. “That was only one time. Besides, now I know better than to try and get past Alfred.” She cackles, so he lightly pinches her shoulder.

Tim glances between them for a moment before finally answering, “Skipping.”

Barbara looks delighted. Jason sighs.

There’s the sound of speakers turning on followed by the muffled tapping of a microphone. Everyone turns to stare at the front of the room where Commissioner Gordon seems ready to begin a speech, though he doesn’t appear too excited about it. Bruce is standing next to him, smiling broadly like he’s having the time of his life. He must be bored out of his mind.

Tim hears Jason groan behind him. He also hears the stifled oomph when Barbara elbows him.

Both of them come up to his side, Jason grinning in a way that Tim is pretty sure means trouble. Jason nudges him. “Come on.”

Tim blinks once, glances between him and the Commissioner. “What?”

“Come on,” the older boy says again, pointedly tilting his head to one of the balconies, just out of sight. Tim smiles. Barbara shakes her head.

“I hate this habit,” she mutters at Jason. “Cutting your life expectancy in half, I swear.”

Jason shrugs. “It’s Gotham, plenty of things can cut my life expectancy in half. And relax, Barb, it’s not like I’m going anywhere anytime soon. Just cover us, yeah?”

She grumbles and waves them away with a calloused hand. “You owe me, kid.”

“I’ll buy you a chilidog,” Jason tells her, steering Tim to the balcony and away from Commissioner Gordon’s resigned droning. They slip through the doors and into the sunlight, the cool air refreshing compared to the room’s heat.

Tim breathes it in and side-eyes Jason curiously. “What habit?”

The older boy shrugs, leaning against the wall in a way so that no one could see him from inside. He pulls out a pack of cigarettes and gives Tim a look that clearly says that he better keep his mouth shut about this.

Tim only raises his brow and rests against the balcony railing. Jason sparks a lighter, the flame standing brightly out against the dull blues and greys surrounding them. He takes a slow drag and relaxes further into the concrete beneath his shoulders. Closing his eyes, he exhales, and the wind blows the smoke away before it has a chance to curl through the air.

He cracks his eyelids just a touch to meet Tim’s gaze. “Sorry, but I’m not sharing, kid. These things will kill you, you know.”

Tim huffs a laugh and looks out over the view of the city.

Gotham’s almost pretty like this, windows shining in the sun with a clear sky above. It’s weird. He prefers it at night when only neon signs and streetlights keep the city from falling into darkness. The lighting is more interesting anyway; and his best pictures are taken when the sun goes down. To be fair, that also may be because his best pictures are of Batman. And Robin.

Jason breathes out another lungful of smoke. The wind blows it away again.

“You never answered.”

“Huh?” Tim asks eloquently, looking back at the boy.

Jason tilts his head. “When I asked if you wanted to come over to the Manor sometime, you never answered.”

“Oh, I . . .” Tim tries, but the words won’t come. He isn’t sure what to make of this; nobody’s ever wanted to hang out with him before. He pulls at the ends of his sleeves. Jason only watches him, still quiet.

The cigarette end burns. Inhale. Exhale. Smoke. Wind. Tim looks away, out over the gleaming city, and gathers the confused pieces of his mind into one word.

“Why?”

Jason cocks his head and frowns. “Why what?”

“Why . . .” Tim shifts uncomfortably under the other boy’s unmoving stare. “Why do you want to be around me?”

“Because I like you,” Jason says, as if it’s that uncomplicated. Tim grimaces because there’s always something more than that. People always want more.

“No, you don’t; you hardly even know me. What do you actually want?” He snaps back, eyes turning cold. Jason looks taken aback, and for a second, Tim almost regrets what he said, but then the boy straightens up, and Tim suddenly realizes that Jason probably knows a lot more about him than he originally thought. And that this conversation is not going to be a pleasant one.

Jason glances back at the closed doors in calm consideration. “When was the last time your parents were home before this week, Tim?”

Tim’s jaw clenches, his hands tightening into fists. “I told you before, I’m fine.”

Jason nods like this is all the confirmation he needed, and Tim wants to backtrack and answer that. But the truth is that his parents were last home three months ago and that fact would only make things worse right now. The back of his tongue is sour.

“Why do you care?” He mutters, and Jason actually hesitates at that. They watch each other for a few tense moments, then Jason sighs and leans back against the concrete. Tim has the sudden urge to tell him that he’s wrinkling his suit. He has a distinct feeling Jason wouldn’t appreciate it.

The other boy taps the end of his cigarette, Tim watching the ash fall through the air. Jason takes a drag and examines him with narrowed eyes. “I care, because I know what it’s like not to have anybody give a damn about you.”

And it’s as if everything’s been punched out of Tim’s lungs. He can only stare as Jason exhales more smoke.

He snaps.

“My parents love me. At least that’s more than what you could say for yours.”

They both freeze as soon as the words leave Tim’s mouth, the city’s sounds filling the silence between them. Stiffly, Jason drops his cigarette, crushing it beneath a polished shoe. Tim suddenly has to fight the urge to step backward. Not that it would help, he's already pressed against the railing with nowhere to run.

Jason meets his eyes levelly. He doesn’t need the mask to be terrifying. “I wasn’t lying when I said I liked you, Tim. But I’m not above punching you, either. Your choice.”

Tim glares down at the flattened cigarette, wishes he could rewind the past few minutes.

“ . . . I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.” He unflinchingly looks back at the other’s gaze. “But my family life is . . . okay. I don’t need your help.”

Jason lifts his head and rests back against the wall, evaluating him. In turn, Tim’s shoulders relax with the knowledge that his face isn’t about to be broken. In the distance, a police siren wails. The older boy jerks his chin at the balcony doors.

“Alright. You don’t need my help,” Jason says, voice significantly quieter than it was. He glances at Tim hesitantly. “But do you want it?”

The sincerity of the question is enough to make Tim's chest hurt. Enough to make him suddenly want to cry. He swallows, and the words ‘I’m fine’ are stuck in his throat, and he has to look back out at Gotham. Look at the glass skyscrapers reflecting the blue sky and imagine the darkness and neon he can hide away in at night. Where he doesn’t have to worry about things like his parents or Batman or his nosy, righteous, far-too-caring neighbors who keep reaching out and just want to help, and Tim doesn’t know what to do.

“Hey, kid,” Jason starts softly, and he must have moved at some point because he’s setting a hand on Tim’s shoulder. Tim hadn’t even heard him. “I’m not saying that I’m gonna report this shit or anything if you don’t want that. I know how that can fuck up somebody’s life. I’m just . . . If you want a place to stay or someone to talk to, you can drop by, okay?”

Tim turns away from the shining skyscrapers and looks up at Jason’s too-gentle expression. He’s made up his mind before he can even think it through. Maybe he didn’t need to think about it at all.

“Okay.”

Jason grins, and it’s too bright for the city around them. “Alright, that’s . . . alright. Though, just to let you know, B and I will be gone for the next few days. Visiting a friend in the Middle East, shouldn’t take too long.”

Tim’s memory flashes back to what he heard between Jason and Barbara a few minutes ago. He keeps his face carefully blank.

Jason continues, “But when we get back, I’ve got to show you all the books the library has, you wouldn’t believe—”

The balcony doors open, and they whip around to see Jack Drake glaring down at both of them. Tim’s mouth goes dry and he stiffens, smoothing out his suit even though there aren’t any wrinkles on it. Jason doesn’t bother with his own rumpled jacket and only gives Mr. Drake a cool look.

Tim glances between them, attempting to ignore the tension in the air. He gestures to his father, weakly. “Jason, this is my dad, Jack Drake. I don’t think you’ve met.”

“No,” Mr. Drake says, just a tad bit too sharp, “we haven’t.”

They watch each other for another beat, then Jason rolls his shoulders, smoothly reaching his hand forward with too much grace to be natural. “Jason Todd, nice to finally meet you.” Jack hesitantly shakes it, eyeing Jason as if the boy was something particularly nasty lying on the side of the road. Jason grins dangerously, and Tim wonders if Bruce taught his Robins how to act or if Dick and Jason learned it from this. From the ruthless people who wear sparkling jewels and fake smiles.

Mr. Drake takes a step back. He’s intimidated, Tim realizes. He’s never seen his dad intimidated by somebody before. He rests a hand on Tim’s shoulder, his grip close to painful, and Tim does his best not to let that show on his face. But Jason must see it because his eyes get impossibly colder.

“It’s time for us to go, Tim. Your mother finished her meeting early, and she wants to go over several things.”

He doesn’t know where the words come from, but Tim is moving away, not quite out of his father’s grip but it’s close, and asks, “Now?”

It probably means something when Jack’s fingers dig even tighter into Tim’s skin. He tries to ignore it, focusing on the way his father’s mouth becomes a very pale, thin line. Even from behind him Tim can still feel Jason’s stare.

“Now.”

His father lets go suddenly, and Tim nearly stumbles back from the sudden release, the man stalking back into the room and leaving both boys to stare after him. Tim automatically rubs his shoulder, wincing, but drops his hand when he realizes that Jason is watching him.

He swallows and glances at the open door. “Look, I have to . . .”

Jason waves a hand in understanding, but Tim can still see the disappointment in his eyes. Weirdly, it almost makes him feel good; knowing that someone can be upset that he’s leaving. That someone cares. He wonders if his parents ever feel like that and immediately his stomach lurches in disgust.

“It’s fine, I’ll, uh . . .” Jason considers him cautiously, hopefully. “I’ll see you soon, yeah? Show you the library?”

Despite everything, Tim grins slightly. “Yeah.”

Something bright enters the older boy’s eyes when he smiles in return, and Tim’s mind flashes back to Dick telling him how he got lonely growing up in the Manor with just Bruce and Alfred to talk to.

Maybe Jason needs someone just as much as Tim does.

A kinder sensation settles in his stomach: the knowledge that someone wants to hang out. Wants to be friends. Tim does his best to not notice the giddiness that sweeps through him. He looks back through the door and sees his father waiting for him, jaw set. He points his thumb over his shoulder, manages not to walk into the glass window behind him. “Um, bye?”

Jason snorts and rolls his eyes. It reminds Tim of Dick doing the exact same thing to Jason himself. “Later, kid.”

Tim turns and takes approximately two steps forward before looking back. Jason has already lit a new cigarette, the flame of his lighter going out before the thing is tucked into his wrinkled suit jacket. Tim hesitates.

“Jason?” The teenager glances at him, brows raised. “Thanks.”

Jason grins and exhales. Tim’s back is turned and he’s walking into the warmth of the room by the time the wind blows the smoke away.

*****

He shouldn’t have agreed to it.

That’s the first thing Dick thinks when he rolls back into the cave, parking his bike, and striding up to the computer. He glares at the files of the assholes who almost got the best of them tonight. At the incriminating photos given to them by Gordon that showed Penguin’s drop-off territory in the middle of a shipment, a big enough order that it would have been enough to put the crime lord behind bars for longer than usual. Useful photos, too, better quality than the usual security cameras. Gordon only said they were mailed in without a return address, a detail which Bruce had been agonizing over up to the second they went out.

Not that it matters now. He glares at the pictures and resists the urge to sweep them off the desk and onto the floor. The sound of the Batmobile ruins the quiet and Dick curses, reaching up to peel off his mask.

He lets it fall onto the keyboard. He’ll have to replace it: one of the lenses is cracked from when a crook got a lucky shot in.

Tonight hadn’t been a disaster, but it’d been too close.

Dick doesn’t look up when the slam of a car door echoes off the cave walls, Batman’s harsh footsteps followed by Robin’s lighter ones the only thing breaking the silence. He glares into the light of the Batcomputer. The inside of his mouth tastes like iron and he wonders if there’s still some blood between his teeth.

Bruce halts right behind him, and Dick’s shoulders manage to become even tenser. He can feel a cut high on his cheekbone drip blood down his face. Shit, that one will probably need stitches.

“What the hell were you thinking?” It’s the Bat’s voice that asks. Somehow that infuriates Dick even more and he turns to see that Bruce hasn’t even bothered to fucking take his cowl off. He has no idea what’s going on in Batman’s head, can only look at the angry line of Bruce’s mouth.

Some part of him knows that some part of Bruce wants Dick to blow up, to prove that the older man is in the right.

Fuck that.

Dick takes a breath. “You were busy so I went after the perp with the kid.”

“You left our backs completely open, we were surrounded in seconds.”

“A civilian was in danger, the guy had a knife, B!”

“You didn’t even call out, Nightwing.” And, yeah, Dick’s chest gets boiling-hot with the way Bruce says his name. Like Dick could have done better than that. Because Dick’s always supposed to do better. “You went against protocol.”

“I was sort of focused on not letting a kid get gutted. Sorry, for letting that be my priority at the time.” He can feel Bruce’s glare through the eyes of the cowl. Dick continues sarcastically, “He’s fine by the way, ran off the site as soon as the asshole lost his grip on him. Didn’t even lose his camera. And we took down the operation, why can’t you just take this as a win?”

Bruce stills. “Camera? Why did he have a camera?”

“Jesus, I don’t know, Bruce! Probably to take pictures of us or something; civilians tend to do that when we’re fighting in front of them,” Dick snaps.

“What did he look like?”

Dick throws his hands into the air. “Small, grey hoodie, didn’t see his face because he was already gone and then I was focused on getting back to cover you.”

“You should have at least attempted to—”

“So now you’re angry because I was trying to watch your back instead of leaving you open? Make up your fucking mind—”

“I’m angry,” Bruce hisses back, “that you didn’t wait for my orders.”

Dick practically snarls, “If I had waited for your orders there wouldn’t have been a kid left to save.” He steps closer, but Bruce doesn’t move back, so he jabs a finger into the center of the symbol on Batman’s chest. “And I don’t follow your orders anymore. I thought we made that pretty damn clear when you fired me, right, B?”

Bruce goes very still, and for a second, Dick thinks he might have actually rendered him speechless, but then—

“You left.”

And there’s so much to unpack with the way Bruce says that. Too much. And Dick ignores it in favor of curling his lip. “Yeah, after you benched me, permanently.” Bruce looks like he wants to say something else so Dick continues quickly, “Either way, I’m not your partner anymore, and I’m sure as hell not your sidekick. So stop treating me like one.”

“As soon as you start acting like an adult, I will.”

“Could you actually be any more condescending? Is it that hard for you to just respect the people you work with?” Dick says frigidly, moving past his adopted father with controlled ease. Bruce turns after him.

“I’m going to get my stitches redone. By the time I’m back, I want you gone.”

Dick’s heart stumbles and stops, and he whirls around, gaze wide. “What—”

“We don't work together—we're not partners, just as you said." Bruce pushes back the cowl and looks at him with steady, sharp eyes. "Come back when you’re capable of not acting like the child I took in. Then we’ll talk about respect,” Batman finishes. He breezes by Dick and up the stairs, as if he hadn’t just turned his son’s insides to ice and fire.

Dick stares at nothing, his thoughts buzzing around his head, drowning out the sounds of the chittering bats above.

He doesn’t know why the words hit harder than he expected. It’s nothing they haven’t said before, but it just hurts this time. Maybe it’s because he and Bruce never operate together anymore. Maybe it’s because no matter how much Dick pretends to not care about what Bruce thinks of him, he always will.

Still, nothing they haven’t said before. They’ll probably just avoid each other for the next few months, more than they already were. So much for progress.

I want you gone.

He feels a light tap on his arm. “Dick?” He blinks and looks at where Jason is standing next to him.

Fuck, he’d forgotten the kid was even there. Dick’s stomach withers with shame.

Jason blinks up at him, hesitation and concern in his teal eyes. “You okay?”

No.

“I’m always okay, Little Wing,” he manages. Jason winces and looks over at the stairs Bruce had walked up, shifting on his feet.

“Um, you don’t have to do that with me. That whole . . .” He gestures at Dick helplessly. “That ‘I’m always fine’ thing you do. You know that, right?”

Dick’s chest becomes way too tight. His voice catches when he says, “ . . . Yeah.”

Jason’s face relaxes and he grins. “Cool, uh . . . I actually wanted to talk to you about something. I found this stuff on my mom, my biological mom, and I wanted your opinion on what I should—”

“Jason,” Dick interrupts, eyes squeezing tightly shut. He knows he shouldn’t be doing this but he’s tired and bloody and he really needs to either curl up in bed or punch something. “Look, I . . . I care, I do, but I need to . . .” He motions at the zeta tube. The damn thing probably still doesn’t have the Tower’s coordinates up either because Bruce is an asshole.

The younger boy stills, catching Dick’s meaning and probably remembering Bruce’s words.

I want you gone.

Nothing they haven’t said before. It’s fine. It’ll be fine.

