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roguerogerss · 4 years

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A Long Day of Saving Your Ass

(gif isn’t mine, creds to the owner!)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Reader

Plot: “Hi darlin! If you’re still taking requests could you do a Bucky x reader where she gets her ass saved from literal death by Bucky during a mission and she refuses to leave his side on the way back or at the tower? And he gives her a back/foot massage to make her nerves calm down aaand they may or may not share a kiss bc they like each other? I hope that makes sense, tysm! 💞” - requested by anon

W/C: 2.3k

Warnings: mentions of fights/blood/kinda ptsd but not really? she’s pretty much just really shaken up and Bucky’s cute and protective as hell about it. also kinda sexual themes towards the end, no smut or anything though it’s all fluff!

(A/N: first of all, thank you so much for all of the love on my last fic, it really really does mean the world and that was just totally insane. okay, so, this request only came in yesterday, but I was so in love with the concept and had this wave of ideas for what I could write, and so here it is! thank you so much for this one, bby! as always, requests are open for any marvel boy you want, plus any of the stranger things boys. i do smut too hehe. any feedback is so welcome and appreciated, it really helps! please like and reblog!)

————

The quinjet was ready to take off, engine on, Steve behind the wheel. But Y/N wasn't there yet. They'd been holding off on leaving, giving her time to get out and the opportunity to do it without help, but Bucky had been antsy since he'd gotten on the vehicle and realised that she wasn't there.

It wasn't exactly a secret that he liked her, in a way that he hadn't really liked anyone in over seventy years. He'd never admitted it to anyone, not even to himself out loud, but you have to have a certain level of intelligence and basic sight to join the Avengers in the first place, and it wasn't hard to figure out.

Y/N was oblivious to it, rolling her eyes whenever Natasha teased her about 'Bucky's little crush', never taking it seriously. If she'd known that they were really serious about it, she wouldn't have hesitated to make a move. She was inherently forward, had no sense of shame whatsoever, it was common knowledge that she would've said something, at the very least.

"Hey, Y/N, where are you right now?" Bucky spoke into the intercoms, earning wide eyed glances from the rest of the team. They knew that she hated being rushed, hated being babied even more, and the fact that Bucky was doing both was probably about to blow up in all of their faces.

There were obvious sounds of struggle on her end as she answered back with a grunt, "South side, got ten guys on my case. Think I can handle it, though."

"We're ready to leave, Y/N." Bucky grunted, leaning forward in his seat and chewing at his lip. He was met back with a crash and a strangled groan from the assassin, making him shoot up and towards the exit of the ship.

"Bucky, where are you going? She'll kill you if you try to help her-" Tony was standing now, too, worried about his teammate, but figuring that she'd find some way out. Bucky shook his head and pressed the button to open the escape hatch.

"She's going to die if I don't help her, Stark. Keep the engine running, we'll be back in a second." And he was gone with that. Steve closed the hatch, radioing to Bucky to 'keep in touch' as he did so.

Bucky pulled his machine gun from the holster on his back, shooting two guards that were stationed at the front entrance of the Hydra base that they'd sneakily infiltrated, managing to only cause a few minor scenes. He was inside and backed against a wall, scoping out his route to the south side of the building, without wasting a second.

His feet pounded on the metal stairs as he made his way down to where they'd been earlier, where he knew that Y/N still was, and he looked around himself cautiously, gears in his arm turning.

He could hear the fight before he could see it, and he could tell from the noises that Y/N wasn't doing so well. A lot of crashing, thuds, groans mostly from her. The sight wasn't exactly easy to look at either, she was covered in blood, slumped against a wall and kicking her legs wildly while one of the agents held a gun to her temple.

Bucky knew that he had to act fast, and so he shot the agent with the gun without giving away his position, and then proceeded to open fire on the rest of them, trusting in the fact that Y/N knew how to dodge a bullet.

When he was sure that the agents were dead, each one of them crumpled in heaps on the floor, he slung his gun back over his shoulder and ran for Y/N, who let out a relieved sigh upon seeing Bucky. "Oh my God, Buck." She whispered. She wasn't sure what she meant by the words, what she wanted to convey in them, but he seemed to pick up just fine as he wrapped his arms around her shaking and compacted body.

"You're okay, I've got you." He rested his head on top of hers for a second, breathing heavy, just allowing himself to enjoy how it felt to have his body draped over hers. "We've gotta go, okay?"

"I can't run." She said assertively, knowing that there was no way that she'd be able to get up and run like hell, like Bucky seemingly wanted her to. He nodded once, gave her an apologetic smile, and then scooped her up into his arms without another word.

She scrambled to grip onto his black jacket, a gasp leaving her mouth as he picked her up from the floor, flesh arm supporting the backs of her knees and the metal one around her shoulders. He chuckled at her reaction, the way that she white-knuckled the leather of his combat jacket. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna drop you."

"How do you expect me to believe that?" She croaked, trying her hardest to be her usual, sardonic self, but failing miserably as she realised just how fast and hard her heart was beating.

"Because I just saved you from at least ten guys who wanted to kill you within a minute, I'm not dropping you." Bucky replied as he ascended the stairs and she buried her face in his chest, the smell of his cologne relaxing her. He allowed a soft smile to cross his face, bringing his metal hand to her head and almost rocking her like an infant or a small child who had a nightmare.

