#he literally just took one of the first tim drake photos that shows up when googled

[pawsitivelymiraculous]

Le parfum de l'amour

This is the @maribat-secret-santa-2020 piece for @saltandfluff I am so sorry for being late!

Anyway, I will be using the quantic kids, but you don't necessary have to know them to understand this fic.

The only have to know that "Melodie" is Allegra's nickname.

Ao3

It was always a bad idea to try to mess with fate. Everyone knew this. Allegra knew this, but she didn't care. Not when it was taking a toll on her sanity.

There were only so many times a person could see two literal soulmates walk past each other before they decided to take matters into their own hands.

So that's what she did.

Or well, was going to do once she could convince her friends to help her out.

"I don't know, Mel." Allan rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "These things take time you know? You cannot rush it." He glanced at the corkboard that was behind Allegra and winced, it was going to be impossible to talk her out of the crazy plan.

On the corkboard, there were two pictures. One was a selfie of Marinette Dupain-cheng. A twenty-year-old who was a regular at the café where Allegra and Claude worked at. After chatting with her in the mornings, Allegra decided to adopt the girl, and she introduced her to the rest of the group. She quickly became friends with Allan and surprisingly enough, with Felix as well.

The second picture was a rather blurry photo that was clearly taken from afar. You could sort of make out the image of Timothy Drake. The sleep-deprived twenty-one-year-old who had started going to the café for about a month. All the employees loved him because he never failed to amuse everyone with his half-asleep antics.

The one thing that both pictures had in common was a coffee cup.

On Marinette's collarbone, there was a small tattoo-like mark that looked like a coffee cup. The same one that was on Tim's wrist. Soul marks . Granted, they looked a bit plain compared to most people's soul marks, but in Allegra's eyes, they were the excuse she needed to get them together.

Allegra had shipped her two favorite customers long before she noticed their soul marks. But now that she knew they were soulmates . Well, she was not going to rest until they finally met.

"I'm not trying to rush things!" Allegra insisted. "I just want to push them in the right direction."

Allan looked at her, doubtful. "That's basically the same thing. Plus do actually think that," he squinted to read the list of plans that was tacked on the corkboard. "'Locking them inside a room with no escape' is merely pushing them in the right direction? 'Cause I think that sounds more like a hostage situation."

Allegra glared at him. "You know what? I don't need your help. Claude will help me. Right, Claude?"

Claude looked at her with wide eyes. "Oh no no no. Sorry Melodie but I can't."

"Uh, I'm sorry what?" Allegra blinked. It was very out of character for Claude to turn down the opportunity to help her with one of her elaborate plans. Not to mention that in this case, they were doing it to help Marinette.

"Allegra," he said solemnly, "this is a destiny thing. We just can't interfere."

Allegra facepalmed. "You can't be serious."

Claude looked at her dead in the eye. "If we interfere we might end up," he leaned towards  her and whispered " cursed"

"Oh give me a break." Allegra pushed Claude away. "Are you guys kidding me? This is Marinette we're talking about. You all can't possibly think that Marinette wouldn't want to meet her soulmate, and as her friends, we have to help her."

"I agree with Allegra."

Everyone spun around in surprise.

Felix rolled his eyes at his friends' incredulous expressions. "What? Marinette is my friend as well. Is it really that shocking that I want to see her happy?" The three of them nodded. He ignored them. "Besides, I've heard Marinette ramble about soulmates nonstop, so it's clear that meeting hers is what she would want."

Allegra was the first to react "See guys? Even Felix agrees with me!"

Felix huffed. "Yes, but I also think that your plans are ridiculous and ineffective."

"Ouch"

"I think the best thing we can do to help is to get them to interact and we-"

"That's literally what my plans are for!" Allegra interrupted.

Claude crossed his arms. "And what do you mean by 'we'? I haven't agreed to do anything."

Shooting both of them a glare, Felix continued. "- can do that without needing to kidnap them. We simply have to make it so that they have no other choice but to sit at the same table at the café. You all know how friendly Marinette is, it will only be a matter of time before they start talking."

There was a beat of silence.

"That… that might actually work," Allan admitted. "Soulmates are naturally drawn to each other so once they actually have a conversation we won't have to do anything else. They can figure out that they're soulmates by themselves." He paused and then chuckled. "We'll just have to push them in the right direction."

"But how are we going to get them in the café at the same time?" Allegra asked. "Tim always comes in right after Mari has left."

"Pft that's easy!" Claude exclaimed. "Just tell her that you need help with something and that you'll need for her to stay a while longer at the café. Since Mari doesn't have early classes on Wednesday she'll agree and- oh!" Claude suddenly slapped his hand over his mouth as his eyes widened with horror. "This does not mean that I'm helping." He mumbled from underneath his hand.

Allan laughed. "I think you just did."

"Looks like someone's going to end up cursed." Allegra singed songed. "Not even ladybug is going to be able to help you with that bad luck that's to come." She teased.

Claude pouted. "Haha, laugh all you want." He then looked up at the corkboard and grimaced. "But you're right, there's no turning back now. What do you need me to do?"

Allegra clapped her hands in glee.

"Okay so here's the plan."

~♡~♡~♡~

Just like Claude had predicted, it was incredibly easy to convince Marinette to stay at the café. All that was left to do was orchestrate everything just so that the two soulmates had to sit at the same table.

It was easier said than done but after enlisting more people to help out, they were able to make sure that the café was full for that morning.

Everything was going according to plan…

Until…

"WHERE. IS. TIM?"

Claude looked around. "He hasn't arrived yet?"

"No!" Allegra cried. She glanced down at her watch and winced. They were running out of time.

Claude frowned. "And you know, it would have been nice if Marinette hadn't chosen today to wear a turtleneck."

Allegra couldn't help but agree. Sure, Marinette looked amazing with the turtleneck and skirt outfit but did she really have to wear it today? When they needed for her to show off her soul mark?

It was like the universe was against them.

But finally, Allegra heard a tinkling sound at the door. She spun around praying that it was Tim.

And it was!

He looked more tired than usual as he stumbled around trying to find a seat.

Allegra watched as Tim danced around the tables that were being occupied just as he was about to take a seat.

One after the other until finally, a good push later, he ended up at Marinette's table.

~♡~♡~♡~

Tim was too tired to deal with this.

All he wanted was to sit down, have a couple of cups of coffee at his favorite coffee shop and finally be awake enough to continue investigating the moth guy.

But apparently, that was too much to ask because almost all the tables were full.

"Sorry man," Claude whispered as he guided a couple and motioned them to sit at the table that Tim had beelined for.

"Oh, actually I'm waiting for Adam." Felix had said when Tim asked if he could sit with him. Which was strange since Adam had said that he was waiting for Felix when he asked him.

But he could barely comprehend what they were saying, so he was not conscious enough to complain.

Tim continued on his journey when he felt someone push him from behind. In his half-asleep haze, Tim lunged at the chair that was in front of him hoping that it would break his fall.

It took him a few seconds to recover. He wanted nothing more than to pass out right then and there, splayed out on a coffee shop chair as everyone stared at him wondering if he was drunk.

He too wondered if he was drunk, but he couldn't remember the last time he'd slept so if he was drunk, he was not going to figure it out on his own.

When he finally looked up, his eyes met with a pair of beautiful bluebell eyes.

~♡~♡~♡~

Marinette watched as a guy stumbled around the café until finally flopping onto the other chair at her table.

It was clear that he was sleep-deprived. She had seen enough videos that her evil friends had taken when she was in a similar state to know the poor guy probably hadn't slept at all for the last week or so.

Marinette wanted nothing more than to drag the guy to the nearest bed or couch and wrap him up in a bunch of blankets. Just because she didn't comprehend the term "self-care" for herself  didn't make Marinette any less of a "mom friend"

But she had to remind herself that she didn't know the guy, so it might be considered kidnapping to drag someone somewhere against their will.

Too bad.

The best she could do was offer him her own coffee.

"Hey, I think you need this more than I do at the moment." She said, pushing the drink his way as he stood up.

He mumbled something that could be interpreted as a "thank you" and eagerly took the drink. His eyes lit up when the heavenly liquid touched his tongue.

It was almost miraculous how quickly the caffeine took effect.

Actually, it was Marinette may or may not have mixed a little concoction she made with Tikki that helped her when she stayed up late with her regular coffee.

The guy blinked. "This. Is. Incredible."

Marinette laughed "Yeah, it's what I always get. Though you still look like you need to sleep."

"Yeah, yeah whatever." He waved her off. "But seriously, what is this called? I need a gallon of this."

"Sorry," Marinette said sheepishly "but I'm afraid that's a secret, you know, I'm kind of everyone's favorite, so I get the miracle coffee." Okay so that was a lie but what else could she say?

The guy pouted. Marinette had to admit that he looked adorable.

"Well, then I'm sure you can get me some then... um"

"Marinette."

"Ah, nice to meet you, coffee goddess, I'm Tim."

Marinette's cheeks heated up. "Uh, coffee goddess? Shouldn't they be the coffee gods and goddesses?" She pointed at Allegra, Claude, and the others.

"Nah, you have blessed me with this amazing coffee. Claude didn't even help me in my time of need."

"You know Claude?" Marinette asked, surprised.

"Yep, I've been coming here since I arrived in Paris, so I've gotten to know Allegra and Claude a bit."

"That's funny, I've never seen you. And I come here every day." Marinette said.

"Huh, that's weird. I've never seen you either. "

And from there they kept talking. Like they were old friends and not just acquaintances. Marinette found out that Tim had come from Gotham city. That he was in Paris because of business. Meanwhile, Tim learned that Marinette was an aspiring fashion designer and a college student who was close friends with almost everyone from the café.

Hours passed and the two were still deep in conversation completely oblivious to the crowd that had gathered behind the cafe's counter to watch the soulmates.

"I can't believe you didn't tell me about this before." Adrien, who had arrived after Tim, whispered to his cousin.

"I was under the impression that your father needed your assistance for the upcoming fashion show. I was not about to ask my dear uncle Gabe if I could steal you so that we could set up our friend and his future competitor, Marinette Dupain-cheng, with her soulmate."

Adrien hated to admit that he had a point. "Fine, but can you at least catch me up to date? Who is he?"

"He's a rich guy from Gotham city. He's pretty cool though he's basically Marinette when it comes to coffee which is honestly kinda scary now that I'm seeing them interact." Allegra whispered.

Adrien looked down to look at her. "Alright, I guess I'm going to have to do my own research since you guys are useless. What's his job? Why is he rich? If his from Gotham then who knows, maybe this guy is actually dangerous and wants to take Marinette as ransom for-"

"Oh please Adrien, stop with your theatrics. Do you honestly think that I would allow this if he was dangerous?" Felix interrupted.

"I mean-"

Felix glared at him.

"No?"

Felix sighed. "Timothy Drake is Marinette's soulmate, and I can assure you that he's clean. So don't worry about Marinette."

Allegra shushed the cousins. "Guys, I'm trying to listen here you know?"

"Um, you could probably hear better from up here" Felix nodded in agreement.

"Thanks, Adrien, but I don't want to risk Marinette seeing me and then remembering about time and stuff."

"Ah"

"Speaking of time, it's been years since I last ate, I'm hungry." Claude cut in.

"Claude! You're supposed to be with the customers!" Allegra whisper-shouted.

"Whoops."

~♡~♡~♡~

Unfortunately, all good things come to an end. Marinette eventually remembered the reason she had stayed in the cafe. Not only that but when she looked at her watch she realized that she was running late for class.

After Marinette's rushed exit, Tim went back to investigating Hawkmoth. But while they were trying to concentrate on their own thing. Marinette with her class and Tim with his research they found themselves zoning out and thinking about each other.

It was strange, they had quite literally just met.

Why had they made such an impact on each other?

~♡~♡~♡~

It wasn't until Marinette was getting ready to go to bed that she found the answer.

"Tikki is… is that what I think it is." Marinette's voice trembled as she stared at her reflection on the mirror.

Tikki gasped. "Oh Marinette, I think it is!"

Staring back at her was her soul mark, which no longer was a regular coffee cup but rather a gorgeous cup with beautiful red flowers that surrounded a somewhat familiar symbol.

"But, how? I mean they're not supposed to change… right? And why?" Marinette's eyes widened. "Does this mean that I met my soulmate? Who is it?"

Tikki giggled, "You seriously don't know?"

"Umm no? Should I?" Tikki continued to giggle as her holder looked at her confused. "Who is it Tikki?"

"Oh Marinette, how many new people did you meet today?"

"Uh, I don't know? I mean surely I must've passed by lots of strangers in the street." Marinette panicked. "Oh no Tikki! What if one of them is my soulmate? I'll never find out who they are!"

"So you don't remember meeting anyone else?"

"I don't think so, well other than ohhh- "

"Exactly"

~♡~♡~♡~

Tim could not believe what he was seeing. Gone was the plain coffee cup he was used to seeing, the daily reminder of the fact that he was still painfully single, it now had an intricate flower pattern that surrounded a symbol.

He recognized that symbol.

After weeks of researching and tailing the red Parisian heroine, he knew that it was the Ladybug symbol.

But why was it on his soul mark?

Unless…

No, the heroine couldn't be his soulmate, Tim hasn't even officially met her. Nor had he even seen her today.

The only blue-eyed girl he had met was Marinette.

Marinette  

No, it was impossible. Except it wasn't. Tim had only known the girl for a couple of hours, but he knew that  Marinette would make a great heroine or vigilante.

But, he… he was probably hallucinating, right? Tim hadn't slept for weeks, so surely he was just seeing things and his soul mark was still a plain coffee cup and the Marinette conclusion was just wishful thinking.

Right?

Because otherwise, his first meeting with his soulmate was him acting like a sleep-deprived zombie and Tim could not allow that.

Well, one thing was for sure, he really needed to get some sleep.

~♡~♡~♡~

Three days.

It took three days for Marinette to find Tim.

She looked everywhere. The coffee shop, Le Grand Paris Hotel, the tourist areas, and when she was ladybug she looked down from all the rooftops trying to find him.

But he had vanished, leaving Marinette worried sick that he had either A. Gone back to Gotham  B. Died or C. Been so horrified that she was his soulmate that he decided to move to a remote island and changed his name in hopes of never seeing her again.

Gosh, she was starting to sound like her fourteen-year-old self.

But finally, she saw him, sitting on a bench, not far from her own home, looking down at his wrist.

He looked at his wrist like it was some puzzle he needed to solve. Marinette also noticed that he looked a lot more refreshed, so he must've finally gotten some sleep.

Marinette cleared her throat. "Well, you've been a very hard person to find Mr. Drake."

Tim looked up. "Ma- Marinette!"

"We need to talk."

Tim nodded his mouth hanging wide open as he stared at her soul mark.  

"How do you feel about coffee? There's a coffee shop that's not very far from here, I hear their coffee is divine.

~♡~♡~♡~

Bonus:

(this was going to be a scene on the fic but I didn't know how to add it but it has important info sooo)

*They are at the coffee shop*

Marinette: So you're red robin.

Tim: And you're Ladybug

Marinette: Should I be worried? Like doesn't this compromise our secret identities?

*Claude and Allegra appear with some pastries*

Claude: Yooo Marinette! So you found your soulmate! Crazy right? We totally didn't have anything to do with it!

*Allegra elbows him*

Claude: So uh, congratulations! I um feel happy for you.

*looks nervously at Allegra who is glaring at him*

Claude: Bummer about the soul mark though…

*Allegra keeps glaring*

~♡~♡~♡~ Permanent tag list  ~♡~♡~♡~

Claude: What? It's just a plain white cup!

Bonus bonus:

(here's a bad doodle and my crappy handwriting)

(If you want to be added or removed please let me know!)

@charme-de-malchan, @theatreandcomicfreak, @m3owww, @elliebelliegirl, @genevieve-the-demonologist, @vixen-uchiha, @t1dwarrior-of-earth, @waffleyunsure, @technicallyburninggarden, @azuremayscarlet, @vroomtaka, @emimar7, @ichigorose, @maskedpainter, @art-is-hard-to-do-sorry

[moonlitceleste]

No Time to Die (Villain!Mari)

A/N: This is a songfic based on No Time to Die by Billie Eilish. I literally listened to this every day of the month and another six hours on repeat while writing this. It’s a miracle I’m not sick of it yet, but it’s a very timeless song. I seriously recommend listening to it to set the mood!

I should've known I'd leave alone Just goes to show That the blood you bleed Is just the blood you owe

Marinette hadn’t meant to become a villain. Some might consider her an antihero, but her methods were much too ruthless for that. She wasn’t always like this—wasn’t always vicious and cruel. But her life was a tragedy, and there was no hope of ever making it out unsullied. She had seen too much, gone through too much for someone her age. All life ever did was take, take, take, and screw her over time and time again.

There was once a time where things were simpler, when she would have preached justice and righteousness above all. Those times were long gone.

It was her own sense of selflessness that led to her downfall. Marinette was once thought too pure to be corrupted, but power could corrupt anyone. Not even she could contest against the forces of the universe.

Perhaps what transpired had only unleashed something that was in her all along—a dark side she could no longer control. A thirst for justice, more merciless and ruthless than anything she had felt before. But it was the price she had to pay in order to keep balance within the world. When it was time to do what had to be done, the darkness inside her took over. It made her a villain.

Maybe what she just found out was inevitable, then. Marinette knew she shouldn’t have let her guard down, but a naïve part told her maybe things would be different. Maybe he would be different. She guessed she was wrong about that.

She wanted to feel anger at the injustice, at the fact that someone she once trusted had deceived her yet again—and she did. But it was overshadowed by agony, because maybe she deserved it. Maybe this was karma for all the blood she had spilled. The universe must maintain balance, after all.

Marinette gave one last lingering glance at the picture in her hands before placing it in her purse.

She left the apartment alone.

We were a pair But I saw you there Too much to bear You were my life But life is far away from fair

“Tim!”

Marinette shrieked as the black-haired boy chased her around her apartment, weaving around the moving boxes she had never bothered to throw out. Her eyes flitted around, trying to decide the best course of action. There! She swerved right, hoping to throw him off, but she had taken too long to decide.

The air left her lungs as a body tackled her. “Oof!” she exclaimed, unprepared for the force. Gravity took over and her body fell forward, but a pair of arms caught her from behind. Tim set her upright before wrapping his arms around her waist like a hug, trapping her body against his.

“Give me the phone.”

She panted, trying to catch her breath before responding. Her chest heaved from running for so long. Normally she would have been able to hold out for longer, but the business she attended to the day before was especially taxing. 

“No,” Marinette said, laughing breathlessly.

She resisted the urge to turn around and look at him, which would have been difficult anyways considering their height difference.

“I guess I’ll just have to take it from you then.”

She had a grand total of one second to register his words before he attacked. His fingers jabbed at her sides, prompting shrieks and laughter.

“St-stop it,” she gasped.

Tim smirked, an expression that wasn’t common on his face but beautiful nonetheless.

“Not until you surrender.”

His tickle assault continued for as long as Marinette could hold out (which wasn’t long).

“I yield!” she squawked, wanting the sensation to end as soon as possible.

“Do you?” he asked.

Marinette’s breath hitched as she suddenly realized how close he was.

His dark hair brushed her forehead, and she could count every lash framing his steel blue eyes. His normally porcelain skin was tinted a rosy hue, cheeks flushed from exhaustion. Or maybe from their proximity.

She knew they weren’t just friends—she wasn’t stupid, and neither was he. But they were both content with their relationship, and neither bothered to do anything about it.

Except that now, in the moment, Marinette wanted more. Apparently Tim agreed, with the way he was looking at her. There was a hungry glint in his eyes, which flickered down to her lips before gazing at her once more. A beat was all they needed to come to a silent agreement.

Marinette closed her eyes, tilting her head upwards from her position on the floor. Warm breath fanned across her face moments before soft lips brushed against hers. She melted into the kiss, feeling his heartbeat thud against her chest, smelling his cologne mixed with sweat. It was languid and sweet, and Marinette smiled against his lips. It just felt right.

The kiss ended abruptly, however, as Tim pulled away. She frowned in confusion and sat up, ready to ask what was wrong before catching sight of the phone in his hand.

“You cheater!” Marinette gasped. She straightened and lunged for her phone, but he simply held it out of reach before clicking the “delete” button.

“Gotcha,” he replied smugly.

“Hey,” Marinette pouted. “I liked that picture.”

The photo was one she had taken of Tim while he was unaware, which led to him chasing her around in an effort to get her to delete it.

“You owe me another one.”

He simply sighed and motioned her to come closer, taking his phone out at the same time. Marinette smoothed her hair out as he wrapped an arm around the back of her neck. She smiled at the camera before noticing Tim’s neutral expression.

“Hey.”

“What?”

“Smile!”

He gave an awkward grimace, and Marinette poked him in the side until he rolled his eyes and gave a real smile to the camera.

After the selfie was snapped, they both looked at the results. Tim seemed surprised at the outcome, and Marinette had to admit they looked good together. Their previous tussle was obvious from their flushed faces, but it made the picture all the more charming. For a stressed young CEO and a secret villain, they looked happy.

She felt a gaze burning into her and turned to see Tim looking at her with an uncharacteristically soft expression on his face.

“What?” she asked, confused.

His face morphed as a devious glint appeared in his eyes. Faster than a snake, he darted forward and placed a kiss onto the tip of her nose.

Marinette gaped like a fish, caught off-guard. She barely registered the flash of a camera; when she did, however, she snapped to attention.

“Hey! Gimme that!” she said indignantly.

Tim started to run, phone in hand, and Marinette followed, giggling at the boy’s antics all the way.

Giggled. It wasn’t something she thought she’d ever do again, but things changed after she met Tim Drake. She changed. After she met him, it was easier to control the darkness that took over her soul. It made her a little more human.

Moments of safety and happiness were always fleeting for her—even more so after the incident. But with Tim, things were different. Marinette felt normal around him. She felt loved. But little did she know those moments would soon come to an end.

Was I stupid to love you? Was I reckless to help? Was it obvious to everybody else

Love hurts. That was something Marinette knew better than anything, because she had always been the type to give her love away without receiving any in return—but that didn’t stop her from continuing to do it.

She was the problem. That’s what she’d been told all her life. Even when she was right, she was wrong. Especially when she was right. Anything that went south was her fault, because Marinette had to be perfect even though all she did was mess up.

Maybe the fact that everything in her life went wrong was a sign that she just wasn’t meant to be happy. She would never be good enough.

That was always obvious to everyone else.

That I'd fallen for a lie? You were never on my side Fool me once, fool me twice Are you death or paradise? Now you'll never see me cry There's just no time to die

It was an accident.

Marinette had been scoping out her next target when she realized she had left something important behind at her apartment. She cursed her forgetfulness, which cropped up at the worst of times. Missions seemed to be the only thing she could succeed at nowadays, and there was no room for error. Checking her watch, she saw that there was still enough time to rush to her apartment and back.

She got there in record time, moving silently and swiftly, about to go through the window when a small detail caught her eye. Her front door was slightly ajar. When she had first moved in, she had to figure out a way to finesse the faulty door and get it to close correctly. Warning bells sounded in her head—someone had broken in. Or maybe she had forgotten to close the door correctly in a simple slip of the mind, but that was unlikely. No matter how off her game, Marinette wouldn’t have made this mistake. It was a reflex that couldn’t be broken.

She proceeded with caution, eyes narrowed. However tragic, the incident did provide her with the benefit of enhanced powers. Whoever was in there didn’t stand a chance. She could feel the darkness start to creep in, taking control.

The bluish glow of a light illuminated the inside of her apartment, and her limbs tensed in preparation. Movement in the corner of her vision made her snap her head to attention. There was a figure leaving her room, and the person was toying with something in their hands.

It was nearly pitch-black, but her enhanced senses bypassed any inhibitors. The culprit was wearing a black and red costume with strange chest straps and an emblem—one of Gotham’s vigilantes, then.

That meant they were onto her. She knew it would happen eventually; she was good, but Batman was better. Perhaps if she attempted to prove her innocence she could at least delay her inevitable capture. She dealt with magic, anyways—one more ancient than any other form. The traces left were hard to find by an experienced magic user and impossible to find by a non-user.

She was turned away from the window, about to return to her previous location as proof of her innocence and spin an alibi. But as she did so, the vigilante’s voice stopped her in her tracks. He was speaking quietly into his comm, but she could hear it. She could recognize it too. It sounded almost like—

“Tim,” the voice on the other end of the system said. “Are you almost done?”

It clicked, and horror flooded her Marinette’s body. It snuffed out the darkness, pushing the rage to the corners of her mind. It can’t be him, she thought. Because if it was him, it meant that she was wrong. She trusted him, and she was wrong.

“No names on comms, Dick,” the hero responded.

Any doubt Marinette had that it wasn’t Tim disappeared. A pit opened in her stomach, and the feeling of white-hot rage and betrayal blazed in her mind. Every inch in her body was screaming at her to get out, but she stayed. She needed to know.

“I checked her room, but I couldn’t find anything incriminating yet.”

“What about the bug?”

“Nothing. It didn’t pick anything up.”

A pause.

“That’s weird. Do you think she knows?”

“That I’m Red Robin? No. She wouldn’t have let me get this close if she did.”

Static sounded on the other side of the line before Dick responded one last time.

“Keep searching. If you can’t find anything else on her, we’ll have to take a more… direct approach.”

“Roger that.”

Tim pressed a button on his comms and resumed whatever he was doing, but Marinette had heard enough. She wanted to scream. Wanted to cry. She wanted to jump into the room and ask him if it was all a lie. Voices screamed at each other in her head, trying to get her to do something. Marinette drowned them all out. She steeled herself, turning her back to the window. Taking in a deep breath, she opened her eyes and fell into the emptiness.

I let it burn You're no longer my concern Faces from my past return Another lesson yet to learn

Marinette unpacked the boxes she had teleported from her apartment, face carefully blank. The day after she had found out Tim was Red Robin was spent packing her things. Normally they would have already been ready to go; all she would have to do was enact one of her contingency plans. After all, Marinette was prepared for everything. But she wasn’t prepared for this.

The warehouse was one of her most secure, but it was cold and empty, the only warmth emanating from the gas fireplace. The fire flickered, and she could feel her resolve flicker with it. After a few moments, she placed her purse on her lap and gently pulled out the picture of her and Tim.

It was only taken a few weeks ago, but a lot of things could change in a few weeks. Her happy expression was foreign now, and Marinette closed her eyes as she gripped the picture tighter.

After a few moments of hearing the crackling fire, she opened her eyes and studied Tim’s face, carving it into memory.

Then she let it go and let it burn.

That I'd fallen for a lie You were never on my side Fool me once, fool me twice Are you death or paradise? Now you'll never see me cry There's just no time to die

Marinette had dreams of him often. She hated them, because they gave her hope when hope was what hurt her in the first place.

In those dreams, he told her that he had always loved her. That he had made a mistake in deceiving her, and he wanted her back. Needed her back. He entertained her delusions, and she believed him. At least, until she woke up and cold reality struck.

She really was a fool.

No time to die No time to die

She didn’t think she’d ever see him again.

She didn’t know if she wanted to see him again.

But here they were, facing off. Hero versus villain.

Tim had shown up on one of her missions, somewhere off the coast of a random country. She couldn’t remember at this point. The darkness had consumed her completely, wrath twisting her face into one that was unrecognizable.

“You don’t have to do this.” The placating words sparked her temper.

“Neither did you,” she replied bitterly. They both knew what she really meant.