Jerkily, Jason nods and takes an awkward step back, looking at anything other than his adopted brother. Dick somehow manages to feel even worse. “Right, I—Yeah, sorry, I’ll just . . . Another time?”

Dick nods, moves to the zeta and starts to type in the numbers. He glances over his shoulder and remembers his motorcycle. The blood in his mouth makes up his mind about driving back to New York. “Hey, Jay?”

Jason looks up hopefully. “Yeah?”

“Watch my bike for me?” Dick points at it as the zeta-tube begins to glow, and Jason’s expression falls.

“Oh, yeah I can do that.” He suddenly perks up. “Can I ride—”

“Don’t even think about it.”

Jason huffs and flips him off, and Dick smiles as he returns the gesture. “I’ll call you, I just . . . gotta clear my head for a few days, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, see you later, Dick.” They both grin.

“Later, Little Wing.”

There’s blue light and he’s back in the Tower.

I want you gone.

The cut on his cheek stings. With Jason no longer around, now he really, really wants to punch something. He walks through the halls, noting how they’re actually quiet for once. Seems like everybody is out somewhere.

Not that he can blame them, that’s what teenagers are supposed to do on a Saturday night.

Even though he should head to the med bay, Dick goes to the kitchen instead. Maybe there’s some pizza left from the other night. But considering that Wally exists, probably not. He half expects the kitchen to be empty, too, but Roy’s in there fiddling with the toaster. The redhead looks up when Dick enters and his eyebrows rise to his hairline.

“Wow, you look like shit.”

Dick throws him a half-hearted glare as he moves towards the pantry. “Could say the same about you.” Roy stills.

Not like he didn’t say anything other than the truth. During the past couple of weeks, the bags under Roy’s eyes have seemed to be darkening and he’s taken to wearing long-sleeves instead of his usual tank-tops. It’s an issue everyone’s been politely ignoring, even Donna, and Dick knows he’s going to have to step in soon.

He doesn’t know what kind of shit Roy’s going through, but he isn’t going to let it drag his friend under and drown him. The problem, though, is getting Roy to even talk about it.

And with the way Roy levels his gaze, Dick knows that’s not going to happen tonight.

“Well, aren’t you peppy.” Roy lays his tools on the table, and Dick stares forlornly at the disemboweled toaster. He’d just bought that one. The other boy follows his gaze and rolls his eyes. “Relax, I’ll put it back together.”

Dick grabs a protein bar and settles across from his friend. “That’s what you said about the blender.”

“You’re only upset about that because you got burned by the lasers.”

“Why the fuck does a blender need lasers? Who even likes the lasers?”

Roy smirks. “Kory likes the lasers.” Dick kicks his shin and doesn’t even feel bad when Roy yelps. “Damn, you’re testy. What? Did Bruce—”

“Spar with me,” Dick interrupts, and Roy shuts up and stares at him for so long that Dick shifts in his seat.

But this is something that they both tend to do when they can’t find the right words, and Roy nods. Dick relaxes, stands, and he doesn’t have to look behind him to know that Roy is following him to the training room. He doesn’t bother taking off his suit and Roy keeps his shirt on.

They make their way to the mats, stopping near the center. Turning, Dick examines the other boy, Roy watching him right back.

It's easy to forget, sometimes, how much the archer sees. How much he notices. Roy lowers himself into a basic stance, tilting his head in question. “Basic hand-to-hand? First one pinned for three seconds loses?”

Dick nods.

“Okay.”

They circle each other, and even though Dick usually waits for his opponent to strike first, he finds himself lunging forward. Roy avoids him easily, but this isn’t about skill; it’s about moving until they can’t think anymore.

Out of all the Titans, Roy’s the one who fights the dirtiest. Sparring with him feels like brawling on the street, all bloody grins and bruised knuckles. Dick kinda likes that about him; no bullshitting or honor in the ways he moves; Dinah’s doing, no doubt. He’s direct and effective and never fucking misses, which Dick is sorely reminded of when Roy lands a punch.

He went into this expecting he was going to lose. He’s half-assing this fight, they both know it, and he thinks Roy finally pins him out of exasperation more than anything else.

Dick grunts into the mat, not even trying to wriggle away from where Roy’s got his elbow buried between Dick’s shoulder blades. Above him, he hears Roy huff, “What the fuck was that, Grayson?”

He kicks at where the ball of Roy’s foot is resting on the floor, taking satisfaction in how Roy rolls off of him with a curse. Dick flops onto his back. “What the fuck was what, Harper?”

Roy sits up, crossing his legs, and shoves Dick’s side. “Why’d you let me beat your scrawny ass?”

“Fuck you, my ass is not scrawny.”

“I can't believe I bother with you,” Roy says to the ceiling.

“You have a scrawny ass . . . “ Dick mutters back, and Roy’s gaze drops back down to him, mouth quirked at the corner. His eyes narrow in on Dick’s cheek. Distantly, Dick realizes that his cut must have split open during their fight, and that blood is running down the side of his face and into his hair.

It’s gross, but he doesn’t care enough to get up and clean it. Roy considers him.

“So. What did Batman—”

I want you gone.

“Fuck, Batman,” Dick snaps, the venom coming from everywhere and nowhere, surging through his body.

Roy blinks.

“Guess the mission didn’t go as planned.”

“He’s such an asshole. He won’t fucking listen to me because he always has to be in the right, can’t even be bothered to compromise. I think he wants me to stop trying and just let our whole fucked up family go our separate ways.”

“He say something like that?”

Dick glares at the lights far above. “Said he wanted me gone. To come back when I could act like an adult, when he really just wants me to stop questioning him and to follow his orders like I’m some mindless soldier. And just . . . Just fuck that! And fuck him, too, for saying it in front of Jason when the kid does not need our drama on top of what he’s—”

“Jay was there?” Roy asks, sitting up straighter, and Dick glowers at him for interrupting his dramatic tirade.

“Jason’s Robin, Roy. Of course, he was there, why wouldn’t he be?”

Roy’s brow furrows. “Yeah, but he’s benched.”

“It was his first operation since—” Dick pauses, frowns, and cranes his neck to look over at the other boy. “How’d you know that?”

“Know what?” The redhead asks, going still as Dick’s eyes pin him to place.

“I didn’t tell you Jay was benched, did Wally?”

Something like realization crosses Roy’s face, and he stares with an expression Dick can’t place.

“ . . . Jason told me.”

Dick sits up too fast, and the world spins for a few seconds. He ignores it. “What? When?”

Roy watches him for a beat, then sighs with the resignation of someone who wishes they’d kept their mouth shut. “Remember when we broke into Bruce’s liquor cabinet and shared our fucking feelings a few weeks ago? And you were late as shit showing up and left me alone until Alfred took pity on me? Well, Jason was there and we . . .” Roy hesitates, searching for the right words, “We had some kind of heart-to-heart session.”

“You,” Dick says, pointing at Roy in disbelief, “talked about your emotions willingly and without the aid of alcohol?”

“Shut the fuck up, I’m not always an unfeeling asshole, you know,” Roy replies. He’s grinning, though, and Dick gestures for him to go on. The smile fades from his face. “Did, uh, Jason tell you about Garzonas?”

Dick stiffens. “You knew about the Garzonas thing? This whole time?”

“Hey, don’t start with me, Jason wanted to tell you himself and I wasn’t gonna get in the middle of that,” Roy says, bristling.

“Yeah, but I just learned about it, and you’ve known—”

“Well, maybe if you hung out with the kid more you could’ve found out sooner,” Roy snaps, and Dick reals back as if he’d been slapped. He turns away to look over at a far wall, guilt churning around in his stomach. Roy takes a glance at his face and sighs. “I know it’s hard for you, and Bruce is an asshole, but . . . he needs someone to talk to, Dick. That someone could be you.”

“Seems like he’s already found that someone,” Dick mutters sullenly.

He knows it’s stupid and petty, and that he should just be grateful that Jason found anybody to talk to about this stuff, but he can’t help the jealousy swirling inside him. Or the shame.

“No, he doesn’t need me,” Roy says too quickly. Dick frowns and looks at him. Roy is staring at Donna’s weight set across the room, pointedly avoiding Dick’s gaze. The tips of his ears are pinker than they were a few seconds ago. Probably just embarrassed that Jason looks up to him or something.

“Why not? I thought you got along, and he clearly likes you or he wouldn’t have talked to you in the first place—”

“Well, it’s not like I can just walk up to the Manor while Bruce is there. Should I remind you that he thinks I’m a bad influence?” Roy mutters.

“Nah,” Dick tells him. “He’s just not over that time you messed with his microwave and gave it robot arms.”

Roy looks wistful. “Fuck, that was awesome. Absolutely worth the lecture.” He shakes his head and gets back on topic. “But now he can hardly stand me. Maybe you could get Donna into the Manor to kidnap the kid so he can help when we have missions or something? She could totally get by Bruce, he’s always liked her the most.”

“That’s because he thinks Donna is responsible.”

“God, I wish he knew how many times she’s helped me hijack Ollie’s cars. Responsible, my ass.”

Dick snorts and then gets quiet. Hesitantly, he asks, “Jay say anything else?”

Roy glances at him, not uncomfortable but uneasy. “Besides the standard Bruce and self-esteem issues that all you Robins have, not really. You showed up and he kinda . . . disappeared. Had to think, I guess.”

“Really?” Dick asks, pursing his lips.

Roy looks away. “Really.” His ears are even pinker, and Dick is pretty sure he’s leaving something out, but he won’t push.

“Well, thanks for talking to him, I . . .” Dick swallows and turns away from Roy. “I haven’t really been there for him as much as I should have.”

Roy glances at him, and something in Dick’s face makes his shoulders droop. “What happened?”

Dick looks down and notices that some of the blood from his cut had dried on the mat. He scratches at it. “He wanted to tell me something about his mom, but Bruce had just told me to leave and I kind of . . .”

“You blew him off, didn’t you?” Roy says bluntly. Dick’s back hunches and he nods miserably. The other boy blows out a long breath, cheeks puffing up from the action. “Not much you can do about it until we get back, I guess.”

“Get back?”

Roy blinks in realization. “Shit, you weren’t here for that, were you? Donna has some space mission she wants us to go on, something about gods or whatever. She didn’t go into the details, wanted to talk to you about it. We’ll be off-world for a week and a half? Maybe two? It’d be a chance to get your mind off of this Bruce bullshit and figure out what you’re gonna do about Jaybird.”

Dick raises a brow. “Jaybird?”

Roy freezes. “Uh.”

“Jesus, you nicknamed him, Roy?”

“I didn’t—”

“For a guy who says he doesn’t care, you’re pretty shit at acting that way,” Dick teases. The pink is back, and Roy rubs at his ears self-consciously. Dick watches him, clearly amused.

Roy scowls. “Whatever.”

“You’re a good person,” Dick chirps annoyingly. Roy shoves him and Dick falls back onto the mat, snickering.

“If you want me to clean your cuts and stitch you back together, you better shut it, Dickface.”

Dick jumps up, still grinning. “Didn’t peg you as a softy, Speedy.”

“Are you asking me to shoot you later?”

He laughs, nudging Roy’s shoulder as they walk to the med bay. Roy doesn’t laugh back, but his eyes are lighter than they’ve been in a while and the corners of his mouth are twitching despite his best efforts.

And even though his cheek still hurts and his mouth still tastes like blood and Bruce’s words are still echoing in his head, Dick smiles.

*****

Tim scrambles through his unlocked window, camera clutched close to his pounding chest. He falls to the floor and just lies there for a moment, panting. The fan in his room goes around and around lazily and he tries to focus on it. Tries to calm the jack-rabbit pulse in his throat.

Tonight had not gone as planned. At all.

As in, he almost got himself killed.

Staring up at his ceiling, still attempting to calm his racing heart, he attempts to organize his brain.

His parents had left early in the morning, he’d even woken up before they’d gone. His mother had kissed him on the cheek and his father had ruffled his hair. It was the most affection Tim had gotten from them in months. But his mother had apparently gotten an amazing deal across during her meeting, so that was probably the cause. Still, it was nice.

He’d lazed around the house, even considered going to the Waynes a few times, but couldn’t bring himself to. Besides, Jason might have already left for the Middle East by then so what was the point?

At nightfall, he’d caught the late bus, hiked until he made it to the docks where Penguin’s shipping operation was supposed to happen. He waited for hours and had thought about calling it quits more than once, but something convinced him to stay.

He honestly still can’t decide if it was worth it or not.

The Bats had come out of nowhere, all three of them, and Tim was so relieved that they apparently made up, that he’d started taking shots of the beginning fight without thinking twice. Didn’t even look around before he started, either.

Stupid.

Incredibly, ridiculously stupid.

The guy had been so quiet and Tim hadn’t even noticed he was there until the back of his hoodie was grabbed by a meaty hand. In his defense, how was he supposed to know that Penguin’s goons had somehow become semi-good at their jobs? And it’s not like Tim didn’t fight back. He’d scratched and kicked and struggled until there was a knife at his throat and the crook started hissing threats at him to give up his camera.

That’s when Nightwing showed up.

One second Tim was sure he was about to be ripped apart, then the man that’d been holding him was getting slammed into the ground by a blur of blue and gold.

And Tim had turned away and ran.

Because he doesn’t even want to know what might have happened if Dick had seen him.

Or . . . maybe Dick had seen him. Tim sits up as if he’d been electrocuted, all attempts of trying to calm himself forgotten.

But, no. No, there’s no way Dick would have let him go if he’d glimpsed at Tim’s face. He’d have chased Tim down instead of letting him make it all the way back home. He forces his muscles to relax. It’s fine.

Shakily, he looks down at the camera still held tight in his grip. The pictures had turned out great, and he still wants to send a few to Gordon, but now there’s a chance that the Bats could trace those photos back to the skinny kid Nightwing had saved.

It’s not worth the risk.

He still kinda wants to, though.

Tim flops back onto the ground, exhausted. With all the Waynes out of town, there won’t be much activity at night anymore. All he’ll have to fill his time is school.

Man, the next couple of weeks are going to suck.

At least he has Bruce and Jason coming back to look forward to. Biting his lip, Tim stares at nothing, debating silently.

He’ll go, he decides. He’ll let Jason show him the library. He’ll let them help.

He’ll show up after they return home, ride his bike down to the Manor. Alfred will remember him and let him inside. Maybe he could help make tea again? He wants to do something useful, not just stand around until Jason appears and starts talking about books.

He could bring his camera with him and show them the pictures he takes. Not of the Bats, obviously. But the ones from when he stays out late enough that dawn comes and the city begins to wake up, the streets filled with mist from the rivers and windows glinting with morning sunlight. He thinks Bruce would like those.

Yeah. Yeah, he’ll go.

And for the first time in a long time, Tim falls asleep without loneliness clawing at his chest.

*****

Everything hurts.

His ribs feel like they’re on fire, and there’s blood in his lungs that he keeps choking on with every breath. Several of his fingers are bent in the wrong direction and he stares at them in sick fascination. Well, he tries to stare. The left side of his face is really swollen.

Distantly, he can hear Sheila screaming and hitting the door. She’s crying and looking at him with huge, teary eyes.

Bruce said he has her eyes.

She yells for help again and he kinda wants her to shut up. She’s making the pounding in his head almost unbearable. Besides, the door is too close to the bomb. He tries to tell her they should move, but his tongue is thick and bloody in his mouth and it won’t work right.

He struggles to stand in front of her instead. He’s dying anyway. Might as well die for someone.

Sheila seems to understand what he’s doing and she shakes her head, takes his face in her cool hands. He wants to hate her. He really wants to hate her. He only shuts his eyes instead.

After a precious second, he realizes that she’s saying something and his eyelids flutter open because his hearing is kind of messed up after getting hit so many times to the head. He stares at her lips and tries to get the words to form.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Oh. He supposes she should be sorry. She left him. She pulled a gun on him. Only smoked a cigarette while the Joker took his time with the crowbar. Maybe he got the smoking thing from her? Her eyes and a preference for cigarettes.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs it into his hair, and he doesn’t know why she’d want to do that because he’s still soaked in blood. Shit, he probably messed up her white shirt, didn’t he?

“I’m sorry.”

He tries to tell her it’s okay, but his throat feels like he’s been swallowing glass and gravel and the words won’t come.

I’m sorry.

He can’t tell if she’s still saying it or if it’s him now.

The numbers on the countdown are getting smaller and smaller. It suddenly hits him that Bruce won’t make it, not this time.

I’m sorry.

He’d promised to buy Barbara a chilidog. Told Tim he was gonna show him the library. Swore to help Alfred with the garden next Sunday.

I’m sorry.