For Tony saying that she hated being 'babied', she seemed to enjoy it when it was coming from Bucky.

They were back at the ship within a few minutes. Steve had taken off, and Bucky had gone to sit in the back of the ship on his own. Or at least, he'd wanted to sit in the back of the ship on his own, but Y/N was so shaken up and had looked at him like she was a lost puppy when he'd tried to leave her alone, and so he smiled and told her to come with him.

Everyone else had looked between themselves, grinning like mad. "He really likes her." Steve commented and Natasha nodded.

"She really likes him, I'm well aware of that fact." She said.

"I've never seen The Winter Soldier so caring. And, was that - sorry if this seems outlandish - a smile? On Bucky Barnes' face? Surely not." Tony pitched in, leaning back in his chair while his friends laughed.

Meanwhile, Y/N was curled up in a chair, chewing at her fingernails and dabbing at her bloody face with a wet cloth that Bruce had given her the second that she'd gotten on the ship. Bucky watched her, his heart breaking at the way that her hands shook as she brought them to her face, at the way that her entire body shook.

"Hey." He placed a tender and soothing hand on her back, rubbing gentle circles there. "It's okay, you're safe now."

She gave him a wobbly smile that didn't quite reach her eyes and placed her hand over his, allowing him to interlock their fingers. "Yeah. Safe now."

————

She still hadn't left his side, apart from briefly so that she could take a shower. He'd offered to come back to her room with her when she'd hovered around the lounge while everyone else had already dispersed, reminding her that no one was going to hurt her.

She was laying on her bed, hair wet and wearing nothing but a big shirt, while Bucky sat awkwardly on the edge of it, twisting the sheets between his fingers. "You don't have to sit there, you know. I have a sofa, or you can sit back."

Bucky shook his head and looked round at her, she was still visibly shaking, eyes darting around to show just how on edge she was. "It's fine, darlin'. M'fine." His voice was more ragged than he'd expected it to be. "I'm just here to make sure that you're okay."

"Well," She held her arms out, "Come here, that'd make me feel okay." It was a bold move, one that told of her feelings towards Bucky, but she didn't mind much, figuring that he probably wouldn't decline her.

He chuckled, shaking his head at her, but still, kicked his boots off and lay down next to her, allowing her to wrap her arms tightly around his torso and press her cheek over his heart. "Hey, you're okay, sweetheart." He stroked her hair. "There's nothing to be on edge about, yeah? I've got you."

"Yeah. Yeah, I know. Sorry, I don't know why I'm so freaked out." Her breathing was picking back up again, so Bucky shushed her and pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head, something that drove the butterflies in her stomach wild.

"It's okay, baby." The nickname just added to the way that her stomach fluttered, and she swallowed hard to try to forget about it. "Hey, how about I do something that'll relax you, yeah?"

"And what would that be, Barnes?" She smirked mischievously and he laughed at her.

"Lay on your stomach." He removed his arm from around her shoulders, and she looked at him with one eyebrow raised, obviously thinking that he was implying something way more forward than what he was actually implying. "Woah, no, no, no. I give good back massages, metal arm and all."

She laughed, throwing her head back into the pillows at the headboard of her bed. "Oh my God, Bucky. I hate you so much." She breathed out, flipping over so that she was laying on her stomach, back exposed to him.

"Can I pull your shirt up, or?" Bucky whispered, running his hands up and down the back of her t-shirt, and she nodded.

His breath hitched in his throat and he found himself struggling to think straight when he lifted the hem of her large shirt, to show that she was only wearing a pair of black panties underneath. She didn't seem to mind, so he didn't mention it, even though his breathing was hindered as he trailed his hands from the small of her back to her shoulders, thumbs rubbing circles as he did so.

She sighed and could've sworn that her eyes rolled back into her head as she relaxed into his touch, one hand cold and the other warm. She understood what he meant when he said that he was good at giving back massages.

"Feel okay?" He asked softly, swallowing hard. She nodded again.

"My God, Bucky, feels fucking amazing." She moaned, and he hated himself when his stomach flipped upon hearing her. "You're so good at that."

He had to stop when she said that, hands still on her shoulders but unmoving, just sitting still. He couldn't think about anything else other than sex when she was moaning like that, something that he wanted to punch himself for. It was such a tender moment, she was scared and so vulnerable, and all that was going through his brain were those thoughts.

"You okay?" She asked, and when he didn't answer she flipped back over, sitting in front of him. He looked like he'd seen a ghost as his tongue darted out to lick over his bottom lip. She reached a hand out, caressing his cheek gently to bring him back to reality. "Bucky?"

"Can I kiss you?" The words were leaving his mouth before he even knew what to do with them, what they meant and how she'd react. As soon as he realised what he'd said, he had his face in his hands, shaking his head. "Shit, sorry."

"No. No, Bucky, don't apologise. Look at me." She wrapped her fingers around his wrist, prying his hands away from his face. "Yes. Of course you can kiss me."

He furrowed his eyebrows, wondering if what she'd just said was real. She was looking into his eyes so intently, staring at the light blue rings around his pupils, realising how pretty they really were now that she was this close. "Kiss me." She whispered, and Bucky took no hesitation in complying to what she was asking of him.