She charged forward, and Tim parried with his bo-staff, gritting his teeth at the force only to stumble backward when she ducked around and behind him. She sent a kick to the back of his knees—a dirty move, but she never played fair anyways.

Bracing his staff on the ground before him, he used the momentum just in time to flip himself over and avoid falling on his face.

Marinette surveyed emotionlessly as he panted from exhaustion. She could easily take him out right then, but she didn’t want to waste her energy. She had already done what was needed, and her target’s blood would take absolutely forever to get out of her suit.

It seemed as if Tim noticed, and his disbelief at her cruelty seeped through when he asked “How could you?”

She laughed derisively. “How could I?”

The vigilante at least felt some remorse from the way his eyes flashed. Up until this point she had been cold and detached, but he could hear a hint of desperation seep into her words. He knew what she was really asking: if what they had was real. If he had ever loved her, or if it was all a lie. He hesitated before opening his mouth.

“A mission is a mission.”

If he blinked he might have missed it. For a brief second she recoiled, visibly struck before schooling her expression into one of neutrality. Her back straightened, and she fell back into the person he couldn’t recognize. The darkness around her pulsed, and he shifted his weight into a defensive stance, preparing for another attack. But he wasn’t ready for what she had in store.

The darkness expanded, and Tim’s vision grew hazy. He could dimly register his body swaying before it hit the ground. As he faded in and out of consciousness, Marinette stepped into his field of vision. She looked the same since he had last seen her, but her eyes were shadowed and unforgiving. The same lips he used to kiss mouthed the words “a mission is a mission” before everything faded into black.

Fool me once, fool me twice Are you death or paradise? Now you'll never see me cry There's just no time to die

She didn’t think it would end like this.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

It was just another normal mission; nothing dangerous—or at least, more dangerous than usual. Hunt down her target, extract information, do away with them as painfully as possibly, and leave.

But after her interaction with Tim, her work had gotten more sloppy. Rather than the icy rage that had become her new normal, her movements were fueled by anguish. Recklessness trumped logic, like she had lost control. And although she was off her game, she wouldn’t let something so trivial become a hindrance.

Until it did.

Marinette was ambushed. She leapt into action as quickly as her reflexes allowed; her movements were slightly delayed, but it was so imperceptible it shouldn't have made a difference.

Except for the fact that her attackers somehow knew her. Knew how she moved, knew exactly what her weaknesses were.

She took down two of the three opponents, leaving the best for last. But with every punch she threw they knew exactly where to block. Her adversary seemed to sense her frustration and laughed behind their infuriating black mask. Marinette snarled, lunging for the figure only to stumble over thin air.

“I thought you were supposed to be better than this.”

She got up and drew in deep breaths, sweat coating her forehead and exhaustion making her weary. She slowly walked in a circle, eyes darting around the shadows in the room.

“You beat one of the Bats, did you not?”

The darkness around her flickered, and that’s when the opponent struck.

Marinette felt the impact, but didn’t realize anything had happened until she moved her hand to see it covered in red. The liquid was warm and sticky, and the puddle beneath her was growing bigger by the second. Blood? She moved her hand closer to her face in an attempt to see it more clearly, but her vision blurred. The room swayed, and she heard an oof as her body hit the floor. It had come from herself.

She knew she had to do something, but she couldn’t move. It was like she was paralyzed. Marinette reached out only to have her arm fall lazily into the pool of red, limbs weak and movements sluggish.

Scarlet seeped into her gloves, and her body burned but was so numb at the same time. She felt so sleepy. Sleep, she thought, the word repeating in her mind like a mantra. A nap sounds good. Right before her eyes closed, pain erupted in her side. Her body jolted, and a cross between a gurgle and cough left her mouth. She tilted her head up to frown at whoever had kicked her only to see the black-hooded figure.

She couldn’t tell from the mask obscuring their face but was sure they had just given her a wicked smile. The person tutted. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”

Marinette let out a soft noise of defiance. Her protest only seemed to amuse them—them? she was pretty sure it was a woman—judging by the small chuckle they let out. They leaned down, and she felt cold hands caress her face, sending shivers down her spine.

The masked face lowered to her level, and a final message left their lips.

“You can thank Red Robin for his assistance.”

There was a yank, and a strange burning sensation coursed through Marinette’s body. She heard the clatter of an object and spotted a metallic glint before the figure stood up. Panic bloomed in her stomach as they walked away, her breathing getting more shallow by the moment.

She pushed aside the pain, choosing to ignore it in favor of turning over those parting words.

You can thank Red Robin for his assistance.

Red Robin. Marinette wanted to laugh at the irony. Stabbed in the back indeed.

Moments before Tim ran into the room, she took her last breath.

-

Notes:

I left the details of “the incident” purposefully vague so you guys could think of your own turning point for her. Personally, what I imagine is that after Hawkmoth’s defeat, Marinette tried to take the magical punishments in his place. She also combined both Miraculous and tried to unbind the kwamis so they couldn’t be abused again, but there were consequences. The power “corrupted” her and made more violent. She’s still a hero, technically, but rather than saving people she punishes (kills) them for wrongdoings which is why she’s considered a villain.

In case you’re confused about the ending, here’s what happened: I dressed the ambushers in League of Assassins-esque clothing; I actually wrote it with Talia in mind but decided to leave the person unidentified. Essentially, Marinette lost focus when her opponent mentioned her fight with Tim and got stabbed in the back. The person tells her to “thank Red Robin for his assistance.” Marinette interprets this as another betrayal; basically, she thinks Tim willingly helped them kill her by providing them with information on her. This isn’t the case since they actually stole the information from him, but Marinette doesn’t know that. Whether or not the opponent actually meant for her to think she was betrayed is up for interpretation.

I was actually debating between a few endings—I’ll put them here just for funsies. The more angst the better :D

Marinette dies a while after the apartment incident and never actually talks to/meets Tim again

Someone randomly kills her (no mention of “betrayal”)

Tim accidentally kills her

A clone of Tim kills her

PERMANENT TAGLIST @avengerthewarrior @enternalempires @freesportspalacesalad

[anothertimdrakestan]

Light Of My Life Jason Todd x Reader

LINK TO PT 2

Words: 2.7k

Requested? Yes! From a lovely anon!

“Hello! May I have a Jason Todd x reader where the reader is a really powerful superhero from the avengers and is well known and she met Jason when she was hopping on rooftops in Gotham (for fun idk haha) and the reader feels lonely and they bond over that with Jason and they start dating and when Jason’s brothers find out they’re dating (a few months later) they freak out and say things like “YOURE DATING THEM?! How did this happen?!” Thank you!”

LINK TO PROMPTS  -> REQUESTS ARE STILL OPEN!

Ok so I took this as a new avenger I hope that’s okay :). It’s mostly selfish that I wanted to write my own badass hero for Jason to simp for... can you blame me? She’s basically a heroin Livewire for those of you that watched Supergirl. Also you really set me up for a long fic so strap in anon, you did this to yourself by giving me an amazing request! Hope you enjoy! xoxo

“You’re kidding right. Gotham? Mr. Seclusive Bat Brat’s turf? Not a chance in hell.” you groaned hearing your newest mission. “Sorry Y/H/N you’re headed to nut-case capital” your comm buzzed back and you rolled your eyes. At least it was a short trip right? Confirm with Dr. Strange exactly the newest magical item you needed to look for, find it, and get out. Maybe zap a couple villains for shits n giggles. Grabbing your motorcycle you headed out, praying for a short trip. 

Arriving at your hotel you began to set up, having powers meant no bulky suit which was nice but Strange had set you up with about a million photos, books, and what looked like scrolls about a stupid helmet. Apparently all the helmet did was let the wearer float and see in the damn dark, half of the avengers could do that shit already. But when THE Dr. Strange makes a request of the Avengers, they comply. 

You’d heard about a drug leader with an eye for shiny objects, and you decided to start there hoping you could really give him a show. Waiting for night to fall you headed out, appreciating the constantly terrible weather in Gotham, lightning cracked in the sky exhilarating you, taking it as a sign from your gods that they liked this mission you felt the electricity run through your veins as you sped towards the ring a friend of yours had tipped you off about. Propping your bike up on the side of the building you felt the electricity dancing through the wires of the building and you zapped into them, travelling in to the main room.

Jason just about pissed his pants. He watched this hot motorcycle chick park her (sexy ass) bike outside the drug ring he was busting that night and right when he was about to put on some Red Hood Charm™ he watched her turn into a giant spart and shoot into the building through the camera system. Realizing she was going to do his job for her he decided to watch from above, trying to figure out who the mystery meta was. As he sat perched on the top of the building he couldn’t help but hope it was Y/H/N, one of the most prominent new Avengers but what was she doing in Gotham? Regardless he sat, ready for the lightshow.

What you saw inside the building was horrific. Disgusting men were throwing cash around to take home young, terrified girls. Disregarding the mission at hand you flashed into the middle of the “show”. Immediately guns were out but that had never stopped you. Dissapaiting into one of the lights you enjoyed how some of the men shrieked at your powers. “Shit dog I think it’s Y/H/N but what’s she doin in Gotham?” never able to pass an opportunity to boast you appeared behind the group smirking “hey boys. Don’t there girls look a little young for you? That said, you should let them go or I’ll get angry. And you’d be shocked with how angry I can get - literally.” you held up a hand letting sparks dance in you palm. What you didn’t expect was to see a blundering idiot in a red mask crash through the ceiling. 

Before you could light him up he called “uh hey! It’s Y/H/N right? Big fan. Red Hood pleasure to meet you. See, this is usually my territory, drugs and all, but I’d be happy to share with a lovely lady like you so-” you scoffed. “Shut up BatBrat I don’t intend on swinging minor league with you tonight, I just want these girls out of here and to talk with you” you gestured to the drug lord, annoyed this Red Batman or whatever his name is was getting in your way. “Minor leagues huh? Princess if you think this is any type of game you’re wrong, we don’t play by the rules here.” and he pulled out two guns and began firing. This shocked you. You thought the bats held the same standards as the majority of the Avengers, no killing. This clearly went down the drain as you watched him blow the brains out of the majority of the drug dealers. 

Deciding this wasn’t the night for you to successfully capture the man you needed, especially because Stark would kill you if you got in a fight with another vigilante on an away mission. While Red Mask went hand to hand with the guards you helped the girls escape, shooing them towards the exit and making them promise to be safer. After securing the public’s safety you took a moment to watch Red Armour fight. He was trained you had to admit, he ducked and punched like he’d been doing in for years, he was refined in skill but reckless and practice, it was fascinating. “You gonna help or is that not in the Avenger’s handbook?” you smirked as he got pinned by a couple guards. As he was preoccupied you zapped to the drug lord, shocking him enough to put him down long enough to move him. Forming an electric rope around his limbs you began dragging him out. “Sorry RedBat I got what I came for, you make a good side kick though” with a wink you walked out, not before hearing him shout “ITS RED HOOD SPARKY” 

In one of the Avenger’s safe houses you’d tied up your captive. “This is super easy buddy, all I need to know is where to find the Helmet of Razadazar” what a stupid fucking name, it doesn’t even sound cool. Knowing he’d feign innocence you prepared yourself for light, pleasure for you, not so much for him...

“You’re. Lying. Todd.” Tim’s fingers flew across the BatComputer. “Y/H/N in Gotham? EPIC!” Jason rolled his eyes. “Drake she definitely wasn’t all that amazing, plus she gave the impression she wasn’t long for Gotham so it’s probably nothing. Newbie training for the A list.” Tim sighed, Jason was probably right, the Avengers left Gotham to Batman, no one wanted a piece of it. “Alright, but you gotta tell me everything, I think she shorted all the camera footage so you better use all the detail.” Jason agreed, secretly excited to recount his experience, maybe fangirl a little. All he knew was that he was going to find you, the only game he wanted to play was chasing you.

After taking a short lecture from Captain A about aggressive torture techniques and why they should be AVOIDED you had gotten your answer. Apparently an underground auction with other-worldly treasures was the place to be. At least Gotham’s wealthy were making everything easy for you tonight. 

Jason adjusted his bowtie as he waited to enter the auction. Attending as Bruce Wayne was easy, he did owe Damian a barn now, but it was a worthy pay off for Damian to endure some father-son time as a cover up while Jason played billionaire. Finding an excuse to go other than finding Y/H/N wasn’t hard either, and now here he was, hoping you’d stand out. Let’s just say fate helped a little.

Sitting at a table with your fake identity as Ms. Stark was equally as easy. Excited to be meeting Mr. Wayne the Gothamite who was seated next to you. As he sat down he looked younger than the paparazzi pictures showed. You stuck out a hand to shake and he took it gently, kissing it, to your surprise. He looked at your smirking, “looking lovely tonight Sparky” you’re jaw dropped. Mr. Wayne I had no idea Red Cap was your speed” you whispered, shocked, but slightly comforted to know you had your sidekick here.”It’s. Red. Hood. And just as you Ms. Stark, this identity is not my own.” it made sense, but it was still impressive. 

Having exchanged pleasantries with the table the auction began. Item after item went, you and Hood slid in low bets to seem interested, but you wondered why he had came. Then the helmet was up. You sucked in a breath knowing the plan was to win the bid then snatch the helmet. You bid politely against someone at table 37 until it was yours. “Going once” “Going twi-” the auctioneer stopped as Mr. Wayne raised his paddle, tripling your bet. The auctioneer looked shocked at the amount, not letting you bid again before he shouted “SOLD to the sir at table 14!” For the second time that night your jaw dropped. “I need that helmet!” you whisper yelled. “That old thing? Sure princess. You just have to get dinner with me tomorrow” you realized he just spent millions and millions of dollars just to win your time. “Deal” you hissed. 

Jason decided not to tell his brothers about his date. Feeling like it was a once in a lifetime opportunity he wasn’t ruining it. After hiding the helmet in the BatCave he was waiting for you at a candle lit table for two. When you walked in he knew it was love at first sight. Sitting down across from him you smirked. “You clean up nice..” he finished for you “Todd. Jason Todd.” taken aback you’d heard about him, the kid that lived, part of the Wayne family. “Well if we’re going real names Mr. Todd what do I have to lose, y/n l/n” you smiled, drinking in his appearance. He was dashing you had to admit, confident and laidback it was alluring. “Beautiful name to fit a gorgeous girl” he winked, to your shock, making you blush. 

The two of you spent the night throwing snide comments, compliments, and flirtation between you. Something about Jason just clicked, it felt right. After hours at the table you and Jason went for a walk around Gotham while he showed you his most memorable spots. Somehow the two of you wound up on the top of a skyscraper staring at the stars. Finally having a person who understood the burden of heroism but wasn’t judging you for being new was refreshing. Only knowing each other for hours it felt like it had been years, confiding in each other about some of your deepest secrets. Jason was amazed with your powers, but you explained that they were hard to control, bottling electricity up in anything was difficult, batteries rotted, lightbulbs broke, and sometimes it felt like you were no different. He watched as you showed him how sparks danced across you skin and though he didn’t tell you, they’d been sizzling around you since dinner, an aura vibrating around you as you laughed, cried, and smiled with him.

“So Lightning McQueen, what do the sparks do when you’re happy?” you grimaced at another of his nicknames and explained how they crackle and pop sometimes taking on certain weather-like patterns. “Huh, well let’s see some lightning then” Jason grabbed your hand pulling you into his chest, using the other hand to lift your eyes to meet his as he leaned in. You sped up the process, hands wrapping around his neck, crashing his lips on yours. He was right, lightning struck across the sky as sparks danced between the two of you. Pulling away he grinned as he breathlessly looked at you. “Beautiful” You pulled him in for more, deciding maybe Gotham wasn’t so bad if he was here. 

“Why does Y/H/N always get the Gotham missions?” Peter Parker groaned. “Well seeing as she practically lives there it’s easy” the rest of the gang retorted as you blushed. “I guess I just really like the weather” you grinned while everyone rolled their eyes knowing the reason Gotham was having more lightning than ever was no coincidence. 

“Honey I’m homeeeeee” you squealed as you zapped into your kitchen. Jason had learned not to be alarmed when you appeared out of thin air and he opened his arms as you fell into his embrace. “Hello to my favorite double A” he grinned when you gave him a zap, he knew you loved all his nicknames. He pulled you out of his embrace looking you dead in the eyes. “Sparky it’s time you meet my family, you know Tim is going to kill me for hiding you” You were so excited, timing never aligned or one of you was injured or not on Earth but finally, it was time to meet the family. 

You’d snuck into the manor before, but everytime it seemed to get bigger. Jason squeezed your hand warning you about how annoying his family was. As you entered you took in everything. The cutest little boy was chasing a grown man with a sword, a teenage boy sat on a kitchen cupboard shotgunning an energy drink, all while a nice elderly man chopped carrots calmly in the kitchen. Breaking the silence you began to name each boy “Uh hi guys! I’m y/n you probably know me as Y/H/N but I’m so excited to be here! I’m guessing Damian, Dick, Tim, and the wonderful Alfred!” all the boys froze. Alfred smiled and continued chopping.  “Oh my god oh my god oh my god” Tim jumped off the cupboard wide eyed staring at you. “Todd how do you know her?” Dick looked at you, shocked to see an Avenger not in costume next to his brother. 

“Actually guys I’ve known Y/N for a while, remember Tim that night? We’ve kept in touch since and I’m lucky enough to be her boyfriend!” Jason kissed you on the cheek and immediately Tim passed out. As Dick poured water on the teen Damian walked up to you and you bent down to look him eye to eye. “Prove you’re Y/H/N because I don’t believe Todd could pull a famous hero like Y/H/N” Jason started “No y/n it’s fine” but you wanted to make a good impression so you zapped into the light fixture, counted to 5, then appeared on the cupboard Tim had been on, only to zap back nex tot Jason. “TT I’m impressed Todd. Y/n let me say I’m impressed with your recent activity with the Avengers. I know what it is like to be surrounded by older, entitled idiots.” Damian stuck out a tiny hand and you shook it, making sure to give him a little shock. 

Having woken up Tim began rapid fire questions. “So Todd lied you’re here? And you like him? Can I just say you’re so cool. Would you let me run some tests on your powers? What’s the biggest lightshow you’ve done? What is spiderman like? I feel like I’m quicker than him but I don’t know. Do you love Jason?” you tried to take in all the questions. “Yes I’m here, yes, thank you, sure I guess, biggest was cracking a small moon in half - don’t asl I was mad, spidey is cool kind of a dweeb but, he’s pretty quick but I haven’t seen you, and yes I do love Jason” you took a deep breath. Jason smiled at you, glad you could keep up with Tim’s q & a. Suddenly Tim grabbed Dick’s arm and started running to the BatCave, “okay y/n I’m gonna go set up some tests come down in a minute. Todd you lucky asshole you bring her down in five okay?” before you could reply he was gone. 

Taking a deep breath Jason wrapped his arms around you. “I’m so glad you can deal with them, but if Drake gets really bad knock him out cold” you chuckled, knowing that dealing with the Wayne’s was more difficult for Jason than it was for you. “Anything for you babe” you grinned. “Always the light of my life y/n” you rolled your eyes knowing the jokes would never stop, one of the many reasons you loved Red Hood with all your heart. 

haha I never do A/N but do y’all get the pun in the title hehehehe wow I need to go to bed. Also check out the pun in my masterlist lolz. Now, dear reader, that you read this post we have an inside joke together hehe... love you! xoxo

[artxyra]

I have another request. Mari and Damian go to the same school. Suddenly a gas enters the school. Girls become a cat for 3 days. Boys are tasked with taking care of the cats and Damian gets Mari. 1st day they bond. (He calls her Angel) 2nd day she makes a robin costume (her logo has angel wings) and secretly goes with Robin on patrol. He gets attacked, she saves him, they love her. 3rd day when fam is out she makes Damian a cake. She turns to normal they become really close. Btw I love your work!

Note: I literally had nothing planned going into this, but once I started writing the story took in the direction that I never had intended but I do like. 

Damian Wayne was already on edge that day. He came to the school with an aura that was dark than the usual don’t mess with me. One dared to go near him, though a series of classmates wanted the school’s sunshine to ease the mess, she was nowhere in sight. In fact, the school is pretty sure they will never meet seeing as she’s been here for over a couple of months and never once had she met a person named Damian.

For Damian, he was on edge because of the night before. Batman and Robin had a run-in with this mysterious new villain and that has everyone on edge. There was no record of this villain and at first, they thought it was Selina, but she was out of the states and no one has heard from her in a while. The only clue they have is that the villain was also enthralled by cats.

So, when a mysterious yellow gas, Damian’s mood went beyond anyone could imagine. The gas spreads through the windows and into the classroom. Panic rose as the gas begins to cover only the females of the school. One-by-one they all shrink to an unbelievable size. Cat’s meow echoes from the gas and as the males swipe away the lingering gas remnants, they are faced with an unbelievable sight.

In the placements of every female in the room are cats wearing the school’s infamous uniform that apparently also shrinks to fit the cat’s bodies. A series of meows to hissing breaks the shock faces of the males.

Immediately, the school heads started to investigate. Using the cats as a base they found out that the girls could stay in this form for at least three days, if not more. After contacting the proper guardians/parents, it came down to those who couldn’t be able to return home due to strict reasons, such as living alone, or strict landlord rules about pets. Those that couldn’t go to their families were immediately assigned a caretaker regardless of status.

Damian at first was conflicted. Yes, he loves animals, but at the same time, there was a risk, his family’s secret. What happens if whoever he gets remembers their time as a cat? Was it that big of a risk? The appropriate answer is yes, but the animal lover in him said no.

“Here you, Marinette, meet your temporary caretaker.” The attendance persons say to the cat dressed in a pink vet with blue trim and the school’s logo on the pouch. He hands the cat version of Marinette to Damian, who was unsure of how to hold her. It’s not this cat is a normal cat, like Alfred.

Marinette squirms in Damian’s arms, he quickly readjusts her before opting to set her down. She flicks her tail across his legs and nods her head. Damian sighs, but not before the attendance person gives him a reassuring smile.

‘C’mon Marionette.” He grumbles walking towards the entrance of the school. Examining his peers, he can tell that some are way too happy about this predicament while others are completely nervous. Marinette, once again, meows gaining Damian’s attention. He looks down to see her playing with his pant legs. Unsure what she means, he picks her up and cradles her to his chest.

“Young Master,” He hears Alfred greets to him. Turning to give the family’s butler attention he tightens his hold on Marinette, who hisses in response. “The school has informed us of our newest visitor, I take it that you have a plan against your brothers.” The look on Damian’s usually stoic face says it all.

Upon entering the Wayne manor, Damian is grateful that his older brothers, aside from Tim, live outside of the manor. He knows that he couldn’t handle the constant amount of teasing that would ensure once word got out.

“Alfred tells me we have a visitor.” Damian sets Marinette down so that he could face his father. Bruce eyes the dark-haired cat before turning his attention back to his son. “Are you sure that is a good idea?”

Damian huffs, absently petting Marinette’s fur. “Of course, it is father. Why wouldn’t I bring her home? She needed a place to stay and after a long hard thought I decided that this was the best fit.”

Bruce curtly nods. “Just keep her away from the family’s hangout.” Damian acceptingly nods.

“C’mon Marionette, I’ll show you where you’ll be staying at. Be warned, that you are not the only cat here. Alfred can be very territorial.” Damian gestures for Marinette to follow. She meows and tots over to Damian.

They walk in silence. Damian was unsure what to say to a person he barely knows, and Marinette just eyes her surroundings.

That night, Damian went out as Robin once he triples checked that Marinette was sleep, but when he came back, he was greeted with Marinette yowling at him to go to sleep. He glares at the female cat as he swears, he heard Alfred the cat laughing at her commands.

The first day with cat Marinette was eventful. Damian was woken up by the lack of air as Alfred the cat was resting on his head. Once he had pried the black and white cat off of him, he is then greeted by Marinette’s sass. She flicks her tail and pries open the door before disappearing down the halls. Damian calls out to her, but it fades with the meowing from Alfred.

Once he made it downstairs, he sees Marinette sitting outside of the kitchen, she is eyeing the sleep-deprived nature of Timothy Drake. Tim was only seconds away from passing out with the steaming cup of coffee in hand.

Marinette jumps onto the table before anyone could scold her and push against Tim’s hand. He absently pets her thinking that it was probably Alfred annoying him. Marinette takes this moment to use her paws to push the coffee mug away from Tim. She looks around the room before jumping off the table and trots over to a cabinet.

Alfred, the human, appears behind Damian humming, he is intrigued. “It seems that Miss Marinette is on a mission. What would you like for breakfast young master?”

Damian murmurs his answer before he is quick at awe with how Marinette was mixing ingredients into a cup. With her nose, she nudges the cup over to Alfred, who picks up but not without petting her head. Handing the newly tainted cup to Tim, they wait patiently with baited breaths. Tim takes a long sip. Light snores then escape his lips as his head fits the table.

Damian stares at Marinette amazed. She lets out a meow and walks over to Damian, who picks her up and exits the kitchen area. Taking a seat on the couch, he begins to play with Marinette. Tapping her paws as she swats at him. Alfred, the human, quickly snags a couple of photos before proceeding with breakfast.

“How did you do that? Getting Drake to sleep?” Damian mentally slaps himself the moment the words left his lips. Marinette meows in response and snuggles closer to Wayne heir. “Maybe you’re not so bad as they say, Marionette.”

Marinette hisses at the male, her eyes becoming slits as she playful claws at him. Damian winces upon the nails attaching to his skin.

“Sorry, Angel.” He freezes in his spot. Never once had a nickname came out so capturing. Sure, he had called people by their last names, rarely their first, but nothing as meaningful as Angel.

He didn’t know how long he kept Marinette in his arms reading a book; however, what he does know it lasted enough time for Alfred to finish breakfast and call everybody down. Marinette’s purrs quickly turn into yowl as she felt her body move from its comfortable state.

Damian pats her head before entering the kitchen.

“Damian!” Bruce shouted upon exiting the dining room. In front of him is Marinette chasing Alfred the cat at high speed. She was jumping and dodging as Alfred was sliding and jumping past the future. Damian had to hold in his laugh when he saw the two cats running amuck. He could hear Marinette’s hissing, which made him wonder what Alfred did to upset the poor cat girl.

“An—Marionette,” He calls out ignoring his father’s Bruce Wayne version of the bat glare. Marinette meows, coming to a stop before jumping into Damian’s arms. She purrs as he slides his hand down her fur.

“Damian, please keep your friends under control.” Bruce then disappears down the hall probably to one of the many secret entrances to the cave. Damian doesn’t speak until he knows he is alone.

“Angel, what did Alfred do to you?” He asks the cat in his arms. Marinette looks to him and meows. “You want to do outside?” Unsure what she wanted, but the head gesture towards the window stated otherwise.

Marinette purrs in delight the moment her paws touch the ground outside the manor. Damian stares at her, curious as to what she’ll do. This was supposed to be the sunshine of their school anyway. Marinette trots off over to a bed of flowers. She sniffs them before letting out a sneeze. Damian holds in his breath, hoping that it would keep him from smiling or awing over the adorable sneeze. Maybe it was the fact that she’s a cat that making him feel this way?

Together they stay outside the manor until it was near lunchtime. Marinette teases him with her tail every chance she got meanwhile Damian was holding in the urge to yell or awe at her. It was becoming a dance of emotions.