What was the last thing he’d said to Rena? He thinks they ended on good terms, but the memory is fuzzy. He’s fairly sure she smiled at him after class. Oh. He isn't going to be able to finish his part of their group project, is he? Hopefully she'll still get a good grade.

I’m sorry.

His last interaction with Roy hadn’t ended nearly as well. Wish he could redo that. Dick is going to call him soon and his phone will only ring and ring and ring.

“I’m so sorry, Jason.”

Sheila is still talking into his hair. At some point, she’d wrapped her arms around him, but his good eye can still see the countdown. After another second, he relaxes and lets his eyes close. He understands her in a way.

He’s sorry for a lot of things, too.

[pear-pies]

音像世界 [Audiovisual World] - Sept 2006

a very wonky but delightful translation under the cut

Placebo ; We are the 21st century modern rock band                        Text/Interview with Zhang Weiwei/Xingyue 

On the first day of "2006 Beijing Pop Music Festival", "Placebo" Perform on the main stage of the company. "Placebo" is hailed as "the most Record the distinctive British music yin", this is their first time on the Chinese stage. Long talk will undoubtedly be a feast for listening to you. Mission to the last century In 1996, one named Brian Moco )lkO) boy,’ painted Seven eyes Liangying, leaving pitch black  Childish behavior:  ‘The violent red color I'm learning girls like a demon Sing a song "Nancy Kid" When I vent without hesitation Stupid material life and The emotion brought by the ft world. From the moment on stage, cloth Who is the backlog in my heart Thrown in front of the world, lead Shoulder, reputation, obsession and even People band one by one "placebo" Horribly turned out, "(Radiohead)s" "'Oasis" (Oasis) Three The altar adds a stunning                                                             Household Don't one by one Lane was born into a wealthy Bank entrepreneur, mother Christianity. Childhood, Tossed in Scotland, Libby Between Schlossburg. Serious  , And moved countless times Dogs have no fixed partners in childhood Jidu is lonely, even learning

The classmates and teachers in the school are also particularly alienated, plus , My parents ignored because of busy banking  , The physical and psychological growth of his son, Bryan from 11 I have been learning from the streets, newspapers and magazines since I was Factory women give themselves makeup and always like to surround  Women go round and round.     When he was 16 years old, his parents gave him a copy  Telecaster guitar, very sensitive to music  Brian soon bought a real price  A real guitar, and I've been obsessed with playing guitar ever since,  So that everyone can often see it on stage  Brian gently hugged the guitar one by one  He plays the role of a mother in his life  Important role. But in fact, Bryan’s parents  Straightforwardly oppose him to engage in art-father-  I want to let Brian inherit his career and become a  Bankers one by one Blaine began to use gender boundaries  Vaguely neutral dress to resist father and family  Against pressure. Until the end, Brian and his father  There is no longer any contact or exchange. In 1990, 18-year-old Brian left the family.  Came to London alone and entered Gold  Smiths Academy of Art and Drama Studies (British  The prestigious Royal Academy of Art, "Blur"  Former guitarist Graham Coxon  Coxon) also graduated from the college J. Cloth at this time  Ryan has been able to skillfully play a variety of instruments such as Ji  Him, keyboard, bass, drums, saxophone, and even DJing,  He also worked as a DJ in several clubs, but he was honest  Say that I am not very good at being a DJ0    By chance in 1994, Brian Kensington subway station encountered a later career ride   Stefan Olsdal,}     Invite him to form a band with himself and join in one,   Club performance. Osdo listened to Brian   Immediately after the song was attracted, not only that, he   , Put his Swedish friend Robert Schutz   (Robert Schultzberg) pulls into the music    Be a drummer (until 1996). Until later   , Bryan also emphasized that Osdo accepted his The moment I invited to the band was my whole life E one of the unforgettable moments. During this period, Bligh En called the band "Ashtray Heart" (Ashtray Heart) Heart)0   After quickly gaining awareness, they The band was renamed "placebo". Soon, Caroline Records has recognized this and A different young band.   In 1996, Robert Schutzberger The conflict with Brian increased and left the band, from Therefore, the position of the drummer has always been Steve Huey 特 (Steve Hewitt) instead. In the same year, the band The first album of the same name "Placebo" (Placebo) released Row. Singles "Nancy Kid" and "Young Rage" (Teertage Angst) immediately became a hit single, The stubborn and rebellious children of the entire Yao British Empire Was boosted by this three-person band, "placebo" It seems that they have been able to relieve their psychological barriers A great pill for manic heart. Just as Brian is different from   Ordinary costumes-mascara, eyeshadow, full lips, ～ Nail polish, skirts, this series will only show up The characteristics of a woman’s body are now affected by a height,The British man who is less than 1.75 meters boldly and naturally used to dress himself up. The British media took advantage of the trend and gave him the title of "fashionable Bowie". "Media reporters like to make boo heads. Maybe it's because life in the UK has always been so dull and boring. That's why they were surprised when they met me and yelled. I like "Sonic Youth" and "Sonic Youth". "Pixies", I prefer to dress myself up as I want to appear on the stage, in the MV and even in life. I just enjoy such an open-self lifestyle." Brian shrugged and said softly. In a tedious and lengthy interview after a TV show performance, Brian deliberately pointed the guard ｝l to the male reporter’s chest, so that the reporter was tossed by the sly Brian that he had no intention of continuing the interview. Go on, while Hewitt and Stephen are laughing together. After the album of the same name was released, the band easily got the mainstream record company Virgin In November 1998, he quickly recorded and released the second album "No "Without You I'm Nothing". This album has a rare change in the depth of the lyrics and Brian’s vocals compared to the first album. Brian in "Pure Morning" lowered his throat and reluctantly sang "Send charcoal in the snow." "A Friend in Need A Friend Indeed" (A Friend in Need A Friend Indeed). A famous sentence like household. Bryan, dressed in black, jumped out of the building and walked straight down the wall. The MV for this song was also planned by Bryan. A keen listener can find from this Xin album that the alcohol, drugs, and erosive relationships in "Nancy Kid" have changed to the mixed emotions and emotions toward urban men and women in "Every You Every Me".

The rhetoric of the low-level media is more intense. Every large-scale live performance, "placebo" In order to pursue the perfect sound effect comparable to the recording studio, Always bring fixed musicians with them Stage performance, and these fixed musicians also accompanied Placement has gone through a worthy 10 years. Although But on the stage they always hide without light In the dark, but they are the same as the "placebo" three The relationship between the members is like a formal team member. Observant Fans will also find that "Velvet Gold Mine" These regular musicians also participated. And "Ann Placement" "Believe in Me" held in Paris (Soulmates Never Die) large concert now The DVD and MV compilation are everybody’s Placement" a precious treasure that loyal fans must collect, The Paris concert not only included the "placebo" essence Cham’s hot live performance also hides a 30 Minute tour documentary, including how the three escaped Avoid the chase of fans and talk about the fun in the lounge Bryan teaches you how to draw eyeshadow and sightseeing Precious fragments of time crazy Stefan. "Placebo" will play an electrified style The ultimate is the new album released this year Meds; compile the album cover with "Sleep with the Elves"

It’s exactly the same, it seems to come from the same designer              hand. As Brian said, in the past 10 years he’              We work hard to find a position and style that suits us,              Looking for an invisible limit. Bryan and Le              The team has been trying to get out of this restriction, out of them              Have experienced, followed, intoxicated, avoided              A sensitive area that has been and moved by. Although cloth              Leith now has a child named Cody              Zihe ~ a touching wife who maintains a stable relationship with him              One by one wife, son, and teammates are all Bligh              En is deeply loved one by one, but Brian is uneasy in his blood              The molecules make him feel full of emotion and sensitive heart              The world has never changed. Now the "placebo" starts              Putting aside some long-standing conventions, in the new album              Significantly reduced the iconic guitar distortion, the band              Focus boldly with a more fashionable electrified style              With drugs, alcohol, and love, it’s like a giant record jacket              The naked, twisted, and shouting woman, "Ann              The placebo" bravely broke free from the past              System", more calmly standing in the British rock music              front.The growth of the Bone Association Band? I am very happy with the growth of the band. Our growth and success are all through long-term hardship...Shan:1 Linde. It’s been an almost uninterrupted tour for 10 years. This is a relatively old-fashioned way of running Cantonese. "(The tail is also what we like very much. The live performance of the mountain and the constant currency" requires that you can get yourself in it. In the early days of the band’s establishment, we had already decided to deliver the music to our listeners in the most direct way. What do you think of the development of Yaoi’i Gun Music? "Lonz Ferdinand" (1,s,i Pordinand), "Arctic Monkeys" (Arctic Monkeys). "The Kooki"; do you think they really have "material"? Just because they are from the same island does not mean they are anointing Le Buya! What is in common. Of course "Franz Ferdinand" and "Arctic Monkey" must be influenced by the music of IJ Moji {Fei, in my heart! Bu! . He is a very good band in J1IJ4 II. Especially the L tail, "Arctic Monkey r", their "material" lies in the quality of their Shule creations. They are very humorous, full of the strong vitality of the factory, modern city, and very British creative style. What they are telling Very interesting, but also very "human", very    A true story is a very realistic expression Present form. I think if the "street boy" (The Streets) is a rock band, they          '   It will be the "Arctic Monkey". I personally have always been very happy   Happy "Franz Ferdinand", from their first    An album begins. They are from Scotland and also   It brings another kind of cultural experience.      What I want to say is that although there are so many    Success bands are all from the UK, but they don’t    Not necessarily have something in common, nor is it necessarily    It means that rock music in the UK will be more    Good or worse. Good is good, bad is good    Is bad, there is no need to divide by region   Standards.      What kind of concept do you hold on creation?      We are a rock band, just like I    We are a modern rock music    team. We enjoy using various tools and equipment    The possibility of creating music. Rock music is not only    It’s a simple guitar with electronic elements    Not only can be used in a certain kind of special music    In the category. The key to its function depends on you    How to use it and how to integrate it better   In your own music category.     Was the grunge trend in the U.S.    Has any influence on you or a British band? You like   Is Grunge Fun?     I never really liked it   Grunge, I have never heard of "Nirvana" (Nirvana)    Music until Kurt Coben (Kurt Cobain) passed away. For me, "nirvana"     Too mainstream T0 I am more interested in those very Alternative bands, like "Sonic Youth" (Sonic Youth), or the late 70s, 80s   Post-punk band in the early years.      What do you think of as a British band   American culture?      We ourselves think that "placebo" is a    European bands. Of course we were founded in London.    Half of my blood is Scottish, history of drummer   The name "Friend (Steve Hewitt) is of British descent,   Stefan Olsdal is a Swedish. We   Speaks many languages, Stephen speaks 5 languages,    I speak French and English. We grew up in Europe  There are K people from the I1 family in Zhou, we see ourselves as Europeans,    I don’t think I have any special UK   Pity. We can, will historically and geographically    The music of the country and the era is biased. Ok    Meeting the music and blood should be interpreted, and it is truly   I found it at Ill lii.} I don’t care if the music comes from Which country, as long as it can move people. but I I want to say: "I'm very happy that I will be in Europe Life".   Countless tours and publicity all over the world make people Enjoy it?   I enjoy the tour, but not the publicity. But it is equally important. In the past 10 years, We have been through live performances all over the world Accumulated a group of very loyal and sincere fans. Every year, the number of our fans grows very much View. Although it takes a lot of time to do this, it also gives me We added a lot of fun.   You know there are many "placebos" in China Fans? They are very obsessed with "placebo" The violent distortion guitar and your charming voice, even Even when playing the piano is hot, many fans want to know the invitation, What do you think of your fans.   Ah, haha, of course I hope so. "I must wait until Ij comes to Beijing in September to learn about Chinese musicWhat a fan is like, I look forward to it very much.   It’s not just heterosexual people. Placement", many gays also like you We, what do you think is the reason that makes "Ann Does "Placement" attract different fascinating groups?   Great! I think this is great! I think For our honesty in emotions and the truth in life Desire to communicate, um, if our music can move people, it must be physically,There are three aspects, both mentally and emotionally.    You are now a father What kind of impact? The kind of perplexed and perverted Dong Is Xijijing completely far away from you?   Honestly, no. As for myself Those who are confused and perverse, maybe less A little bit. But now there is another person Let me care, need my protection, so that it will not be this Hurt by a huge bad world.   You have always loved to dress up, you still Do you love applying black nail polish to yourself?   I have not bought black nail polish for many years Yes, but I still paint eyeliner and eye shadow. I do Did not try to do anything special through these performances Communication, in addition to thinking that people should dress up, Freedom in dress, choice and preference, not affected by Constrained by any established standard. If hard If any message is conveyed, it is freedom. But I do this entirely because I like it, I think I look great like that, like a The mentality of a lady with makeup.  How do you think a man should make his evening watch more cultured and tasteful? I think in the 21st century, men should be free, Wear what they like and dress up like they like Huan look. In comparison, women are more They can wear skirts or they can wear Pants, they can make up or not, They can look bright and beautiful, or they can watch Go up and take control. In the 20th century, men’s The choice has become so small. Looking back, Louis France in the fourteenth period, and the restoration period In Great Britain, men used to love makeup that much, Their clothes are so gorgeous and they look so good elegant. So we just trace the roots in history.  The media will use it when evaluating "placebo" Keep your eyes on such things as "male and female", "gorgeous", ) If you have to symbolize, how can you give yourself Has it been defined and classified?  A modern rock band. A 21 The modern rock band of the century. Let me show you and all Some magazine readers confirmed that "placebo" is not Hermaphrodite, the "placebo" members are all men, Everyone is.

In addition to work, the three of you often Play together? The three of us spend time together Family and love have more time. So when we After we got home, we gave all the time Family material lover, ha ha. Can you chat online? No, it never happened. I know net Some people on the network will call themselves Brian Mok, Husband ,,’’No~1 million That would definitely not be me. If you are online I met someone like that and I visited Brian Mo But my blog or Myspace, I read my Diary, you have to believe that it is definitely a lie. I Will not publish their life information on the Internet, I am a privacy-conscious person. What's the story of the performance in China this time ? What are your expectations for the Chinese record market What? Just like going to Thailand and Korea, through hosting Party’s invitation, we’ll come and we know people We like our music, so we can play for them We are also very happy to play. As for the record market, I Really have no idea. I just look forward to acting I hope to bring an outstanding performance. Please describe you in one word or sentence " 3 people. Just one sentence. Have you seen "Starship Fans Is this TV show "Star Trek"? Oh, your country may not broadcast it. Stephen It's "Mr. Spock" (Mr. Spock) It’s ‘Dr. McCoy’ and I’m "K Captain Kirk" (Captain Kirk)

[thesunnyshow]

Name: Janna

Writing Blog URL(s): @haechaaaaaaanssi

What fandom(s) do you write for?: NCT Dream, but I do get occasional inspirations for the other units.

Age: 16

Nationality: Filipino

Languages: Tagalog, English, German

Star Sign: Sagittarius

MBTI: INFP-T

Favorite color: Yellow, Purple, Black, Red

Favorite food: Any kind of sushi and pasta.

Favorite ice cream flavor: My mother's homemade avocado ice cream.

Favorite animal: Foxes, Owls

Coffee or tea? What are you ordering?: I have a profound love for tea.I'd probably order Earl Grey or Ginger Tea.

Dream job (whether you have a job or not): Lawyer/Prosecutor

Go-to karaoke song: Dance With My Father - Luther Vandross

If you could have one superpower, what would you choose?: Illusions (like Adelina Amouteru in 'The Young Elites')

If you could visit a historical era, which would you choose?: Not sure… Perhaps, the Elizabethan Era? Or the Renaissance Era? I guess, either.

If you could restart your life, knowing what you do now, would you?: Absolutely.

Would you rather fight 100 chicken-sized horses or one horse-sized chicken?: One horse-sized chicken. (The only thing running through my mind is the bountiful amount of chicken I'll be able to eat-)

If you were a trope in a teen high school movie, what would you have been?: Probably the teacher's pet.

Do you believe in aliens/supernatural creatures?: Yes and no. I do believe in aliens, but not in supernatural creatures.

Fun fact about yourself that not everyone would know?: I can fall asleep anywhere, at any time.

When did you post your first piece?: I'm not sure of the exact date but somewhere in September last year.

Do you write fluff/angst/crack/general/smut, combo, etc? Why?: I write fluff, angst, crack and suggestive, though I prefer writing angst the most. Angst comes easier to me than any other. 

Do you write OCs, X Readers, Ships, etc?: For this blog I only write reader inserts but I've written for a few ships before. 

Why did you decide to write for Tumblr?: It was very unplanned (as everything always is when it comes to me) and was a decision I impulsively made. I think I thought it would be fun.