His lips were on hers, and they were so gentle and soft, gliding against hers effortlessly. He pulled her closer to him with a hand on her back, the other cupping her cheek lovingly. His tongue had soon slipped between her lips, earning a soft little whine from her, as his tongue met hers and they worked out how to move them together in harmony.

She eventually pulled back, breathless, and simply grinned at him before laying back and pulling him with her. They resumed their earlier position, her arms wrapped firmly around his waist, his arm around her shoulders, her head on his chest while his hand stroked her hair. "Relaxed?" He laughed and she smiled and nodded.

"I'll get goin', it's late and you look tired, princess." Another nickname, another flourish from the butterflies in the pit of her stomach. Just as Bucky was getting up to leave, she grabbed onto his shirt and pulled him back to her, snuggling back up to his chest.

"Stay. Please."

#bucky barnes #marvel #sebastian stan #bucky barnes x reader #captain america #fanfic #sebastian stan x reader #steve rogers #mcu fic #natasha romanoff #rogue writes #this is: probably really bad because i rushed it because i had so many ideas okay anyway #rogue does marvel

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cetaceans-pls · 4 years

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Chapters: 1/2 Fandom: Batman - All Media Types Relationships: Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne

On a quick mission with Jason to deal with pirates in the Caribbean, Bruce finds himself ejected overboard and accidentally lost at sea. Being a castaway gives Bruce ample time to indulge in self-discovery and survivorman-ing, as Jason boats across Pit-green waters in search of this dumb, fine man.

Or, things go incredibly wrong for Bruce and Jason while out at sea, but with help from a dedicated boat captain, The Fellowship Of The Rings, and banana-leaf-pants, they're actually unstoppable.

Written for the @batfam-big-bang, beta’d by @kuraness, @sultcnah, and hassan, with art by @pikachica, @succulents-and-fairy-lights, and @mandolinplayer (thanks everyone)! Special shout-out to @setsailslash for being the wind beneath my wings.

And! Thanks to the mods for organising this massive, chaotic event c:

Please enjoy the first part of a story about a damp and determined Bat and the struggles a a dapper young man’s gotta face to save his dank ass dad 🙏

On tumblr below the cut c:

Pulling a disappearing act is something Bruce should be good at; he’s had years and years of practice by now sinking into the night. Keeping secrets is pretty important in being invisible too, which is why the files outlining the increasingly severe piracy problems in the Caribbean are so heavily encrypted they may as well not exist. After all, at any moment any of his children could be using the Batcomputer to do anything from figuring out how to topple a corrupt government remotely to buying an unreasonable number of chew toys for Ace, and given that they’re all so ridiculously nosy, a security breach is more a question of when rather than if .

Nosiness is a good trait for vigilante detectives, but it makes it hard to work covertly without tipping anyone off. International travel isn’t a good idea for anyone this deep into a pandemic, and while Bruce Wayne being an ass and swanning around the Bahamas in a yacht is pretty believable as far as cover stories go, he’s not keen to subject anyone else to the sort of vitriol that behaviour will garner.

So the plan is simple, with as few moving parts as possible. Three, maybe four days tops being loud and visible on his biggest, ugliest yacht in the hopes that pirates will decide to come after him, and then maybe a couple of days after that to dismantle the bulk of the operation after he’s tracked them back to their base. There’s less of a chance of failure than his usual work, but it still leaves him feeling uneasy.

It’s a long way away from Gotham, and he’s not exactly excited to leave, but his comfort’s not more important than a greater good. The League really does need to sort out a presence for Central America though, and that goes on his notes for the mission too.

So he had planned in secrecy so complete not even Alfred was informed, because Alfred can be notoriously casual in his flagrant betrayal if he disagrees with Bruce’s plans. He’s skulking around the cave at 11 AM on a Tuesday when most of the family is either at work or asleep, and half an hour later he’s climbing into a Beemer, ready to roll out. He has a moment of smug certainty that he’s gotten away with this before the door to the passenger’s side is ripped open, and Jason climbs in with a little battered suitcase, a pair of aviators that reflect metallic blue, a genuinely heinous red wig, and what can only be described as a noxious Hawaiian shirt.

Bruce doesn’t think he’s ever seen a shade of yellow so bright, but it’s now imprinted on the back of his eyeballs, so that’s that.

“Jason, what are you doing?”

Bruce doesn’t even know if he’s referring to Jason’s presence, his outfit, or his hair (oh god, his hair ).

“Tim was supposed to be the one to tail your ass on this mission, but he’s still way too concussed after last week’s fight with Clayface so he got pulled out.” Jason chucks his suitcase to the backseat and pulls his seatbelt on, still fastidious about traffic safety despite it all. “Then Dick wanted to sub in but Blüdhaven needs him more than you do right now. So they called in the big guns to look out for you, and when I get back everyone’s gonna owe me favours. Sounds like a damn good deal for a week of work.”

Favours are a currency way more important than cash within this family, but Bruce struggles to see how a few favours is worth a few days in the company of a man you loathe.

(All right, loathe may be a bit dramatic, but it’s how Bruce feels about himself in reference to Jason, and it’s mind-boggling that a boy can wake up in a coffin and be driven to lunacy by the Pit and still, somehow, end up in this car with him in an ugly shirt and an offer of support).