“Young Master, your father is in need of your help.” Alfred calls out to him. Damian knowing what that meant, hands Marinette over to Alfred] before dashing off to become Robin. “He’ll be back Miss Dupain-Cheng would you like something to eat?” Marinette nods as Alfred hums his way to the kitchen.

Still sleeping in the same chair as earlier was Tim and right beside him with claws out is Alfred, the cat with a devious look in his eyes. Marinette squirms in Alfred’s, the human, arms. Tim moves just enough to avoid the incoming claw. Marinette hisses at the black and white cat, waking up Tim in the process.

“Uh, how long was I out for?” Tim looks around, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “Uh, who’s the cat?”

“Master Timothy, you’ve been asleep all morning, now would you like anything to eat or join your father and brother?” Alfred asks hoping the third oldest male would choose food over crime-fighting. Tim’s stomach growls in response sealing his fate.

When Damian had returned that night after hours of crime-fighting, he was greeted with the sight of Marinette sleeping on his bed with Alfred, the cat, on the opposite side. Little did he know was that Marinette had wondered around the manor as Alfred, the human, began cleaning.

That night Damian swears he heard voices as he slept.

“Alfred, no~” It was feminine something that the unusual in the manor unless his sister or Selina came by. What follows quickly afterward is a series of meows.

Slightly awoken by the noise he darts upward; a daze looks in his eyes. In front of him are a pair of dark cat ears and long dark hair. Thinking that it was Marinette, he goes back to sleep for the night.

At the start of the second day, Damian was woken up by Marinette purring rather than Alfred smothering him.

“Morning Angel.” He greets the smaller of the two dark-haired cats. Marinette meows sliding her tail against his arm. It was then that he had noticed the change in the outfit the female cat was wearing. No longer was it her school uniform but an updated version of it with a pink ruffle skirt around her waist. Confused, Damian wasn’t sure whether he should question the new information or integrate the cat. Choosing to ignore the outfit change, he begins to get ready for the day.

Marinette sneaks out of the bedroom and down the halls.  

When Damian sees Marinette later that morning, all he could do was groan at the sight before him. It had to be Dick that had entered the manor for the day. Didn’t the oldest Wayne had a job?

“Grayson, what are you doing here?” He asks glaring at the fact that Dick had Marinette in his arms.

“Baby bird, why didn’t you tell me that you had gotten a new pet. I’m sure B wasn’t too happy.” Marinette meows loudly in his arms.

“Tt, she’s a guest, for the time being, Grayson, now put An-her down. She doesn’t like to be held by strangers.” Damian was quick to catch himself saying her nickname. Dick pouts and reluctantly puts the cat down.  

“She’s already better than Alfred, the cat. Which reminds me, Alfred the butler says that breakfast is done if you want any. Timmy already ate and ended up disappearing.” Dick’s reply instantly causes Marinette to run in the direction of the kitchen. Damian narrows his eyes feeling a slight sense of betrayal.

Dick turns to Damian and wraps his arm around the younger’s shoulder and laughs, “C’mon, baby bird.”

That night as Damian was getting ready for patrol, he doesn’t realize the makeshift smaller version of the Robin uniform being pulled out by the teeth of Marinette’s mouth. She tugs against the uniform and slowly puts it on. Trotting over to the mirror, she checks herself out and sneakily follows Damian to the Bat cave.

For a cave full the world’s greatest detective, them not noticing a small cat wearing a cape that has the Robin emblem with addition to having angel wings was the most face-palming feat they have ever done.

Marinette snuggles her way into a hidden compartment on Robin’s motorbike. She waits until she could feel was rumbling of the engine. The engine soon cuts off, popping her head out of the hidden compartment, she looks around. Nothing felt out of place for her. Though she could feel the pulsating effects of the magic with her.

She could still hear Damian checking out the buildings. There is nothing to report on, something she knows the feeling all to well with her time being Ladybug. Late-night patrols were her worst nightmare.

Staying put, Marinette knew she couldn’t move, not just yet. There needs to be the ultimate reason for her to reveal herself. That lasted until the growing sounds of someone grunting and punching filled her sensitive ears.

“Oh, how the little birdy is struggling against someone like little old me.” A voice says off in distance.

Turning her head, she finally sees Robin in the midst of what looks like hand-to-hand combat with this new cat-obsessed villain. She could also see that Damian was struggling to maintain the upper power over the villain.

The villain places Robin and locking hold.

Marinette jumps out of the hidden spot instantly transferring into the catgirl form. Her ears perk at the sound of grunts, she moves quickly to the fighting scene. Incepting the hold, she frees Robin who falls backward.

“It seems my magic has evolved or you’re just a magical being.” The villain murmurs but she was able to pick up.

“It was you that turned the school into cats.” Marinette accuses as she felt her emotions go into over-drive. With heighten senses she engaged in combat with the villain.

The villain taunts her as Robin struggles to readjust himself. The paralyzing effects of whatever the villain holds over him fading away. He could barely hear the sounds of his family over the earpiece as he watches in shock seeing the Angel, he had been taking care of fighting the villain that turned females into cats.

She could feel the magic he was wielding pushing against her own, telling her to revert into her cat form. Pushing against the call, Marinette holds herself firm against the incoming blows.

“Augh, I got no time for this.” The villain waves his device. Marinette hisses feeling the shrinking feeling taking over again.

With a mighty blow narrowly defeats the villain just as the magic turns her back into a cat. Licking her paw, she trots over to Robin and brush against his legs. He is too in shock to do anything.

The next thing the pair knew, Red Robin was cuffing the cat villain as Nightwing and Batman make their way over to Robin, trying to get him to speak. Robin was unsure how to answer any of the questions, he simply just gestured to Marinette.

Marinette’s eyes twinkle as Nightwing takes her into his arms gushing about how great of a cat she is; however, the same couldn’t be said for Batman.

“She saved me, father if it wasn’t for her who would have known what the Cat-caller would have done to me.” Damian finally speaks placing his foot down against his father’s better judgment. Batman tried to up the fact that she knows their family secret, but even he couldn’t deny the possibilities.

Finally patting her fur, everyone knew that she had won over the famous Batman and Bruce Wayne’s appreciation.

When Damian and Marinette had returned to the manor, he couldn’t help but be at odds with her. He didn’t know what to say, to ask even. This cat had saved him, knows his family's biggest secret, and could fight. This was not something he normally deals with within a single day. He watches her as she slept in her little area, wondering what to say to her when she becomes human once again.

Damian falls asleep never noticing the sincere look one eye open of Marinette.

Today was supposed to be the last day for all the females in their school to be human. The girls were excused from the classes however the males were not. It was Tim that left the manor first, then it was Damian and Bruce followed not long after. Alfred, the human, needed to run some errands living the animals alone in the manor.

Marinette could feel the magic effects of the gas waning off. She chased Alfred, the cat, around the manor because he ended disrupting her relaxing time only to be followed by Titus soon after. She had barely spent any time with the other animals over the course of the two days.

Waking up after a quick catnap, Marinette began to realize that she was no longer in her cat form, but in her catgirl form instead. Her ears perk up with an idea. Maybe she should Damian a thank you cake for everything he has done for her. Yup, that is exactly what she is going to do.

Calling for the animals to follow her, she makes her way into the kitchen. Quickly locating the ingredients, she immediately got to work but not before believing she is on a cooking show giving instructions to her audience, the animals.

They all watch Marinette, intrigued by what she’ll make. Titus had nudged her hand a few times reminding her that Damian was a vegetarian allowing her to make the changes quickly before mixing them together.

As the cake baked in the oven, she began mixing a vanilla vegan frosting, a recipe she remembers her parents making when the customer was strictly a vegan. The buttercream came out nice and silky. It wasn’t long before the cake was done and put in the chiller for cooling. Marinette knew that she only made hours before anyone would return to the manor. Hopefully, by then she would have fully reverted to a human.

The cake was done and fully decorated before Alfred had returned with Damian behind him. Marinette, now fully human, smiles at the two with a joy that could defeat all darkness.

“I made you a cake as thanks for handling me as a cat. You didn’t have to, but you did.” Marinette place a quick peck on the youngest Wayne’s cheek before cutting him a slice.

“Uh...” Damian was speechless. Little did he know was that Alfred was filming the encounter with a knowing smirk. Maybe this would be the person that thaw out the ice prince’s cold heart.

“Don’t it’s vegetarian safe, you can thank Titus for reminding me and thank Alfred, the cat, for not attempting to sabotage it while I was baking,” Marinette adds when she saw the look in Damian’s eyes and the way his body language spoke upon being handed the slice of cake.

Together, against all odds, they sat in silence eating their own slice of cake. Alfred even takes one and appraises the young woman about her craftwork. She then explains that her parents owned a bakery growing up and that she’s been baking ever since she could remember.

Properly meet the rest was of the Wayne family was at dinner, when Damian begged her to stay the night to which she turned down on the basis that she needed a change of clothes and that she should go, check out her dorm apartment and make sure everything was okay.

In the weeks that follow, everyone at their school was in shock seeing the ice prince and sunshine incarnated hanging out with one another. No was surprised when the two began dating a couple of months after the cat situation. They were a match made in heaven.

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[toastedside]

Batfamily and Batmom goes to Bali headcanon✈✈🌊  (1)

A/N: Okay!!! I am actually super excited about this and wrote a few elaborated headcanons about this. I shamelessly insert my own experience in Bali. Just enjoy their shenanigans!

It took a while for you to convince everyone, especially Bruce, to have a whole family vacation. You understand, but you couldn’t help thinking everyone in this goddamn household need some time away from everything

So when everyone finally agree you arrange everything. By everything I mean every single fucking thing. You even dismissed Alfred’s help in arranging holidays because you already have ideas on which place you want to go.

Of course it’ll be the farthest place you can think about; Bali.

Bruce was a little adamant but looking at how excited you are he couldn’t say no

The kids were so thrilled, even Damian smiled when you announce the destination. Cassandra smiled too

Everything was running smooth for a while, the trip to the airport was fine until Tim screamed that he left his passport on his desk

You were fuming. But thankfully since you came four hours early, he still had time to fetch his passport and back to the airport. You are still upset although relieved that everything fell back into places

The flight was... amusing to say the least. Everyone can only sit still for a little time and the flight literally took fourteen hours

Needless to say, you have to step on your feet and ban Jason from drinking too much champagne

The flight transit in Seoul first and you spent some time exploring the airport

You had no idea how your kids manage to spend so many moneys on McDonald’s but you are too happy to actually protest

Alfred strolling around checking all interesting places in the airport. No one actually have any idea where Alfred is most of the time, but no one really question it since he always appeared at the right time and the right place

You and Cassandra went to check some local souvenirs and duty-free make ups

You bought her a lip gloss

Dick bought a lot of duty-free chocolates.

Jason steal some of it. Dick didn’t appreciate it

Bruce spent his time in the lounge reading

Damian was his silent company, he pulled out his sketchbook and spent hours drawing sights he found interesting

Tim fell asleep in the lounge too. Damian definitely drew his sleeping face

The flight from Seoul to Bali was shorter and a lot calmer this time. Everyone was too exhausted to pull any shenanigans

As soon as everyone exited the immigration gate you are welcomed by live performance of traditional music. Damian was intrigued and took a little negotiation from your side to leave the freaking airport

The ride to your hotel took three goddamn hours and everyone was dead asleep

Bali is a whole goddamn island, guys, and it’s huge

By the time you guys arrived in your hotel, it was late and everyone was jet lagged and exhausted to say the least.

Next morning you wake everyone up before the sun even rise, earned some grumble and complain from your children

“Ma, it’s 5 AM why on earth are you taking us to the beach?”

You didn’t say anything and managed to shove everyone into the local fishermen’s boat. The beautiful sight of sunrise is what snapped everyone awake

Choruses of “whoa” and “we never get to see this at home” filled the boat

The sea was really calm and everyone enjoyed moment of serenity as they watch the sun slowly rising in the horizon, admiring the pink streak against the dark sky

 “Wait, is that what I think it is?”

“Oh my god, it’s a dolphin!”

Everyone suddenly fully awake and make it into competition who manage to get the most sights of the dolphins

Damian was the most excited out of bunch, he didn’t even budge from his seat. He was busy admiring dolphins swimming in between fishermen’s boat, in their natural habitat and not in some inhuman aquariums

Jason definitely tried to jumped from the boat to swim

Alfred took a bunch of photos of everyone; he was just happy to see everyone relaxed and not burdened by responsibilities

You guys back to the beach by eight to have breakfast together. Everyone kept talking about the dolphin sights and the beautiful sunrise

It was endearing to see your children getting along with each other

 After breakfast everyone packed their belongings and moved into another hotel in Nusa Dua and it took two hours to get there by car

This is where you spend the rest of your holiday

The hotel was bigger and a lot nicer. Everyone fought on which room they will occupy and you wordlessly put your belongings in the nicest room

You vetoed everyone’s choices and sent them into their designated rooms, daring anyone who have words against your choice

The hotel had a private beach near the swimming pool, and there is where you spend your time with Bruce, talking. It is rare to have some quiet moment with your husband with your children around constantly screaming

Again, Alfred is nowhere to be seen. He wander around by himself but still, show up at the right place and the right time at the right moment. Nobody really ask any question

Dick was baffled with the lack of toilet paper in the toilets

“Apparently it’s not the norm to use toilet papers here. They use... jet showers.”

It took him a while to warm up with the idea but he didn’t hate it. He actually quite prefers it rather than toilet papers

Jason challenged Cassie on who can do the most laps in swimming pool. Cassie wins.

Dinnertime was spent in a famous beach restaurant in Jimbaran while watching the sunset by the beach

Tim complained a lot about the sands

“Shut up, Drake.”

Alfred brought his little camera everywhere and took bunch of pictures of everyone and the sunset

You and Bruce spent time walking hand in hand by the beach, enjoy the way the sand dipped underneath your feet and how the sea washed your feet

Dick somehow managed to attract locals a lot. A lot of them asking him to take some pictures with him. Which he didn’t mind, he found it amusing

Cue everyone’s eye roll

The reason Dick willingly to took pictures with locals was they definitely don’t have any slightest idea who he is. Not even a little bit. They just thought he is some random handsome international tourist. Or “bule” as the locals called it

“That kind old lady over there called me a handsome bule and pinched my cheek. I feel so oddly loved somehow?”

Everyone was actually a little surprised to find a lot of foreigner here. But then again, this is a famous tourist attraction

Dinner was served, and today’s menu was seafood. Damian frowned a bit but brightened up a little when you told him you bought him a lot of vegetables stir-fried

The portion was... huge

But everyone managed to eat every single of your orders. Clean plate society over here

“Ummi, the vegetables here are tasty. It has a lot of flavor.”

You’re just happy that he is happy

Dinnertime was actually nice, everyone was happy and satisfied with their food. With the sight of the sky slowly darkens as the sun sets, with the sound of the wave hitting the beach, and the sand beneath your feet as a constant reminder of where you are. You cannot be happier

[musicfeedsmysoul12]

Flash Forward: Other bits

Lila

Lila was sitting in a white room dressed in a white shirt and blue jeans. She was eating a meal and looked bored as she did so. Once she was done she looked up.

“If you are finished mask on,” a voice said through the walls.

“You can trust me. I won’t do anything!” Lila replied, sounding charming.  “Miss Rossi you do not have permission to leave your room without a mask. Mask on.” Lila stared at the ceiling before a look of utter rage passed over her face, startling the watchers. She grabbed something sitting next to her and put it on, tying it behind her head. It was a half mask, with slits in the front. Putting it on, a click was heard and she growled, the mask showing it also had a voice program as it came out distorted and computerized. “Thank you.”

Waking out of the room when the door opened, Lila carried her plate and utensils, heading to a window in a wall she put them through. Around her others dressed like her were walking around. Only a bare few had masks though.

“Rossi,” one said, walking by.

“Smith.” She responded, heading through the room and out a door, to where a fenced-in outdoor area was. Lila sat on a bench and just watched people before someone walked up to her. It was Chloé, wearing similar clothes but with gloves.

 “I thought you were avoiding me,” Lila said.

“I was.” Chloé said simply. “But I have news.”

“Oh? The Justice League realize they made a mistake and are letting me go?” Lila mocked. “Please. You knew your magic had people listening to you and believing you no matter what you said. You willingly used your magic on others and turned out to be working with a magical terrorist since you were fourteen until eighteen. The one time they let you go unmasked here you used your magic to spark a riot.” Chloé snorted. “You deserve to be here like I did.”

“Did?” Lila asked.

 “I’m leaving next week. Parole.” Chloé told the girl and Lila snared, the sound menacing in her mask.

“You sided with him just like me! Hell you willingly let him cast magic on you- that’s why you have those damn gloves!” Lila said.

“I know. I was a petty and jealous brat who wanted to be special. I was so mad I would never get the Bee Miraculous back, I was so mad Ladybug didn’t like me. So I foolishly didn’t think of anyone but myself and sides with him.” Chloé told her. “It took me nearly killing my dad just by hugging him to realize what I did. Lila, how do you feel knowing your mother is sick to her stomach when she sees you because of how much magic you used on her?”

“It wasn’t that much.” Lila snapped and Chloe shook her head.

“Your mother can’t be in the same room with you without going into shock.”

“Your mother-“

“Is in jail for insider trading and child abuse,” Chloé said coldly. “And good riddance. But this didn’t about that. This is about me and you.”

“What could you possibly want with me? You hate me.”

“I do. But sadly you’re my only friend here.” Chloé said. “And we’re similar. We both fucked up. Difference is I realized it and am trying. I’m getting out. I’ll never not be able to not wear gloves. My touch with either kill or paralyze anyone. That’s fine- I got offered skin right and skin coloured gloves I’ll be wearing. I get to change my name and appearance and integrate back into society as long as I keep in contact with Canary. That’s great.”

“And you think I can too?” Lila sneered. “I can’t turn off my magic.”

“You can control it you just don’t want to. You’re damn lucky they gave you a mask instead of casting a spell to permanently silence you and you know it.” Chloe told Lila who glared at her in answer. “Lila don’t let the mistakes you made as a teenager affect you now.” Lila didn’t answer as Chloe stood and left her alone in the yard.

Alya

Alia was sitting in a cubicle, working on something. She looked different with her hair in a short bob and wearing a set of business casual clothing. She looked fairly focused as she was typing, only stopping when someone stuck their head into the cubicle.

“Hey, someone’s waiting for you in meeting room B.”

“Thanks,” Alta said, standing up and heading to the room. She looked puzzled as she entered it before a smile crossed her face. “Rose!:

“Alta!” Rose looked older, with her hair longer then it was currently, and her outfit a white sweater and jeans. “It’s good to see you! Sorry about dropping in on you at work…”

“It’s fine. I don’t have any cool stories right now- mostly the normal stuff and that’s pretty easy to write.” Alya told her. “Why are you here?”

“Juleka and I are getting married!” Alya squealed and threw her arms around Rose who laughed and hugged back.

“God! You guys beat the odds! I’m so happy for you!” She pulled away with a smile.

“Thanks! We wanted a reporter covering it- famous model marrying a charity worker so we thought of you!” Alya squealed again and hugged Rose again who laughed. “But uhh…”

“If it’s about Nino it’s fine. It’s been years- we broke up and we can be civil.” Alya said in amusement. Rose winced. Alya frowned at her.

“It’s Marinette.” Alya frowned at Rose.

“Me and Marinette are cool too.”

“You guys stopped being friends so suddenly-“ Rose began but Alya lifted a hand.

“No. We stopped being friends earlier then we thought. Neither of us realized it though until after Lila’s bullshit. It took her telling me to my face she was over Adrien and her realizing I hadn’t talked to her about anything not about the blog for us both to admit we’d stopped being friends. It was new kid friend syndrome. We were buddies but didn’t have a solid enough basis in common interests to remain besties. And that’s fine. It happened.” Alya chuckled. “Didn’t know you were still thinking we had issues.” Rose shrugged but smiled.

“I’m glad you’re okay with that.” Alya chuckled and her smile grew.

“Yeah same.”

Adrien  

 Adrien was working in his classroom, marking papers.

“Ugh,” he sighed, rolling his eyes. “What is with teenagers.” He finished the last paper and stood up with a sigh. He put the papers into his desk and begun to get ready to leave when the door opened. “Mylene! Hey.” The woman smiled.

“Hey, just wanted to see if you were staying late. How’s your first month?” The woman came in to sit on a desk, still smiling.

“Pretty good. Thanks for vouching for me. Might not have got the job without it.”

“You could have.” Said Mylène in reply. “You’re a good teacher Adrien- much better than our examples.” Adrien laughed a little bitterly.

“Well not hard.” He shook his head. “... ever hear from anyone?”

“Well, you did get the invite right?”

“Yeah Rose and Juleka. I’m happy for them… just not sure if I want to go. Not sure if everyone wants me.” He looked down at his empty hands for a second. “... after everything.”

“You messed up Adrien. But you were a kid. Rose wouldn’t invite you if she didn’t want to give you a chance. If any of them wanted not to see you.”

“I… Mylène what I was like, what I did… it was wrong. It was disgusting. It took me literally being slapped by Ladybug, by Marinette and being sued for me to get it through my head. Not to mention-“

“That’s not your fault Adrien. Don’t blame yourself.” Mylène got off the desk and went to place a hand on his shoulder. “You’re a good man. C’mon- I’ll buy you a drink. Us teachers are all going. They want you to come.”

“... if you’re sure.”

“I am.”

Nathanael

Nathanael was bent over a desk, drawing something with a focused look on his face. He barely paid attention to Marc who walked in, the man laughing quietly.

“Nath, you’re going to hurt your eyes drawing so close and in such bad light.” Marc told him, putting a hand on his shoulder, a wedding ring on his hand.

“I’m fine Marc, promise.” Nathanael smiled at the man, patting his hand. “I think your husband’s-“

“Nathanael, don’t do this.” Marc sighed.

“Do what?”

“Do this ‘I want to wallow’ thing.” Marc shook his head. “Look yeah you were a shitty boyfriend in high school but that was mostly your own issues being bi and all the crap your parents gave you more than anything. And the whole Lila crap- in case you forgot I believed her to until she managed to say one lie I knew was wrong and you snapped out of the magic when I showed you it was wrong.”

“I… I dunno.” Nathanael sighed. “I think I’m just tired.”

“Yeah well no wallowing my friend. C’mon- Marinette called and she wants to see us before Rose and Juleka’s wedding.” Nathanael looked pleased.

“That’s good. Is she still willing to help with talks about our book becoming a movie? I’d rather her or her boy toy being there.”

“She’s going to kill you if you keep calling Tim a boy toy.”

“She grew over six feet tall and she still wears heels. Tim is 5’6”. I will never stop. Jason lets me.”

“Jason likes riling up his girlfriend. She pins him better.”

“... how do you know this?” Nathanael asked his partner in business.

“I’m married to Roy- Jason’s best friend? We talk.”

“... how much can we use for our porn books?”

“Where do you think half the ideas came from?”

Kagami

Kagami was setting up her office, smiling as she put a photo frame down that had her on a podium with an Olympic Gold Medal around her neck.

Pulling back, she looked around the office and smiled.

“Fuck you mom,” she declared. She looked pleased as she set the final piece down, a plague declaring her name.

“Someone sounds happy,” a blonde stuck her head in, grinning. “That exciting to be heading your own company?”

“Of course. I worked hard for this.” Kagami smiled at her. “And stealing Kara Danvers is just a bonus.”

“You’re only saying that because you think it’s funny.” Kara laughed. “Wouldn’t leave you for the wolves after you saved my ass.”

“Anyone else would have done it or well anyone we know.” Kagami told her. Kara gave her that with a shrug.  “What’s on the plan for today?”

“Well business wise we have a meeting with Tim Drake-Wayne- he’s currently trying to get permission for some sort of body armour to be made for teens that can be a hoodie or a sweater.”

“It disgusts me we need those. Let me guess the government won’t have it?”

“Not unless he has back up, or if he agrees for the military to have it to for free.”

“That’s disgusting and I’m going to rip them to shreds.”

“Yep. And for pleasure, you’re meeting your girlfriend at that waffle place she likes.” Kagami grinned, looking pleased. “And your other girlfriend is meeting you guys later. She’s busy with helping her youngest brother with something- wanna tell?”

“Damian is proposing to his boyfriend later. And yes you can call in with this info to hangs your bets.” Kara pumped her fist.

“Yes! Clark and Bruce’s families finally join!”

“Dare you to tell them that.”

“I will gladly do so.”

Luka

Luka was busy tuning his gut air when the door opened and Nino stuck his head in. “Yo, Luka- your sister is here.”

“Nice.” Luka grinned as Juleka came in, Nino following. “Jules!”

“Luka!” The two hugged. “Ugh, how’s the recording going?”

“Really well. How’s the wedding planning?”

“Better now that we took Marinette’s advice and hired her friend Bart- he’s amazing at it.” Juleka told her brother. “Rose wants to adopt him I think.”

“Bart? Yeah he has that sort of feel.” Laughed Luka. Juleka shook her head.

“Of course you know him. So… dating anyone?”

“Not really. Sort of dating this one guy Conner but we’re not that serious.” Luka shrugged.

“Aww. Hey how about you Nino?”

“Nah man, I’m flying solo still. Busy with my music and helping Luka out.” Nino told them. “Though I do have a date so… later!”

“... one night stands?” Juleka asked Luka who laughed when Nino was gone.

“Yeah. He’s having fun.”

“To each their own,” Juleka said. “... he’s not-“

“Juleka. He and Alya broke up and I will not let you two hatch a matchmaking scheme at your wedding. It’s about you, no one else.” Luka told him. “As well Nino told me there’s some stuff he doesn’t like talking about with their relationship. And he doesn’t want to get back together.”

“... Alya says-“

“Different people Juleka. Different people and Alya may not be saying everything either.” Luka told his sister. “Aren’t we talking about me?”

“You and your music career making a killing while you also run around with interesting jewelry?”

“Says the one with her fancy rings.” Luka teased. Juleka laughed and smiled. “And the fact she’s a world-famous model now.”

“Yeah we are really killing it aren’t we.” Juleka smiled, then frowned. “... heard about Chloe?”

“Yeah. I think we can trust her though. There are telepaths working there.”

“I know it’s just…” Juleka made a face. “Viperion and Black Claws might need to step in.”

“Maybe. Hopefully not but maybe.” Luka sighed. “... I’m glad you saw through Lila so fast.”

“Got lucky with Rose knowing Ali… he’s coming by the way.”

“King at your wedding. Nice.”

“I know.”

[rosesgonerogue]

Presents

Daminette December Day Twenty-Four

There were very few things in life that could reduce Damian to actual panic; he could count the number of times he’d experienced the emotion on one hand. 

Now was one of those times. 

By some miracle, Damian had found a girlfriend who saw him, not Damian Wayne, not Robin, not the prince of the League of Shadows, but who he was. Marinette was everything that he wasn’t, kind, sweet, optimistic.

Good at giving presents. 

In fact, Marinette was the best at giving presents. Her gifts always showed that she paid attention to the receiver, remembering things that had been mentioned once in a conversation well over a year ago. She also insisted on hand-making her gifts, making them specifically tailored to the tastes and preferences of the receiver. 

It was amazing when you were opening your own gift, but gut-wrenching when she was opening whatever she was given. It could and would never measure up. 

But this year Damian was determined to at least try to give her something worthy of… well, her. The only question was what that would be. 

So, he began his investigation, asking the opinions of various people. He started the questioning with his own family. 