What inspires you to write?: Music, movies, tv shows, a single sentence on an ad on the subway - literally anything.

What genres/AUs do you enjoy writing the most?: Fantasy, non-idol au and college au's. 

What do you hope your readers take away from your work?: Enjoyment. The feelings I feel when reading a good book–absolute captivation and the utter need to figure out what comes next–and the emptiness that comes with finishing it. 

What do you do when you hit a rough spot creatively?: Take a break and let the answer come to me naturally. If I'm really desperate to finish and the need to write is overwhelming, I talk to friends and brainstorm with them.

What is your favorite work and why? Your most successful?: My favorite work of mine is a tie between two of my timestamps: 19:49 - lonely lips and 23:33 - up to you. My most successful one is probably my Jaemin fic 'bye, my first…'.

Who is your favorite person to write about?: Haechan.

Do you think there’s a difference between writing fanfiction vs. completely original prose?: No.

What is your writing process like?: Think of the idea, write it down and flesh it out a bit, forget about it for a few weeks-, remember and then finally start writing. For timestamps I usually read it through twice to look for errors before publishing, but writing fics is a way longer process for me than it should be. I tend to overcomplicate by changing things last minute and editing too much. I take a lot of needed breaks as well since I have this tendency to pressure and stress myself, but I'm working on that hahah.

Would you ever repurpose a fic into a completely original story?: Yes.

What tropes do you love, and what tropes can’t you stand?: I absolutely love E2L/S2L and slow burn. As for ones I can't stand - can't think of any at the moment. 

How much would you say audience feedback/engagement means to you?: It definitely matters to me. I do my best to take all the feedback I get into account and to better my following writings. It also is really nice to read comments and asks about pieces I've written and I appreciate every single one of them.

Do you think art can be a medium for change?: Of course!

Do you ever feel there are times when you’re writing for others, rather than yourself?: There are times, yes. Whenever I feel like writing has become a chore, I remind myself why I started (writing) in the first place.

Do you ever feel like people have misunderstood you or your writing at times?: There might be times where they have, but I am not aware of any of them.

Do your offline friends/loved ones know you write for Tumblr?: Yeah, my close friends know that I do and my mom knows I write (but she doesn't know about Tumblr).

What is one thing you wish you could tell your followers?: I love and appreciate every single one of you. Thank you so much for reading my writings, for following me, and for supporting me till now. When I first started this blog, never did I expect so much love and support and I am so so so so grateful for all that I have received. I hope my writings have brought you smiles, tears, and some comfort.

Are there any times when you regret joining Tumblr?: Not particularly.

Do you have any mutuals who have been particularly formative/supportive in your Tumblr journey?: There are so so many of them but I'll just list a few of my earliest mutuals:

 @s4myj0 !! Ate Joy has supported me so much and has stuck with me since day 1 and I can't think of any writings of mine that I did not show her first (except my n.jm fic- that was a surprise hahah). I love her to bits and I am so thankful to have her.

@lateocu ! Has supported me ever since I started, has listened to every rant I've had, has listened to me go on and on and on about writing and Haechan on the bus and I love them with my whole entire being. They are one of my biggest motivators and are always there to help me. An angel.

@svftpeachy ! Gio was my first ever mutual and she was very very encouraging and supportive about everything. We haven't talked for a while, but she's someone very dear to me.

@hyuck-obsessed ! I AM SO GLAD, SO SO SO VERY GLAD AND LUCKY JACKIE STARTED TALKING TO ME. Jackie has been nothing but supportive and always gives me great ideas and I love her so much. I'm really grateful to have made a friend as great and amazing as Jackie.

@haechanhyung / @d-nghy-ck ! I absolutely adore Bronwyn. She is someone I can always turn to and talking with her is always such a delight. She's kind, caring, and is always so encouraging and motivating and I owe a lot of my confidence to her. I love her. 

Pick a quote to end your interview with: 

I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open.

Madeline Miller, Circe

[oliverhargreeves]

⌈  ELLIOT FLETCHER  ,  29  ,  TRANS MALE  ,  MEMORY MANIPULATION  ⌋  oh  ,  of  course  you  know  about  OLIVER HARGREEVES  !  you  know  , NUMBER  6  of  the  SPARROW  ACADEMY  ?  dad  keeps  saying  that  HE  is  SELF-DESTRUCTIVE &  EVASIVE ,  but  pogo  would  say  they’re  INNOVATIVE  &  OBSERVANT  .  they’ve  always  reminded  me  of  staying up late with a flashlight to read under the covers , smoking a joint and sharing conspiracy theories that just grow more and more wild , drowning your sorrows at the bottom of a bottle , and being on the subway during a breakdown, but it’s fine, because there’s a book to be read and all the time in the world ,  even  more  now  they’re  under  pressure .  i  can’t  wait  to  see  how  this  pans  out  !

A Guide to Feeling Like A Disappointment

Step One: You are not special. You’re one of seven siblings, all born on the same exact day and raised by a man who is not your biological father. It’s the only life you’ve ever known but it’s still a little unfair. There are no birthday kids, just birthday children, and the party is shared. You’re all powered but it is not equal power. You are ranked and the higher than ranking, the more use you are to your father. That doesn’t sit well with you as Number 6.

Step Two: From a young age, you’ve felt like the outcast. You’re given a name that doesn’t fit right and a uniform, including a skirt, that makes you self conscious. You ask one of your brothers if you can have a pair of their pants but your father finds out and you get in trouble for not following his rules. Your sisters wear their skirts without issues, why can’t you? You spend the night crying and staring at yourself in the mirror but the next morning, pretend that nothing happened. It’s oddly comforting that your dad never calls you by the name you were given. You’ve only ever been Number 6. 

Step Three: Your powers aren’t the most useful. Certainly not during a fight. You can’t help protect people and, if it wasn’t for the rigorous training, you’d hardly be able to protect yourself. You were never the most athletic, the most gifted physically, but you weren’t above using your powers to make your siblings, and occasionally your father, forget that. You warp memories freely, making your siblings believe you bested them in competition, making your father think you’d done something to be proud of. They catch on quickly and, though your siblings complain that you’re cheating, your father says that you adapted. Later that night, he reminds you, none too gently, to never use your powers on him again. 

Step Four: There is a disconnect between you and your family. You’re not one of the boys and don’t feel accepted by them but you’re not one of the girls either. None of your clothes feel right. You can’t look at yourself in the mirror because you hate what you see. It leads to many breakdowns in the privacy of your room and you end up crying yourself to sleep more often than not. It’s not until you turn thirteen and begin to sneak out, meeting up with people your father would disapprove of that you have a word for it. Transgender.

Step Five: Knowing why you’re different is a ton of bricks off your shoulders but it wasn’t the only ton there in the first place. You agonize over whether or not to come out, to tell your family but you don’t. A part of you feels like an impostor and another part feels like even if you’re not, you’ll never belong to either your family or the trans community. After training on a child, where your ponytail was used against you and you were thrown to the floor after one of your siblings got a hold of it, you grab the kitchen shears, cutting your ponytail off and leaving it short. It’s the first step towards feeling more like yourself, but when your father demands to know what you’ve done to yourself, you assure him that it’ll grow back. And then you remember that it’ll grow back. 

Step Six: At age sixteen, you begin to stay out later, sneaking out more and more to meet up with the people that taught you about yourself. They call you every name you try, never faltering, never getting your pronouns wrong. They listen when you say you’re Jack now and four months later, when you say that you’re Dalton, they call you that. When you broach the topic to your father about maybe wanting to change your name, you’re met with scorn. And once you make him forget that you ever asked, you determine that you’ll never be allowed to do it. You use an ace bandage to bind for a while, using weed to ease the pain that comes from the bandage cutting into your skin. The pain and the cuts are a small price to pay.

Step Seven: You try to run away multiple times throughout your youth, each time making it a little further than the last. At seven, after being compared to one of your siblings, you make it as far as the next block over before your nanny catches you. At ten, you plan ahead of time and do it in the middle of the night but the door creaks when you open it and the noise wakes your father. At twelve, you think preemptively and go out the window and down the fire escape. You get held up at the bus station trying to buy a ticket. At fifteen, you buy a ticket ahead of time and make your escape out the window but you miss your bus. It’d almost be humorous if you weren’t so desperate to leave. Each time you end up in trouble, not being brave enough to use your powers on your father to make him forget after what happened when you were a child. He tells you that he’s disappointed that you’d prefer to run away instead of reaching your full potential. You snap that night and ask if he’s ever been anything but disappointed in you. Again, it’s reassuring that he only refers to you as Number 6 and not by the all too feminine name you’d been given. You are sent to bed and grounded for your attitude, but you’re never given a straight answer about how if he’s proud of you. It doesn’t matter. You know he isn’t. 

Step Eight: You get caught making a variety of mistakes during your teenage years. With your power set being what it is, you find yourself being careless when it comes down to it. Getting busted with a few ounces of weed on you would surely get you in at least a little trouble, especially considering your friends have attitude with the cops but you toy with their heads, pulling out the memories of you and your friends and replacing them with false memories of the officer finding out his partner had purchased weed. You make his partner remember buying it. You lose your stash in the process but its worth it. After erasing the dash cam, you and your friends are on your way with the cops none the wiser. You were not made for combat but that’s fine. Your powers worked in your favor anyway.

Step Nine: One of your siblings notices you having breathing issues during training when you are sixteen and word gets back to your father. You are cornered and forced to explain that you’ve been binding. It does your father no good to have you unable to breathe, unable to fight. When he offers you top surgery, you feel like it’s a trap but within a matter of months, you’re flat. Waking up in the hospital room and being under the anesthesia, you cry. You begin taking testosterone and keep your hair short again. Your old name is left in the dust, though you sample a few more throughout the years. When you turn eighteen, you settle on Oliver, get a license that has a M instead of an F on it. You look and feel and present the way you want. But it’s not enough.

Step Ten: Your final step in feeling secure is to erase all memories of the girl you used to be. You toy around in your siblings’ heads, make them remember you only as Oliver. It’s not an easy task and some of the memories start to get a little fuzzy by the time you get to your childhoods. The memories are more synthetic than necessary, almost like they’re sugarcoated and hazy but you couldn’t resist. They flowed seamlessly enough and you may have felt like the outsider all your life but now they wouldn’t remember you as one. 

You didn’t erase your father’s memories of who you used to be though. You want him to remember where you started, in the hopes of making him proud someday. You doubt you ever will though.

in conclusion: 

[girlwithwolftatoo]

Prey -a Joker fanfiction

Title: Prey

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Slight cursing, implicit lemon content

Words: 2,592

(This is a continuation of Naked )

Arthur slammed the door behind him, his hand reaching a cigarette and a lighter and proceeding to put it in his mouth, giving a last venomous glance at his workplace. He hated it, he hated all that disgusting faces hiding behind silly makeup and wigs, he hated how people like Randall would succeed despite their lack of humanity and interest just because they were normal, or as normal as Gotham would prefer to their children. He hasn’t told yet to Penny about getting fired, and was planning how to explain himself as he was trying to comfort his soul telling himself he was finally free to dedicate his time to become a comedian, as he always dreamt.

After a couple of squares he stopped just enough to drop his done cigarette on a pile of rotten garbage. The news about three rich young boys murdered in the subway was already on everyone’s mouth, covering the first page of local diaries and being repeated at the radio or any other device since soon on the morning, but the sensation of listening the same story wasn’t as unnerving as he thought. The memory came as an old silent movie, the characters moving without a sound and he was one of them, watching himself outside of his body, like if another person who looked like him was the shooter, and he, Arthur, was just another spectator.

The Gotham Public High School for Irregulars was closing his doors, as a tiny leak of students walked away from the building, ready to get to work or to their houses for attending their family or even children; a tiny silhouette grabbed her backpack’s straps and walked down the street, head lowed and mumbling to herself. Arthur contemplated the closing door, his mind running fast to a new and worrying thought: the last night, after the blood lust, someone noticed him, someone saw him locking into the bathroom and coming out a few minutes later, sweaty and bloody, the ghost of his actions still steaming his face. Did she know what he did? Would she imagine that, behind that destroyed grimace and trembling hands, a murderer was hiding, crawling back to his cave inside a tortured soul, tired but not sleepy, probably waiting for a moment to rise again?

His eyes fixed on the tiny figure with the backpack, the dark, messy hair as a fluffy crown around that little head, and he wondered if she could see behind his damaged exterior and find that dark face he showed up last night. He had to know, he had to be sure she wouldn’t reveal his secret, no matter the cost.

Violet didn’t went straight home, her feet took a path downtown, passing by stores she didn’t visit, restaurants she didn’t come in to take a meal, places she just noticed by the corner of the eye, moving like a ghost, unaware about the shadow following her steps with the help of the thick crowd, a pair of blue eyes chasing her like a wolf behind a deer.

She entered a convenience store and Arthur waited outside, his mind racing like crazy about how to confront her, or… whatever he was doing to preserve his secret untouched. He leaned behind the crystal door and saw Violet at the counter changing a dollar before facing the same door, which made the man jump and turn back in order to remain unnoticed. The doorbell swung open and the young girl came out, holding a package of cigarettes in her left hand as the right kept the strap of her backpack in place; Arthur blinked, for a moment he thought she was a minor but it seemed he was wrong, and in a certain form, that discovering made the things easier for him… “Because if she actually knows something we can… take care of it” a voice whispered inside his mind. Arthur got frozen, turning his head around in fear.

“No” he murmured to self, a hand moving to a side of his head, “I can’t… do that again… it was a mistake…” He didn’t pay attention to the people around who could hear him, he had to keep that voice (that new, hidden self) shut, for the good well of everyone, but still he kept walking, just in time to see his neighbor waiting at the bus stop, the backpack open to put the cigarettes inside and looking to her sides with eyes wide open. That single movement made Arthur doubt, could she saw him following, chasing her up? A couple of guys who looked in their twenties passed through, blocking the view so none of them could see the other. Arthur heard one of the guys saying in a joyful voice:

“Picking your mother from her hooker job, Martínez?”

Violet didn’t answer, lowering her head like an ostrich as the two guys walked away, laughing and saying something vicious about her mother. Arthur’s eyes followed them, the blood suddenly boiling in his veins and the same inner, dark voice whispering something about what people who mess with other’s mother deserved, but he didn’t pay enough time for that as the bus appeared in the corner and the girl put in line to take it.

He knew how to act like a ghost in a crowd, and Arthur managed to take the bus without warning Violet of his presence, taking a seat behind so he could fix his eyes on his neighbor (prey). She was staring at the window, melancholy drawing over her features and her eyes shining from unfallen tears; the light of afternoon made her tan skin look like bathed in gold, or at least that’s how she looked for Arthur, which legs bounced uncontrollably with every minute passing by, his hands reaching something from nowhere and squeezing it hard.  He needed something, something warm and soft covering his flesh, like liquid fire burning up to avert the deaf pain as he noticed the bus was coming closer to his neighborhood and with it, the moment to tell his mother he was unemployed was coming too.

Violet almost jumped from the bus and Arthur followed, breathing in release as he knew he was finally safe, if she tilted her head and saw him she would think Arthur was just coming back home as usual, ignorant about the time he was being her shadow. But he forgot that detail at the moment she tripped over a missing paving stone, resulting in her falling and so her backpack, which opened so all their content went on the floor.

Arthur hid quickly into an alley near, leaning to watch the girl picking up her things quickly, like she was afraid of someone looking, and getting back to her path in fast steps. He sliced out of the alley as she entered the department building, but a bright, pink thing on the floor near to where she fell off called his attention. He picked the rectangular shaped thing and saw it was a pencil case, Violet probably didn’t took it in her rush of enter the building and now he, Arthur, had it into his hand. He had to give it to her owner, of course, and he rushed into the building with the case burning in his palm, but Violet was already gone.

“I guess I’ll have to knock at the door and give her this” he thought. But once again, the dark voice came from the depths of his mind and murmured a… better idea. And he agreed and went straight to his own department, the case still hanging from his hand.

The lights of the Flecks turned out, and a shape came out of the door, wearing nothing but his shirt and a pair of sweatpants, walking to avoid any sound until reach another door, knocking it softly. He had his speech prepared, one for Violet and one for the mother, depending of who will attend, but the seconds passed and nobody answered his call. He knocked once again, a little louder, the same silence welcoming him. Arthur swallowed hard, snorting as he prepared himself to speak loud, thought it wasn’t part of his original plan and as he pressed a hand against the wood he said:

“Hello? Mrs Martinez? Sorry for bothering you now, but… I’d like to give…”

The door swung open, making Arthur almost trip inside. The department was darkened except for the T.V light, but there was nobody around watching it; Arthur gave a few steps inside, turning his head like an owl searching for someone, a sign of life in the tiny department. There was the kitchen table facing the living room, the leftovers of mother and probably daughter chilling unprotected, the backpack resting over the couch, still closed, like the only signs of people living there.