He decides against asking if Jason’s really going to be all right floating in a sea of green in bad company, and doesn’t make Jason leave. It’s the rule of things; if he fails to out-sneak his children, he must deal with their demands, because it’s the only way he could get them to agree to his more paranoid measures in return.

So Bruce makes an effort not to think about it, in spite of himself, and gets the car in gear.

It really is looking like a damn good deal for a week of work; with good company, how badly can things go wrong?

Karma really wants to make him eat his words.

Years and years on the job, near-death experiences well past a hundred by now, active involvement in everything from petty theft to intergalactic peace missions, and it’s a little incredible that this is somehow the first time he’s been held at gunpoint while wearing the skimpiest pair of Speedos he could force up his thighs.

A billion dollars for a dressing gown, Bruce thinks but very carefully doesn’t say to the pirates who have commandeered the yacht. It’s all part of the plan, minus his questionable outfit.

Whoever’s manning the screens at the Cave is likely having a grand old laugh right now, but if it’s Stephanie he hopes she realises that he is using her trick with waterproof concealer and translucent powder to hide his scars, and it’s working like a charm. The Speedo was meant to feed the paparazzis that are currently stalking him in their little fishing boats that are weighed down with telephoto lenses, and L’Oreal 24 Hour Max Hold Extra Dewy Outlast! Long-Wearing Concealer makes him look happily whole from 40 yards.

He hadn’t expected the pirates to come on the one day he had planned to parade in front of the paps, but luck is a lady and it looks like Bruce just will not be getting lucky tonight.

The leader of the gang is yelling at the captain, clearly assuming Bruce cannot speak Spanish and isn’t worth speaking to regardless, which is fair. The leader is also standing far, far too close for a man without a facemask in these sickly times, and Bruce makes a show of tripping over nothing and landing in between Pirate Captain and Captain Luis, building space in between them. Half a dozen vaccine trials down, he’s as close to confidently immune as he can be, so he just strikes an entirely embarrassing pose and grins up at Mr. Pirate. “Sorry, sorry, not every day you get hijacked. Listen, you,” he waves at the assembled gang of ne’er-do-wells, “take my stuff,” he waves to indicate every gaudy expensive thing not nailed down in this frankly ghastly ship, “and leave us alone, okay?”

It’s tempting fate to be extra loud and extra slow like he’s talking to somebody extra dumb, but eyes on him are eyes off civilians, so that’s what he does.

It’s the point of information-gathering with the entire force of his Bruce Wayne Billionaire Playboy personality after all, even if Jason hasn’t stopped mocking him relentlessly for his outfits and table manners and affect (and so on and so forth) every time he breaks into the Master Cabin to help cover up Bruce’s many, many back scars.

The Pirate Captain appears to not appreciate being spoken to like a concussed toddler, and backhands Bruce right across the cheek. Bruce dutifully sets his tooth in so that he gets a dramatically split lip, and tries to look suitably cowed as he wonders about the man’s hand hygiene. Where is Jason, anyways? The standard response in this situation would be to evacuate civilians to safety, and even if the captain is currently stuck with Bruce, hopefully the stewards and the cooks are being shown to the panic room. It’s only in doubt because it’s a Thursday, and Thursdays are Jimmy-the-steward-boy’s day off. What that means is that Jason is likely in his bunk listening to audiobooks while half-asleep, and if it’s the Lord of the Rings and Jason’s hit a particularly engaging part, they could be firing cannons on deck and he wouldn’t hear.

It’s still fine, probably. Jason’s good at showing up when you least expect him.

There’s enough pride and bull-headedness in Bruce’s veins that he still officially objects to having back-up whenever he follows a case abroad, but times like these it’s really hard to feel anything but grateful that his children don’t trust him not to get himself killed in suitably dramatic ways as soon as he leaves Gotham. It’s even easier to feel glad that he and Jason have gotten good enough with each other that laid up on the ground of his yacht with blood in his mouth, Bruce knows that everything’s going to be alright.

“Please,” he says, and his voice trills like a well-trained bird, “please don’t hurt me. I have so much money, if that’s what you want. Somebody just needs to call my PA, we can do a transfer right now.” Oh, good, the captain is slowly backing away while all eyes are on Bruce and his tiny swimwear.

Thank you, Stephanie, for recommending a concealer that doesn’t even smudge as he dramatically cowers on the ground. The captain’s taken shelter behind the big outdoor dining table, a sturdy, immovable beast made of aluminium, and Bruce has a semi-circle of reasonably menacing men he could potentially incapacitate without definitely dying. Things are looking up already.

Pirate Captain (Pirate King? Pirate Lord? Pirate Admiral? Who knows how a hierarchy works for the lawless, after all) is barking orders for one of his men to handcuff Bruce and move him over to their boat, because this is now a kidnapping-for-ransom situation. In casual dress, Bruce wouldn’t have minded it much; there’s enough untraceable kit in his average pair of slacks to get him out of most situations.

Again, the cursed Speedos are hugely, disproportionately problematic despite their actual size. At least there’s the tracker and the lockpicks in his watch, because thankfully no one questions why a rich man who is mostly nude would be decked out in a fantastically expensive watch.