“For Marinette?” Dick thought for a moment. “A package of needles? Some fabric? I don’t know, something like that.” 

“I believe Miss Marinette will be delighted with whatever you may choose, Master Damian,” Alfred said. “I’m sure you will find something suitable for the young lady.” 

“Paris is dangerous with all of those akuma thingies running around, right? Like a taser? I would say a gun, but I think Pixie-Pop would shoot me in the foot if you gave her one,” Jason had said before punching out a garden variety thug. In hindsight, asking Jason in the middle of a job probably hadn’t been the wisest option. At the same time, he probably would have given the same advice wherever they were. 

“Women always like flowers and jewelry,” Father had said dismissively, only for Selina to look at him archly. 

“Yes, most women tend to like those,” she said, eyes staring into Bruce’s soul, “but we prefer things that mean something. Like her favorite flower, or something that will remind her of something you’ve done together. On that note, I’ll be looking forward to what you decide to give me for Christmas, darling.” 

Tim had given the question some real thought, but just as he was opening his mouth to respond, Damian cut him off. “What am I thinking? I’m not so desperate to go to Drake for help.” 

Damian was lost. He even gave in and called a few of Marinette’s closest friends for help, but they only lamented how impossible she was to shop for. He was alone, well and truly alone. 

He came up with an idea. Well, it was closer to half an idea, but it was all he had to go on, so Damian went with it. 

When the time came, Damian wouldn’t say that he was nervous about how the gift would be received, but that was simply because Damian Wayne would never admit to being nervous. In reality he was shaking in his boots. 

“Dames!” Marinette said, rushing towards him as soon as he saw her, arms outstretched. “I missed you so much!”

Damian opened his arms, chuckling lightly. “It’s been a week, Angel.” 

Firm in his embrace, Marinette pouted up at him. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t miss you.” 

“And I missed you as well,” Damian said truthfully, pressing his forehead to hers. The two stood like that for a few moments before He reluctantly pulled away. “Come inside, I’d hate for you to catch a chill.” 

“Oh, shall we go inside and play a rousing game of whist?” she teased. “A spot of tea while we’re at it.” 

“I’ve told you before, the way I speak is not old fashioned, it’s timeless,” Damian groaned. 

“Sure, sure.” 

He led her into the parlor of the manor where everyone else had explicitly been banned via Alfred’s orders. They sat down, respective boxes in hand. 

It only took a few moments for Marinette to thrust her box at him. “You go first, I want to make sure it fits.”

So she had made some sort of clothes for him. There really was no surprise there. She likely also had a bag entirely full of gifts she had made for his undeserving family. 

He almost regretted tearing into her perfect wrapping, but he was also eager to see what she had made. 

Time and experience had taught Damian to have high expectations of Marjnette’s work, but what lay inside exceeded that. An olive army jacket lay inside, doubtlessly made of the finest material and fit to his exact measurements, but upon removing it, he found that the back was embroidered in an intricate pattern he would have known anywhere. 

Damian breathed in deeply. “Where… How did you…?”

Marinette smiled. “I got to visit some of my family in China, remember? I did some research while I was there.” 

Sometimes it was easy to forget that Marinette and Damian had ties back to the same country. Grandfather had been a member of an ancient Chinese nomadic tribe, largely lost to history. He had shown Damian a few things he had kept through the years, simply to have some idea of his roots. On the back of the jacket, Marinette had captured the symbols perfectly, down to the exact shades of the colors they would have used. He hadn’t thought that would be possible without the dyes that literally no longer existed. 

“Angel, I… I never thought I would see anything like this again,” Damian said, looking up at her. “Seriously, how?” 

In truth it had involved little more than some time with Fluff, but Damian didn’t need to know that. Instead she smiled slyly. “Just remember never to underestimate women.” 

“We were never in danger of me underestimating you, Angel,” he said, pressing a quick kiss to her hand. “After this, I’m afraid my gift is going to pale in comparison.” 

“I’m sure I’m going to love it, whatever it is,” she said, tilting her head up. “After all, I do love the person giving the gift.” 

“I wanted to get you something that you loved because it’s a genuinely good gift, not because you love me,” Damian said, presenting her with his own (inferiorly wrapped) gift. 

His heart was beating a little erratically while she tore off the paper. “It’s… a book?” 

“Open it and see.” 

“Oh, it’s a photo album! This is so sweet! It’s too bad that we only have a handful of pictures together, but it looks like there’s plenty of room to add in!” 

“Keep looking.” 

Curious, Marinette flipped through a few more pages. There were more pictures as well as letters lovingly placed inside. But aside from that, many of the pages were covered in Damian’s elegant scrawl. It told the stories behind the pictures, as well as the stories that had no pictures. But as Marinette had noticed, there was a lot of room for later. 

“I want this book to tell our story, a story that I don’t plan on ending any time soon. I want there to be volumes upon volumes, because you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

Taglist: 

@daminette-december2019 @cravethosecrazysquares @krispydefendorpolice @thesunanditsangel @sonif50 @kris-pines04 @persephonebutkore @tbehartoo @corabeth11 @caffeinetheory @drarryismylife101 @bluerosette23 @weird-pale-blonde-person @mystery-5-5 @heaven428 @thethirdwheelfriend @thetinymoonflower @interobanginyourmom @chocolate1721 @akana-sama @skyel0ve @katiegardneriscoolerthanyou

Again, I’m blaming the fever and the excessive family time. I haven’t had time to write for a hot minute, and it seems like that trend is going to continue the next few days. I love my family but I want to write. 

Also, I was looking into the lore of Batman earlier, and one source told me that Ra’s was a part of a Chinese nomadic tribe. However, the more frequently cited source says that Ra’s was born somewhere in the Arabian Desert. I thought the Chinese thing sounded a little off, but China is also a LOT more diverse than we generally think it is. I’m keeping it as is for now, because the Batman lore is actually a joke. I can pretty much write what I want and there’s probably been something written to back it up. 

[bigskydreaming]

What do you think of dick hability to read the body language in new 52 People act as it doesn't exist and it really bugs me because thats one of the few things i really liked from new 52

I actually really like it, and it fits with some longtime headcanons of mine, but it hasn’t been touched on enough that I can understand it rubbing some people the wrong way, due to Cass.

But its like I said in that post earlier this week, about how I think its pointless to be ‘possessive’ of character traits…..I think Dick is an expert hacker himself, but I don’t think he’s on Babs’ level. Nobody is on Barbara’s level. But his own expertise isn’t diminished because he’s not on the level of the pretty much undisputed best hacker in the DC Universe. Neither is Barbara’s expertise lessened by virtue of Dick, as well as Tim, Bruce and most of the rest of the Batclan, all being damn good at it in their own right.

I see it as being the same thing here. I like the idea that Dick is intuitive and highly capable when it comes to reading body language, for a number of reasons, but I don’t think it suddenly makes him Cass, means he’s as good at it as Cass, or that Cass being on a whole other level with that, being like…lessened or threatened because Dick’s own capabilities in that regard are touched on every now and again.

I’ve actually said this many times before, but I think this insistence so many fans have about their faves being the only ones associated with certain traits, stories or characteristics actually does them a disservice, because when you stop viewing things as a competition and instead look at it as a chance for common ground, you unveil SO many possibilities.

For instance, I’ve always felt, long before the New 52, that it makes sense for Dick to have a strong, unconscious understanding of body language….as in, he’s at the upper levels of what humans are naturally capable of having in that regard, which of course still puts him at an entirely different level than Cass, whose mastery of it is deliberately BEYOND peak human levels because of her own backstory.

But if you think about it, Dick having skills in that direction makes sense for him AND opens up a lot of areas for Dick and Cass to bond more AND have occasional conflict.

Dick is one of the only other Batkids aside from Cass AND Damian, who knows what its like to be raised literally from the time he can walk, to be a proficient athlete with complete control of his body as like…a lifestyle. The kind of demands that makes of someone, the way that instills certain work ethics and instincts in someone practically from birth, to such a degree that it probably NEVER becomes something he can wrap his mind around, that for some people, these kinds of habits AREN’T second nature, practically built into him….that’s something that I don’t think even some of the other most highly capable athletes in the DC universe are fully capable of grasping…like Bruce, Tim, Jason, Dinah, etc. Obviously this doesn’t lessen any of their skills or proficiency as athletes, just as professional athletes who don’t start training in their chosen fields until later in childhood can be just as capable as ones who started in early childhood. But it makes I think, for a slightly different mindset.

I think this is part of why Dick understands Damian so much better or more easily than a lot of others do. Because Damian was raised this way too, just with different end goals than Dick. Dick can’t relate to being raised to kill, to stamp down on his urge to show affection, the specific training methods of the League with someone as young as Damian, no. But that unconscious, built in awareness of his own body in ways that even a lot of other athletes or fighters never develop just because they approach their bodies and training so differently…that I think Dick gets, and because of that he gets Damian and his own work ethic, and the way that telling him to not push himself so hard or take it easy at times….like is going to be totally wasted on Damian, FOR THE SAME REASONS those things have so often been wasted on Dick. 

Telling someone to be careful not to strain or overwork their body is not going to carry a whole lot of weight with a twelve year old kid who has spent ten of those twelve years being instilled with a greater awareness of his own body and capabilities than anyone else will EVER grasp….let alone someone who only met them a year or two ago (notice how this applies to both Damian AND Dick).

Similarly, causing people to worry when they go throw themselves into an extremely rigorous workout routine in the name of ‘relaxing or de-stressing’ is always going to be a thing, when other people just fundamentally don’t get that for someone raised from birth to eat, sleep and breathe their own physicality….this IS relaxing.

So IMO Dick and Damian have at least that much in common, which has given Dick particular insight into Damian that others don’t have, and helped him get further in reaching Damian and developing a bond with him. And extend this to Cass and her own backstory, and I think they all three have this in common, and thus could share this understanding between all three of them….thus giving Cass more opportunities and ways to bond with Dick and Damian in particular.

Continue on for ten thousand more words (lol, I wish I was exaggerating. Oh, me) of Dick Meta, Cass Meta, and Dick and Cass Meta, below the cut:

Now, add in the fact that Dick wasn’t just raised from birth to be a world-class athlete, like Cass was…..but as I often stress, just as important….he was raised from birth to be a PERFORMER. This is where I think his instinctive awareness of body language would have come from. Because he was raised to do all of his athletics with apparent ease, to show none of the strain it takes, to make it look like art, like the performance that it so usually was. And he was also raised to not just perform for a crowd, but to command their attention, to draw eyes, to feed off their energy and use that to tailor his own performances, his every action, to achieve maximum impact. 

Don’t forget Dick was a world-class acrobat as a CHILD. He was quite literally a child prodigy….and people LOVE meeting a child prodigy. Something like the encounter with the Drakes’ that’s part of Tim’s own backstory would have been an every day occurrence to Dick. Which means it was every bit as likely a part of his early training to be able to glean from the rich strangers that wanted a photo op with the young, exhausted child performer that probably just wanted to go to bed now….exactly what would go over best with those strangers, expedite this encounter, and enable Dick to move on to the next one or better yet, out of the tent ASAP.

I’ve talked about the classism Dick endures just by virtue of being a circus performer…its never been about how much money he and his parents did or didn’t have, its about the fact that most people look down on circus performers as like…an amusement to enjoy, not athletes to respect. You can’t deny that people summoning to mind an Olympic level gymnast would view that gymnast in an entirely different way than they would a Cirque de Soleil acrobat they called to mind, even if they had similar levels of athletic skill….because as a society, we regard something like the Olympics as a WORTHY pursuit for an athlete of that caliber….whereas one might sit in the audience of a circus and enjoy the performance, but that doesn’t mean most people walk out of that tent thinking of what they just saw in terms of the SKILL rather than their entertainment, because there’s this unconscious bias that like….if one wanted to actually be respected for their athletics, they’d aim for the Olympics, not to wear gaudy costumes and face paint and travel around in a caravan and never put up roots in any one place, etc. 

Our view of the circus goes well back before Dick’s creation, even, but its very much there. You simply can’t argue that most people give circus performers the respect their skillsets deserve and would merit in other situations…..and you bet your ass, someone like Dick who was raised as one, would have been instilled from a very young age with an awareness of how to glean when someone was treating him with disdain…and respond without offending them, but still not necessarily letting them impact him with their disdain.

Because one of the things I don’t think I’ve ever talked much about is how for as much as we talk about Dick’s self esteem issues and insecurities in regards to Bruce…..the boy Bruce first took in as an orphan was NOT overly insecure. If anything, Dick was the complete opposite. He knew EXACTLY what he was capable of, and was not shy about insisting upon it. I would say by all accounts and reading between the lines, the Graysons did a tremendous job in instilling in Dick from a young age an amazing degree of self-confidence….WHICH probably accounts for a LOT of the later conflict between Dick and Bruce, because it was never just a matter of Dick not getting the vocal or visible respect or appreciation from Bruce that he wanted….it was that Bruce wasn’t giving him it in the forms he’d been raised with, and grown accustomed to. 

Its that disconnect that I think Dick has always struggled with…where he KNOWS, on some level, that Bruce loves and respects him, and holds enormous appreciation for Dick’s own skills….but Dick only knows this because of….well, what he gleans from Bruce’s body language and his own awareness of Bruce and his nature. He has to read between the lines, and still be left guessing (since Bruce is himself pretty much a master of obscuring his own emotions and body language, in as much as anyone is, to the extent that only someone like Cass can willfully pierce that shroud). 

But my point is, there’s every reason in the world to think that Dick’s parents were very good at preparing their world-class prodigy son for the pressures of the spotlight he grew up in, and heavily prioritized making sure he wasn’t going to be diminished by the disdain of whatever snobs he encountered during the meet and greet portion of that lifestyle. And to be good at that, to know how to manage people who make you want to put your fist in their face while giving away nothing but a nod and smile, and still manage to seize enough control over the encounter to walk away with your head held high rather than feeling like you were just thrown to the wolves….that takes a high mastery of body language and an instinctive grasp of how to read people and put them at ease, to seize control of a conversation from someone who is used to having control at all times in all places. You have to know how to PERFORM, at all times. And in this regard, Dick was every bit as much a prodigy as he was in his acrobatics.

IMO Dick Grayson on his A-game could make Brucie weep in envy. I think this training, this ability to read people with just a look and adapt himself accordingly, to make the most of the encounter while giving up the least along the way….I think its absolutely nothing that Bruce himself taught him, that Dick already came to Gotham with, and its what ACTUALLY enabled Dick to survive the lifestyle and spotlight that Bruce’s lifestyle and spotlight made Dick grow up in. Its what enables Dick to handle the pressures of leadership and get along so well with his various teammates, coordinate dissenting personalities well enough to create teams that are famous for how well they gel and work together in battle no matter what they’re like when interacting in civilian arenas. Bruce, for all his skills, is notoriously not a people person. He knows how to manage people. He struggles with understanding them. And this has always been where in comparison to Bruce, Dick soars.

He didn’t learn any of what he knows about being a people person from Bruce. But he sure as hell learned it SOMEWHERE.

And I think that somewhere is in the circus, with his parents and whatever other various babysitters he picked up things along the way from. A kid as friendly and outgoing as Dick would have been soaking things up from all the circus performers like a sponge, I bet. Little tips and tricks of the trade from not just the knife-throwers, as is occasionally referenced….but also the fortune teller and ringmaster and clowns and magicians and escape artists. A couple dozen varieties of different masters of their own crafts, with one thing in common of all of them….all their crafts rely on performing. On reading an audience, even audiences of one. And selling that audience exactly what they’re looking for from that performance.

Let’s not forget that for all Dick’s insecurities and self-esteem issues as an adult….those almost unilaterally exist in regards to his family and closest friends. For the same reasons as he struggles with these things with Bruce….because they’re not great at showing Dick the respect and appreciation he needs from THEM, SPECIFICALLY….in the forms he would recognize, the forms he was raised since birth to receive and recognize as such, when his parents and circus family gave him these things.

Outside matters pertaining to just his family and closest friends, however, Dick is not remotely insecure. There’s a huge chasm between the former and the latter, in terms of how Dick acts and conducts himself. And its probably a large part of why Dick is so adept at not giving away to his family that he’s more in need of their acknowledgment and support than they realize….because Dick spends so MUCH of his life genuinely not giving a shit what most people think about him or say about him….he’s that much more proficient at wearing that as a mask when interacting even with his family of detectives, who are pretty good at reading even him in a lot of other aspects.

Because I maintain that Dick absolutely endured a hell of a lot of classism and racism growing up, and still does….which is not okay no matter how well he endures it….but he for the most part clearly doesn’t let this constant barrage effect his general self-esteem, and that is fairly important to note. Just as is the fact that like….he calls himself Dick, by his own choice, because its more important to him that he hold on to what he can of his parents, every last physical reminder he has available to him….and thus I think its especially shitty to write his second family using his parents’ fond nickname for him as a joke or insult, and probably hurts Dick when they do it….but the rest of the time? The general public making him a punchline for it? Dick could give a fuck. Same with general opinions of his costumes and what he looked like as Robin or early Nightwing, etc, etc.

Dick Grayson is not an insecure person overall….and that I credit entirely to his first parents, the Graysons.

All of this feeds into that overall awareness of body language, reading people for emotional cues and ways to survive a lifetime in the spotlight without being consumed by it…and without alienating people in the process, because a performer needs an audience, and growing up in a circus taught Dick early on that he had to find a way to end these encounters with asshole patrons in a way that kept his head held high but DIDN’T cost the circus - his family - their patronage in the future.

(Another reason I maintain Dick’s oh so infamous temper has been vastly more inflated than fits either canon evidence of it OR his overall characterization…..a man who has been raised from birth in the spotlight and constantly exposed to people who look down on him….like, KNOWS how to control his temper. I’m sorry, he just does, lol. This is basic understanding of human awareness. If your entire life is in one spotlight or another, be it the circus then Wayne Manor and Page Six, as well as being one of the most focused on superheroes in the entire cape community….and you’re somehow overall regarded in all public perceptions as charming….you do NOT have an infamous temper. You just don’t. People love to shove public figures off their pedestals whenever possible….and in both his civilian and superhero personas, Dick Grayson is on very high pedestals. There is no way in hell his general reputation in any of his communities would be anything close to what it is if he actually has as short and nasty of a temper as people love to spin him as having, because of a dozen scenes taken mostly out of context, over the course of 80 years as a high profile character. I’ll stop harping on this one when it stops being the first thing to come to mind when people cite a ‘flaw’ of his.)

Going back to reasons for him to have such a mastery of body language in his own right….Dick was also raised from birth to do his routines as part of a TROUPE, a group of athletes, not just singular by himself. Thus, a TON of what he was raised practicing every day….would have included reading his family’s body language for cues on what to do next. Watching for signs that something might be wrong or off even just by a second and requiring that he adjust his own movements to compensate for that, when they’re all fifty feet in the air and with the crowd cheering so loudly they couldn’t possibly communicate with words….this could literally be a matter of life and death for a troupe of performers whose reputation hinged on them being death-defying in their stunts. 

Yes, in most continuities its stressed that his parents didn’t let Dick perform the most dangerous routines with them yet, due to his age…..but that doesn’t mean they weren’t preparing him for them as early as humanly possible, given that its never too early to start working on various skills that are integral to these kinds of things. 

And with one of the most fundamental and essential skills needed to be part of a group of performers who excel at dangerous routines being communication, this is all the more reason to think they were probably teaching Dick from a very young age to pick up on body language and watch for even the slightest hints of different indicators of stress, fatigue, anxiety, fear, etc. 

Because compensating for something going wrong with a partner’s part of a routine can be essential in matters of teamwork. (Again, just gotta give a shout out to the Flying Graysons here, because its not stated enough that everything Dick knows about being a solo vigilante, he learned from Bruce, but everything he knows about teamwork is either instinctive or built in, OR learned from his parents, part of a team). And most of the time, when we’re talking about shifting position just enough while fifty feet above a crowd in order to make a catch of a partner that launched with not quite enough momentum or is overshooting their mark….compensating or cheating one’s own routine just enough to be there for your partner is the kind of thing that needs to happen in a SPLIT-SECOND…..like, with you making the adjustment the micro-second you realize its necessary….which means you have to be picking up the slightest hint of it the second it shows up in their body language, like a….what’s the word…oh yeah. A pro.

And given that these acrobats were all performers as much as athletes, with it being a given that their performances needed to appear as light and carefree at possible at all times, for the sake of the crowd….they couldn’t afford to give away obvious tells of anxiety, stress or exhaustion, had to keep a performer’s mask of total poise and control at all times throughout their routines….which makes it all the more likely Dick’s own ability to read body language and instinctive or hidden cues is exceptional….as he had to be trained from early on to be able to see behind those masks and read his parents and family for tells even while they were doing their professional best to keep those very tells hidden so that nobody would pick up on them…unless they were a master of reading such things.

So all in all, I believe that among however many languages Dick Grayson was taught from a very early age as part of a globe-trotting circus….one of those was body language itself, even if it was never actually couched in those terms, as though it were an actual language being taught the way it was regarded as such for Cass….as for Dick and his family, it was probably just regarded as tools of the trade, a necessary component of the performer and acrobat toolbox Dick was raised familiarizing himself with from as early as he began walking and talking.

Which brings us back to Cassandra…..as stated, I think Dick is exceptional at reading body language, with as much mastery of that as is possible at peak human potential…..but, that doesn’t make him the equal of Cass, whose own skills in that regard are beyond even that, due to the precise and comic book nature of her own origin. And how her father did something similar but for totally different reasons and no regard whatsoever for Cassandra’s well-being.

So I don’t think there’s any reason that Dick being the next best at reading and reacting to body language takes anything away from Cass being the undisputed master of that, and interpreter of the Batfamily’s hidden emotional cues.

In fact, allowing Dick to be acknowledged as adept at reading body language benefits her character….as she’s so often solely used as the interpreter of the emotionally stunted Batfamily’s attempted repression of their emotional cues. Basically just being treated as a plot device rather than a character in her own right.

As much as I project onto Dick and thus talk about fandom’s neglect of various facets of his character, it can’t be denied that the same is true of Cass….times ten.

Fanfics spend WAY more time using Cass to establish or well, tattle on various Batfamily members’ emotions than they spend on giving Cass emotions of her own in regards to whatever situation is going on in a given scene.

 And since Dick is so often used as the family mediator or peacemaker anyway, this doesn’t actually change anything about his own role in things….it merely supplies a concrete reason for why he so often is defaulted into that position, and so good at it, despite his family’s overall emotional constipation. He has to be amazing not just at teamwork, but reading hidden emotions as well, in order to manage his family and their various arguments even just as well as he does already.

(Just a quick clarification…earlier when I noted that Dick’s own insecurities largely stem from the Batfamily and not always knowing or trusting where he stands with them….its not that he has no ability to read them despite their own very well crafted performer masks. Its just that as good as he is, he’s still never going to be as good at this as Cassandra is, and there’s still going to be things he misses, or things he misinterprets. And additionally, the problem remains, that he shouldn’t HAVE to glean any hints of familial love, respect and appreciation from his family’s body language. When he’s constantly relying on subtext and body language to reassure himself that they really do love and appreciate him, its inevitable that sooner or later self-doubts and second guessing are going to start to creep in. So its not that Dick doesn’t ever see these things in his family’s body language. Its that over time, I believe this has progressed to the point where even when he sees these cues, he second guesses himself as to whether he’s actually seeing things that are there, or just seeing what he wants to see. And since none of them are exactly making a point to validate what he sees or thinks he sees with actual validation in indisputable forms, like verbal confirmation of this…eventually, Dick’s own skills reading body language become irrelevant here, since he himself is aware he’s an unreliable narrator when trying to narrate what his family’s body language is saying. He wants it to be saying all the things he uses to assuage whatever hurt he feels for not hearing them tell him these things…thus he’s too aware of his own bias when reading them for cues to actually trust any of the cues he reads, that could otherwise confirm this.)

Anyway. So acknowledging or even emphasizing Dick’s own exceptional abilities with body language would actually be to Cassandra’s benefit, I maintain. Because without expecting anything of Dick that isn’t already expected of him and his role in canon and fandom, it merely provides additional support for the idea he’s good at playing family mediator even with as emotionally repressed most of their family is. Thus freeing up Cass from constantly being looked to as the interpreter for all the things most of their family have trouble saying….and allowing for more focus to be paid to her own emotions. And letting her HAVE them, in the first place.

Because we have to talk about the elephant in the room here: racism in regards to Cass. The quiet, stoic, normally serene and beatific Asian martial arts master is a racist as hell trope, and its one that makes all too frequent an appearance when Cass is used at all in fics. AND canon.

Its not that Cass can’t be all those things at various times. Its that they can’t be ALL that she is. At ALL times. (And that, for the record, she’s not usually ANY of those things in canon that actually tries to develop her rather than use her as a one-note trope in its own right. Cassandra Cain…serene? LOLOL. Please, I don’t know who you’re talking about, but it ain’t the Cass I know and love).

First of all, give her a sense of humor, because she has one, and its amazing. You’ll note I make a point whenever I write her to emphasize her having a kind of dry, sardonic wit that is not at all opposed at being at her siblings’ expense, lol. I mean, its not like that’s the only take possible on her, or even just her sense of humor, I just mean…have one. Humor is one of the most telling representatives of a person’s characterization. By that I mean, a person’s sense of humor is one of the things we most initially associate with them in our mind, and a character having a distinct sense of humor is one of the easiest and best ways to develop them as having their own character voice, something that marks them as distinct in your awareness from other characters. Where if you close your eyes and picture them in a scene, what comes out when they talk, like, to make a joke….isn’t interchangeable with just any other character. It sounds or feels like them, specifically.

And just FYI, you might have an easier time writing Cass making jokes if you allow her to form full sentences. She can speak English, has been written speaking English quite well in the past, and the insistence on broken English when writing her that way in canon is shitty and racist in and of itself anyway, so those particular takes on her don’t need to be respected let alone emulated in fanfiction. Let Cass Speak English In Complete Sentences 2KForever. She’ll still be Cass, I promise you. But the changes made to her brain in canon that allowed her to finally learn spoken languages years after her brain had finished developing, like, that happened early enough after Cass’ debut that there’s really no excuse for writing fic where she’s been part of the family for years and still hasn’t picked up a strong grasp of English. 

Y’know how I’m always saying the entire Batfamily are ALL Mary Sues, they are a family of Mary Sues, that is pretty much their high concept as a group, that they’re a composite of the most otherwise competent people in the world and completely emotionally incompetent at the same time? Like, it applies here, because as I also harp on a lot about, I think all of the Batfamily are actual literal geniuses, and I do mean all. Cassandra included. She’s a master of her own many areas of expertise and thus IMO more than capable of picking up languages fairly quickly once the canon barrier to her doing that earlier in life is removed. It just looks and sounds weird and suspect, to insist on writing her as never moving past broken English, IMO. 

And also, like, she doesn’t need to ever be as talkative as Steph, nor do I think would it fit her to be written that way either, but there’s a very wide range of options between that and hardly ever talking at all. I do think she defaults to being one of the more quiet ones in a room, as in one of the last to speak….but give her reasons to be that way, instead of just more imitation of our media’s racist insistence on treating Asian characters as the quiet, all-knowing keepers of sage wisdom who only share their truths once you’ve made the trek up to their mountain top. 