It took a few seconds before Arthur was aware of he was doing: he was already between the living room and the doors who should belong to the bedrooms of the women, and then he froze, some of them could came out to turn the T.V down or something, and they would see him, a stranger stepping in their place, and they would freak out and… No, better not think about that. To get some calm Arthur put his free hand inside his pocket and felt a cold surface meeting his fingers; a whimper came out of his throat, what an idiot he was, bringing the fucking gun with him, even when he didn’t remember when he put in in his sweatpants, now they would think he was robbing or something worse. But it was too late to turn back so, as he struggled to control his voice, spoke once again:

“Hello, um… I’m very sorry for coming in but the door was open and, um… I’m Arthur, a neighbor, I… I just wanted to bring this… thing, I think it’s from her daughter, uh, Violet, that’s her name, right?”

Arthur kept walking as he spoke, choosing a door randomly and pressing his hand against it; and just like the other one, this opened too without effort.

“Please, I’m not going to… hurt you or something, I just wanted...”

But the man went paralyzed as he saw the tiny room, bathed in moonlight and almost empty except by a couple of furniture, including a bed that was against the window wall. Someone was on it, half covered by thin, white blankets, her head rested on a worn out pillow, where her dark hair bestrewed like the black peeks of the Sun, her face drawing a calmed, sleepy smile as a hand rested on her chest and the other was laying upon the mattress. It was Violet, sleeping like a baby, unaware of the man staring at her in pure fear but also arousal, a sudden adrenaline rushing through his body and making him close the door behind him and approach the bed.

He didn’t dare to speak as he leaned over the girl, his hands sweating and his throat trying to spit a laugh, for he proceeded to put the case on the nightstand to cover his mouth and avert the imminent noise, his eyes fixed on the purity of her face. For the very first time he was able to see her in her true colors, without blood, without that age worn clothing who covered her from the world in a miserable shade, looking like an innocent creature away from the cold and cruelty of the reality. He found himself wanting to run a hand over her, from hair to toes, picturing her shape below the blankets, feeling another human being to remember himself he was just like her, he was still human, still real.

A pair of brown eyes opened and stared at Arthur. His heart made a bump and he backpedalled, reaching the gun in his pocket like a reflex, as Violet lifted her head a little in utterly surprise.

“I’m sorry!” Arthur whispered, lifting his free hand towards her. “It wasn’t my intention… I didn’t meant to… your door, I mean, the front door was open and I…”

Violet smiled, leaving Arthur out of his senses.

“You’re Arthur, right?” she asked, sitting by the bed and holding the blankets on its place.

“Y-Yes, I…” Arthur’s hand grabbed the gun, a cold sweat running on his back.

“And you just… stormed in my house, Arthur”.

“No! I didn’t want to… Your door was open, and I wanted to give you…”

“My mother went for more booze, she had forgotten to close the front door again” Violet commented, dreamy eyes following Arthur’s moves. “Such a big mistake, don’t you think? Someone could come in and rob… I’m lucky it was you who noticed it, right?”

The man blinked owlishly, why was she acting like they were having a perfectly common talk on the… bus stop or something? Violet was still smiling, and an infant-shaped feet was showing up outside her blanket, swinging for a mysterious music Arthur couldn’t hear.

And then, Violet stretched her arm to reach Arthur and murmured:

“Come closer”.

The man was trembling, his mouth getting dry as he obeyed the girl’s command, leaning to reach her height as the little hand grabbed one of his wrists. Her eyes traveled up his arm just as her hand did, caressing the rough fabric of the shirt with innocent curiosity before casting her glance upon Arthur’s, who dropped the gun in the pocket and lifted his other hand, grabbing Violet’s in a quick move, making the girl gasp in surprise. Arthur lifted the girl’s hand to his face, making her palm place on his cheek, his eyes already devouring her due to the warm and softness of the tiny hand, rubbing it from his left cheek to his chin, and then placing her fingertips on his lips, his warm breath blowing on the delicate surface and making Violet chuckle like a little girl.

Just as fast as Arthur did, Violet reached fir his other hand and placed it on her own face, but instead of rubbing through it, she lowered her moves and Arthur’s hand fell upon the jugular, pressing so slightly yet making Arthur able to feel her pulse. A sudden anxiety made his hands feel itchy, the memory of the bus came like a hurricane and Arthur grabbed her by the neck without applying pressure, noticing a gulp running down her throat as he freed her other hand, which went behind his head making him lean even more over Violet.

The blanket sliced to Violet’s lap, leaving upper body exposed. Arthur saw the light tank top protecting her flesh before resting his face on her breastbone, kissing the uncovered skin and her cleavage as she pressed her hand further, encouraging the man to keep going, running the other one through his back, her heartbeat as the only sound filling the bedroom; Arthur reached the border of the tank top, and lifted it with one hand as the other left Violet’s neck to get on the mattress, exposing her breasts and leading his mouth to one of them, licking the rounded surface and reaching for the already hardened nipple, sucking it like his life depended of it, listening Violet’s violent gasp and moaning…

With a painful whimper, Arthur opened his eyes, one of his hands pressing the bulge of his sweatpants. Looked around, feverish and exhausted, he was in his own living room, sleeping on the large couch, the pencil case and the gun still on the table.

[geekgirles]

The reason why Spain's portrayal in "Murder Mystery" is the synonyme of "stereotype", an essay

As someone with no Netflix, I normally couldn't care less about the company's projects. Despite that, the other day, when I was surfing on the net, I saw an article explaining how this film, one of Netflix's latest hits, portrayed Spain, my country, as "un país de pandereta." Closest translation? Basically, a joke of a country.

The newspaper where I found this information was kind enough to provide us with a screenshot which reflected every single mistake that appeared in such a short scene.

Firstly, let's talk about what we can all see. Shall we?

There's a flamenco dancer constantly moving her skirt and fanning herself accompanied by a guitarist, the tour guide is wearing the national flag's colours (red and yellow) in a very ridiculous fashion and the bus seems to be very old, as if it were from the 50's.

Now, for what we can't see: the name of the tour company is "Gónzales", they serve champaign to the tourists and one the travellers even yells that someone has taken their glass of champaign.

As a Spaniard, for me, this scene is nothing but a joke so poorly developed or with so little research that it becomes pure ignorance. Meaning the creators clearly preferred to find a quick way to get the plot moving that they decided on using stereotypes instead of true, updated facts.

Wanna know why this is so wrong? At least, as I see it.

Listen up:

That flamenco dancer and her guitarist shouldn't be there. No, wait. They wouldn't be there. Flamenco performances are used as leisure or cultural activities, there is no way you would find them in the airport (because they were supposed to be in Málaga's airport) greeting new tourists. And considering there are actually more flamenco schools in Japan than in Spain, I can confidently say this.

Secondly, the dude wearing the Spanish flag's colours. Nobody on their right mind would do that! It's ridiculous. Ever since the tensions between Catalonia and the rest of Spain started, you can see several houses showing the country's flag in their windows or balconies, maybe some people wear some discreet silk bracelets, but that's it. We also share the LGBT flag like that, especially now that is pride month. Hell, Chueca's subway station is painted like the LGBT flag all year! Why did they find it relevant to show the damned flag?!

Then, we have the old, unsafe-looking bus. Listen, it's true most buses were made before 2008, but they are not so behind the newer ones either. Moreover, nowadays there are more and more updated ones! They have wifi, panels that indicate both the stop and the important buildings near it and, in general, buses are a much safer way to travel than cars. Even the older ones.

This one is good: "Gonzáles". You know, this proves that there is a huge amount of people, not necessarily only Americans, who make no distinction between Latinamerica and its culture and Spain's. Here in Spain, no one is called "Gonzáles". Basically, because unlike Latinamerican countries, we lisp. For us, "c" and "z" don't sound like some kind of "s". There's a lisp in those two letters when they are followed or, in z's case, preceded by "e" & "i" or "a", "o", "u"; respectively. Meaning, the proper surname would be "Gónzalez".

And last but not least, the champaign issue. Not only is it wrong that they portray us serving it to our customers (it's a tour bus, not a party bus, for Pete's sake!), but also the fact that someone's glass was stolen. Do you know what that implies? It means we Spaniards are thieves and untrustworthy, when in fact, most of us are nothing like that. It's easier to find mischievous Spaniards, it's true, after all that's the origin of "La picaresca"; but that's only a way of survival since we've practically been in crisis since the 17th century. There are many opinions on us, as there should be, but many foreigners that come here always comment on our kindness and our willingness to help anyone in need, after all, like most of the time, in times of crisis it's our people the ones who are always there aiding those who are in dire situations.

Please, I know this was the way they made the plot truly start, but that doesn't make it any less wrong. I'm trying to fight stereotypes here, help me get rid of the stereotype of Americans being nothing but ignorants.

Thank you for coming to my TED TALK.

[softspideys]

Moving On (Peter Parker x reader) (Part II)

summary: you and peter are reunited after the snap, but a lot has changed since he disappeared a year ago

warnings: none

word count: 1.6k

pairings: peter x reader

a/n: thanks for the love on the first chapter! sorry bout this one :o)

You chewed on your thumbnail absently, glancing out the window every now and then. Every time the door to the coffee shop opened you practically sprang out of your seat, but so far none of them signaled the entrance of the person you were waiting to see.

Peter had left almost immediately after you introduced him to Eric, despite you begging him to stay. You knew it must’ve been a huge shock for him, and you felt terrible that you didn’t have time to explain anything.

To Eric’s credit, he’d been extremely patient about the whole situation, giving you space when needed and actually encouraging you to reach out to Peter.

“I’m not an idiot,” he’d said. “I know you dated him for a while. You guys deserve to spend some time together.”

You gave it a day or two before texting Peter, asking if he wanted to meet at the coffee shop again so you could talk, just the two of you. Thankfully, he’d agreed.

Now, you looked up when someone approached the table you were sitting at. Peter offered you a tight-lipped smile as he sat across from you. “Hey.”

“Hey,” you said quietly. “Thanks for meeting me.”

“Sure.”

“I, um, got you a coffee,” you said, pushing the cup towards him. “Cream, no sugar.” You hoped that his drink preferences hadn’t changed in the year he’d been gone.

His face softened a little as he took it. “Thanks.”

You cleared your throat. “So . . . do you want to go first? Or should I?”

“You probably have more to say,” Peter said with a shrug, blowing on his coffee before taking a sip. “You can go, if you want. If you feel comfortable.”

“Okay,” you said, exhaling and rubbing your sweaty palms on your thighs. He said nothing else the entire time you spoke, merely watching and listening intently as you explained everything that had been going on in the past year.

You told him about getting back to school and hearing from Ned that he’d left the bus to go help Tony Stark fight aliens. You told him about staying up all night with May and your parents, waiting and waiting for him to come home. You told him about the memorial service that was held for him, and clearing out his bedroom, and Ned calling you in tears every single night for weeks, and the following months that seemed to bleed into one long, endless day.

“I was . . . lost,” you said quietly, staring at your fingernails. “I felt like I was just walking around lonely, bumping into walls.” You didn’t mention all the times you’d go to text him, only to realize that you couldn’t. You didn’t mention the dreams you had about him that felt so real, only to wake up and remember you were alone. You didn’t mention how empty you felt for so long, and how scared you were that you’d never be happy again.

You knew you weren’t the only one suffering. Some of your classmates had lost their entire families. But in a way, it was like you’d lost part of yourself. You and Peter had been best friends long before you started dating, and now it was like someone had dropped you in the middle of nowhere with no map or compass and told you to find your way.

But then you met Eric, who transferred to Midtown at the beginning of the school year. Miraculously none of his close friends or family had disappeared. He sat next to you in biology and always let you borrow his pencils or his notes, even when you didn’t ask.

You didn’t want to pin all of the credit on him, but Eric really had been the first person to get you to smile and laugh again. He was a clean slate, someone who the horrors of the Snap hadn’t managed to touch. He wasn’t a superhero or in constant danger. He didn’t leave abruptly in the middle of school or a date and you never had to worry about what he was doing. He was just . . . normal. It was almost refreshing. You were coming up on your three-month anniversary now.

“I’m sorry,” Peter said. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

Your eyes widened. “Peter, no. Don’t apologize, this isn’t your fault at all. I can’t even imagine what you’ve had to go through.”

He shrugged. “I don’t really remember it, to be honest. I mean, I remember dying. That really sucked. But the rest . . . it just felt like waking up after being asleep for a long time.”

“Oh.” You wanted to ask more about what dying felt like, but you could tell it wasn’t something he wanted to elaborate on.

“The worst is just knowing how much I missed out on. Your birthday, May’s, Ned’s . . . mine.” He cleared his throat, his voice catching with emotion. “It’s like everyone’s moved forward but me. And I just can’t seem to catch up.”

As you looked at him, you felt your eyes well up with tears. “I should’ve waited longer,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper.

“Don’t. Don’t even think like that.”

“It’s the truth.”

“You thought I was dead.”

“You were my boyfriend!” you cried, not missing how he winced at the past tense. “We dated for nearly two years and it took me less than one to already start dating someone else. How could I do that?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Peter said, shaking his head. “There’s no . . . there’s no set time limit for moving on.”

Moving on. Had you moved on? Had you finally stopped loving Peter? Or were they two completely different things? “It’s not fair,” you said softly. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. None of this.”

“I know,” Peter said gently. He swallowed. “Look, do you like this guy? Eric?”

You hesitated before nodding slowly. No one would ever be like Peter, but Eric was wonderful in his own way. He’d somehow managed to get through to you when you were at your lowest, helping you remember what it was like to care for someone and be cared for in return. He’d memorized your coffee order and was always on time, things Peter never managed to do. He was warm and reliable and safe.

“Yeah,” you said. “I do.”

“And he makes you happy?”

“Yes.”

“Then that’s all that matters to me,” Peter said. “I—I want you to be happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“I’m sorry,” you said. You were openly crying now, your coffee going cold next to you. “I wish it could be different.” It was like you were being torn in half. You knew you were happy with Eric, but Peter had been your first love, someone who was ripped away from you far too soon. The two of you deserved to have a better ending than this.

“I know,” Peter said. “I do too.” He was just sitting there, staring at you with this sad, broken look on his face. You knew he didn’t like crying, but part of you wished he would show some type of emotion, just to let you know that this was hurting him as much as it was hurting you.

“I should go,” Peter said after a painful silence. “Unless, uh, there’s anything else you want to talk about.”

You shook your head. You threw your half-empty cup into the trash before following him out the door. It was hard to believe that the coffee shop had once been one of your favorite places in the city. Now you didn’t think you could bear going back there ever again.

“I’m not really sure how to say this,” Peter said as he walked you to your subway stop. “But I think maybe it’s best if we don’t talk anymore. You know?”

You felt whatever was left of your heart completely shatter into dust. But at the same time, he was right. Too much had happened for you to ever stay friends. You didn’t want to hurt him even more than you already had. “Yeah,” you agreed quietly. “I know.”

You didn’t even realize you were crying again until Peter reached out and touched your face. “Hey,” he said. “It’s okay. It’s all okay.”

“I hate this,” you said, your voice shaking. “I never even got to say good-bye to you. And now you’re back and I have to lose you all over again.”

“You’re not losing me,” Peter said, although you kind of were. “At least not like last time. I mean, we literally go to the same school. I just think . . . I think this will be better for both of us. We need to move on. And heal.”

You nodded. As much as you wanted Peter to stay in your life, you knew that it wouldn’t be fair for him to have to see you with someone else. “And it’s like I said before,” he continued. “If you’re happy, then I’m happy. That’s all I want.” He hesitated. “You’re my girl.”

“I’ll always be your girl,” you said softly. “I thought about you every single day while you were gone. And I still do.” You swallowed. “There’s always gonna be a part of me that belongs to you.”

Peter blinked, and you saw his eyes were glassy. He took a deep, shuddering breath and before you knew it, he was crying too. Fuck it. You reached forward and hugged him tightly, feeling him grip you back just as hard. You couldn’t believe that this was it, that this was how it was all ending. 

Finally, you pulled away, knowing your train would be coming soon. “Bye, Peter,” you said. You didn’t think there was anything else left to say.  

“Bye,” he answered. That was the last image you had of him in your mind: tears dripping down his face, standing in the middle of the sidewalk as he watched you go.