A gangly boy who can’t possibly be much older than 20 hauls him to his feet and starts to tie his hands behind his back, which is fine. The boy also deftly unbuckles Bruce’s watch and sleight-of-hands it away, presumably into the pocket of his beaten up jeans, and that is decidedly less fine. Still, as long as the tracker remains in his vicinity, it won’t take much effort for him to be found.

Things are still on track, even if they’ve gone off the rails an alarming number of times since he woke up this morning and nicked his face while shaving for the first time in, oh, a decade? More? Hopefully there’ll be a sack or something he can fashion into a tunic on the pirate boat; he doesn’t imagine this entire ordeal will outlast his long-lasting concealer, and given that the yacht’s currently bobbing in the ocean somewhere between Nassau and Port-au-Prince, help’s not far away (so long as Jason has also called the Coast Guard and is not still in his bunk, listening to Gandalf telling an overlong story).

It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine, until it’s not.

Honestly, Bruce takes worker well-being very seriously, whether it’s the COO of the Hong Kong branch of WE or the tired cab driver who inadvertently helped the Bat on an undercover case at 3:30 AM one morning. Fair pay, fair working conditions, every benefit that’s the industry standard and a few that he secretly encouraged the unions to demand. It’s a point of pride that people who work for him enjoy it, and it’s a way Bruce Wayne can help people in a way that Batman can’t even dream of.

It’s important that people who work for him are treated well; them becoming a little protective over him when some journo gets particularly nasty on Twitter is frankly rather sweet.

It’s significantly Less Okay that when they meet him in real life, ‘a little protective’ becomes ‘Captain Luis, seeing his bumbling dim-witted but ultimately not a bad guy boss getting carted away by pirates, finds strength from deep within himself to pick up a chair, start screaming, and try to bumrush half a dozen heavily armed men’.

Time slows down in times of crisis, thank god. Jason’s still nowhere to be seen, and reality narrows to Bruce running through every possible thing he could conceivably do to keep Luis safe. In the first fraction of a second, a trademark Bruce Wayne clumsy stumble is discarded as an option; two of the pirates already have their guns up. He doesn’t have smoke bombs or stun grenades or any of his million gadgets, and his hands are tied (literally and metaphorically), but playing dumb and letting Luis get shot to preserve his identity doesn’t even feature as an option.

And so, half a second after Luis starts his war cry, cracked voice and all, Bruce is actively working to dislocate his thumb to get out of his bindings, weight tipped forward in the hope that he can body slam half the men to the ground before they can get to their guns.

It doesn’t work; he gets shot in place of Luis, what feels like a clean through-and-through by the hip that hopefully missed anything particularly important. He does manage to bring a couple of the men nearest to him down with a heavy whumph , and little victories are still worth savouring even while lightly bleeding out on the ground.

He hears a lot of shouting, both from the direction of the pirate boat (reinforcements?) and from the grand double doors that lead to the inside dining room (reinforcements!) but he just keeps moving. Best case scenario, Luis knocked somebody out with one of the absolutely hideous chrome-and-leather chairs before beating a hasty retreat, and now Jason’s tag-teaming in for clean up.

Worst case scenario, he and Luis are about to be killed, and the news might be broken to his family by unflattering pap shots gone viral on Facebook. It’s an unbearable thought, so he doesn’t think, and just keeps moving around like an angry bull intent on sharing his displeasure.

There are a lot of gunshots, and something clips his ear as he knocks another man to the floor. While the pirate groans, Bruce headbutts him unconscious with a helping hand from the metal plates that help hold his skull in one piece. He thinks he hears Jason’s voice, but he knows Jay’s there for sure because no other weapon on Earth seems to crack the air quite like his Jerichos, and it’s like light at the end of a tunnel.

He hopes that Jason’s wearing some manner of face-covering; Bruce Wayne smashing a bunch of skinny pirates to the ground in a feat of great clumsiness and luck is entertaining enough to be acceptable, but a master marksman taking out a horde of sea-faring villains isn’t as likely to come off as normal.

Bruce doesn’t have the breathing room to turn around and check because more pirates are scrambling aboard with their own weight in weaponry, even if in his mind’s eye he imagines that Jason is wearing a pillowcase on his head with holes shot out for the eyes.

What an absurd quantity of guns. The number of ways Bruce hates the damned things is uncountable, and if Jason is actually on deck yelling blue murder in pyjamas, things can tip over from ‘scuffle’ into ‘bloodbath’ real damn quick.

Only one thing for it, then. He rolls away from a well-aimed kick and staggers to his feet, keeping his hands behind his back even though he’s worked his way free already. Pirate Captain man is angrily waving his rifle like he’s never known a day of joy in his life, but shooting Bruce might break the streak.

“Stop, stop!” Bruce shouts, aiming to look as non-threatening as a man who has mowed down a series of pirates can. “You can take me, just don’t hurt my staff.” Stand down, Jason , is implicit, while stand down, Luis , is implored.

It’s enough to get the man to bark for his men to stop shooting, as he tries to grab Bruce by the throat in a presumably threatening manner. This is what you get for modern-day piracy where there’s a lot less rigging and ropes and a lot more outboard engines; his grip strength is laughable, but Bruce gamely pretends to struggle to breathe anyway.