So again just in terms of my own personal take, I tend to write Cass as being one of the last to speak up when around people she’s not as familiar with, because its her version of keeping her back to the wall of a room so no one can sneak up behind and surprise her. She’s only quiet at first in my stuff because focusing on using conversations to glean as much information as she can about the people in them before jumping in is just like, a form of intel-gathering for her and her past left her with a tendency to be as overly cautious in her own way as the rest of her family, and this is what her way looks like. 

(Dick puts on his performer’s mask, Jason blusters and leads with bravado, Damian adopts a position of superiority and will only climb down once you sufficiently peak his interest, Tim recites facts and trivia and likes to bore people he dislikes into submission so you give up and go away, Duke is the family member who really makes friends so easily that any time he makes enemies, his friends have already plotted to destroy you before Duke even gets around to trying to do that himself, Babs has already hacked your bank account and credit rating by the time you open your mouth and thus feels no social anxiety whatsoever as worst comes to worst, she can always just tank your credit score to make herself feel better, and upon meeting you for the first time, Steph either adopts you or punches you in the throat, depending on which way her gut is leaning. As for Bruce, well. He’s terrified of pretty much all social settings, but he’d have to actually admit to that for the first time in recorded human history before anyone could actually cite what ‘his way’ of dealing with social interactions he’s wary of might be. I mean, its basically just ‘Brucie’, but you get what I mean.)

So I mean, its not inherently bad to write Cass as being quieter than the rest of her siblings, and you don’t need her quoting Shakespeare back and forth with Jason in order to prove you’re not writing her speaking broken English. Its just. Do some digging in her head before settling in and writing what you’ve found there. Actually TRY getting in her head in the first place. Spruce it up a bit, redecorate your surroundings, make it feel lived in and homey. Give it CHARACTER. Whenever you write a character choice, in my personal opinion, you should, if asked, be able to back up that character choice by having a reason you feel the character would choose that. 

For me, I write Cass being the quietest of her siblings in social settings simply because she’s doing recon first, and of her various skillsets, spoken language is the one she’s mastered most recently and thus she has the least familiarity with….and thus is the last thing she turns to in any given situation, because she’d rather go down the list and run through every other skill she has to see if it could apply here, before resigning herself to having to converse with the person in front of her because she doesn’t think Bruce would accept “I didn’t know how else to change the subject” as a justification for stabbing someone in a non-vital and easily healed location that had the fringe benefit of rapid bloodloss leading to them passing out fairly quickly.

And of course, none of this applies with Batfamily, because she is comfortable with her family for the most part, and thus when I write her being the most quiet in those group scenes, its because she prefers listening their just purely because she finds her siblings’ antics entertaining. And also because I view her as being as batshit competitive as the rest of them, so IMO she’s always plotting the perfect conversational one-hit KO to have at the ready before she wades in. Because in the Batfamily, even ordinary conversations are something you can and should win. Otherwise, what’s even the point? LOL.

Also in terms of my own stuff, I tend to write Cass and Tim as having very similar forms of wit, and my personal take on them is that they both have just slightly different degrees of that same dry, sardonic kind of commentary, as their primary display of humor. This doesn’t necessarily always match their canon characterizations and how they display humor there - but its due to the fact that they’re two of the characters canon most rarely allows to show a sense of humor in recent years, and it tends to be all over the place more often than not. This is a major departure from how they both were portrayed in the 90s, where Tim’s humor was much more consistently in line with what I’m describing…and thus, so was Cassandra’s, when she debuted and developed her own primary characterization. 

So basically, I consider Tim to be a major influence on Cass’ humor….or more accurately, in the shape her own sense of humor more commonly takes. Because it was with and around Tim that Cass first started to pick up a lot of social cues and explore her own sense of self for pretty much the first time in her life. 

Stephanie’s humor, by contrast is a lot more loud and gregarious and in your face….which when you put the three of them in scene together as a trio, like they once spent a lot of time as, positions her as an extremely different version of the ‘straight man’ to their comedic duo. Because Steph doesn’t need anyone to back up or appreciate her own humor, she’s already landing the punchlines way before anyone else has even had time to think of any, and she doesn’t care what the reception is, the lovable loudmouth goof that she is. Which allows for Cass and Tim to sigh behind her and exchange sidelong glances and kinda….narrate her theatrics in that ‘faces the camera like they’re on The Office’ sort of way, which I mean, I personally find hilarious when they do it, and she’s not remotely bothered by, because like, she’s fucking hilarious and anyone who doesn’t get that is simply wrong and needs to be pitied, if you ask her.

Anyway, that’s just why my own depictions of Cass and Tim share a lot of their humor in common and some of their other characteristics….they’re the ones Cass either consciously or unconsciously picked up from Tim, as he was one of the first people for her to genuinely feel comfortable around and thus someone she trusted to both have knowledge of and mastery over the various social cues she was now finding she needed to learn because of her new environments. 

(Of course, this is one of the times where Cass was dead wrong about something, IMO, as she might have overestimated Tim’s mastery of certain specific social cues and her body-language reads have her aware people aren’t responding her own attempts at mimicking them in the way she’s fairly confident they should be, and she’s not sure what she’s doing wrong there. Oh well. She’s still better off than if she’d picked Bruce to emulate there. When she asked him, he’d stiffened and radiated such intense discomfort, even Steph froze in mid-ramble as she sensed it on even the complete opposite side of the Cave.)

ANYWAY. Wrapping up THAT particular tangent and cycling back around to Dick and Cass having skill with reading body language in common….I think this could also be a huge opportunity to write Dick having a dynamic with Cass that’s unique to just the two of them and distinct from the dynamics they have with the rest of their family. Not to give them a super special bond but just because I mean, all the sibling dynamics between the various individual Batkids should ideally have their own flavor, because nobody interacts with two different siblings in the same way. Each sibling is their own unique individual, and thus should have their own unique dynamic when interacting with them.

So I like to headcanon Dick and Cass in private being the family gossips. They love dishing on the rest of the family with just each other….and being the two most skilled at seeing behind their family’s masks (and thus what their family most wants to keep hidden, to varying degrees), they have more dirt on everyone else than most intelligence agencies have on their nations’ enemies. Of course, they’re both staunchly moral, so they would never ever use their powers here for evil, or to hurt or embarrass their family.

They would, however, occasionally indulge in snickers and giggles about it behind closed doors. Look, shut up, they’re BONDING, they have childhood trauma, its fine.

And if Cassandra’s superior skills with body language means she inevitably has more gossip to share with Dick than vice versa, that’s okay, she’s still more than happy to share. He’s the one who introduced her to the joys of gossip, after all, so if anyone’s entitled to it, its him.

I also headcanon that because they’re both the best at reading body language, there are occasions when in group environments or just at the dinner table with the whole family, they both happen to pick up on certain cues or be aware that a sibling is lying through their teeth about something or being full of shit, and then catch each other’s eye and give the faintest of eye rolls or ‘can you believe they’re falling for this.’ Which sometimes other siblings catch, because Cass and Dick have forgotten to be subtle about it. Or did they not forget anything, and are just being trolls and instigating shit for the giggles? Who can say. Probably just them, which they find quite fun.

In fact, its slightly possible that the rest of the family, ever since Cass joined them, have developed a slightly inflated estimation of Dick’s own skills with reading body language, and now credit him with more of a mastery of it than even he actually possesses. 

See, I have this one headcanon that every now and then, just to mess with their family, Dick and Cass make a point to hold a silent conversation in front of them. You know that thing people who know each other really well do with just their eyes, like managing to convey certain impressions to each other just by being expressive enough in ways and about things they’re pretty sure the other person will get and be on the same wavelength about?

Yeah, that, but Cass and Dick do it without exaggerated facial expressions. And for like. Ten whole minutes. Meanwhile, Tim’s like: “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m not buying any of this” and then determinedly ignoring them. Jason’s annoyed because he can’t actually ever seem to ignore them, and then this builds into something like: “You guys better not be talking about me behind my back. Or I mean, right in front of my face. Whatever. And you definitely better not be talking about Tim right in front of his face and not including me!” Steph just keeps continuing on with whatever she’s doing, entirely unbothered, because she knows if they’re actually communicating anything important (or even slightly of interest to her), she’s sure she can get Cass to tell her later. And she’s not wrong, of course. Duke just shakes his head and feels better about being slightly jealous due to how funny it is watching it get under everyone else’s skin, but in the name of not feeling left out, he joins in on shit-talking Dick and Cass in order to have Vengeance. “B, didn’t you ever teach them its rude to exclude people from your conversation? You know, some people would say its never to late to ground your children.”

Damian, by stark contrast to the rest, completely abandons whatever else he’s doing to watch them both as intently as he can for as long as they persist. As he’s probably third in line behind the two of them when it comes to instinctive grasp of body language, due to the whole ‘being raised to read/scan others for as much information as possible just from their movements. Y’know. In case you have to kill them.’ In his case, his full grasp of it was hindered by seemingly being taught to dismiss certain specific emotions as irrelevant or a weakness, and though Dick and the rest of the family have by now done a pretty good job at getting him slowly but surely past all of that, its like retraining himself, trying to consciously now pick up on cues that he spent a decade discarding and moving past the second he saw them. 

But he’s determined to become as adept at reading body language now as even Grayson is, at least, even if his implicit acceptness that he’ll never have the same mastery their sister does is fully internalized and something he’ll never admit to, even on pain of death. Both Dick and Cass have at various times offered to help him with it, but he refuses as a point of pride….he wants to do it himself. So every time they have one of these ‘conversations’ in front of the family, he drops everything else he does and scrutinizes them for the whole thing like he’s a codebreaker sure that in time, he’ll crack the code and all its secrets will be revealed. (Mostly, its more like he dreams of the day he’s become good enough at it that he and Dick can hold silent conversations like this and he can rub it in Drake’s face. Hah! It will be glorious, Internal Damian insists).

Even Bruce himself isn’t entirely sure whether or not Dick and Cass are fully communicating the whole time they converse like this, or just faking it for funsies. It frustrates him to no end that he’s yet to figure out a way to just…ask them, without giving away that he doesn’t actually already know the answer, and that’s BUGGING THE CRAP OUT OF HIM, C’MON!!

(Of course, both Dick and Cass have fully picked up on his frustration and thus realized he’s as clueless as the rest of the family, and its this precise thing that they spend most of these ‘conversations’ silently giggling about to each other).

And in terms of fleshing Cass out…..part of what frustrates me so much about the excuse people give for focusing on certain negative fanon takes on Dick, that its done to make him more interesting, because no one’s perfect….

Its never been that this claim, in and of itself, is untrue. The problem I’ve always had with it is they add in ‘flaws’ in the name of making Dick more realistic, while at the same time ignoring plenty of material that’s already present in Dick’s character…but which focusing on, would require people spend more time and insight on him than they want to. Just making Dick angry and ‘remind people he has a temper’ is quick and easy, in comparison.

However, the other part of why this claim bugs me so much is because it IS valid and applies to fanon’s two dimensional takes of two other characters….who are never written with any kind of flaws which is part of why they come across as fairly superficial in a lot of works. And that’s Duke and Cass. When they show up at all, their usage is VERY superficial, and like….I don’t think I’ve ever read something with either of them, where they were written having a conflict with another member of the family, other than just sometimes Cass not liking Jason because of his stance on killing. (And usually this is in Jason-centric fics, so its not really in the name of fleshing out Cass so much as making Jason more misunderstood and Cass the bad guy for not respecting that okay he kills people, but only because he’s very sad, she should be able to see that, ugh have a heart).

So, I also headcanon there is a slightly negative dynamic between Dick and Cass specifically, albeit one Dick himself is not aware of. 

(And also complicated by the fact that as much as I gripe about Dick being perceived as having negative dynamics with the rest of his siblings that are all his fault, Cass is the ONE sibling this is ACTUALLY true of, even if it was only really in one story, Redemption Road. I go into that in more depth in another meta, but long story short it was after she was brainwashed by Deathstroke and killed because he made her, and Dick was written as wary and untrusting of her return, not because he didn’t like her - they’d already spent a lot of time in years before this bonding - but rather because he didn’t trust that they could be totally sure the brainwashing was gone yet, and thought Bruce was being too relaxed about that. I maintain this is a callback to his own issues with that time he was brainwashed by Brother Blood and people were a lot less great at understanding in the aftermath that a lot of his choices hadn’t been his to actually make, and that there was bitterness here on his part for Cass getting the understanding and support from Bruce that we never saw Dick get when it was him in a similar position. Kinda a Prodigal Son type vibe. But point being, this was a brief period and it didn’t last, but it is there so there’s interesting potential to have Dick and Cass not DISLIKE each other by any means, but just at times be slightly uncomfortable around each other and trying their best to hide it...from the one other person in the family most capable of/likely to pick up on it).

So what I think it is on Cass’ part, the discomfort/slight ‘not quite sure how I feel about this’ aspect of things.... Like, its just a headcanon, and one where in my head she’s put a lot of effort into making sure he never ever picks up on this particular thing from her. Because she’s not proud of it. At all.

Even if pride is really the problem. 

See, I’ve long believed that out of the entire Batclan, Dick is the only person who can ever beat Cass in a fight. Even compared to Bruce.

And to be clear, its not like Dick can always beat Cass. Or even often. At most, its still maybe like, two fights out of ten. And its not deliberate, like something he can do or capitalize on consciously.

But for someone like Cass, who otherwise is pretty much undefeated unless she’s going up against her own mother, Lady Shiva….even two fights out of ten is a lot.

And it bugs her, more than she cares to admit.

Because she is as competitive in her own ways as the rest of her family. She does have her own ego about certain things, like everyone else does. And David Cain, monster that he was, raised her to be the best there is, at one thing and one thing only: fighting. As much as she hates him, as much as she hates her childhood and what was done to her, how much she missed out on and the things she still feels left out for not understanding or grasping the way she thinks she should…..alongside all that has always been at least an awareness that at least there is one thing that came out of it: she is the best. Absent her mother, who one day she will fully and consistently surpass, everyone including Lady Shiva believes…as much as Cass hates her father and everything he did to her and why, she’s still at times taken a certain sort of pride in her skills in fighting. At least in that one slight respect, even if its not something she would have chosen, had she ever been given a choice….at least it had worked, had done what it’d been intended to.

Except for when it comes to Dick. Who will probably always be able to beat her, maybe two times out of ten. No matter how much more she grows in her skills. There’s that one or two times every now and then, where it will always be a toss-up, as likely to go to him as to her.

And its not something that Dick’s even aware of giving him a specific edge when it comes to fighting her, and its not something he could capitalize on even if he were aware of it.

See, as much as fighting is second nature to Cass, as instinctive as breathing…it goes hand in hand with her ability to read body language. That’s her edge, the one variable that no one else can compete with or match her on, the thing that will always put her in a class of her own…..the one result of specific training that was crafted specifically to create this one result.

You can’t separate Cassandra’s fighting prowess from her ability to read body language. They are one and the same, even if she can use the latter for other things too, and even if her fighting prowess isn’t JUST due to her ability to read body language. Which its not, by any means. BUT, regardless, she can’t train herself out of a reliance on body language while fighting….especially not to fight one person in specific, her own brother, and even there pretty much just out of pride.

Because the slight advantage Dick has over everyone else when facing her, is that like her, he’s one of the only fighters out there who was trained from birth to have an almost inhuman mastery of his own body, to be at the peak of human capability in specific regards. Even though his training wasn’t at all in the arena of fighting, at least not before he was taken in by Bruce. For Dick as well as Cass, there are certain things that are so fundamental to him, so ingrained into his movements because they were taught to him at the same time as he was taught to walk, the one being every bit as natural as the other.

And acrobatics was only one of these things. Performing was the other.

Y’see, the one variable Cass can’t totally account for every single time she spars with Dick….is that Dick’s body lies.

Like I said earlier on….its not just reading body language that Dick was likely raised to do, albeit in different, less rigorous ways than Cass. He was also taught from an equally early age how to DISPLAY body language. Or rather, a specific kind of body language.

My headcanon is that because as early as he began learning acrobatics, Dick was taught acrobatics with an eye towards performing, specifically. Since that was what his family did. And the one thing performers like the Flying Graysons always, always have to do…is perform with a smile.

So it was probably drilled into Dick from an early age, even if it wasn’t couched in these terms or even consciously thought of in this specific way…..but while taught the fundamental components of a flip, breaking it down into each individual micro-movement expected of his body in order to achieve the optimal flip for performing in front of a crowd…..one of those micro-movements, for Dick…was a smile.

Its as fundamental to his acrobatics as every other command his conscious AND subconscious mind sends to the various muscle groups he uses in his routines and now in his fighting even. I think its a large part of why quips and banter and grins are so intrinsic to his fighting as well. He doesn’t KNOW how to be anything else. Bruce probably tried to train it out of him before realizing or accepting that focusing on just making Dick not smile while backflipping over an opponent was detrimental, if not merely just unnecessary. Its just second nature to Dick, as much as reading body language is to Cass. 

His own training from the time he could walk, put just as much emphasis on ensuring that no matter how he felt during a performance, no matter how exhausted he was or how stressed, whether he was having a bad day or was just cranky or mad at his parents or mad about something someone in the crowd said or just didn’t feel like practicing his routines today….he did it all with a smile, an easy, effortless grin, as though he was lighter than air and nothing he did was taking a toll on his body, it was all equally effortless.

Combine that with the fact that for Dick, because of what his training was FOR….because it was all done in the name of being with his family, being like his family, it was so he could do what nobody else could do, so he could fly….unlike Cass, Dick’s early training instilled in him an intrinsic pairing of movement and joy. To him, movement IS joy. Its essential to his core, to who he is. 

Where other people see him throwing in unnecessary flips to his fighting to show off, Dick’s always just grinned and shrugged his shoulders at this, unable to explain what’s not even a matter of conscious thought….to him, saying he added an unnecessary flip is like saying to someone else they took an unnecessary breath. He can understand what they’re saying….just like you can take note of taking an extra breath that you don’t really need…but he can’t link that to the ‘show off’ part of things anymore than you could understand someone accusing you of showing off for taking shorter, quicker breaths than you need to. 

Because Dick doesn’t throw in unnecessary acrobatics while fighting because he wants to show off, IMO. Who is he showing off for? The people he’s fighting? Why on earth would they be more impressed by him doing an extra fancy flip than they would just by virtue of knowing his reputation as a fighter and seeing it proven true as he kicked their ass? No, I think he does it because he’s not even thinking about it, and he certainly can’t think of a reason not to. Its just what he does. Flipping out of the way of an incoming punch in such a way as to make that flip as aesthetically appealing as it is functional, is every bit as instinctive to Dick as every other part of the flip.

Because that’s WHY he was trained to do all this. That’s what its for. Not fighting and superheroics. Those are what he adapted it to do. First and foremost, it was done, taught to him, perfected by him…..so he could fly. And show everybody just how much he loved doing that, when you get right down to it. Because he loves being able to do that. For Dick, the heights he can reach are his higher power, and every single movement he makes is like an individual prayer given in thanks of the gift given to him, that enables him to do that in ways nobody else can match.

But in terms of fighting, and in terms of body language that Cass reads on an equally unconscious level….this has the unexpected and accidental side effect where every so often…Dick’s body lies. At least, I imagine that’s how Cass would describe it, if she ever put it into words for someone. Because he links his joy, his happiness and pleasure at being able to do the acrobatics he does with the movements themselves, because its so ingrained in him to do it all with a smile, to sell for the crowd that its all done with the greatest of ease, and because its inevitable that on some basic level, there are some flips or techniques that the mere act of doing brings to mind - even just his subconscious - memories he associates with that movement, that are largely, more often than not, pleasurable memories….Dick’s body language every so often doesn’t quite read the way everyone else’s does. The way Cass expects it to, knows how to interpret.

And this is nothing deliberate on his part. Nothing he could capitalize on, even if Cass did ever tell him what it reads like from her perspective. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t train himself to use this to his advantage in fights against Cass, any more than Bruce for all his mastery of his body, can effectively train himself to not broadcast certain body language tells when sparring with Cass. Because Bruce’s training, as extensive and intense as it was, and as he commits himself to it, still only started later in life. When his movements and how they pair with each other and his emotional states, they were already set in stone. Because those things go deeper than conscious control….even if Bruce made an effort to hide his next punch from Cass, she’d see the indicators of him preparing to deceive and adapt just as instinctively.

But Dick, because his training began as early and was so 24/7 in its own way as Cassandra’s, when they were both just learning their basic fundamentals and their body was building connections between their muscle movements and emotions they felt when using each precise combination of each specific muscles to achieve each specific end result….with Dick, the times his body language misleads Cass is as unconscious as breathing to him, as instinctive as every other of these movements, and the urge to smile while doing it. He’s not aware of doing it, couldn’t consciously command himself to do it more without giving that away in micro-expressions in his face….but its there, nonetheless. Because its not like it was done or trained into him in order to lie to Cass or someone like her….that’s just an unanticipated side-effect. It was done for one reason only: to make even the most rigorous of efforts look as effortless as skipping.

And it being that instinctive is WHY Cass occasionally falls for it, every now and again. Even when she tries to prepare for it sometimes. Because its like a lie spoken in her own first language. Every so often, she misreads how exhausted or worn out he is while in the middle of a spar, because Dick’s body language while flipping around so often reads as easy, light-hearted, happy. None of the things associated with being on the verge of his legs giving out, even if they are. And every now and again, a punch catches her off guard, because its not telegraphed in any of the normal ways, his body language is too focused on what’s coming after the punch, the preparation to make a leap or a vault that its particularly excited for, that always paired with anticipation, from as early as he could attempt it. Every once in awhile she fails to capitalize on a moment of weakness he has or an injury he’s nursing…because she’s missed the signs for it, its so buried deep beneath the performance mask he was trained to wear specifically while continuing through a routine even while feeling an ache or pain in that particular muscle group.

Even if no one else entirely knows why, Dick can beat Cass every once in awhile, even more often than Bruce can. Because the LESS Dick focuses his conscious thoughts, the MORE instinctive he makes his movements, basically when he MOST relies on just muscle memory and lets his body take over on autopilot, trusting it to get him safely through a fight while his conscious mind and troubles might be otherwise distracting him…..that’s when Cass has the hardest time reading him reliably. Because when he gets like that, everything else vanishes. Its like no other emotions exist for him. Even while being otherwise miserable or unhappy or grieving or tired….when he just lets go and trusts his body to do what its been trained to do so often and extensively its just pure instinct at this point….all of her brother’s movements at that point just sing. The brutality of a fight gets lost in the beauty of his acrobatics, even on the very same level and in the very language she most relies on…because they were meant to be ‘spoken’ even that bone-deep, they were meant to look like and indicate pure joy of movement in even the most primal of languages.

On a certain level, Cassandra has always been the least surprised of any of their family, why people like Deathstroke and the Court of Owls and countless other villains have always been so intent, so focused on making Dick specifically turn to their side, become one of them…become a killer. She understands the draw they feel towards him perfectly, probably even better than they do. Because the language these villains speak most naturally is violence. And her eldest brother takes violence and makes it art.

And even villains are drawn to art that speaks to them in a language they can understand.

So, even though she doesn’t want it to, even though it shouldn’t bother her, even though it ultimately doesn’t even matter that much….it bothers Cass, a little bit. That Dick has just enough of an x-factor in sparrings specific to just the two of them, that no matter how much Cass tries to adjust for it, she can still be thrown or fooled as easily as anyone else can fall for a lie spoken in a shared language. Its actually probably for the best that her own unique form of Kryptonite belongs to none other than her very own big brother, protective to a fault. Someone who would never hurt her.

Except…

Even with all that, she can’t help herself. Every once in awhile, she looks at Dick and can’t help but be wary. She doesn’t like having a potential blindspot she knows full well is there and can’t do a damn thing about. She doesn’t like that it bugs her so much either, but it does. She doesn’t like that the fighting and body-language reading that are the end results of her father’s abuse have become in different ways just enough of points of pride that she finds her pride pricked at the reminder she’s still fallible. Still human. Can still be fooled, even if unintentionally, even if not that often. 

Because given the price she paid - that she never asked to pay, never was asked if she WANTED to pay it - to be so foolproof, at least where everyone else is concerned, she at least wished the damn training had worked as intended, instead of one specific monkey wrench her father hadn’t accounted for. All because who was prepared for an acrobatic vigilante who’s happy and gleeful on a primal level even when fighting for his life, because his body can’t help but be glad it can fly?

So she fights that feeling down any time it arises, becomes all the more determined for it not to create a wedge between her and the big brother she honestly adores and she knows honestly adores her too.

But sometimes when he smiles at her, Cass hates the way she is. What it makes her. Because all of them by now are used to people like the Court constantly trying to repurpose Dick, turn him against everything he holds dear. And each time everyone else is reminded of that, they turn to cast glances at Cass, without even thinking about it. They’re all just as aware of Dick’s own fighting prowess, after all. And how deadly he could be if he ever put his mind to it and set aside his morality.

She knows full well that if that ever happened, if any villain ever did manage to get their hooks in deep, she’s the one it would ultimately fall to. The Break Glass in Case of Emergency, Plan Z, final failsafe. She was who they would sic on the big brother that’s always drawn the darkness like moths to his flickering flame.

And she alone nurses the knowledge that if it ever came to that….she’s not quite as certain as the rest of their family, that she could infallibly win.

It bothers her more than she can say, more than she will ever dare say….that one of her greatest fears wears her doting eldest brother’s face.

Because if the Court of Owls ever did make a Talon of him for real, there’s no one who could sink a fatal blade past her guard more easily than he. She might never see it coming, too busy looking at him and seeing nothing but poetry instead.

Dick held her once while she came down from a lungful of Fear Toxin. Even as she shook the last of it from her system and looked at him with fresh, clear eyes again, she couldn’t help but flinch. He asked her what she’d seen while under its influence. She didn’t answer, and hated how sad he looked while covering up. No doubt thinking that it was because even now she didn’t trust him, her own family, wouldn’t let herself be completely vulnerable with them.

Still, she’s certain he would have looked far sadder if she’d told him the truth.

So each and every time her big brother’s body tells her a lie, she tells him one right back.

After all, the flip side of being the two best truthseers in the family, is there’s nobody better at being lie-tellers at the same time.

Who else is ever going to know?

[sparkleofpizza]

Burn book - Tim Drake x reader

A/n: hey guys, so I’ve had this idea in my mind for a while now, since I watched Mean Girls on October 3 and I thought it would be nice to finally write it and see how goes. Hope you like it!

Warning: the names Bradley, Valerie and Carmen are all made up names to fit in the story. Language, mentions of blood and violence.

Requested: no

Summary: Y/n grows suspicious of her boyfriend activities, something happens at school that only fufil her suspicions.

Word count: 2.368

A movie scene. Your school looked like a movie scene right now. A scene from a movie you’ve seen countless times before. 

You stood at the top of the stairs, arms crossed watching the scene unfold in front of you. Lips slightly parted as a small laugh escaped your throat. You felt like Regina George watching everyone go crazy after their secrets got spilled.

Someone had decided it would be funny to recreate the Burn Book from Mean Girls, and printed the pages trowing them at the hallways for everyone to see. Everyone’s secrets were on those pages and you were a bit afraid that somehow it said something about you - although you didn’t have any secret that would make you want to dig a hole and bury yourself into it.

Everything was a bit funny until you realized that it wasn’t so cool at all. You were enjoining seeing things in real life like one of your favorite movies of all times, but things took an aggressive turn when you saw people punching each other. Suddenly you felt very uncomfortable being in there. It wasn’t cool to spill people’s secrets like that.