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Onni Speaks

▲ The marriage of Dr Mose Durst and Onni Yeon-soo Lim (or Im)

HOSTAGE TO HEAVEN by Barbara Underwood and Betty Underwood

Four years in the Unification Church by an Ex Moonie and the mother who fought to free her.  Published 1979

from pages 66-69

Divine Principle was continually reinforced by community life, especially in Family Meetings. These were a time for brothers and sisters in the centers to share their realizations of God, their conquests of their own selfishness, or their dreams. Sometimes Onni would speak words of fire. Because of this, the call for Family Meeting struck like lightning.

“Quick, pali-pali!” (Pali meaning hurry in Korean.) “Onni’s coming tonight for a Family Meeting. Clean up now!” Teresa ordered. Teresa, who was responsible for preparing the worshipful atmosphere, assigned an older sister to prepare fruit and Ginseng tea for Onni and Dr. Durst, tasks accepted with honor and fear. Tensions ran high to meet Onni’s standard of perfection. Windows were opened because we all knew Onni’s “spiritual smell” was very sensitive to “low spirits” from recently departed guests still dwelling in the Satanic world. Hair combed, faces washed, shirts tucked in, the Family gathered in full circle around a pillow or sofa prepared for Onni. Teresa would lead us in singing before the magisterial arrival.

Onni and Dr. Durst would sweep in. Onni’s presence commanded full obedience. Meetings would usually start with a ritual passing of fortune cookies, which we read out loud. Seen as a barometer of our spiritual states of mind, the ones I saved were memorable: “Great thoughts come from the heart,” “Life to you is a dashing and bold adventure,” or “He that falls in love with himself [which I publicly read, “God”] will have no rivals.”

...

I also lived at the Hearst Street mansion, a stately old Georgian ex-fraternity house near the University of California campus; at The Gardens, elegant and palatial home of Onni and Dr. Durst, for a few months; up in the Boonville trailers; and at the dignified Victorian Washington Street center in San Francisco.

The most complete responsibility in center life I ever assumed was during two months in summer of 1975 when I moved back to Oakland’s modest but historic Dana Street center. Jonah directed that house with bursting momentum, consistent as a reliably wound clock. My duties as his “object,” or assistant, included cooking for thirty each day and night, buying food and provisions, and in “spare” hours leading a recruiting team in downtown Oakland in which our goal was a “date” for dinner each night. (I still recall those unsuspecting sidewalk innocents on whom we lunged in desperation a few minutes before dinner.) I also hostessed evening lecture programs, gave lectures and slide presentations, kept the finances and the family history, answered telephones, drove flower-selling missions at night, conducted prayer meetings and trinity meetings, group-assisted at Boonville on weekends, and, above all, served Jonah with total obedience.

Jonah treated me with stern instruction, ever ready to correct. He’d catapult out of the house for meetings at The Gardens with Onni, sticking his head back in the door to yell about all the errors in judgment I’d committed that day. With no chance to plead for justice, I’d trot to Onni’s prayer room to faithfully pray for inner strength to humble myself to his holy tyranny, to feel “married for eternity” to his will. I tried to sense our bond as unending, the only way I could force myself to submit temporarily. After unlocking it with a hidden key, I’d slip into the Dana prayer room. One for each center, this one was immaculate with quiet light, translucent curtains gently blowing, photos of True Parents and Jesus, mementos from Korea, holy books, and the fragrance of fresh-cut roses. These moments were the few times when Reverend Moon’s wife, my True Mother, emerged as more important to me than “Father” himself. I had been told that her course in restoring the world set the example for all sisters. She lived an absolute shadow existence to Reverend Moon, an obedient birth-giver to “perfect” children, one after another. Kneeling under her unreadable face posed beside Father’s, I identified with her intense struggle to endure her life.

At Dana Street, while I was assistant, our main mission consisted of recruiting eight hours a day in places like the San Francisco wharf, Golden Gate Park, on Berkeley’s campus, or on the new subway system, BART. Working with a small team of partners, we would approach and invite to dinner as many bright, capable passers-by as we could manage to engage in conversation. Onni instructed us to avoid talking too long to any one person, especially to avoid talking philosophy about the Church. She herself had set the standard when, in the early movement, she had reached out to one hundred people in one day. “Make friends, offer them whatever they are seeking, pray for Heavenly Father to guide them to dinner,”' Onni would teach. “Sisters get handsome men, brothers attract pretty girls. It’s good if they come because they like you. Once in God’s house, they learn to love God instead.” By spoken and unspoken understandings, we knew what we were looking for: capable, healthy, restless, young, white people like ourselves, preferably lonely and traveling, uprooted. They might respond to our approach: “Beautiful day, isn’t it? Been traveling long? Where are you from? Have you ever met our Family? We live on a huge farm together. You should come visit us; you’re always welcome. By the way, are you hungry?”

Two Family buses, called the “Coffee-Break-Bus” and the “Elephant Bus,” were strategically located in tourist areas as recruiting centers for “hitchhikers with knapsacks.” Our teams would look for young prospects, bring them back to the bus for coffee and doughnuts, and introduce them to the Family. Our psychological approach was irresistible. Members of the Church “radiated” love and kindness to strangers. Many conscientious, open people felt obliged to respond to us on a personal and social level because we made it seem too cruel to resist.

After a full day of recruitment, reaching out to people we believed we could save, our dinners at the center consisted of more intense relating to individuals. We fed them, entertained them, and suggested to them an “amazing set of ideas that would change their lives and make them happy.” We insisted they stay with us. The success of the day was measured by how many guests “signed up” and paid for a weekend training session up on our isolated 680 acres of land, the Boonville farm.

After guests left the centers at nine-thirty at night, the house was cleaned. Moneymaking teams prepared to “blitz the bars.” Everyone else visited prospective “spiritual children,” or held trinity meetings to read “Master Speaks,” a series of tracts based on Moon’s speeches. Prayer and chanting was at eleven sharp. Anyone who had fasted, to bring more people or money in, would break that fast at midnight with soup and ice cream. By 12:30 younger Family members were in their sleeping bags, men side by side on one floor, women on the next level in strict segregation. Carpet cleaning or auto repair crews might come in at four or five o’clock after working all night.

After midnight, as center assistant, I planned menus, incorporating Boonville farm produce into rice, soup, or potato combinations for next night’s dinner. (Breakfast had been juice, coffee, oatmeal; lunch was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, raisins, carrots, cookies.) One-thirty a.m. found me still making lists of workshop signups and fund-raising accounts, and trying to locate used clothes in the “extra clothes room” for new sisters.

By two o’clock, Jonah would either stagger in or bluster in, depending on Onni’s mood, from a staff meeting at The Gardens. Over his milkshake or a stack of gooey jelly and peanut butter sandwiches I’d prepared, I would try to guess from him the content of the meetings. I later read through a staff brother’s notebook and learned what a tight ship Onni ran. The following are quotes from Onni, as recorded in his notebook:

“If one person doubts then no good. If on staff and drop out, this creates disunity because can’t trust you. Such people are betrayers. You know heavenly secrets. If you go away, you dangerous because you know too much. You can’t zig-zag. If you fight it out, you can overcome.” (2/13/74).

“You staff have Satanic evil mouths. Have to knock off—don’t say too much. And when you talk to people, talk only about their needs, their benefits, find out what will get them in. In witnessing, if people get negative toward you, just say that we support all churches.” (2/3/74).

(And a few days later): “We never tell any lie, never give any untruth. Who accuse us of that?” (2/21/74).

“If you don’t listen to me [Onni], no way for you to be restored. Bind with Onni. Do or die for purpose. Get rid of own ego. Our own will or desires must be last.” (2/14/74).

In January Onni had given instructions to Teresa about a sister who had complained of seeing evil spirits: “Teresa, must ask Abbey honestly heart to heart, pray together. Then talk. If no good, then chase evil spirit out of her. If not we’ll send her to hospital. She should do laundry each day.”

Onni had said of a brother, a young insurance salesman noted for his spunk and independence of mind: “Never let Don drive again. I don’t like him. Smash his ego. Or put him in Heavenly jail to change his attitude!” (2/21/74).

Other provisos: “Everyone must raise hand and share experience at Family meeting. If you can’t raise hand you are living selfishly. No good.” Or: “When you go out and witness, witness to the people for Dr. Durst; they respect Ph.D. bag. But when people come into Family to stay, then you witness for Onni.” And, “No one want elderly people around for dinner because they are not needed.” (2/20/74).

Onni also made clear in staff meetings: “No German travelers for workshop; they too scientific and heady. And black people don’t fit in so well. Hard for them. Not right time in God’s providence for them. Father says if whites don’t accomplish then use blacks to shame whites in America, but not yet.”

Barbara Underwood:

One Family meeting with Onni Durst scarred my soul

A story from Bay Area Unification Church of the 1970s – part 1 Disciples Fill Moon’s Pockets

A story from Bay Area Unification Church of the 1970s – part 2 Moonie 1977 Court Battle: Fighting For ‘Rights’

A story from Bay Area Unification Church of the 1970s – part 3 For Moonies ‘Deprogram’ Meant Torture

Onni Durst – The Dragon Lady

Moon’s ultimate truth is … absolute obedience – Allen Tate Wood

Moonwebs: Journey into the Mind of a Cult by Josh Freed

Crazy for God: The nightmare of cult life by Christopher Edwards

[maekkelae]

roadblog - Canadian tour 2018 (IV)

Another day in Canada. Forgot which one. It's a long haul. I wrote this before. And right, we're still on that Greyhound bus on its way from Toronto to Thunder Bay. As impossible as it seems to sleep on the coach, after 20 hours awake it will inevitably happen. So it did to me. Somewhere between Wawa and Nipigon. Woke up right in time to see the sun rise and get ready for the last coffee break before Thunder Bay. Stunning landscape reminding me a lot of Finland. A bit of Kuopio to Joensuu in here. Makes a lot of sense so many Fins settled in this area. No need to adjust on new, unknown landscape or climate. All good here, it's pretty much like where we came from. Let's stay. In general it seems people are not too unhappy to live their lives around here. Buying a cuppa on our last stop the guy behind the counter asks if I've got some kind of bonus card. And no, haven't got one. "You can have one, they're valid in all our gas stations across Canada." "Thanks, but that doesn't make a lot of sense, I don't live in Canada." "Oh man, that sucks, eh?" I'm not sure it does. There are possibly some few places apart from Nipigon with it's -19°C I'd actually prefer for a permanent residency. ################### And then there is Thunder Bay, Ontario. Finally. And yessir, we're still in the province of Ontario, Canada. With its Greyhound stop strategically perfectly located 3.5 km from tonight's venue. As you might have figured out following this blog this means “very close to“ or “almost in the centre of town“ in terms of local geographical understanding. In theory there'd be public transport into town, in fact waiting for a bloody bus til fuck knows when in minus ten is nothing you want to do after 22 h on a bus. Let alone possibly not being taken for not having the right change for the ticket or whatever else there could go wrong. My first taxi ride in Thunder Bay turns out a full on success. Whilst watching the desolate beauty of Thunder Bay's industrial areas glide by I get a crash course in the town's history and am pointed on to the most important sights. The one thing I remember is, it's apparently the place where Terry Fox stopped running. Good idea. Would have been a bit to go from here. To any destination. Sorry, dear Canadians, I'm disrespectful here. What my tourist guide didn't mention is the big Finnish community in this town located pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Being very early for the show there is time enough to do a little research on this. And yes, they've got it all here. Karjalan Piirakka, Pulla, Pepsodent, Salmiakki. Had a coffee at Hoito, the cafe/restaurant of the Finnish culture centre, located in the old „Finnish Labour Temple“. Sweet. Bought a copy of the Finnish-Canadian newspaper “Kanadan Sanomat“. Good read — interesting things in there like “Finnish alcohol sells well abroad“. Wouldn't have thought. Enjoyed the show at The Apollo in Thunder Bay on that quiet Tuesday night a lot. Sheila & Alex being wonderful hosts (thanks again for having me, feeding me, putting me up and all...) it turned out a fun evening with an exclusive audience. Bet you know what I mean. Handnumbered so to say. And most of them spoke Finnish. In fact, I think the main reason for them to turn up was the cinema billboard on top of The Apollo's entry reading “Makkela“. Some nice chats after the show learning more about the Fins who came here beginning of the 20th century to settle down on the banks of the great lakes from here down to Duluth, Minnesota. A heartwarming evening in that cold little town on the edge of Ontario. I'll be back. I suppose I have to. In fact, I want to. Still, my Thunder Bay moment was yet to happen the following morning. Started a chat with the not very talkative cab driver who took me to the Greyhound station. A great guy it turned out once he realized he could chat with me in Finnish. And in a way a very Finnish story. Left his home near Kauhava in the early eighties to start a new, better life out here and — as it goes so often — failed. Now stuck here driving a cab trying to save enough money to make it back to Finland. Felt like the right thing to give him a copy of my last album. Catch up next time Harri, if you're still there. ########################## Thunder Bay Greyhound station. Oh my. Been there? It's the place where excitement starts. I have to admit I was pushing my luck here. The Mayor in Winnipeg — no, that's how the call him, he's not the mayor of Winnipeg — set the show for 7.30/8.00pm the very night. According to Greyhound's timetable I'm supposed to make it to Winnipeg by 6.45 pm. Fair enough, should work. That's what I thought. Of course, it didn't. I was on time. The bus was on time. Just the hydraulic ramp for the wheelchair refused to do what it was designed for. Which is lifting a wheelchair onto the vehicle. One hour after our scheduled departure time Greyhound staff is still trying to fix the thing whilst yours humbly starts getting kind of nervous. And no, things aren't improving. Two hours later still here, a smiling driver submitting updates on our status quo. Another thirty minutes later we're finally leaving Thunder Bay. It was a joyful and glorious moment when the Greyhound guys cheerfully announced it was nothing really big – just a fuse. Thank god. If a fuse means three hours, I suppose a spark plug would have cost us a week. This doesn't look too promising. I can see my Winnipeg show slowly disintegrate with every extra minute of waiting. Message to Mayor Matt: “This will be a late one I'm afraid. You still up for having the show?“ “Yeah, sure. We'll start later. Jaxon Haldane 9ish then you. Should work. We'll save 30 minutes if you get off one stop before Winnipeg.“ Today's driver seems to be a nice person even though he has to deal with multiple issues just now. He doesn't know how to work the bloody ramp (which has been fixed, but by some other personnel) and there is me making things even more complicated. “Excuse me sir, would you mind dropping me one stop before Winnipeg?“ “Sure, no problem. Just come to the front once we're near.“ That was just too easy. We're still running late, starting the show by nine is wishful thinking by now, I haven't got a clue where we are except of being approximately 40 minute away from Winnipeg. Walking up the aisle towards our pilot. “Is this the place or are we close to where you can drop me off? You remember?“ “Sorry man, I can't drop you off here. This is a motorway. I'm not allowed to stop here or drop anyone off. I don't know where you want to get off.“ Situation is not improving with me calling Mayor Matt, listening to his instructions on one ear, trying to understand what the driver is trying to explain on the other, all blurred by the powerful sound of a Greyhound engine. Confusion. Despair. A crossroad with traffic lights. Not too far from a Petro-Can and a Subway. I'm finally dumped without the slightest clue of my whereabouts. Ah, that's Matt calling. Good. “Where are you now?“ Erm... next to a Petro-Can. And a Subway. Oh, and a crossroad with traffic lights. Good luck. I still don't know how he did it, but he found me. He turned up. 9.30 pm. It's a miracle. Apparently there is still going to be a show. We're shooting towards his house and my first show in Winnipeg. But listen up now, here is what made Mayor Matt immortal in the house of Mäkkelä. Once in the car he passes me a thermos mug and a can of cold IPA. „Thought you'd need this now. Just make sure you first pour it in the thermos. You're not allowed having a beer in the car in Manitoba.“ What a guy. Impossible to play a bad show after a trip like this. Just a pity I couldn't see Jaxon Haldane perform.

[kpopandcream]

Moon Day - VII

Pairing: Dongmin x Reader & Yoongi x Reader

Genre: Fluff, Angst, Humour.

Warnings: Strong language, Implied smut, some dark themes.

Jungkook told you about Min Yoongi many times. How he didn’t take to strangers. How he preferred to stay unknown. How he thrived in the underbelly of society where he could do what he wanted without anyone caring. Yet, after many short talks about him, all of that information still seemed to land on deaf ears. You couldn’t remember a single thing about him except for his name, which landed you in a puddle full of milk and under a confused stare.

Word Count: 6.1k

Part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 , 7, 8, 9

Masterlist

Dongmin did this funny thing where he texted you a link to an online countdown. It counted the seconds, minutes, and hours until you went out. It was funny because you had the timer open, sure he wasn’t going to make it at exactly 00:00:00. He showed up about a minute later, out of breath and carrying a large thermos. When you opened the door, he simply handed you the container and doubled over, resting his hands on his knees and panting.