Pirate Captain hauls Bruce towards the cluster of his men, looking smug before he turns Bruce to let him see the wreckage of the outdoor lounge of the yacht. It’s bullet-riddled and messed up, but this far from the engine and the bridge, the damage is almost exclusively cosmetic. Thankfully Luis seems relatively whole even if he’s got the remains of a chair leg in his hands and a snarl twisting his face, and so does Jason. No pillowcase head-covering, unfortunately, but his steward-boy curly ginger wig is on and his oversized sleeping t-shirt is bulked out in a suspiciously bulletproof-vest shaped mass (thank God).

There are headphones hanging around Jay’s neck, so Bruce assumes he’d gotten it right about the morning lie-in and audiobook listening. Even mid-emergency, it’s still a rare, nice feeling to see that he knows Jason well enough to guess at least this correctly. Bruce tries to communicate with his eyes that everyone just needs to calm down and let him be taken. Pirates don’t tend to shoot billionaires dead, what with the invisible hand of the free market ensuring trigger discipline and all that, so it’s fine. They can rescue him afterwards, and there’s always help to be had. Superman might be off-world at present and Aquaman might take his own sweet time because he’s a sea king moonlighting as a massive asshole, but as long as no one gets hurt badly, a delay doesn’t matter to Bruce.

Jason’s scowling, but he does point his guns down. There’s hope yet that this is going to end relatively bloodlessly, but then the Pirate Captain lets his little victory get to his head. He’s got Bruce in an ineffective chokehold, and now he’s chuckling and waving his gun around and telling Jason that you’re not so confident now that we’ve got your boss, huh?

Even at a distance, Bruce can see that Jason is just barely holding on to his temper, jaw tight and teeth clenched. Having close to a foot over his captor and a hell of a lot of muscle mass on top, the ‘chokehold’ registers more like a messy cuddle, so it’s fine.

It’s all fine.

Until, of course, it isn’t.

Because Pirate Captain isn’t completely done flexing, because he takes it into his head to further press his advantage and slam the point home, he holds the muzzle of his rifle to Bruce’s temple, and shouts bang!

And of course Bruce has been held hostage before, of course he’s had weapons brandished in front of his face, of course there’s nothing exceptionally terrible about this situation when compared to the dozens of exceptionally terrible situations he’s been stuck in.

It’s just that he’s always, always hated guns, and he particularly hates guns held to people’s heads (a goddamn mystery why), and it’s just a little beyond what he considers tolerable, to find himself on the other side of a situation where a parent is about to be shot in the head in front of their child.

It’s something he’ll be ashamed about for the rest of forever, but hindsight’s 20/20 and not even an iron will could stop the tiniest of flinches when the thought of Jason’s going to have to see me die and he isn’t even the one pulling the trigger goes through his head at great speed.

It’s a blink-and-you’d-miss-it moment, but Jason hadn’t blinked, and it’s just that inch too far.

Lord, if Luis had been fearsome before, then Jason picking up a steak knife from the dining table and throwing it so viciously, so hatefully that it goes right through the back of a pirate man’s hand is an absolute vision of terror. While Bruce gets the side of his face coated in blood (he’s pessimistically hoping it isn’t from an arterial flow), Jason is scooping up Luis and chucking him overboard. It feels like barely a second has passed from when the first splatter of blood had hit his cheek before Jason appears right in front of him, one hand holding both guns (cool-looking but hilariously ill-advised) while the other is wrapped around the bulky plastic case of the emergency life raft.

Someone tries to drag Bruce back, and the man is met with two gun butts to the nose with a resounding crack! . A moment after that and Jason has Bruce pulled behind him, wig askew and kicking a different man right in the family jewels. The Pirate Captain is screaming and waving at them even as Jason hustles Bruce towards one side of the ship, shoving a life jacket down over his head and tightening the straps before Bruce can get his hands through the armholes.

It is, clearly, on purpose. “Jason,” Bruce warns him, growling even as he keeps the name as quiet as he can. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Jason kicks a stack of sun loungers over to act as a barricade against the approaching pirates, but he’s completely unharried as he turns to look at Bruce. “B, you’re banged up to fuck and back, and these guys are just massive assholes who’ve been pillaging ships carrying aid during a goddamn pandemic. Your plan’s not working out, so I’m going to handle it my way. Just go hang out in the water for a while, okay,” Jason pauses and shoots over the top of the mass of wood, before ducking down to reload. “On God, I’ll swab the decks clean-ish before I pull you back up. That’s my plan.”

An errant chair arm by Jason’s side explodes into splinters from the return fire, and it’s getting really hard to avoid kill shots in order to have a civil conversation. They’re running out of time, and Bruce knows , knows without a shadow of a single doubt that this is restraint and thoughtfulness and care from Jason, to hold back on what he thinks is right just because he knows Bruce doesn’t like to see a case devolve into death. There’s also a chance that the gun to his head shook both of them up more than they want to admit. This could well be a really touching moment for everyone involved.

But a dozen pirates are advancing, and more than wanting to stop Jason from murdering a bunch of people, Bruce simply refuses to let him face this alone, so he just shakes his head and starts trying to work his way out of the vest.

Unfortunately, it’s at about the same time the pirates decide to go on an all-out siege, running towards them and knocking the stack of chairs over in their haste. Bruce doesn’t have time to think, just steps forward so that he can body block Jason and hope that polyethylene foam can take a shot or 12.