You reached for your phone on your pocket, deciding to text your boyfriend Tim, trying to know where he is. It would make you feel a lot more comfortable having him by your side. But you didn’t even know if he was at school at all, lately he was very absent and distant, making you wonder if you did something wrong. Even his brothers seemed to be ignoring you. 

Someone yanked you by your arm, dragging you and making you stumble down the stairs, falling to your knees. Bradley Walters hovered over you, face red from anger as he gripped tightly on your arm, you knew there would be a bruise there tomorrow. You were honestly scared, you sometimes hung out together and got along very well since he was part of the football team and you were a cheerio. 

“How could you not tell me?” He yelled, pulling you up so you were face to face “You knew Valerie is into girls and you still let me make a fool out of myself trying to get her to date me! You’re such a bitch!”

You yelped helplessly as you knew no one was coming to your rescue since everyone was too busy fighting with each other to even notice Bradley being a jerk. 

“I- It wasn’t my place to tell you!” You replied, trying to reason with him “I couldn’t out her to you, she was’t ready to tell anyone yet.”

“Then how come you knew?!”

“She’s my best friend, I was the first one to know!”

Bradley huffed, letting go of you only to shove you against the lockers and walk past you. You massaged your shoulder, trying to ease the pain from the impact of hitting the lockers. You had to get out of there before things got out of control.

You walked past people, trying to blend in and not call unwanted attention. Hearing stuff like teachers hooking up with students was honestly disturbing. The principal was trying to calm everyone down, but no one was having any of it, they wanted caos. They wanted to get at each others throats and demand explanations out the secrets that were out there.

Carmen Diaz showed up in front of you, yelling because she had just found out you were the reason why she was cut out of the cheerios, because you had told the captain she was flirting with her boyfriend. At that point, you were regretting every gossip you had ever made as you swiftly left the girl hanging and yelling on her own. 

But as you left Carmen behind, you saw it. You saw something you wish you had never did, but at the same time it made so much sense. Everything just clicked together in your head. The absence, being ignored, leaving early and ditching you lately, it all made perfect sense. You grabbed the fallen paper, examining it in your hands. 

Sweet Tim Drake and nice Stephanie Brown are two cheap cheaters. Jerk and hoe. 

And bellow it there was a photo of the two of them. 

You felt your heart shatter at this. Stephanie was one of your closest friends, but apparently she wasn’t your friend after all. And Tim, you didn’t even know what to think of him. You always thought he would never ever break your heart, but he did, and he did the last thing you excepted him to do, but it made so much sense now. Everyone knew, all of his brothers and probably his friends that became your friends knew as well, and they left you in the dark, left you to keep making a fool out of yourself. 

There was tears pricking in your eyes, but you refused to cry in front of all of this people. Too engrossed in your own sad thoughts you didn’t see a flying bottle made of glass, aimed to someone else, but that hit you straight in the head, soaking you in both water and blood as it shattered, making you fall backwards and loose your senses for a while.

Oh God, how did all this shit happened?

After way too many accidents like yours happened, the police finally arrived at Gotham Academy, restoring the peace. You watched Tim’s older brother Dick talking to some of the students and you knew all of his brothers were probably there, because they always showed up at things like this. You walked out of school trying not to get attention to you, but it was kind of hard since there was a lot of blood coming out of your forehead and you were way too light headed. 

Your presence, however, did not go unnoticed as Tim’s best friend was the first one to see you, being in front of you in a blink of an eye. Conner Kent eyes were wide when he saw you. 

“Y/N, holy shit! I didn’t think the situation at school was this bad! We need to get you to the hospital, you’re bleeding too much!” He gently grabbed you by your shoulders and started guiding you towards people “Tim is over there, he’s worried sick about you when you didn’t answer your phone. We weren’t in school today and...”

He stopped talking when you abruptly stopped walking. He glanced at you, worried that maybe you were going to pass out from blood loss.

“I don’t want to see Tim.” You whispered

“What?” He frowned

“I said that I don’t want to see Tim. Ever again. Or you, or any of you ever again. Fuck off and leave me alone. You’re all a bunch of liars!”

You stumbled away from him, trying to find someone else to take you to the hospital. Honestly, right now, you pretty much rather pass out on the floor than take any of their help. 

But that was when Tim saw you, and damn didn’t that make his heart beat too fast out of panic because of the way you looked. Your skin too pale, a hand shaped bruise on your arm, your white uniform blouse stained in red and oh, the amount of blood in your forehead. Before he knew it, he was sprinting towards you, pulling you in his arms. He was so grateful you were safe, and now you were with him so nothing else was going to happen to you, he is going to take you to the hospital and then he’s not leaving your side.

You struggled against his grip, making him release you as he though he might has been hurting you, maybe there were others injuries. But there was hurt and betrayal in your eyes, aside from the tears. You did not look happy to see him at all.

“Sweetheart...”

“Don’t.” You cut him off “You’re free to be with her, I’m breaking up with you.” 

Tim opened and close his mouth. Too shocked and confused to even say something. Be with who? Why were you breaking up with him? What did he do? What actually happened inside of the school? He only snapped out of it when he saw you leaving, running right back to you, holding you in place.

“What- What are you talking about?”

“Go be with Stephanie, you don’t have to sneak behind my back anymore. I already know about the two of you. From all the things I excepted when you started drifting away from me, being a cheater wasn’t one of them.”

“I- Y/N I didn’t cheat on you! I could never to do that! Look, you’ve lost too much blood and you’re not thinking straight. Come on, let me take you to the hospital.”

He was desperate, trying to understand what was going on. Did he neglect you so much this past month that it made you doubt his love for you? He loves you more than anything else in this world, he would do literally anything for you, so what did he do wrong for you to stop believing in it?

You dryly chuckled, shoving a paper in his hands before stumbling away from him as he read what was written in it.

Tim tried calling, tried texting, FaceTiming, visiting, but nothing. You wanted nothing to do with him. He just hoped you would give him a chance to explain himself, to tell you everything and by everything he means including the fact that he’s Red Robin and that’s why he’s been absent and also about that picture.

Conner tried to stop by to convince you to talk to Tim and fix things up, but you ended up slamming the door at his face.

Figuring enough is enough, after almost a month you decided to let Tim explain himself. You were hurting way too much and honestly just wanted to move on, but you couldn’t if you didn’t properly end it. So on a Friday, for the first time, you looked him in the face as you walked past him on the hallway. You actually acknowledged his presence during Biology and even offered you the tiniest of smiles. You told Valerie she could stop glaring at Stephanie and being mean all the time. So he knew you were ready to talk.

After school he went straight to your apartament. Knocking on the door and hoping he didn’t get the wrong signals today at school, but when you opened the door for him, for the first time, he felt relief wash over him.

“Hi.” He said awkwardly “Thanks for... opening the door.”

You nodded your head, letting him in before closing the door and sitting on the couch across from him.

You couldn’t help but notice how tired he look, with bags under his eyes and a even paler face than ever. Was he hurting just as much as you were? It kind felt impossible, he had Stephanie, why would he be sad?

“I am so so so sorry for the way I treated you lately. I never thought it would lead you to believing I didn’t love you anymore or that I could cheat on you.” Tim started, fighthing back the urge to wrap his arms around you when he saw tears in eyes “Sweetheart, you’re the best thing that has ever happened in my life and I love you more than anything. I could never cheat on you, nothing happened between me and Stephanie, we’re just friends.”

“How can you expect me to believe in you when all you ever did lately was ditch me?” Your voice sounded so broken, he himself started crying

“The reason why I’ve been so distant lately is because I am Red Robin.” He said

You stood still, staring at him like he had grown a second head. Tim Drake, your ex-boyfriend, was Red Robin? He worked with Batman. Tim Drake, the same boy standing in front of you, fought bad guys every night to make the city safer.

“I’m sorry, what?”

He pulled out a domino mask out of his jeans pocket, holding it up to his face, right at his eyes and you sucked in a breath. Holy shit, he is Red Robin.

“Stephanie and I are just friends, Y/N. We work together as vigilants, but nothing more than this. You’re the one that I want, the one that I love. You’re the first person I think about when I wake up, and the last person I think about before going to sleep. Everytime I’m fighting some bad guy I keep thinking I have someone to come home to, and that someone is you.”

You sobbed, trowing yourself in his arms, allowing him to hold you. You buried your head in his chest as arms went around your waist, carresing your sides. Tim kissed the top of yout head, feeling at ease after a long month. He ached to have you back in his arms and he never planned on letting you go.

“I’m so sorry I doubted you.” You sobbed into his chest

“Hey, this is not yout fault.” He lifted up your chin so you were looking in his eyes “This is all on me and I primise to make it up to you everyday for the rest of our lives, if you take me back.”

You nodded your head, standing on your tip toes to press your lips against his. It’s been a long month and all you wanted to do was to make up for the time you’ve missed with him.

You both layed on the couch, you pressed against his chest and tangled legs.

“Whoever did this burn book is a bitch.” You said quietly, drawing patterns on his biceps

“Yes, everything is still a chaos. And you never told me how you managed to get that amount of bruises beside the bottle of water that was an accident.”

“Oh, Bradley Walters did that to me. I though you knew?”

“What?!” Tim exclaimed, tighining his arms around you “I guess I’m paying him a visit during patrol tonight.”

You chuckled, kissing his jaw. Everything was falling back to place

[incoherentbabblings]

Unspoken Promises

Sitting on the car roof waiting for Zatanna to show up, Stephanie became acutely aware of how their leaving home must have looked to the rest of the family, and makes her think about what want from the future, especially after everything had come crashing down in the aftermath of Brother Eye and the Batman of Tomorrow.  Tim for once isn’t thinking too deep about it.  

2,500 words on Tim and Steph cuddles from YJ #5. AO3 Link here!

So for all my doubt about Bendis (He also liked my tweet I sent him thanking him for making TimSteph so cute so like… that gave me a whump of validation right there) I was so over the moon with his interpretation of Tim and Stephanie’s relationship that it actually got me to write fanfiction for the first time in about a decade (ooft).  I am following in the grand DC tradition of what is continuity in that I am writing as if the Bat’s History is all in tact, but YJ and Teen Titans is just what had been established in the New 52.  How does that work? It doesn’t but never mind that I wanted to write mush

Anyway here is Tim I look at my girlfriend as if she hung the stars at night Drake and Stephanie We have 100% ran away from home which means we are 100% eloping which means yes I will marry you no you don’t even have to ask Brown.

There are like…so many references to past and current stories and dialogue in this, as well as my previous babblings on their relationship.  

Anyway, enjoy!!!

He had a habit, she’d noticed, ever since they’d been together, of holding her face. His fingers had always been cold, but dry, and his palm fit neatly along her jawline. He was always soft with her, and she wouldn’t dare have it otherwise.  When she isn’t talking, and he isn’t smiling and humming indulgently at her wittering on, he seemed to be nothing more than quite content to just hold and stare at her. Like the sun is infused in her hair. Like her and her alone is immune to the anti-life equation, like she is life’s meaning. Like she is so precious that she might be gone the next morning.

 Because that did happen once, when she was left to die without him. Does Tim hate me? She had asked Batman. No. Bruce had replied. He adores you. Always has.

Only now with them lying on the bonnet of Tim’s red car, his stare so openly reverent, Stephanie found herself trusting Bruce’s statement to the dying girl with a broken body (and heart).

He’d been taken from her too, violently and so suddenly that she had found herself talking to a clay program of his, so starved for his face and hungry for his advice… Then again Stephanie had heard from other sources that he’d considered throwing what he’d thought was her corpse into a Lazarus Pit, so maybe they were both reliant on the other to act as a guide.

Those Batmen she’d seen, first the one from a future where she was either dead or under what seemed like permanent house arrest (it wasn’t clear), and then one made of corrupt dreams and corrupt computer programs… They were ones she’d silently promised herself that she would reel in within Tim whenever they reared their ugly, twisted heads. She’d remind him, remind them why they wanted to help people. The two of them didn’t know any other way, not anymore.

How stubborn they were that they scraped their way back to each other.

Stephanie soon grew shy being gazed at by Tim and leaned forward.  One hand tightened in his sweater, whilst the other cupped the back of his head. He quickly got the idea and leaned forward, their lips touching briefly for a moment before she readjusted her position, straddling one his legs to get a firm pressure between her own.

Tim’s smile turned cheeky then, and he began to push up into a sitting position.  Stephanie gave a slight grunt, and forced him back down, hand slipping down his top to grip at his hip. She kissed him deeply.

A bird took off near the car, disturbing some fallen leaves on the ground.  It was still warm enough at sunset to not have to wear a coat, and both of them had opted for oversized sweaters, Steph in her customary purple, Tim in his usual green.  They had been travelling for a few weeks now, enough for the new school year to have started, and yet here they both were, several states down, in DC, nowhere near Ivy University in New England.  The thought made Stephanie giggle.

“Now you have to admit it!” She exclaimed, thumping her head down to rest on Tim’s chest, listening to his heart beat.  Solid.  Warm.

Tim meanwhile was looking awfully smug, one arm cradling her shoulders, pressing their already entangled bodies closer, the other arm thrown up behind his head.  His eyes were shut, and he was smirking.

“I don’t have to admit anything.” 

“Admit it!”

“I was raised by Batman, Stephanie,” – and right on que her eyes rolled up to her skull.  Batman Batman Batman – “I am a stubborn master.”

“Admit we ran from home!”

That got him to open his eyes and stare at her once more.  He was indulging her again, she knew, and she let him do so.

“A Batgirl and a Robin told everybody we were going off to college and then we drove the other way.”

“Because we’re in the middle of an investigation into the –”

She interrupted him, whispering the phrase “Nobody knows where we are!” conspiratorially, as if they weren’t sitting outside one of the most heavily monitored buildings in the county.  But sure, they were definitely back in New England, studying at one of the country’s most prestigious universities.

Not that they didn’t leave with the purest intentions, this investigation into timelines and universes…  However neither had the foggiest clue where to start.  Tim had recalled Dick and Bruce talking of Wally, the idea that something or someone been messing with time or memories. To avoid Bruce catching wind of what they were up to, they had asked Black Canary, and Dinah had suggested magic, which had led them to Zatanna.

Tim knew Bruce knew they weren’t at college.  He just didn’t want Bruce to know why.  This trip was partially for him and Steph to be alone.  Properly.  Without Bruce and his weird secrets and mind games. Without the pressure of fighting crime each night with all its mental and physical traumas.

Without Cassandra bursting through their window with takeout after a night of training, catching Steph in her nightshirt and Tim with his pyjama bottoms halfway up his legs. 

It had been going well, as well as could be expected of two seventeen-year olds going on a targetless road trip.  Tim had enough money to his name to keep them going for more than enough time, and Stephanie didn’t want for much regardless. 

Still, this trip had a purpose, and they both hoped that speaking with Zatanna would orient them in the right direction. 

“I’m just saying,” Stephanie continued, now grinning back at Tim’s softening smile “The only thing missing is the circus for us to join.”

It was almost funny how their conversations always came back to their future together.  They were still so young but they always spoke of what their lives would be, could be, five, ten, fifteen years down the line. 

Not that the circus was a serious suggestion, but it made her point all the same.  They had split off from the family back home, deliberately gaining some distance.  They’d not spoken to Bruce since he’d waved them off, hearing that they’d get the official wedding invite ‘any day now’ (any day now had been going on for weeks at this point, both were afraid to enquire for an update).  They’d not heard from Dick in even more time (something was going on with the Titans, on and off the field, but Tim hadn’t chased it).  Damian and Jason were enigmas as usual to them (coming and going as they pleased).  They’d get the odd photo and message sent from Cass and Duke and Barbara, the three of them seemed to be forming a little huddle, but for the most part, it was radio silence.  Maybe Bruce had encouraged it for once.  Leave them alone.  Let them be teenagers.  They can figure it out if they want to do the superhero gig on their own.

Or maybe that was too forgiving of an assumption of Bruce.

The other day Stephanie had been filming Tim being a dweeb, and she had muttered about making their (hypothetical) children watch this so they could be assured that their (hypothetical) father was never once cool ever.  Tim had just laughed and argued that she was just as bad as he, she was only better at covering it up.  He didn’t flush at the mention of children, and he didn’t call out at her statement at all.  It was a quiet assumption between them, the idea of children (plural.  Both had been so lonely growing up they couldn’t bear the thought of repeating their parents’ mistakes).  An unspoken promise never confirmed aloud.

Seventeen years old and they were already thinking of when they’d be thirty five.  Maybe one near (actual?) death experience each made them grip to that future tightly.  They would have it all.  They would help people until there was no longer a need for them to do so anymore, upon which they could bow out, ready to drop the double-faced world they occupied.

It had been temporary for Tim, initially.  He didn’t so much as want to be Robin as he was at the only one who could be Robin. 

It had been temporary for Stephanie, initially.  She couldn’t let her father go on hurting people, and she was at first the only one who knew what weird, over the top schemes he’d managed to cobble together. 

It was supposed to be temporary, for both of them. 

I can make it all work.  I can make a system that can sustain itself… After all that, I can take care of myself.  Take care of us.  I promise.

 And yet that promise he’d made aloud, mere hours before everything had blown up in their faces – literally – had been a rude awakening that their line of work didn’t allow easy early retirements, not truly. 

That was okay though, not today didn’t mean not ever, or at least, that’s what they had both told themselves at night sleeping in assorted cheap hotels.  The receptionists had always given them funny looks, no doubt Tim and Stephanie probably did look like young eloping teenagers.  Tim had surprised Stephanie in his reaction to their expressions, putting his foot down when affirming yes we want a double bed no not twin singles.  When checking out in the morning Tim defiantly left the bed an unmade mess, as if they were a pair of rabbits who couldn’t get enough of each other, as if trying to earn that slightly disapproving look from across the counter. 

She thought maybe he was tired of people giving their opinion on the two of them being together. 

And ultimately, that is what they were wasn’t it?  Teenage sweethearts running away from home.

And to the circus, if that’s what it came down to.

Stephanie’s buzzing phone and Zatanna’s arrival had brought an end to the feeling of joviality.  Stephanie’s thoughts were being torn in two directions.  She couldn’t stand the thought of her father running around doing as he pleased, and she had a sudden sharp stab of fear for her mother, but she had just reaffirmed that she was staying with Tim come hell or high water.  Tim made the decision for her.  He knew she wouldn’t be focused going forward unless she chased down her father, so gave the both of them a three day deadline. 

“You’ll be focused and I’ll have a start.” He stated.  He was dressed in his uniform, looking somehow both dashing and fragile at once.  What he thought he knew had been shaken again, except for the blonde girl standing in front of him.  The one who was looking at him with a slightly befuddled but still endeared smile. 

“I love you Tim Drake.” She said, ignoring for a moment where they were and what he was dressed as. 

There was a beat of silence.  Enough to make Stephanie uncomfortable.  He had usually always been the first to declare it to her.  Now that she had uttered it first, he seemed at a loss on how to respond.  She decided to prompt him, trying not to sound too desperate when she asked:

“Did you hear –?”

“I’m madly in love with you, Steph.”  He blurted out.  His smile widened until he looked overjoyed.  “I was just about to tell you that.  I was going to tell you I was so happy you were in my repressed memories, too, because I didn’t want – ”

A life without you was how he was going to finish his declaration before she threw herself at him, smacking a kiss on his lips, and Tim saw his world go pink for a moment.

He had been relieved that she’d been in those memories.  She had to have been.  She was the only one, for so long, who knew him as both Robin and Tim.  The Teen Titans had asked and asked but he’d always been so reluctant to cave in, whilst part of his fear of leaving the title of Robin would mean losing Bruce and Dick and Barbara, for what possible reason could Tim Drake have to associate with them?  It was different now, he was Bruce’s adopted son, so their connection could not be severed regardless of him wearing a mask or not, and he had opened up to his friends, slowly but surely. 

She was still the person he wanted to be with him every step of the way.  She’s never cared what title he’d held, she’d cared more about the way he held her.  This was his chance though.  She had always been stuck on the fringes of their generation, not having many close friends outside of Gotham.  If his friends and family could become hers… he just wanted her with him every step of the way.  It was selfish of him he knew, but she deserved a better family than the one she’d been born into, and he had the opportunity to give it to her.

She was gripping the front of his uniform tightly, and he was holding her shoulders.  Leaning forward, he put their foreheads together with a gentle thunk.  Still smiling, he reminded her of the three day deadline.

“Two days.” She pushed.

“Promise?” He looked at her, and she smiled guiltily.  How many broken promises had they made to each other?  How many had they kept?  How many had remained unspoken, for fear of them never coming true? 

“I can’t.” Stephanie exhaled unsteadily, her eyes tearing up. 

He didn’t sound disappointed when he responded, “I know.”  He understood.  Better than anyone he understood the danger of promises and oaths. 

For a brief moment she longed for them to forget responsibilities and be utterly selfish.  Run away to the circus like she’s joked.  Confirm every suspicious look those receptionists had given them for the past four weeks.  Leave behind broken families who didn’t know what good communication meant between the lot of them and start a newer better family in its place.  It was a whim that would remain in her head, but she answered the question she would sit and wait for over the next twenty years if need be out loud, as both a promise to Tim and to herself.

“…But I do.”

Tim didn’t say anything more in response, but looked up at her, his forehead still pressed to hers, and breathed a laugh.  He knew what she’d meant when she’s said I do, of course he figured it out, but he also knew to let it remain out of context.  Another unspoken promise. 

They’d be fine.  More than fine.  He would find his friends and he would take care of them.  They’d scraped their way back to each other for a reason. He couldn’t let her, or Conner or Cassie or Bart or any of the others, slide by any longer.

Another unspoken promise. 

[ohmygoodnessgraciouss]

Can u do a fic where Natasha Romanoff meets the batfam?

Masterlist

Sure can!  This was kind of hard to write at first just because I wasn’t sure what direction I wanted to take it.  Hope you enjoy it!

It was supposed to be a simple job, in and out, and she could leave Gotham City.  As it turns out, everything in Gotham was so much more complicated than any alien attack in New York.  Natasha Romanoff was placed on a mission in Gotham to work with the infamous vigilantes.  Batman, Oracle, Robin, Nightwing, and the Red Hood.  S.H.I.E.L.D knew exactly who they were, so there was plenty of information for Natasha to read up on prior to the mission.  She knew that this would be like dealing with the Avengers.  

~

As soon as she entered the city, she was immediately welcomed with rain and cold temperatures.  It was like the complete opposite of the bright and sunny New York.  She was shocked to see such a difference in the climates considering the two cities were only an hour and a half apart from each other.  It was like a quick helicopter trip to Gotham.  

She made her way to a taxi that led her to Wayne Manor.  She had to meet with the Wayne family, also known as the vigilantes, and discuss the mission with them.  It was supposed to be straight-forward, but she knew it’d be much more complicated than that.  

“Hello Miss Rushman,” Alfred, the butler, greeted her.  She gave him a small smile.  

“Good afternoon.  I’m here to discuss some plans with Mr. Wayne, I was sent by my boss,” She explained cooly.  S.H.I.E.L.D wanted her to keep quiet about who she is to everybody except the Waynes.  

“Of course, come right in.  Master Wayne is in his office right now, I’ll make sure he’s ready to discuss with you.”  Alfred walked off to a wing of the Manor.  Natasha took this time to look around the room.

It looked elegant compared to the rest of the city.  It was right by the border, signifying the beginning of Gotham.  It was a landmark similar to the former Stark Tower.  The only difference is that this showed class and wealth when Tony made his tower to be arrogant and obnoxious.  

The chandelier hung from the ceiling, staying incredibly still.  The lights on it were shining brightly, lighting up the entire room.  Across the walls were portraits of the Waynes.  Martha, Bruce, and Thomas were at the center of the wall farthest away from her.  Next to the painting were staircases leading to the second floor.  Natasha had to admit, it was gorgeous.  

“He’ll be with you shortly,” Alfred stated as he popped in.  Natasha thanked him with a smile and he walked away.  She sat down on one of the chairs in the center, trying to look as proper as possible.  She figured she wouldn’t have to hold that pose for long if they’re anything like the dimwits she usually works with.

Bruce Wayne walked into the room after only a few seconds with one of his infamous playboy smiles on his face.  "Miss Romanoff, a pleasure.“ He held his hand out for her to shake.

She smiled as she stood up, shaking his hand in the process.  "The pleasure is all mine, Mister Wayne.  I’m assuming your sons will be here shortly?  Director Fury told me they would be helping us with the mission.”

“Of course, they should be here-” A crash was heard while he was talking- “At any moment.”

“What was that?”  She asked him.

“Knowing them, that would be Dick and Jason coming in at this moment,” He smiled almost sheepishly.  

“I’m just saying if you threaten the bad guy by flipping him off literally while doing a backflip they’re not going to care!” Natasha heard the one man yell as he walked in with another.  He was taller than the other by a few inches and a had a strip of white hair in the front.  She had no doubt that this was Jason Todd, also known as the Red Hood or the second Robin.

“You don’t know that until you’ve tried it!” The other man angrily said.  He had black hair like Jason’s and looked slightly older than him.  Natasha assumed he was Richard Grayson, also known as Nightwing or the first Robin.  He had a grin on his face as he spoke.  It was clear the two saw each other as brothers even if Jason claimed that Bruce had never been a father-figure for him after he died.

“Dick, Jason, meet Natasha Romanoff.  You may know her as the Black Widow who fought in the Battle of New York a few years ago,” Bruce said, completely ignoring their bickering.  

“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Romanoff,” Dick said, trying to be formal in front of Bruce.  

“Ah, yes, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Romanoff,” Jason greeted the woman, using an exaggerated accent to mock Bruce.

“The Red Hood and Nightwing, nice to meet you as well.  I’ve heard a lot about you two,” She stated.  

“You have?!”  Jason exclaimed, revealing his boyish side.  It was obvious to all that he was a fan of the Avengers, and especially a fan of Black Widow.  He remembered watching the Battle of New York on live television, admiring her fighting style and her accuracy with guns.  

“Of course.  S.H.I.E.L.D has files on all of you, including Damian Wayne.” As she finished her sentence, Tim Drake and Damian walked into the room as well.  

“Miss Romanoff, I’m Damian Wayne.”  He held his hand out for her to shake.  She smiled at the young man and shook his hand.  "I have heard many good things about you from my mother, Talia al Ghul.  She respected you.  You may remember her from a mission in Moscow a few years ago.“  

"I remember her.  She was very talented.  I’m sorry to hear of her passing.”  Natasha remembered hearing Talia’s death from friends she had in the League of Assassins.  Damian nodded in acknowledgment.

Tim Drake helped Barbara Gordon roll in on her wheelchair, ready to meet the spy.  "So this is Natasha,“ Barbara smiled, "It’s so nice to meet you!  I’m Barbara.  I’ve seen a lot about you from the Battle of New York.”

“It’s a pleasure, Barbara.  And you must be Tim,” She commented, looking up at the man.  His hair was wild and it looked like he had bags under his eyes.  It was obvious to everyone that he hadn’t slept in a long time.  

“That I am.  Did Bruce tell you a lot about me?” He grinned.

“I read your file.  I’m impressed by your work, Tim.  Especially considering you could figure out who Batman is.”  

Tim blushed lightly.  "It was nothing.“

"Well, now that everyone is here.  Let’s get started then,” Bruce smiled, “Shall we?