“Holy shit,” he managed through breaths, laughing a bit but mostly because he was embarrassed, “I’m so out of shape. Holy shit.”

You giggled at him, noticing the bright red of his cheeks and giving him a curt hug once he stood up straight. His chest was still rising up and down quickly but you felt he was trying to calm it and thought it was adorable. Saying hello and asking for him to come in while you finished getting ready, you shut the door behind him. He obliged politely, not that he had a choice and took off his shoes at the door. You walked into your room, him following after a moment. Sitting at your window, you fixed some makeup on while he lied down behind you on your bed.

“Think I’ll just take a nap while I wait.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” you hummed, using your eyelash curler as you turned to look at him, “this won’t take me a minute.”

He raised his head off the mattress to look at you, mouth obviously wanting to say something other than what came out. “You look terrifying.”

“Thank you,” you sang, turning back to the mirror to see how well they curled. It did only take you a few minutes to finish applying your makeup but there was a thick silence that coated the room for those few moments. There was something offsetting about it being your first date with Dongmin. You kept trying to tell yourself that this would be just like any other outing with him- just as friendly, just as kind. Yet, something in you wanted you to give up the game. Nothing would be the same like before you and you just had to face the facts. Only, it was so hard for you to adjust to change.

You tried your hardest though, making sure to straighten your smile and be natural. You had to repeat this multiple times to really get it stuck in your head but seeing his outstretched body on your bed calmed you. His chest moved up and down slowly, matching your breathing. You noticed the stripes that circled his body and the vest he wore on top to keep himself warm. You eyed his blue jeans and his hands that were covered in fingerless mittens, resting over his eyes. You climbed beside him in bed and tapped on his palm three times. He moved his hand so one eye peeked out at you, open just slightly.

“Ready to go?” you asked, voice above a whisper. His smile was covered but you saw it in the way his eye curled. You wanted to replay that moment and you did, many times over in the subway to downtown and on the small bus rides you took.

Somehow, his fingers ended up between yours and you felt your worry start to dissipate. You weren’t big talkers today, having taken every chance to call each other, text each other, see each other before officially going out as you could. It wasn’t that you were out of things to say but more so that you didn’t need to. You felt okay in his hands like this, giving this small part of yourself over to him. He looked out the window while you lost your head to your own thoughts. The only thing bringing you down from your cloud was the way he ran his thumb down your palm ever so often. The shivers that climbed up your spine and shook you like rain were nothing to be ignored. The embarrassed smile that crawled up your cheeks and spread red onto them were hard to ignore.

Dongmin took you to a skating rink after a quick lunch, having everything all planned out. There were a lot of people, which caused some pressure in your chest. He noticed, obviously, and frowned lightly.

“Are you okay?” His voice was low but concerned, keeping you in mind in ways you had only imagined. The glimmer in his eyes was enough to give you courage for the night and you simply nodded.

“I’m okay.”

“We can leave anytime you want,” he said quickly, as if to reassure you. You simply disregarded that, wanting to be fully invested in this day as normally as you could. You didn’t want this minor blip to get in the way and you fought it for most of the day, knowing you had to if you wanted to be happy at the end of this. You didn’t want to be disappointed and let something get in the way of a fun day so you pushed today, trying your hardest.

You supposed he saw it, the moments when you spaced out and wanted to go home. When you were renting the skates and he asked you what size you were and you took a moment to respond, he took it into account. After getting the shoes, his hand rested on your back and he asked if you were okay again. While you hated the question, the rational part of you understood why he asked. It was concern and it was genuine and you were glad for it at the end of the day. There was another swift nod of your head and a smile. Determined to make the best of it, you began slipping on your skates.

They were playing all too many girl group songs over the speakers that surrounded the skating rink. Though it was outside, the government had done a nice job of keeping it beautiful and quite an attraction. The sounds attracted people from all over and, while it stressed you out, you were having all too much fun getting ready to skate. Dongmin was trying to lighten the mood, cracking jokes and doing the silly little dances as you were lacing up your skates. Laughing at each other helped, you trying to copy him when you thought you had the move down right. He was making it feel like it was just you two and you were glad for it- for the little cloud he was creating with each crystal that fell from the sky in a haze.

“Hey, look, that arm isn’t straight enough,” he’d say, pretending to be strict when teaching you a move but mostly just wanting to show it himself, “it’s supposed to be like this.”

You would place your hands together and apologize, pouting lightly. He’d simply get shy, cheeks turning a slight red. You would pretend not to see, blaming the lighting even though the surrounding lights were bright.

Once you got on the ice, you admitted this was your favourite place in the city. Dongmin held your hand as you spoke, explaining why this place exactly. You said it felt somewhat like a second home, recalling how many times Seokjin would take you skating or was forced to take you along when he went out with his friends. Dongmin called you a heathen for taking away quality time from ‘the bros’ but you thought it was hilarious and kept spilling story after story about the multiple times you’d ruined Seokjin’s life. Most of them, he’d heard before but he politely listened or played along. Sometimes he’d finish your sentence but, when you got to the story of how you ruined Seokjin’s first time, he gasped.

“No, you’re seriously terrible,” he said through laughs, shaking his head at you. You attempted to defend yourself, pointing a finger at Dongmin’s chest. He was skating backwards so he could face you, tugging you along almost. Your mouth stretched wide as you spoke and he clicked his tongue, disappointed.

“Look, I was only eleven years old and I had come home early from school! There were weird moaning sounds and apologizes and-! How was I supposed to know fifteen year old Seokjin had skipped last period to get it on in our basement?” You were louder than you should’ve been and the man in front of you burst out laughing, bending slightly as he did so to steady himself. He had to stop skating, shaking his head and his hands to pause. He bent, laughing so hard that it was unbearable to stand, hands coming into a T.

“Time-out, that’s too much for me,” he managed and you huffed, amused but partially annoyed.

“Oh, hush up,” you joked, nudging him slightly with your leg. He fell over at that, legs nearly taking you down as well but you skated away in time. He was shocked and then found that hilarious as well. You couldn’t help the rocking in your chest as you came to help him up, grin splattered across your lips like nothing could ever take it off.

Dongmin took your hands and jokingly tugged you down the slightest bit. You nearly yelped and nearly fell but steadied yourself and scoffed, letting go of his hands. “So annoying. No help from me now.”

He pouted but got up easily, swiftly coming up behind you. His hands came down on your shoulders quickly, causing a shake in your body but he straightened you in the process and you didn’t fall. Somehow, you got onto other topics and spoke about the consistency of banana smoothies and how you preferred them. You spoke of the seasons, how much you hated winter, how much he loved fall. You were different in opinion but could find common ground in these small things.

“Someone once told me that people who disagree about small things usually agree about important things,” Dongmin said lightly after a lull in the conversation. He was looking ahead at the people around you and the constant loop you’d been on for about an hour. “I think that’s the case with us.”

“Maybe.” You looked up at him, noticing the way he seemed to glitter. Perhaps you were romanticizing the whole night but it just seemed to be going so right. It was a perfect balance of real life and fantasy, blended so well you could hardly tell what was what. Part of you wondered if any of this was real or a dream in and of itself and a small pinch of your arm while you were speaking helped you confirm it wasn’t. This was real. He was here. You weren’t making this up to make yourself feel better. It was really happening and nothing could’ve compared- no imagination could form something so pure.

“It’s the big things that are important anyways,” you hummed, tearing your eyes from him to look up. You wished for a star but none appeared. There were just swirling lights and the darkness of the sky but it didn’t scare you like usual. It stirred your brain as you concluded, “anyone who breaks up with someone because they don’t like the same olives or some shit is stupid.”

“Oh, call-out post,” Dongmin deadpanned, trying to be serious. You simply snorted, shaking your head and sighing.

With a fixed look, you focused on him and found this question in the depths of your mind. “Everything’s a joke, huh?”

He scanned your face, looking for what exactly to say and knowing the right answer. You hoped it was something he believed as he muttered, “no, but most things can be. I just want to keep it light today.”

“I know.” You squeezed his hand and he gave you a slight smile. There was a beat of silence and then his perfect mouth curled into the lyrics of the song playing overhead.

He did a small dance on his skates, mimicking the girl group and you did it along with him. You found yourself genuinely enjoying him more than you ever had. There were boundaries before but not anymore. Now, you were allowed to just simply be yourself in every aspect. You could show him the parts you were hiding, the doubts, the softness, the stubbornness. You found yourself to be quite random and out of place a lot but he didn’t make you feel that way at all. You could be as irrational as you wanted and he would accept it. This warmed the chill in your heart and that spread through your whole body, though your thighs were freezing from the cold.

Reluctantly, you came off the ice and he reminded you it was a holiday today. Somehow it had slipped your head but this didn’t necessarily bother you. You hummed and asked what the importance was and he simply showed you his thermos with a wide grin.

“We’re going to watch the fireworks.”

The ice rink and its population had no comparison to this national park. It was large and there were enough seats to make it look like a stadium. Slowly, that pressure crawled back into your body and held you there. You paused, seeing the amassing of people that showed up for the fireworks. It was still mild enough to be outside and the falling snow melted when you touched it. It was beautiful tonight, so it was understandable that there would be people about to celebrate. Looking at the sea of people at the entrance of the park, you must have hesitated. Dongmin didn’t push you any further, seeing the weariness in your face and giving you a smile.

“Why don’t we sit back here?” he suggested, motioning to a bench that was just in the interior of the park. It had an okay view of the middle, where the fireworks would be set off, but that didn’t matter. “The fireworks are in the sky anyways. We’ll have a better view here.”

You were happy for his suggestion, pressing your lips together into a tiny smile. You found that you talked less when you were happier and more comfortable. There was less to say, you figured, because your actions said everything. The way you clung to him, humming little songs from the rink as you went along and he found the ‘ideal bench’.

“Does it have the best sound quality too?” you teased, meeting his gaze. He played into it, nodding and really trying to sell it.

“Oh, yes. Even comes with a free hot chocolate and seat warmers.” From his pocket, he emerged a few heat packs and you gasped, face lighting up. He knew how much you loved these and perhaps seeing the look on your face brought the moonlight to shine on his face brighter.

“This really is a five-star establishment,” you mused, sitting down. He pretended to be a gentleman, letting you sit first and bowing lowly before asking sweetly if he could sit with you. He even used the term ‘m’lady’ which made you laugh but you kept it up with calling him ‘good sir’. He seemed pleased, leaning back a bit on the bench.

“What can I say? Only the best for my lady.” He shrugged a bit, clearly impressed with himself and you snickered. He couldn’t keep the joke for any longer, apologizing as he came closer to you. Between your hands, he slipped a hot pack and you cradled it this way. Some of these packets found their way into your coat and into his sleeves, him cursing at himself for not wearing a proper jacket. You would have scolded him but he was doing it enough so you simply hushed him and brought him closer.

Mumbling something about body heat, you silenced his words and the two of you waited for the fireworks. You asked him if he knew how they worked and when he admitted he had no idea, you chuckled. Calling yourself both dumb, he clicked his tongue.

“It’s actually only you, you’re the one learning chemistry.”

You feigned offence at this, a hand coming to rest over your heart. Pretending you couldn’t believe it, you threatened to remove your warmth from him and he protested, apologizing. You laughed at how oddly cute he could be and played upon this, calling him adorable. He stuck his chin up a bit and nodded.

“That’s me. Get on my level.”

“Wish I could,” you muttered, sarcasm dripping off your tongue and he snorted. Once again, an apology slipped through his mouth but you simply disregarded it, telling him he didn’t need to apologize for stupid things like this.

“I find them funny,” you assured him as the first firework went up, the crash sounding like cymbals as you held onto his bicep and fit your head against him, “don’t worry.”

“Okay,” he whispered and there was a silent agreement from then. He didn’t say much after and neither did you, the both of you sharing the sweetened liquid from the thermos and watching the show quietly. Occasionally, he would say a small exclamation, as would you.

You stopped watching the show for a few minutes, head turning to look at him. His mouth was opened the slightest bit, so much awe on his face it was like he’d never seen fireworks before. Though, he always looked like this. Parts of him were entranced by the colours that lit up the sky and created a small heaven in the darkness. It was extra special considering the lazy snow that trickled from the clouds and were illuminated as well.

Dongmin looked just about as good as a famous painting, etched into real life by something greater than the both of you. Perhaps he wasn’t all that pretty but there was a warmth in his soul and heart that became who he was. It seeped out of his skin and his eyes and his touch. He was defined by the constant orange aura that emitted itself and spread sunshine onto all good things. You felt you could stare at him forever but, you didn’t, knowing he’d be picky and say you weren’t looking at the show at all.

So, you took your eyes down from heaven and rested it on the fireworks in the sky, letting yourself get lost in them as you snuggled closer to him. Quite some time passed, or maybe none at all, but the minutes felt like hours and you embraced it. You wanted to spend as long as you could here, rising into the sky like an angel who didn’t deserve their wings.

“Dongmin,” you hummed, resting your head on his shoulder. It had taken a while to process but you’d really taken a national holiday to go on your first date. He said it as a joke but you knew he wasn’t lying when he said it was so you could remember it.

The pops of the fireworks were still loud but not enough that it hurt your ears and you were far enough from the majority of people to have this feel like it was personal. You were whole, sitting there with your hot drink in one hand and his in the other. He turned his head down to look at you, voice low as he responded.

“Yeah?”

You came closer to him and found a calm smile on your lips. “I’m happy.”

“Are you?” he asked but it didn’t require any response. You nodded anyways and he simply followed your lead. His ears moved as his lips stretched across his cheeks. He spoke in a whisper then, head tilting up to watch the fireworks. “I’m glad. Me too.”

You spent most of the night there, long after the fireworks had gone off and the people had left. You simply sat together, frozen in place but warm with each other. He murmured things about the stars and you looked at him as he explained. He knew so much about constellations, about black holes and nebulae and the universe. You wondered where he kept all this information and where he kept all the lines he memorized from plays. You would, as a joke, say a Shakespeare quote and he’d follow with the correct line. You were jealous of how quick he was on his feet and absolutely enamoured by it in all.

Under the stars and the moon, you sat. You sat for what felt like ages and you could’ve made this your home. You said this and he smiled, nodding in agreement. You imagined a whole world where everything could be just like this and he played along, adding stuff himself.

“We should live everyday under the moon,” you decided. This, he didn’t disagree with. He said there was something about the way your skin looked under moonlight that made you glow. Looking into his eyes, you couldn’t help but think he was lying. No one was quite as bright as he was in that moment.

“The sun comes out at night,” he added, head tilted up at the sky, “and we don’t have compasses at all. We track our way by the stars.”

“Where do you live?” you mused, watching his cheek twitch as he responded slyly.

“Just beyond star 7 and to the left of star 1009.”

“Oh damn,” you muttered, snapping your fingers as you played along, “one of my exes live near star 1009, I’m afraid I can’t come over tonight.”

Dongmin snorted, shaking his head at you while his eyes curved into two upside down u’s. You found yourself chuckling too, eyes watery from the passing wind and the intense feeling of peace in your body. He slowly relaxed, curled eyes going back to their original position. His cheeks shifted from round to fixed around the bones there and you found your hand coming to touch them. Sometimes, the angles on his face were so sharp that it looked dangerous to touch them. However, he was so soft under your fingertips. Sometimes, it felt like you were the only human person ever on the planet. Reminding yourself other people were just as human, just as real- it seemed to change everything. In that moment, you wanted only you and him to be real. You didn’t care about the rest, just you and Dongmin in a cloud far off where no one could touch you.

You wondered if he felt the same as he leaned down, the anticipation in your chest growing as he inched closer. You closed the gap, uncertain but knowing it was what you wanted. The way he moved against you forced you to believe he did. He was still so wary, so kind. The trace of his hands was so perfectly polite and you didn’t beg for more, knowing this was who he was. He was the creation of a higher power that would never push you further than you wanted to go and you were blessed because of it. You could tell in the way you never wanted to push away and the flutter of your eyelids when they opened. He’d taken his lips away from your for a brief moment, coming to say something as he did so.

“Just had a thought,” he whispered quietly, eyes boring into yours and showing no implication of what it could be. You prayed for something romantic, knowing he wasn’t the type but perhaps he might. You were wrong, but not necessarily disappointed. “What if that was during the fireworks? How cheesy would it be? ‘She blossomed for me like the fireworks in the sky’. How funny?”