Jason disagrees with this course of action, and he makes it exceedingly clear. One moment Bruce is standing firm between his son and almost-certain death, and the next he finds himself being flung over the side of the yacht, Jason executing a frankly gorgeous Judo throw. A blob of bright orange follows him down, the instant raft deploying in midair.

“Fly, you fucking fool!” Jason screams at him, and Bruce’s last thought before he hits the water and the hard outer shell of the raft hits him in the head, is that he was right.

Jason had been listening to the Lord of the Rings.

(And Bruce is really regretting leaving the Shire).

It’s going to be a hell of a story to tell the gang; hijinx on the high seas, and if Jason can convince Bruce to take a picture of him looking suitably pensive while the sea breeze flutters his hair and open shirt, they’ll have a cover for the book deal that inevitably follows Jimmy the Red-Haired Steward’s dramatic rescue of literal billionaire Bruce Wayne.

It’s almost anti-climactic in the end; he sends Bruce overboard and is polite enough to chuck a raft down with him so that the man won’t have to find out that not even Steph’s go-to brand of makeup can stand up to the open ocean, and minus an overbearing parent idiotically trying to take bullets for him, Jason’s free to just go right the hell off.

By his count, there must be close to 20 pirates now, and just one of him.

Damn, what fun odds. He knocks out 4 guys the moment they pass his barricade, and they definitely won’t be dying from those wounds. There’s a slightly messier kerfuffle when he kicks a tabletop off its legs and flings it at the guy who thought setting off a rocket-launcher in a luxury yacht is a good idea, and casualties from that are self-inflicted, so there’s no sweating it.

A half hour of screaming and shooting later, and at this point he’s just showing off when he leaps off the upper deck and gets a trick shot out into the knee of the man with the biggest rifle. At the end of it there’s a lot of moaning and groaning on the ground, there’s blood everywhere, and barring rocket-man, the Pirate Captain’s still the worst off because a serrated steak knife thrown at high speed will do a number on anyone. It’s exactly what he deserves.

Jason putters about securing the pirates with fishing line, and shoves handkerchiefs into the deeper wounds as he does a headcount and takes deep pride in having not killed anyone even though his temper’s the most frayed it’s been in a while (his history with bodies of water is bad and his track record with parental figures is even worse).

He leaves the captain tied up on the sun deck, because a sunburn’s the least the man deserves after holding a gun to Bruce’s head and being so proud of it. If Jason had trod on his hand a little heavily on his way off the deck, well. Some lessons just need to be worked in with some elbow grease.

Cleaning takes a while because B can be so damn picky about appearances , and it’s easier to do without the man himself anyways, so he doesn’t think twice about leaving Bruce to sulk in his floating inflatable tent while Jason works. When he hears noises from the pirate ship while he’s going around disarming all the weapons, he ends up finding a gaggle of kidnapped fishermen stuffed in the hold, and he wants to go step on the Pirate Captain’s hand all over again.

He frees the fishermen and moves them onto the yacht, where the staff who have crept out of the panic room with knives in their hands and murder in their hearts welcome the poor fucks and make them something hot to eat. Really, being a crusader’s a lot easier without Bruce’s presence, and it’s like a victory lap at this point. No one’s dead, even more people have been rescued than when they started, and the Coast Guard should be rolling in any minute.

Jason cannot wait to show off to B just how damn good he is at his job.

Everything wrapped up and a dozen shoulder-slaps from the crewmembers later, Jason makes his way down to the back of the yacht, where a platform can be lowered and the canoes and jet skis can be set out in the water. He’s fully expecting to see Luis hanging on to the ladder near there, with Bruce tethered like an errant puppy. Jason’s already grinning as the platform swings open with a quiet splash, but the sight that greets him isn’t one for smug eyes.

Luis is there, looking a little cold but ultimately quite calm and relaxed, and smiles when he sees him. “Jimmy!” Luis calls out, hauling himself up onto the platform and taking his shirt off to wring it dry. “You crazy bastard. I’m glad you’re okay! Is Mister Bruce also all right? The pirates are gone?” He eyes the bobbing pirate ship with great distrust, and overall gives the impression of a man ready to pick up a kayak oar and go to war.

Jason’s leaning as far off the platform as he can, craning his neck to try and see the bright orange floating raft. “Pirates are taken care of,” he tells Luis, and doesn’t let his unease show. “Everyone’s fine, but I threw Mister Bruce off the boat too, with the little tent raft. Did you not see him, captain?”

Luis shakes his head. “You must have thrown him overboard on the other side, Jimmy.” He turns a frightful shade of pale, and leans back out the yacht to help look. “Can Mister Bruce swim?”

Everyone in the family is an accomplished swimmer; for reasons that probably only make sense when you’re a paranoid patriarch, all of them had to prove that they could swim a mile in full gear before they were okayed to patrol close to the waterfront. It’s also common knowledge in a family with a collective competitive streak a mile wide that Bruce once rescued 3 full-grown adults in the open ocean while fully kitted out, so yeah.

“Yeah, he can swim.”

So why in the hell is he not right here?

Jason takes a deep breath, and reminds himself Bruce always has a tracker on him somewhere, so even if he was carried away by the waves, actually locating him shouldn’t be an issue. What’s more likely to be a pain in the ass is the Coast Guard boats plowing through the sea towards them. Jason’s cover as a steward is enough to fool local police, but if he’s pulled in for questioning re: owning and using his guns, it’s going to become A Problem.