~

The mission went well, but it led to Jason and Natasha having to work carefully to take down the drug lord.  Natasha had her guns ready along with Jason.  "Are you ready?”  She asked him.  He nodded, cocking his pistol.  

They had a small countdown before revealing themselves to the men with guns in the warehouse.  They were hiding behind crates filled with drugs before firing at the guards.  The guards didn’t have a chance to look before they were shot.  With both Jason and Natasha’s precision, they were taken down quickly.  

The drug lord turned around quickly, shocked by the sudden actions.  He pulled out his AK-47 quickly, but Dick, who was hiding in a vent, quickly climbed out and knocked the gun out his hands.  The man stumbled and Tim hit him with his staff, knocking him out.  Bruce glided down, examining the crates.  

“There are about twenty crates of heroin, cocaine, and an assortment of other drugs here.  Barbara, contact Jim about this.  Stryker is down.” He turned off his comms and glanced over to Natasha and Jason. “Thanks for your help.”

Natasha nodded and Jason rolled his eyes.  Jason was more interested in talking to Natasha more.  This was the closest he has ever been to being in love with someone.  She was incredible with a gun, could flirt with anyone and get information from them, and she could beat them to a pulp.  He was like a teenage boy fawning over the preppy girl all over again.  

Bruce thanked the others as well while Jim arrived on the scene.  There were dozens of red and blue lights flashing through the windows of the warehouse.  Jim and several other officers walked in, guns raised in case there was anyone else.  "Thanks, Batman, and, “ He looked around the room, glancing at everyone, "And company.”

~

Natasha smiled as she watched Barbara and Tim work together in the Batcave.  They were showing her something they were able to hack into.  Right as they thought that they got into the system, it shut down, causing them to groan in frustration.  "We were almost there!“  

Natasha chuckled a little before looking into the computer.  She glanced over the codes, figuring out what went wrong.  "You both made minor mistakes that cost it.  Barbara, you placed this input,” She pointed at a set of letters and numbers, “Into a place where you should’ve put the results of the input.  Tim, you missed a number in the password to hack the firewall.  Remember, it’s the first twenty digits to the Feigenbaum number.  A simple Google search could give you that.  You don’t need to try and remember it.”  The two stared at her in awe before laughing nervously.  "Right, I forgot about that,“ Tim said slowly.  He picked up his mug of coffee and took a sip.  "It’s been a while since I’ve slept, I forgot about that.”

Barbara changed the input around as Tim finished the password out.  They took a deep breath in anxiety as they waited for the results.  The computer screen flashed green before showing the files to the system.  They grinned and looked up at Natasha.  "Thanks, Natasha!“ Barbara exclaimed.  

"How are you so good at this?  What’s your secret?”  Tim asked her.  He was amazed.  

Natasha simply said one thing.  

“A Russian spy never reveals her secrets.”

~

Damian looked at a picture he had of his mom in the main hall.  He didn’t have many since she was an assassin, but there was one picture he held near and dear to his heart.  It was a single photo with his mom, his grandfather, and himself as a baby.  He couldn’t be any more than a few months old at the time.  Everyone in the picture did not smile nor did they look displeased.  

“Talia was a good woman, you know.”  Natasha walked over to the boy, sitting down next to him.  She felt bad for Damian, knowing he cared for his mom despite what he’d say.  

“Don’t try to lie to me.  She wasn’t a good woman.  She killed people for a living.  She trained others to kill people.  In no way was she a good woman.  She was still my mother though,” He huffed.

“When I met her,” Natasha started her story, “She didn’t open up about her personal life.  I didn’t expect her to.  After the mission, we became close friends though.  She mentioned you once or twice.  She never said much about you, but I could tell she was proud of you.  She was impressed by abilities despite her never actually stating that.”

Damian looked up at the redhead, smiling slightly.  "She never talked about me in conversations when I was around.  She’d usually tell me to go do something instead or teach the others.  It’s… nice to know she at least told you about me.“

"Damian, an assassin mentioning her child once is a big thing.  Not only is it a level of trust that can be shared very rarely, but they don’t give out personal information to even their most trusted friends and family in fear of it getting out and being used against them.  I’m sure she would mention you more if she could’ve.”

The boy looked down at the picture once more.  

“Thank you, Miss Romanoff.”

“Call me Natasha.”

~

Dick practiced flips and backhand springs in his room.  Wayne Manor was large enough that he was able to have gymnastic equipment in his room and it still gave him plenty of room.  Mats were scattered across the room, giving him an area to land.  Natasha walked in just in time to see him land a complex routine.  

“Impressive.  I’m not surprised considering your parents were the Flying Graysons,” She commented.  He looked up at her and grinned.  

“Well, I learned from the best.  I could teach you a couple moves if you’d like.  Some are Grayson specialties, ones only known by us.  I could share the family secrets though.”

“How would your parents react to that?” She asked him, amused.  

“I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if I taught a highly-classed Russian spy a few tricks.  They’d be honored if the Black Widow chose to learn them,” He grinned.  

“Alright, teach me.”  She watched as he climbed up to the bar, holding himself up by his hands.  

They spent the next hour performing different somersaults, flips, and maneuvers that would improve Natasha’s flexibility.  They made jokes and bonded rather quickly.  She told him stories of missions she had many years ago while he told her of his Robin days.  

Dick and Natasha got along as well as she and Steve did.  She had no doubt that she’d be hanging out with Dick more often.  He could prove to be a great training partner in time as long as they keep in touch.  

“Thanks for the great lesson, Dick,” She smiled at him as they finished up.  

“Thank you for the fun refresher, Natasha.” He handed her a towel and water bottle which she accepted graciously.  

~

The time came for Natasha to finally leave the Waynes since the mission was over.  The boys were surprised to say that they were sad to see her leave.  Even Barbara was sad that Natasha had to leave.  Usually, they’d have help that would barely interact with them.  She was different and connected with each and every one of them.  

“It was great working with you, Natasha.  We hope to see you again soon,” Bruce stood in the main entrance as Natasha was about to leave.  Jason, Tim, Dick, Damian, and Barbara were all there.  Alfred was there, ready to close the door when she left.

“I was happy to help.  It was great getting to know you all,” She smiled.  

“If you ever need our help, Nat, just give us a call,” Barbara mentioned.  She pushed herself over to sit in front of the woman.

“Or if you ever want to be really nice and let us meet the rest of the Avengers, you know,” Jason said cheekily.  

Natasha chuckled.  "You mean when you want to meet them, Jason?“ He blushed a light red and nodded his head.  "I’ll see what Tony can do.”

Damian surprised himself by shaking her hand once more.  He didn’t do that for anyone.  Bruce and Dick were surprised by his actions as well.  "Thank you,“ He said, "For what you said about my mother.”

“You’ve no need to thank me.”  

Dick and Tim finally walked up, giving her hugs.  She hugged both of them back lightly before picking up her single bag.  

The entire “Batfamily” as she called them waved to her as she drove off.  She couldn’t wait to tell the others that Gotham is like a parallel New York City right down to the superheroes.  

[crypterion-moon]

Red Prince Eternal/4

Tim’s nightmares haunt him constantly, the words that bit him to the bone and stripped him of his dignity and he was kicked to the ground. The despair still haunt him. But the longer he spends with Kon, the more he begins to realize how much the superhero means to him.

His new companion is wary of such attachment.

He was aware that Batman was not the most welcoming of men or heroes but it didn’t make the words any softer in Tim’s mind.

“Back off, kid, this isn’t a game you can get into and out of.”

“I know Bruce,” there’s no one around, no one would hear the whisper of his name but Batman heard it loud and clear and it made him stiffen. Natural, a little boy knows who he is and little boys can say anything.

“I’ve always known, the lines were there, I just connected them and what evidence I had, I know Dick is with you and so was Jason. I’m only here because I want to help.”

“Don’t talk about them.”

“What-”

Suddenly Batman lost it, and he sent the table flying, “Don’t talk like you know, Tim, they suffered and still fought like soldiers. They know what it’s like to be stuck in the filth this world can offer, what do you know about that?”

“I know, Batman, I’m no street urchin or orphan, but pain is everywhere,” Tim stopped, remembered Jason, “I’m sorry about Robin.”

Bruce glared at him for the longest time before he turned, “Don’t ever speak to me again.”

Of all the people, he would’ve thought Dick would understand, but even the more cheerful counterpart to Batman was...less than pleased. Especially when Tim showed up on his front door with an apology. Dick spent the next hour denying he was Nightwing.

“Dick, I’m not dumb. I still remember the day at the carnival,” Tim fished the photo from his jacket, “The day we took this picture together.”

It was Tim and Dick years younger on the night Dick’s parents died, their performance sabotaged by Zucco. Dick was holding Tim while their parents stood happily behind them. Tim wearing a big baby faced smile. Seeing his parents’ faces made Dick grimace. Tim quickly put the photo away.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

It was a bad move to mention the man’s parents, an old scar that he’d opened up unwittingly. Dick held face and his eyes became stern.

“What do you want, Tim, this is beyond you.”

“What I want is to help, Bruce is taking things harder and he’s trying to do it alone. He doesn’t believe me, no one does, I came to you because I hoped-”

“No,” Dick said, finality in his tone, “No way in hell.”

“But-”

The sudden bang as Dick brought his cup down hard on the table made Tim nearly jump right off his chair.

“No! You have no idea what it’s like. It’s not fun and games, people get hurt if you make a mistake,” you won’t last a week so just stop, forget it.”

Dick had enough of the discussion, glancing at the clock. Get out. The unspoken words rang out, striking Tim in his heart. He thought-, he’d hoped, it might work out this time but there was little chance if not even Dick believed in him. Tim nodded and left promptly.

He may not be able to join their fight in person but at least he could drop important information disguised as someone else. Tim was a computer genius at a young age and he was nothing if not persistent. Informer became a vital addition to their missions, his information drops invaluable. All the while they’d assumed it was a mysterious person who had established himself elsewhere, never Tim.

When Jason returned, Tim felt the thread in his network tremble. Red Hood, notorious avenger and unabashed killer of criminals. He was so different from the Robin he’d met one night it was frightening but Tim hoped still that there was a way to redeem the former Robin. So he pulled some strings, dropped notes until they all found out thanks to Oracle and her superior tracing, they managed to trace the trail all the way back to the little ten year old. No, they definitely weren’t pleased, especially when they realized that Tim had taken advantage of a loophole. It was as if, he had a feeling, that they were angry or disturbed that he was far more crafty for a little boy his age should be. True.

What truly scared Tim though, was that Jason had said nothing while Dick and Bruce lay into him with all the reprimanding, but his body was tense. Wound tighter than a spring and ready to break. A storm was brewing.

Tim startled awake and realized where he was, back in the present and in his bedroom lit only by the glow of his computer. He sighed and kneaded gently at the knots in his neck and between his eyes. His memories haunted him even in sleep or what little there was of it. He wished he could boast that he’d gotten over those years, the hurt, but it still weighed on his conscious and subconscious. Perhaps, in time, but certainly not for the time being.

He can hear the rustling behind him as he worked on the latest client, well, victim actually, but they didn’t need to know that. The noise is intentional. Tim knows because Tiamat, as beautiful as he is, is frightening all the same. Too much shadow and of enough human on the outside. He’s used to it by now or else he’d have jumped up a few feet off his chair like the first time he slithered up behind him. It’s been a while since Tim first brought him home but already they fit, it’s...weird though, he’s...

“Happy Birthday,” a soft voice hummed by his ear. A body slithered up behind him. He could almost feel the grin.

“It’s still a few days off,” Tim chuckled.

“Hmm,” Tiamat let out a soft breath, a chuckle, “I wanted to say it first.”

“Congratulations, you got to say it first before all the other goofballs get here.”

Tiamat’s expression dropped a bit, “I won’t be able to when they do.”

He always disappeared when they arrived, slinking off into the shadows in Tim’s room and avoiding them all together. Usually, he’d still be there, watching from the shadows. If Raven was there, he’d be gone completely. He’d rather not, Tim quite enjoyed the feeling of Tiamat’s presence in the room, though the others unaware of his new roommate did not, for some strange reason. Beast Boy would always note a certain uneasiness. Tim would shrug it off. He was certain it would be a bad idea to tell them judging by their reactions alone. They might even end up fighting.

Tiamat was still recovering from the wounds he’d gotten when Tim found him on the banks of a nearby river, severely weakened and shivering like an injured animal. He brought the stranger back and tended to him as much as he could. He couldn’t eat anything for some reason, nothing Tim brought him helped They were tentative at first, Tim didn’t know how to deal with this strange creature that had literally fallen outside his doorstep and Tiamat,  a shadowy figure who looked strangely familiar was shiftier than a cat, he spent a lot of the time staring straight at Tim and didn’t speak, not until he’d seemed to have acquired all he needed to know about the boy.

“I never told you my Birthday,” Tim remarked, a question disguised as a statement but he knows the answer.

“Our birth dates are similar across worlds, Tim,” not one but many, many more Tim Drake’s out there, this one was his shadowy mirror. Honestly, he’d never imagined meeting another him, less likely imagine himself in a form like this. Tiamat has mostly abandoned his former life.

“Is it strange?...” to call me by your name? Our names. We’re supposed to be the same but we’re so different. Tim doesn’t say it out loud but Tiamat smiles a smile of many answers and more questions. He stops and jerks to look at the window.

“They’re here,” Tiamat hissed, drifting off into smoke. Just as the knocking on his window drew Tim’s attention. He padded over and pushed it open to greet two teenagers and a green bird.

“Hey there, Tim,” Kon said with his lopsided smile, “Can we come in?”

“Sure,” Tim stepped back and allowed them to float closer and climb through, Beast Boy flew in and settled on the carpet as he transformed back into a boy. Without acknowledging his guests further, Tim went over to turn his computer off. Thankfully, nothing unscrupulous was open, but just to be safe. Kon looked around, his ears perking.

“Guess they’re not home again?” he said rather disappointed for Tim.

“Three month trip this time, they won’t be for a good while.”

“That’s no way to live,” Cassie said.

“You’d be surprised how a people can live once they get used to it, so,” Tim sat down casually at his desk, twirling around to face them, “How can I help you?”

Con shifted uneasily from foot to foot as if unsure of how he was going to form his next words. Cass elbowed him rather harshly as Tim waited patiently for the response.

“Well uh, we’ve hung out a lot at your place and the Titans haven’t really thought of going anywhere else, and uh, we found a pretty cool spot recently while we were busting some alien asses last time, that was so cool you should’ve seen- OW!” Kon yelled as Cass elbowed him again, this time a bit harder, “Geez, you’re gonna bruise me. So I was saying, since we found a pretty cool spot I thought all of us could-”

“Oh for goodness sake,” an irritated bratty voice growled as another figure hopped onto the window sill, “Can’t your small half-kryptonian brain at least form one simple request?”

Damian was Robin now, congratulations, and part of the Teen Titans. Something Tim would have dreamed of in another lifetime. From the looks of it, and the silence that still graced Tim, Robin hadn’t disclosed anything about his mentor to the Bats, just as he’d asked. But now, there was awkward tension between them, Tim could guess that somewhere in Damian’s mind, he was still confused as to why Tim wouldn’t want his father and now brothers to know about him. That he was required to treat him as a stranger and whenever they met.

However, Robin respected his decision and even covered for him whenever Kon or anyone was close to revealing Tim’s role in their lives. Tim owed him an explanation, he really wished he could, but some things are better left unknown. Tim glanced at Robin briefly before turning back to the three amigos.

“So, where is this place we’re going?”

Later, when the whole group had left, settled back in his chair, exhausted mostly by the strain of having to talk more than usual. Normally, he wouldn’t be so exhausted, Tim wouldn’t exert himself so, but having to deal with so many people, with Kon and his endearing idiocy sometimes and have all the patience of a sage pushed Tim a little further than usual. His health hasn't been right, since the fall, and the depression that followed. He’s never been a fittest but he’s sure things would’ve been slightly different if he’d had any reason to train his body. But no, what’s the point, so what if he had a failing defective, body. It wasn’t as if anybody would care.

“Why do you push yourself for them?” A whispering voice reached around, seemingly to wrap around Tim and comfort him. He nestled in his chair not even caring that the lights had gone out.

“I don't usually, but it's been getting worse,” Tim let his fall back on the headrest, “I don't know, I don't know why I….That's not true, is it?”

A face in the darkness, reflecting his own, Older and beautiful, they both have the same eyes. This dark soul that bound himself to Tim. He could feel his own stained heart whenever he looked at the shadow, like a cancer spreading over him. Maybe that's why he does it. To cling on to the light he found even if he'd convinced himself the opposite. So irritating and yet, the times when Kon made him laugh, when he and Raven formed a powerful pair of sarcasm and dry wit, when he genuinely admired Cyborg's good taste in technology and pizza, those moments were when he felt most human. Not an object useless or otherwise, made to be on display, discarded and pushed away. Moments when Kon held or brushed against him, when his eyes held a certain unnamed emotion for Tim, was when Tim felt more like a person, enough to start loving again.

“You love them don't you?” it wasn’t a question and Tiamat did not wait for an answer, “And him, far more deeply.”

“What? No, no I...he’s a friend too, he-, he was the first person who treated me like another person and not something with a name on it,” the first person to call Tim by name, “But I don’t...there’s nothing between us.”

He was lying to his own reflection, or he might as well been because those eyes were looking straight through him. Into his heart.

“I can’t...”

“Because you are weak, and broken?”

Thou art weak, a poor broken child

“I can’t...”

“That you can be thrown away?”

Easily thrown aside, thy heart’s love

“Please,” Tim felt himself collapsing without even realizing he was no longer seated, that he’d gotten up only a few seconds later. It was so dark, he couldn’t eve see what he was doing. He felt hands on his face, covering it, his hands, he wanted to cry but they’d dried up long ago.

“I don’t want to go back, I was an idiot, I don’t want to go back to being an idiot, I don’t care what I have to become.”

Hands not his but his likeness, smooth as silk yet cold and solid as marble until they conjured fire from their palms gently slid his own down from his eyes, sapphire eyes glowing in the shadow stared deeply and tenderly into his, capturing his soul as Tiamat spoke, “You have time, when your decision is made, ask me again.”

Time still remains, when thy decision is made, call upon me once more

[chronicbatfictioner]

A Real Boy - Chapter 8

It took the whole night, as Bruce mentioned, to explain the whole nine yards of their activities to Tim. The whole activity of battling magickal people and creature out to create disturbances - or simply acts of crime that would have garnered unwelcome attention to those with Magickal aptitude.

The research and explaining activities eventually concluded by a lavish dinner that Tim was sure would have required a good sized magickal aptitude to prepare and present and Alfred adamantly stated that he did not use magick to prepare said dinner. By the time they finished dinner, the clock showed 10 p.m., and Tim was seriously ready to curl up in one of the cozy couches and sleep. It was only his sheer stubbornness that kept denying that Bruce would have been right in saying he was in no shape to drive back home.

Jason, however, was not having any of his stubbornness. "Alfred has prepared a bedroom, this is the Wayne Manor that has more security than Fort Knox - literally and magickally; there are more food than I have ever seen in your fridge in the past week. Plus there's a library." he pointed the last one out decisively.

"You may stay here if you want..." Tim grumbled.

"We still haven't figured out how to defeat the Untitled." Jason insisted.

"My eyes refused to comprehend letters anymore. Even if we - I - chose to stay the night, I just simply don't English anymore." Tim retorted.

"I'll try not to summon the demon into your head while I read Latin stuff, no English needed."

"I'm... tremendously amused at the sight of Tim arguing with his familiar, and can't decide if I'm more amused at the argument, or at the fact that the familiar is winning." Dick stated.

"You argued with Zitka all the time, Dick; we just don't hear her answers... That, I can tell you both, is even more entertaining." Barbara quipped. "If you still wish to go home, Dick and I can take you; but I suppose leaving your car here would be a problem..."

"Yeah, it is." Tim pouted. Leaving the car would mean he would have no other mode of transportation to get it back. And since the Wayne Manor ground was out of the public transport lines, he simply didn't want to think of the few miles of walking that he would need to take when he should come back and retrieve his car.

"We don't generally go in and out solo, around here." Barbara added. "Day time, I'd go on my own, it's okay. Night time, especially since I hold the tiara and has no magick within me, I'd rather not risk it."

"The... dark side of the supernaturals don't tend to do well under the sun." Jason explained.

"So the lore did come from facts, after all." Bruce mused. Jason turned and looked at him contemplatively.

"All lores came from facts and truths, Bruce. It's just the matter of who's telling them and how many embellishments they would put into it." he remarked. "Even the story of Pinocchio." he added, smirking a little ruefully.

"Ah yes, Conner Kent; Clark's effigy." Bruce commented idly, and Tim glared warningly at Jason.

"Ugh, don't fret, Timmers. He already knew of your little band of misfits. I didn't say anything." Jason quipped, and then stretched like a cat across the couch he and Tim were sitting on.

"We're not misfits!" Tim protested. "--and you just did say something!" he snapped at Jason.

"No, you're not," Dick interjected. "But you forgot that your friends were relatives or wards of our friends, too..."

Tim groaned, remembering that while his friends - 'band of misfits' as Jason called them - had gotten together on their own as 'orphans', not all of them were literal orphans. Like Cassie, who actually shared the same father as Diana Prince a.k.a. Wonder Woman and Donna Troy. The former was known to have made allies with Bruce and Clark and a team called 'Justice League', while the latter was Dick's best friend and had made a team called 'Titans'. Bart Allen might have come from the future, but he was a direct descendant of Barry Allen - who had been in said team prior to his death. Conner, in all obviousness, has connections to Clark and live in Clark's parents' home in Kansas. Rachel, while never had a connection to Bruce, was a member of Dick's previous team before she decided that those in Titans were 'too old' for her 16-year-old self.

"Thanks, Jason, just like Conner had asked us not to do..." Tim groused under his breath.

"I personally was hoping that your coming here was an excuse to form alliance with us," Bruce said. Tim glared at him dubiously.

"We're not... we didn't do anything harmful." he said, hedging. "And no, that's not why I came. I came to let you know of Jason's warning."

"Not help us fight it, then?" Dick asked softly. "Your team has some of the most powerful magi in it, why not help us?"

"You cannot force them, Dick..." Barbara replied. "They need to make the decision for themselves - they're not sidekicks, like you were."

"Being a sidekick taught me a lot, Babs," Dick told her.

"Not being a sidekick also taught me a lot, Dick; and at the end of the day, I can manage fine on my own, yet chose to pick the bigger picture as I see fit." she reminded. "Don't let them bully you into doing anything you don't want to do, Tim. Not even if the bullying came from Jason." she added, glaring at Jason, who shrugged nonchalantly.

"Hey, I'm only bullying him to stay the night so I can peruse the library." Jason offered. "I promise. That's all I wanted." he added when Tim directed what should have been a very effective death glare at him. Hey, said death-glare would have made Conner shriek in horror. Only on Jason, it seemed to be kind of useless. Tim wondered if his glare was defective, or if Jason felt like he was simply looking into a mirror when Tim glared at him.

After about three seconds of glare-off, Tim finally conceded. "Fine, we'll stay the night." Jason beamed. "But just this night. Tomorrow we get out of here at the crack of dawn, or I'm leaving you here!" he threatened. Jason's growled in indignation - Jason was not allowed to leave his Magi behind, but the Magi can make the familiar stay in one place, away from him.

Tim ignored him and turned to face Bruce. "As for my... friends, I can't and won't decide anything on their behalf. I will need to speak to them first and foremost, and that's not gonna happen until this weekend."

Bruce nodded slowly. "I understand."

"Wait, I'm not done. Whatever it is you think we're doing, we're not heroes, alright. We're just kids. We just needed a place that... where we can hang out and maybe help each other with our own problems; you know. We don't need... more problems." he asserted.

Bruce nodded again. "I understand," he repeated. "but I would prefer that you - of all people, considering that it was your familiar who brought in the news - know in advance of what you could be facing and how to face it. Jason might be able to show you books that show possible forms of threats; but you will need to know how to resolve them with the modern world in mind. You simply cannot barge in - no matter how strong you are - without considering other people." was the added warning.

"Oh, I know all about cellphone cams and CCTVs..." Tim started.

"What about the general public? The opinionated ones?" Dick asked. "The ones who talked about a bunch of kids who seemed like they're going to blow up that Drake Islet or make concoctions that would poison the entire Pacific?"

"They're just..." Tim froze. "How did you know of... he's just a jealous little wannabe magi who's not even a homo magi. I mean, he was like, a magician - the rabbit-out-of-a-hat kind of magician. He's..." he sighed. "You folks already know all these, don't you?" he concluded.

"Yes, I have some bots that would change the context of an online mention of you to something... well, more 'teen' activities than 'magi' activities. If things exploded, I'd change it to an experiment gone haywire - not demons being driven back to hell." Barbara admitted. "But if you want me to stop, I will."

"I think you can only ask her to stop when you're a legal adult." Dick told him. "But considering the things he'd said about you and your band of teenage alleged-'misfits', quote-unquote, you'll need to be more careful if you're to appear in public. I know how unpredictable the West Coast could be at times, but..." he shrugged. "...yeah, more careful is all I can say for now."

Tim inhaled slowly and exhaled just as slowly. If anyone asked, he would say he trusted Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, and Barbara Gordon with his life - even before knowing that they had worked with his mom. But there were others he should put into consideration, i.e. his friends.

But then again, there were times where he had hoped he'd known what to do when an emergency should arise. Barbara was right, there were times where he and his friends had needed to appear within the city of San Francisco itself and show their magickal strength to repel things - usually small-timed demons - and make them go back to the hell they came from. Thus far, Tim and Rachel was able to keep cameras and the likes from capturing them - using a lot of reflective surfaces and Rachel's deep-black 'soul self', an astral projection of her soul.

But a few months ago, they had met a guy - probably about a few years older than Tim, who had accidentally unleashed some dark magick due to his ignorance of spells and hexes. Tim couldn't resist berating the guy's ears off, after they managed to contain the darkness. Since then, the guy seemed adamant to discredit them by all means. His photos - obviously - were wrecked and not view-able, but didn't stop him from reiterating the whole event in great detail.

Tim knew that if a non-magi should see the Photogram or Mugbuddy story, they might simply say the guy, Lonnie Machin, has a great skill for storytelling and cute imagination. But a magi who was up-to-date to the world of magick would have seen through the flowery description and noticed what was happening right away.

"I can't promise much," Tim finally decided, realizing that while the demons or random dark magick were virtually 'easy' to handle, it took all of their concentration and metaphorical firepower to handle those and keep themselves hidden from plain sight. The offer of alliance with one of the most powerful team of Magi in the world sounded incredibly enticing, yet a bit worrying. "I'll talk to my friends, and I'll try to present this idea as... unbiased as possible. I don't like the idea of you being... I mean, they don't know you and all. And you're all adults." he reasoned.

"That's fair. You don't want us to influence you too much that you'd lose your own independence and identity," Barbara elaborated. "He's got a point, Bruce," she continued. "They should figure it out as a team, not just because it's demanded of them. They may be young... but we've had this conversation before."

Bruce exhaled slowly, and eventually said, "alright. I shall trust your team's judgment, whatever they decide - whether or not they would ally themselves with JL. But I trust you that we shall never be foes, yes?"