You couldn’t resist the bursting laugh that came from your chest. It followed his dying chuckles and you were absolutely amazed by the words that came out of his mouth. He could be so eloquent and so ridiculous all at once and you supposed this was exactly why you found him the most interesting person the planet. As you made fun of his joke and pressed more kisses into his skin, he kept going. he kept eliciting these laughs that sounded like bells. You wondered just how much he loved them that he kept making you jokes. You wondered how you ended up here with a man this perfect under a night so perfect. Though you hated cliches, you found yourself in one and it was absolutely perfect.

There was panting and there were kisses that swallowed every last bit of your soul. You had your eyes closed and, no matter how hard you tried to open them, you couldn’t. Being up this high would make you sick, so you only focused on his hands and how they ran up your body. You focused on the way he said your name and how good it felt to be just you and him. You were in his apartment, in the sky, in a place only you two would ever be. The last thing you remembered from that scenes was the way his chest moved against yours when you were at rest, heart hammering and sweat on his arms. You remembered the way he felt and the way he whispered he loved you like he was holding something so fragile. You didn’t know if it was your heart or his.

Then, it was the colour purple.You were making fun of him, watching him open his birthday presents and cackling. It was just you two in that small apartment where your whole life seemed to be. He was cursing at you, laughing while he did so and not annoyed at all. His hands grasped that bright purple onesie that mimicked a television dinosaur. The ends of his eyes came together and his mouth showed more gum than ever. His smile was pinned from one ear to the other, wider than the universe and any hole in your heart. In this smile, you lost yourself. You fell into the trap he laid for you in that devilishly childish smile and found the pace of your heart quicken.

He was amused but he was coming to get you, hands tossing aside the present to grasp your skin. You squealed, laughing at the chase as you threw decorative tissue paper at him to stop him. He chased, asking if you really thought that would stop him. Over your shoulder, you caught him with his hood half on his head and bleached hair sticking out. For some reason, you didn’t know his face but you knew how he made you feel. The chase around the house, into his bedroom and around his bed- the escape and the capture in the hallway. The way he climbed on top of you after you’d fallen on your way to the living room, mouth spilling giggles as did yours. He asked if you were okay, knees on either side of you and arms beside your ears. You simply leaned up to kiss him and he looked shocked. Taking this chance, you escaped once again and he chased. Sometimes, it felt like the chase never ended.

There was frying food and friends and a barbeque. Something about the day felt loud and bright and forever happy. The colour yellow best reminded you of this, but like pale sunlight on a sweet summer day. You stuffed your face with too much food and had too much alcohol. He held your hair back while you threw up into the toilet. You cried. He hushed you, holding you and telling you everyone made mistakes like this.

“It’s fine,” he whispered after you apologized, saying you’d ruined the night for him. He had brushed all the hair out of your face and was pressing love into your forehead with his lips as he muttered, “I’d rather spend a thousand nights like this than be with just them again. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

You fell asleep on the bathroom floor with him, head against his chest and feeling like a failure. It would never be fine. You could never be fine like this.

You crawled into bed after him one night. He had his back to you and visibly, he was upset. he wasn’t going to let it go, not after what you said. You supposed it didn’t matter that you couldn’t remember what you said but it was bad. It hurt him. You hurt him. You didn’t know how you were going to live with yourself so you asked him how to apologize. He didn’t respond to the question.

“Just go to sleep,” he hissed, turning further away from you, “we’ll talk about it in the morning.”

“But I want to talk about it now,” you pressed, nudging him lightly. He instantly declined, asking for you to leave him alone for just the night.

“I don’t want to yell at you.”

“Yell at me,” you protested, raising your voice lightly, “say anything to me, just stop doing this hot and cold treatment. I don’t know what to do.”

“Didn’t I tell you what to do?” he asked harshly, words nipping at your skin and everything you remembered you held dear. The innocence in your heart withered slowly under his gaze as he turned around to meet your eyes. He was so cold, becoming someone you didn’t even recognize. “Leave. Me. Alone.”

You left the apartment that night and went to Seokjin’s house. Your brother questioned why and asked you to open up. Despite the irony, you mimicked your boyfriend’s words and asked him to leave you alone for the night. The one thing Seokjin was good at was knowing when to press. He didn’t, simply murmuring a goodnight. You curled up that night and cried yourself to sleep. Your brother came halfway through the night and you let him hug you. You told him everything. You didn’t want to be alone. It scared you so much. He listened diligently, as he always had.

“You’re never alone, y/n,” he murmured, rubbing a small circle into your back as you cried into his thick sweater, “not with me around, okay? I promise.”

You held onto this promise with your whole heart.

You didn’t know when you fixed things with him but suddenly, you were back in each other’s arms like nothing happened. Perhaps you’d spoken about it and worked things through. A part of you worried you didn’t and that scared you. You hated leaving things to the last minute or until they got too big to solve. It stressed you more than he knew but nothing seemed to matter with him. You floated when you were together, like helium was in your veins instead of blood and you were above all human things. Nothing could touch you and nothing dared to. You were too high and they were too low.

He’d play the piano when he got stressed and he would sing to himself. Usually, you left him to his own devices then. He would spend hours poring over specific notes and would get mad when they didn’t fit. He’d rip up papers with little scribbles or hide the good ones in books. He went through notebook after notebook, all raking up a place in the bookshelves. You moved some of your books into Seokjin’s house to compensate and he numbered his notebooks to remember when and where and who he was writing about. Volumes seven through to eleven were yours and they were some of the biggest. It was in this time that he gave you a thin, diamond studded ring.

“I know I don’t say it enough but I love you. Truly. I’m sorry for every time I’ve hurt you but I just want you to know that I’ll always be here. Circles never end and neither will we or whatever other sappy shit like that.”

You snorted, shaking your head but understanding the sentiment. Slipping the ring onto your finger, you muttered, “you know, sappy shit is sappy and cliche because it’s true right?”

“Debatable. Love at first sight is cliche and totally fake,” he countered, bringing you closer as his arms wrapped around your waist.

You frowned, pouting lightly. “Are you saying you didn’t love me when you first saw me?”

“Absolutely not,” he deadpanned and you gasped, pretending to be shocked. One hand fell against his chest and you pressed lightly.

“How rude.”

“You didn’t love me either,” he chimed and you simply shrugged, stretching up on your toes to kiss him.

“Still don’t,” you mumbled against his lips. He pressed forward and you found yourself grinning stupidly, like a child would.

“Oh?” He would mumble, pressing kisses all the way from your mouth, down your neck and then to every place that felt alive under his touch. “We’ll see about that.”

When his grandfather passed away, he put his notebooks away. He didn’t touch the piano. He didn’t go outside. You worked, went to school, tried to give him some motivation to move forward. He simply lied in bed and would pretend he didn’t hear you when you spoke sometimes. It took all of you to not hate him for not trying. It took all of you to ask Seokjin for help. You spent a while together encouraging him to get off his ass and do something- try to be better. He got mad but he found a new job. He smiled more. You saw him trying. You smiled more.

Things went well for a while. A long while actually, where you would come home and sometimes have dinner on the table. Sometimes you’d cook together. On days where he worked late and you had to be up early, you made enough food for him and kept it warm on the table. You would wait for him to crawl into bed that night and press that familiar kiss beneath your jaw. You couldn’t go a day without that kiss.

Then, suddenly, you stopped. You were in that same apartment, yes, but everything was gone. The furniture, the dishes, even the very bed you were sleeping on- gone. Your heart began to race and you called out his name but there was no response. You asked for him not to leave you alone. You asked for everyone not to leave you alone. You tried so hard. What did you do wrong? What did you do wrong? You kept saying his name but you couldn’t hear anything, not even your own voice. You knew you were screaming but there was no sound. The crash of waves filled your ears and you squeezed your eyes shut only to open them abruptly.

You were met with sunlight streaming in and your heart pounding. Sitting up in your bed, your throat was sore and there were frantic feet in the hallway. Seokjin bolted through your door, eyes wide and legs slipping. He nearly felt but steadied himself against the door and looked at you with so much concern. His chest was heaving. You didn’t understand.

“What?” you asked, throat sore.

He scoffed, swallowing before coming to sit on your bed. “What do you mean, what? You were screaming.”

You gazed at him, utterly confused as the memory of your dream slipped through your fingers. Darting between his eyes, a stray hand of yours came to wrap around the base of your neck loosely.

“I was?”

Your brother nodded, looking in your eyes before leaning away and huffing. A hand over his heart, he felt his heartbeat before muttering, “fuck, I thought you were dying. You were screaming bloody murder.”

“I don’t remember why,” you admitted, feeling the pressure in your chest but not understanding where it came from. The dream left a bad taste in your mouth but none of it was recollectable. You couldn’t for the life of you explain what you’d seen but you knew you felt intense loneliness. You hadn’t felt that way in a while and it concerned you. Maybe it was coming back.

Seokjin simply closed his eyes and breathed in and out slowly before flicking his eyes open again. One hand came to rest on your head and he pushed a thick smile, ruffling your hair. His other hand was holding a spatula and you watched it carefully.

“You’ll figure it out eventually,” he attempted to comfort you, removing his hand from you as he got up. He pointed his spatula at you and huffed, “if my pancakes burnt because of you, you’re dying.”

“Gladly,” you groaned, lying back down for a bit. He clicked his tongue at you, pressing for you not to say stuff like that before hurrying to the kitchen and asking you to be there in twenty minutes.

A/N: so I know I said I wouldn’t update for a few weeks but... here’s this? I have the next two bits already written so those will be out consecutively as well! Expect one each week starting next week! I hope you’re all enjoying Moon Day so far and please leave any comments you have if you wish! My askbox is always open! Hope to see you guys soon with the next one

[rhiezus]

KIM YOOTAEK ▰ GET TO KNOW.

“ i'm not young enough to know everything. ”

name: kim yootaek

nicknames: nino (he has no memory to why)

age: he is around twenty four.

zodiac sign: sagittarius.

FAMILY.

their parents names: seol taeha and kim mansook

their siblings names: seol bomi (half-sister)

favorite childhood memory: when he was about two years old, his parents got divorced and although he doesn’t remember at time when they were actually together and in love he still kinda looked up to his father, even if he went live on his own after his mom moved away and ended up marrying again. his father would visit him in years following, but it became less and less until they only talked on the phone and soon only on facebook or something like that. so his favorite memory is still of his father, despite he being a very emotional distant and weird man, he was quite fond of yootaek when he was little and when he was five or six year’s old he took him on a trip to his hometown in the countryside and they had a whole day together. yootaek really remembers every thing about this day, he remember falling asleep on the bus and his dad waking him up, remember him feeding him sandwiches from his bag, they went fishing and his father caught a very small fish so they had to pay for their meals but his father was so happy that it wasn’t a bad thing, then they played soccer with his dad’s school friends and by the time he woke up he was already home in his mom’s arms again. the whole feeling of being wanted, happy and innocent, is what makes this memory so special to him.

favorite family member: although he doesn’t quite show it, his favorite member is his half sister, bomi. he was very jealous when she was born, but he couldn’t help but take care of her and they ended up becoming good friends. she makes him laugh and for her he does kinda feel special to work and bring pizza in the evening, he wishes to have her low pressure in life but nevertheless he likes her as a person and that counts in a family that he couldn’t care about anyone less.

APPEARANCE.

faceclaim: youngk (day6)

height: 1.81

allergies: none.

diseases: had struggled with pretty bad anxiety in high school, he is better now but sometimes takes medication for it and when he can afford he tries to visit his psychiatric.

blood type: A+

fashion: he is punky, likes black and cheap necklaces. uses the same sneakers for years and years, he even has clothes that are very sketchy and with holes in it but he wears it anyway because he says “it adds character” to his sense of style. he doesn’t try to fit in with his rich friends, for that reason he is not afraid to go thrift shopping and find gems. wears the same thing over and over when he really loves it, but he never smells though he is a clean guy and has a nice scent.

tattoos: his first tattoo was just after he graduated from high school and had a bigger paycheck in his part time job, it’s pretty self explanatory, he just wanted to do something brave and crazy and decided to do a tattoo. he didn’t even search for a studio, he went in the first and coolest he found and asked for that. this one was after getting into collage, he just found it really awesome and did it. now, in this he was very drunk one day and decided it was a good idea to text his friend who is a tattoo artist that he wanted something like that, the next week he didn’t have the courage to say no and just decided to go for it cause well, you only live life one.

piercings: both his ears, and he wears earrings a lot too.

HOME LIFE.

born: busan, south korea.

resides: idk where the university at.

pets: can’t even take care of himself.

vehicle: doesn’t drive yet, doesn’t even have a license, he literally walks everywhere and takes the subway and bus a lot too cause he is just poor.

EDUCATION.

major: public relations.

career: honestly? he applied to public relations because it seemed to be the easiest course to get accepted at, and he did get in but despite his belief he actually likes it. he is very good at handling crisis, talking to people, debating and finding a common ground, he can blend in well with any kind of crowd and be appreciated for it but more than that he is an observant and likes to judge others by that. that’s why he wants to be a content strategist, dealing with pr issues at companies and stuff like that... right now he goes in between jobs at burger king, offices and the regular part times.

trained in: because of all the odd jobs he did since middle school, he knows how to work at a lot of places and can deal well with troublesome situations. he learns things very quickly and thinks almost strategically at everything.

languages: korean, barely english, just the usual to survive but he does say he speaks english in his resumee. he plans on taking english classes on the university to learn more, he is just procrastinating it.

BELIEFS.

religion: none.

felonies: none, yet.

drugs: had tried it, but he gets very aloof and hates it.

smokes: he prefers cigarettes and marijuana, so at a party if he is tempted to get high that’s very you will find him trying to loosen up. doesn’t smoke every day though, is just occasional or when he is stressed at the end of the week. but can’t deny he already had taken a test very high though, cause he did.

alcohol: he gets more high than drunk, if he drinks he is a complete mess and does a lot of crazy stuff, like crashing things and burning things down that’s why he tries not to drink alone to lose control.

diet: none, he drinks and eats everything.

RELATIONSHIPS.

sexual orientation: pansexual.

availability: free as a bird.

looking for: ain’t looking, he is not the type to believe he is ever gonna be in a serious relationship but doesn’t oppose to it if it ever does happen depending on the situation. he has a weak for independent women and reckless boys, so he gets more crushes than he likes to admit.

PERSONALITY.

hobbies: listen to music, taking the bus, working, studiying (or just pretending to study when he is in fact on youtube gossip of youtuber’s he doesn’t even know anything about), more music to listen... likes to watch movies and definitely has a letterboxd account, his favorite genre is of course suspense and documentaries, has a pretty thirsty desire to know useless and intellectual stuff, that won’t add anything to his life, he just wants to learn things non-stop. more listening to music, and sleeping in, sleeping late, not sleeping at all.

traits: hardworking, decisive, independent, loyal, perceptive, sage, aloof, misguided, opinionated, resentful.

mbti: estp.

moral alignment: chaotic good.

chinese zodiac: rat (is outgoing, cheerful, and sociable in character. they can get along well with different people, so there are a lot of friends around them. facing hardships, they show bold and positive personality traits due to their acute instinct and calmness.)

hogwarts house: gryffindor.

tarot card: the devil (a hedonist through and through. they follow their own pleasure, instincts, and take risks. people might find them to be intimidating at times but no matter what, there’s no denying they have a certain allure.)

tv tropes: the main character’s best friend that for some reason you feel so dangerously attracted to.

song: level of concern by twenty one pilots,

ideologies: oh my god, he has a lot on his mind but he doesn’t exactly believe in anything concrete because that’s too much responsibility to back it up. he is that option in bitlife when people ask if you believe in god and you say “which one?”, because somehow he doesn’t see rights or wrongs in any of them. people believe in whatever they want to believe, as long as they do it good, and honestly he doesn’t think people are doing so well with their beliefs because the world is fucked up so something needs to be changed about that. so he doesn’t believe, he just likes to keep all his options open and listen to everyone fair and square.

FAVORITE.

band: I DON’T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME.

song: lucozade by zayn malik.

book: doesn’t have any.

place: his favorite place is taking the bus, any window seat on the bus for him is the most peaceful and neutral place on earth is like taking a trip to another dimension.

memory: his favorite memory is from when he went to the university for his first class, because he thought it was gonna be easy and even though he forgot all his pencils at home he just fucking memorized everything to write down when he was at his part time job later and it was just an exciting day, he finally had a goal for a change other than earning money to survive. he realized he could be someone, learn something and that was life changing.

person: he is very fond of taegon, actually, he feels like he is his only true friend despite their really different upbringings. he doesn’t share all his hardships with him, but he knows the other understands and they speak almost without words, they just vibe together and there is no other special reason to have a favorite person as, vibing is everything.

movie: inception dir. by christopher nolan.

tvshow: how to get away with murder.

sport: soccer.

food: korean barbecue, just meat.

beverage: redbull.

color: steel grey.