"Yeeeah, as much as Jason said I don't have a sense of self-preservation, I'm not nuts enough to make enemies out of the most powerful team of Magis in the world." Tim rolled his eyes. "Besides, my mom trusted you with a lot of artifacts - oh yes, Bruce, I noticed the door knocker, some hinges, vases, ornaments that should've been placed in a museum. I wasn't sure at first, until I saw the tiara. I presumed she'd given you some of those..."

"...some, yes. Some I've acquired, really. I paid for the digs." Bruce smirked. His sigh brought on a wistfulness to his face that caught Tim a little off-guard. "Jan was... the best, Tim. I am honored to have known her. Her... insistence on doing the right thing could be unnerving at times. But she was more than just a worthy ally. She was a friend."

Tim nodded slowly. But he has made up his mind; he would not 'sell' the alliance, but rather present it to the gang as an opportunity to learn and grow.

His mind and brain, too, has made up something else. Before he realized it, he yawned wide.

"Oh dear," Alfred remarked. "for all of his magickal strength, gentlemen, Miss Gordon, young Master Drake here is still a young 'un, I perceive." he said. "Your chamber is ready, Master Tim, if you wish to turn in now." he offered.

"Yeah, I guess... I guess I will." Tim admitted. "Bruce, Dick, Barbara... thank you... at least for letting me know that my mom was-- wasn't..." he stopped as the lump in his throat started to make it impossible to speak without actually sobbing.

"Tim, it's we who should thank you, and she." Barbara replied, rolling closer to him and tugged his shirt sleeves. As he bent over, she placed a gentle kiss on his temple. "Sleep well, buddy. I'll stay in touch."

Tim just nodded, he couldn't find the words to say when Bruce squeezed his shoulder and Dick ruffled his hair. He definitely welcomed Jason's arm wrapping around his shoulders as Jason begged to be excused and steered him to follow Alfred.

It was only after he'd brushed his teeth and changed to a set of pajamas - his size, which is not too surprising considering Alfred; that he slumped onto the bed and wept. For the mother he had never known; for the hero who had protected more than just her son and husband; for the soul of Janet Drake, that should be set free, if Tim could find it in him to actually forget her.

Jason kept quiet and wrapped his arms around Tim in an embrace as he cried, until he fell asleep.

[thatawesomenerdygirl]

back || Tim Drake

Requested on Wattpad. (I’mslowlyneglectingtumblr)

Warning(s); sad Tim, mention of first time.

;;

"Nah, don't worry Timbo, I'll be back before you know it." The girl grinned as she ruffled Tim's dark hair affectionately, trying to assure the boy that she would be just fine.

Tim, of course, couldn't trust her words, he didn't want her to go alone, he wanted to come along and keep her safe, away from harm's way.

But he also knew, once the young vigilante made a decision it can't be bothered. She would stick to that decision no matter what the consequences are. Since they first met, Tim knows that she wasn't like any other girls he seen, she has a mature mind. He sometimes joked that she was a happier, female version of Bruce which she laughed at. No matter how terrible and corny the joke actually was. Tim wasn't really the type who's good at making a joke.

That what made him fall for her in the first place, it took him months to build up the courage to confess. The reaction he got was cute, she blushed the redness reached the tip of her ears, hiding her face in her hands as she turned her head to the side. She stuttered the answer. It was so different than her usual self and he liked it, the fact that she only showed it to him was such an ego boost.

Their first kiss was sweet but why and how it happened was not exactly sweet or romantic. Tim was badly injured back then, unconscious for almost a week in the hospital leaving his girlfriend worrying by the hospital bed, her smaller hands gripping his bigger one, pressing little kisses on his knuckles hoping he would wake up. When he did, she kissed his pale, chapped lips, happy tears streaming down her face like a waterfall.

Their first time? None of them could keep their hands to themselves. It was sweet and passionate. Tim remembered how self-conscious she was with her scars and he kissed every inch of her body washing the negative thoughts away, he would cradle her smaller figure close to his as she writhed beneath him, every little breathy whisper of his name that escaped her throat that he would occasionally hushed with soft pecks, her lips were swollen and plump because of him, red marks on her soft skin bloomed into bruises.

Tim let a barely noticeable smile broke onto his face at the memory, his thumb brushed across a framed photo of them together. "How long has it been? Years?" He asked himself, his blue eyes never leaving the picture of his grinning girlfriend that clung onto him like her life depended on it.

A drop of tear fell onto the frame, he blinked. He didn't mean to cry, he had cried enough in her funeral, the fact that her body couldn't be found wasn't helping his grief either. If she was there she would never let this die, she would tease him for being such a crybaby.

Wiping his eyes, he put the photo back onto his nightstand just in time as a few knocks on his door was heard.

"Drake! Father is looking for you, meet him in the cave." Damian's voice came from the other side of the door.

Tim walked to the mirror, checking if his eyes were red. He wiped his wet cheeks with his sleeves frantically, there was no way he would let Damian find out, hell no.

But why would Bruce want to see him? He said he could take a night off, he was pretty tired after all those exhausting missions for the past few nights along with the crazy, unimportant tests he had to take.

"I thought he said I can get a night off?" Tim responded.

"I don't know, I don't care but I'll be happy to drag your ass down to the cave in a literal way. Free of charge."

Rolling his blue eyes, Tim opened the door and sent the spawn of satan a glare before making his way down to the cave. Whatever it was, it could be important.

Tim spotted Bruce in his suit, his gloved hands were settled on the computer as he stared at the huge screen in front of him with his usual blank expression under the cowl.

"You may want to see this," Bruce said gruffly as Tim approached him.

The screen showed a dark alleyway, he could barely see but it was clear there were two figures in there, fighting each other. The other figure had a big, bulky body as the other was much smaller and...feminine?

Tim reached for the keyboard, he zoomed and enhanced the video after pausing it. The one with smaller frame won, she was turning around, leaving the bulky man unconscious.

He squinted his eyes, taking in how familiar the female looked. It took him less than a second to finally realize who she was, all of that too familiar silky (h/c) hair, those bright eyes of hers and the necklace he gave her on their 2nd anniversary.

"(Y/n)?" Tim whispered in disbelief, why did it feel like déjà vu? Like Jason all over again, did she falls into the same fate? Did she beat up the man out of rage? Then again, her body was not found. There were two possibilities.

"This was recorded 2 hours ago." Bruce glanced down at his adopted son who couldn't bring his eyes off the computer screen, gaping in shock.

"I need to find her Bruce." The former Robin, looked up at his father, his eyes were shining with hope and determination. No matter what it takes.

He must find her.

Tim spent days looking for her, not sleeping. He was too focused on finding her, he wanted to talk, he wanted to ask her what happened, there are a lot of things he wanted to do if he does find her.

No.

He will find her.

Tim sipped on his coffee, passing the alleyway he saw in the video with Bruce, his other hand was fiddling with his phone to track other videos from the town's surveillance cameras as he walked down the sidewalk. Hoping he would find more hints on where she was at.

He was too focused on his task he didn't pay attention to his surrounding causing him to bump into someone. A feminine squeak elicited from the harsh contact as Tim's coffee slipped from his hand and spill the hot liquid to the poor girl's shirt.

"It's hot!" She whimpered, tugging the wet, warm fabric forward so it wouldn't stick to her skin.

Tim shoved his phone into his pocket before pulling out a handkerchief, "I'm so sorry!" He apologized, wiping her shirt in a clumsy way as he kept on muttering apologies, he was too panicked to look at whoever he had bumped into.

The girl was silent, he could feel her eyes on him. Who wouldn't? She could've been mad, she maybe wanted to slap his face and scream at him for ruining her favorite shirt but none of it came.

"Timmy?"

Tim finally looked up, his eyes trailing up from her damp shirt, up to her neck, spotting the familiar necklace making his eyes went wide. When his gaze reached her face, he froze.

"(Y/n)?" He whispered.

He saw her tearing up, her cheeks went slightly red as she sniffled.

"Are you really my Timmy?" She asked, voice just as quiet as he was. Her hand was shaking as she lifted it up to rest on his cheek.

Her touch was still the same, gentle and caring, her thumb ran across his cheek. Just like she used to do. There was no mistake, the girl he loved, the girl he thought died was there. In front him, eyes brimming with tears.

Tim answered by engulfing her smaller frame into his strong arms. Her damp shirt was slowly dirtying his still clean one, he didn't care though.

She wrapped her own arms around him, face burying into his broad chest. He sure changed. Almost everything about him changed, he was much taller, more builder and stronger than she remembered. She could feel his hard muscles beneath her.

"Thank goodness they didn't find you." She breathed out in relief, inhaling his scent. One of the few things she noticed that hadn't changed.

(Y/n) broke the hug, hands went to rest against his chest. She looked up at him with glee as Tim looked back down at her with a confused expression, his arms were around her waist.

"They?"

Her lips were quivering as she spoke quietly, she was still aware that they were still in public but she needed to get it out of her chest quick before she exploded, "I had to fake my death so those mercenaries will leave you alone, they were going to use you to make me work with them. Forgive me, I should have told you- I'm sorry Tim."

The former Robin placed a kiss upon her soft lips, they still taste and feel the same, they only got a little chapped but overall they were the same.

"It doesn't matter." He pulled her back into his chest. Oh, how much he had missed this, having her back into his arms again, feeling her body close to him. "I'm glad you are back."

"I'm really sorry." She mumbled into his chest, her hands fisting his shirt.

"But I told you I'll be back."

[avengerdragoness]

An Off Day [Batfam/Jason Todd x Reader]

Requested by anon: "Could you do something where the reader is an intern at WE, and they get to sit in on some meeting with their boss and Bruce, but they keep messing things up; hand B the wrong papers, spill coffee on Tim, literally run into Dick and their boss fires them? And then at the end of the day they go home but their cat gets out and so they end up breaking down on their balcony, only for Red Hood to show up and comfort them + listen to them rant (maybe he gets their job back? And they know it was him?)”

A/N: I absolutely love this idea. Very creative.. much respect. I kind of made it more of an assistant then inter, I hope that’s alright. I hope you love it!

*I labeled this Batfam x Reader but it’s more Jason x Reader.

(Part 2 - All’s Well That Ends Well)

________

You knew today was going to be a rough day from the moment you woke up.

First you spilled the glass of water on your nightstand all over your phone. Which is now busted.

Then you took a shower to figure out the hot water wasn’t working in your building.

Next your cats decided they were going to have a midnight snack and tore the food bag open. Cat food was everywhere.

Then you ran out of deodorant and one thing after another the day got worse.

Everything going bad that morning made you late to work, and you boss hates tardiness.

“[L/n]! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!?” he yelled as you ran to your desk. Setting your bag and coat down you rushed to where his booming voice was coming from.

“I’m so sorry Mr. Vories” you apologized while speed walking over. “My morning was really crazy and my phone broke so I couldn’t call and...” you were cut off by him raising his hand.

“I don’t want to hear your excuses, just get the files I gave you yesterday and meet me in the conference room. Mr. Wayne and his sons have been waiting very patiently. You have to apologize to them more than you do me” he scolded. You flinched before nodding and grabbing the files.

You knocked on the door lightly until you heard your boss tell you to enter.

Walking in you were met with all of the eyes of the room turning to you. “I-I’m sorry for the tardiness. I didn’t mean to make you all wait so long” you apologized. Bowing slightly while the holding folders to your chest.

“It’s alright Miss?” Mr. Wayne began but paused at the absence of name. “[L/n]” you filled in the blank.

“Well shall we get started. The files [F/n]” your boss only ever said your first name when he was trying to come off as a kinder boss.

“Of course” you answered. There were only files for your boss and Mr. Wayne his sons seemed to have just been dragged along. You placed the required files in front of the two men.

“Uhh” Mr. Wayne said while looking at the opened file. You didn’t realize your portfolio for an art gallery you were submitting photos too got mixed in. Sadly that portfolio had your sketches from a human anatomy art class in it.

“Oh my gosh I’m so sorry.” Blushing you quickly swept up the portfolio. It was a very accurate sketch of one of the models. Your boss shot you a glare, “No need for apologies accidents happen” Mr. Wayne assured but his sons were silently snickering.

“Maybe you should go get some coffee or something [F/n]” Your boss kept his glare on you. Flinching you nodded. Everyone declined the offer except his son Tim. “And get me the statistics on the last few months’ sales.”

Hurriedly you got out of the room. Covering your face with your hands, “That was so embarrassing.”

You made the one cup of coffee. In one had you had the cup and some sugar in the other you had the files. Also a bottle of creamer under your arm... What could possible go wrong?

Opening the door you walked straight over to where Tim sat setting the cup down. Letting the sugar drop next to it. Then going to set the creamer down, someones phone went off. Startling you, you jumped accidentally hitting the coffee and spilling it all over his lap. 

“Hot hot hot!” He yelped jumping up. “Oh gosh I’m so sorry Mr. Drake that was an accident. Man I’m so stupid” you mumbled the last part to yourself. “I’ll go get a towel or some napkins.” Quickly you placed down the files and ran out of the conference room.

After retrieving the napkins and some wipes you quickly hurried out of the lounge area. Not looking up from the items on your hands you ran straight into some one. Knocking them over you fell on top of them.

Realizing who it was you jumped off. “I’m so sorry Mr. Grayson. God I’m such a klutz.” he only chuckled getting back to his feet. “No worries. I was just coming to see if you needed help with those napkins” he smiled.

“O-Oh, no it’s okay. I have them right here along with some wipes. I really hope I didn’t burn him” You blushed and began to walk back to the conference room with him.

“Don’t worry Tim’s tough. And Bruce doesn’t get phased by anything so don’t worry about the file.” you sighed in relief upon hearing that. However you looked up to see your boss scowling at you through the window. He saw you run into Dick.

When returning to the room you gave the items to Tim who thanked you. “I think that will be enough for today Mr. Wayne thank you for putting up with all of these inconveniences.” He shot a glare at you during the last word. All of the guys noticed it as you dropped your head.

“No inconvenience at all” he said shaking his hand. Exiting the room he said to you, “It was nice meeting you Ms. [L/n].” you simply nodded in response. Opening the door for him and his sons. When they exited you went to leave as well.

“Hold it [L/n]” Uh-oh.

“Close the door” you did so and went to stand in front of him. “Yes sir?” you didn’t make eye contact.

“You are very lucky Mr. Wayne is a kind man he could’ve had fired you on the spot right there” He warned. You felt a little relief, so he’s not firing you?

“But I’m not as kind. You made a mockery of this office and should be ashamed of yourself. I want your things packed up and you out of this office immediately.” He said with a certain loathing in his tone.

You walked out of the room feeling as if you would cry. Quickly you gathered your things and escaped into your car. You didn’t want to go back to your apartment, not now. So instead you drove to a bar across the street from your apartment building.

Parking your car in the parking garage you left your things and went to have a drink.

You sat at the bar, ordering something strong. What were you going to do? You needed that job. Sighing you finished off the drink. Looking out the grimy windows of the bar you saw it was dark out. ‘Better get back before it gets too dangerous’ you thought while calling the bartender over to pay your bill.

Paying and returning to your apartment you threw your bag and coat on the table. You ignored the box of belongings left in your car.

“Nala? Sarabi?” You called for your two cats. Where were the two stinkers? Heart dropping upon seeing the fire escape window open.

“Shit! No no no” you ran to the window. Pushing it open and slipping onto the fire escape. Not a fur ball in sight.

Your precious babies were gone. Your job was gone. Everything was falling apart in just one day.

Giving up you broke down, sitting on the stairs of the fire escape. You didn’t know how long you were out there, but you felt numb. And not from the cold Gotham air. Everything was falling apart at the seams.

“You know you’ll get sick if you stay out in the cold like this” A voice came from above you. Wiping your eyes and looking up, spotting a certain red hooded vigilante.

“Red Hood?” you questioned brows furrowed in confusion.

He climbed down to where the platform you were on was. “In the flesh”

“I wouldn’t get to close or your life might fall apart too” You hugged you knees to your chest and rested your cheek against them.

“Eh, been there done that” he shrugged. “What’s wrong beautiful Gotham citizen?” he questioned. You chuckled at the way of asking

“I had the worst day. My phone and shower broke this morning, making me late to work. When I got to work my boss chewed my ass out, without taking any consideration that I really couldn’t help it. Then I fucked up one of his meetings, gave the wrong files, spilled coffee on another person, knocked a third person over. Then got fired by my douche of a boss, when this is the first time I’ve ever made such mistakes. Then I get home to find both my cats missing, the only two things I was looking forward to see today. And now god knows if I’ll find them” you ranted, feeling a lump in your throat.

You swallowed it down and sniffled. “This is your apartment?” he questioned and you nodded. He opened the window a bit wider and took your hand making you stand up.

“Come on, you don’t want to get sick” he helped you get back inside. He closed the window behind him. “You’re boss sounds like a dick” he handed you a blanket from off your couch.

Wrapping it around yourself, “Understatement. He acts nice around his boss, the Bruce Wayne, but when he’s not around he’s an ass to everyone.” explaining before sitting on your couch.

He sat on the arm rest. “I’m sure everything will work out”

“I hope so” you fiddled with the blanket between your fingers. You watched as his posture perked up a bit, as if he got an idea. “It will I promise, but I have some vigilanting to do. Have a good night [F--, I mean ma’am” he stuttered but you didn’t notice his almost slip up.

“Thank you for listening and making sure I didn’t freeze” Smiling at him as he had one leg out the window. “My pleasure” responding before slipping out the window.

He didn’t match up to the news stories you had heard about him. He was... sweet.

You had fallen asleep on your couch that night, wrapped up in that same blanket. Until a few hard knocks on your door woke you up. Groaning at the intruding noise you slipped off the couch and to your feet.

Running a hand through your hair in an attempt to tame it.

You cracked the door open, as far as the chain lock would allow. More than surprised to see the figure on the other side.

Quickly you closed the door and undid the chain before opening the door completely. “M-Mr. Wayne what are you doing here?”

He looked at your disheveled appearance but thought nothing of it. “May I come in?” he questioned.

Nodding you moved out of the way as he entered. “Um sir, I don’t mean to sound rude but why are you here?” you looked at him, brows furrowed in confusion.

“It was brought to my attention that Mr. Vories was not being entirely fair with his employees and at Wayne Enterprises I don’t like having those types of people in charge of my workers. So I came to tell you that his employment has been terminated.” he informed you. Feeling a little bit of karma working in your favor.

“I would also like to offer you a position. I’ve looked over your resume and your time working as his assistant and I must say you’re very impressive. How would you like to take over his position?” he was now standing in front of you.

You were speechless. ‘Say something you idiot’ mentally scolding yourself.

“I-I... It would be honored, thank you so much Mr. Wayne!” You thanked him excitedly.

“I’m glad to hear that. You’ll start tomorrow” he passed by you toward the door.

“Thank you so much I won’t let you down Mr. Wayne” your tone firm and serious.

“And I believe you won’t.” he opened the door. “But [F/n], please just call me Bruce” he told you before exiting. You nodded, keeping a straight face.

But as soon as the door closed you were jumping around and silently squealing. How’d this even happen? Who told him? No one ever thought of turning him in to human resources and the only person you ever told was....

Wait, did Red Hood tell him? How would he know where you worked? And how would he know Bruce Wayne no less? You racked your brain but couldn’t find an answer.

The rest of the day you spent printing flyers about your missing cats. You had to find the stinkers. You were focused on designing more flyers when you heard a tap on the window.

It was dark and you couldn’t make out what made the noise. Walking to the window you saw a red sheen. Recognizing the figure you pushed the window open. “Hi” Red Hood greeted poking his head in the window.

“I found a couple things that belong to you” He picked up a pet carrier. In it were Sarabi and Nala.

“Oh my god!” You took the carrier and let him in the apartment. “How’d you?”

“Their tags” he pointed to the collars around their necks.

“Wow you’re amazing. This and I know you somehow got me my job back plus a promotion. How can I ever repay you?” questioning while staring up at his masked face.

“No need for repayment, it’s what I do” he shrugged. Leaning to pet Sarabi who was rubbing against his legs. Standing back up he walked to the open window.

Following you questioned “Nothing?”

He had one leg out the window and was sitting on the sill before turning to face you. “Well, there is one thing. A friend of mine is going to stop by your new office tomorrow around noonish. So do me a favor and when he asks you to dinner, say ‘yes’.”

You could hear the smirk under his mask. Biting your lip, “I think I can do that”

“Great, good night. Take care of those fur balls from now on” he laughed before exiting the window.

You watched as he disappeared before closing and locking the window. Fully prepared to accept the friend’s offer to dinner the next day. That friend who you would learn to be Jason Todd.

[mitchbeck]

CANTLON: PRATT KNOWS HIS WAY AROUND THE XL CENTER

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings CROMWELL, CT - For Derek Pratt, it's nice to start your first pro camp in familiar territory. The two-time captain and of the UCONN Huskies had to go just about 15-feet from his former locker room to enter the Hartford Wolf Pack locker room. “It's funny how things work sometimes. It literally helps to be around familiar surroundings as opposed to a completely different environment and just taking advantage of the opportunity. For me, it has worked out so far.” Pratt is among ten graduates of last year’s Huskies team and seven that have taken their first steps in pro hockey in a lot of different AHL and ECHL locations.  Joseph Masonius and Johnny Austin are in Wilkes Barre/Scranton with the Penguins. Jesse Schwartz is with the Maine Mariners. Spencer Naas is with the Texas Stars. Dallas Drake found residence with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms and Max Letunov is in San Jose with the Barracuda. “I was sure to take a picture in front of the wall (the team photo just outside the locker room) and send it to the boys,” Pratt said with a wide smile. Pratt signed an ECHL deal with the New York Rangers new affiliation with the Maine Mariners. The team resurrected their original AHL name, but with a new logo. For Pratt, a New England hockey product its fitting perfect. “It's nice to have a team in Maine and getting a chance at being in an AHL camp before I go there really helps getting adjusted. Going to Traverse City really helped. We played against some elite talent and it was a big plus for me with my confidence and wherever I wind up its all good for me,” Pratt, a defenseman who has played primarily his left side. It was a baptism of fire for Pratt. “You learn real quickly it’s a grind. Guys are on you all night. You can’t take a night off. You're always being evaluated. It's all the (hockey) clichés; learning about being a professional, playing every night, training regimen, and they're all true.” His time spent with the Pack in Traverse City and training camp left a very solid impression on Wolf Pack head coach, Keith McCambridge. “Real good impression. He played for us in Traverse City. He's a good, puck-moving defenseman, and has a lot of physicality in his game. He's done a lot of good things so far.” He's also picked up tips already from assistant coach, Joe Mormina “They helped me out with checks in the corner; how to stick handle with one hand on your stick, and a lot of small technique plays.“ A big part of his hockey pedigree comes from his Dad, Tom Pratt, a former pro defenseman who played for the New Haven Nighthawks and has been able to help him prepare for his first pro camp. “It's nice to test him about some things and he has been through a few American (Hockey) League camps in his time. He knows what it takes. Like I said before, it’s the things you can control. It's what he has stressed to me. He was my coach for a long time in minor hockey and he taught me a work ethic and doing the extra things,” Pratt said. His father coached him at Northfield, Mt. Hermon for many years and has moved on to a non-hockey position for a few years at Kimball Union Academy in New Hampshire. The difference from college to the pros has taught Pratt many things quickly. “There's a lot more question marks. There's a lot of things out of my control. I can control showing up to the rink and doing the best I can. In college its structure." From establishing his first skate cuts in Hockey East at UCONN was something that Pratt has enormous pride in. “Guys in the locker room have asked me what the UCONN program is like. I tell them from our first home game (a 1-0 win over BC) to last year battling BU hard, the program has come a very long way. It was extremely rewarding and all ten seniors can be so proud of it where the program has gone and the apart they had in it. We had a very good senior class, and coach Cavanaugh and the staff had a phrase, 'We're developing men for success, not just in the rink or on the ice, but on the outside for life.” The "C" he wore spoke a lot to his character, but as a rookie, the question comes in how to translate that when nothing is stitched into the upper left part of the jersey. “For me, I’m more vocal having been in the role. That helps a lot on ice to keep communication going. It’s all a new learning process.” For Pratt, the summertime allowed him to finish out the last of his educational needs to receive his degree in Sports Management at UCONN and for the off-ice summer training. “I took care of my internship and was able to train in Hooksett, New Hampshire, where I played my senior year in high school with the Junior Monarchs (Eastern Hockey league) and was able to kill two birds with one stone, so it worked out just right for me.” NOTES: The Wolf Pack's lone exhibition game is Saturday at Koeppel Community Center rink at Trinity College against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. In lieu of admission, a minimum donation of $5 is requested for the Wolf Pack Ryan Gordon Scholarship Fund in the main lobby of the arena, the home of the Trinity College Bantams (NECSAC). In the last two days, the Rangers have finally assigned a bulk of their potential opening night lineup Seven forwards, which surprisingly includes the Rangers first round pick (7th overall), Swedish-born, Lias Andersson, who had a strong camp in New York. The others sent to Hartford, include the third-year pro, Steven Fogarty, leading scorer, Cole Schneider in his second year of a two-year deal and like Pratt, a UCONN alumnus. Finnish rookie, Ville Meskanen, and veteran Peter Holland, who played well with the Wolf Pack in 18 games before a recall to New York. The first two assigned were the veteran, Bobby Butler, who will take one of the vet slots and signed to a summertime AHL deal, former BU Terrier Drew Melanson. Defense is where the parent Rangers had a tremendous logjam that included Czech rookie, Libor Hajek, prized-prosect, Ryan Lindgren, Swedish rookie, Michael Lindqvist, and one-time Yale Bulldog, Rob O’Gara. They have all been assigned by the Rangers to the Hartford Wolf Pack. A bit of a surprise was Chris Bigras, who had a very good camp in New York. There are also two veteran goalies in Slovak, Marek Mazanec, and Dustin Tokarski. Schneider, Bigras, Holland, Mazanec, and Tokarski had to go through waivers before they were officially assigned to the Wolf Pack. The Rangers have 26 players remaining on their roster, including three injured players likely destined for Hartford : Matt Beleskey (separated shoulder), Brandon Crawley (undisclosed), and Boo Nieves (concussion protocol). On Thursday, the Rangers shipped back second-year forwards, Ryan Gropp, Gabriel Fontaine, rookie Tim Gettinger, and defenseman John Gilmour, who was recalled after 57 games last year and was the Wolf Pack lone AHL All Star representative last season. Other hockey news of note, a pair of ex-Wolf Pack players, in Scott Kosmachuk, and Ryan Graves were assigned by the Colorado Avalanche to their AHL team the Colorado Eagles. Ex-Pack Al Montoya was put on waivers by Edmonton with the intention of sending him to the Bakersfield Condors. Wade Megan (Salisbury Prep) and ex-Pack and Sound Tiger, Matt Ford, were assigned to Grand Rapids. Jansen Harkins, the son of ex-Whaler Todd Harkins, was assigned to Manitoba. Sam Anas (Quinnipiac University) was sent to Iowa. The Maine Mariners traded Mitch Jones, the son of former New Haven Nighthawk, Brad Jones, to the Cincinnati Cyclones for future considerations. Eric Hartzell (Quinnipiac University), a former big goalie star, is in camp with Wichita (ECHL). Aidan Muir of Western Michigan (NCHC) heads to Ft. Wayne Komets (ECHL) camp, while Filip Starzynski of Northern Michigan (NCHC) signed a tryout with Norfolf (ECHL). That makes 207 Division I players to sign North American pro deals. 271 total college players have signed pro deals in North America, Europe, or transferred to a Canadian college. Read the full article