A problem that would take a lot of time to handle, and that’s not something Jason’s got in spades if Bruce is missing.

Ah, shit. He’s going to have to call this in, and that’s not going to be possible in an itchy wig on a ship crawling with officers. It’s time for Jimmy to disappear, looks like.

He considers his options, and decides to just go with his gut. Luis seems like a good guy; civilians who step up in a life-or-death situation despite common sense telling them not to usually are. And compared to B, Jason’s always been quicker to trust, anyways.

“Listen, Luis,” he tells the man, face serious. “I’m actually Mister Bruce’s bodyguard. If he’s missing or drowning, I have to go find him. He’s…. like family.” Thank God that no one else is here to hear this. “But if the Coast Guard comes and takes us all in for questioning, I can’t start looking for him. Can you tell them I jumped in the sea after Mister Bruce, and to send people out to find us? I need to grab the tender and sneak off first; he’s been in the water for a while already now, so I just don’t have time to wait.”

Everything is probably completely fine, but you don’t live and then die and then be reborn and then continue to live as a successful vigilante by hanging your hat on ‘probably��. Jason’s itching to get on the little tender and check in with Alfred, but Luis covering for him would be really fucking helpful.

It feels real good when his instincts pay off. Luis doesn’t even bother saying ‘Yes’ and ‘Of course’; he’s already striding to the little box by the light switch that has the keys for all the gear, and after a quick rummage around he throws the boat’s keys to Jason.

“I’m going to believe you, Jimmy. Go find Mister Bruce, and I will tell the police how you saved us and why you left. Do you need anything more?”

Luis is just hitting homerun after homerun today, wow. Jason grins, and shakes his head. “I’m going to get my stuff from my bunk and climb out the porthole in the kitchen right onto the boat. See you when I see you, captain.”

And Jason’s gone.

Bruce comes to a couple of hours after his inauspicious disembarkation, if he’s judging the sun right. His face is an achy sunburned mess, but he supposes it’s preferable to being unconscious while facedown in water. He regains consciousness quietly and calmly, an extremely important skill when you are regularly abducted and knocked out, but when he cracks his eye open all he sees is the sea, all all of it.

He takes stock of the situation, and notes with some resignation that his yacht (the Pretty Penny, and worth every cent for the look on Alfred’s face) is nowhere in goddamn sight. He’s still cocooned in a life jacket, but luckily a loose buckle had wrapped around the ropes lining the life raft. It takes a bit of finessing, to work his way free and then haul himself up into the raft when he’s disorientated from being sunburned and injured and groggy, but he manages eventually.

The raft had managed to inflate all the way up, and the little tent provided blessed, blessed shade. If he was marooned on a liferaft with his children, or with a civilian, Bruce would be all action by now, cataloguing injuries and rummaging around to find what equipment they have. That’s just the exact right thing to do, in a survival situation.

But he isn’t marooned on a liferaft with anybody else. He’s by himself, his face feels like it’s on fire, he’s a little concussed, and he doesn’t know if everyone’s safe on the yacht. Instead of doing something meaningful, Bruce just groans and lays out as flat as he can get on the small raft, with his legs hanging off over the side.

Might as well get sunburnt knees, make a set of it.

It’s starting to feel like he’s just not meant to have a casual fun time out here in the Caribbean, and this far away from shore, nobody can hear him swear.

His legs are starting to sizzle a little by the time Bruce re-finds his will to survive, and he eventually drags himself upright, looks down to once again despair that he’s literally in swimwear and nothing else, and tugs out the dry bag filled with survival equipment tucked into a pocket near the back of the tent. He’s sure it’ll have much more kit than the average equipment bag, but because he can’t remember the last time he took it into his head to pack survival kits for non-Bat vehicles, everything is likely several years out of date.

As he digs around, any hope of finding a tracker that can ping! loud enough to alert the Batcave disappears. There’s a brick of a satellite phone, but failure to keep it well-maintained means the battery is completely flat, and trying to fix it in a bobbing liferaft that’s constantly letting water in…. ill-advised.

At least being in the Caribbean in the summer means that the current is more likely to have him drifting across the archipelago instead of sweeping him out to the Atlantic. Deserted islands are a dime a dozen here, and Bruce shudders at the thought that he might meet his end here, where it’s warm and sunny and beautiful, instead of bleeding out into a puddle of what might be rainwater or piss or both in a dark alley in Gotham, which is what he thematically deserves.

If only Alfred were here to hear him loudly think about his death after maybe 3 hours of being at sea with his own grim thoughts.

At least the kit bag reflects his personal preferences. Enough energy bars to keep a man physically functioning for at least 2 weeks, and half of them are white-chocolate-and-cranberry flavoured. There’s a rain poncho made of the same material his cape was about 5 years ago, which means it’s light and breathable and incredibly strong. He puts it on, because where Jason presumably gets power from wearing either leather or garish beachwear, Bruce unfortunately counts himself closer to goth than not, and a black raincoat is enough to make him feel at least marginally better.

He digs around some more and finds the usual suspects: a multi-tool with a blade sharp enough to gut a camel (tried! And tested!), 3 flare guns, a little floating solar still, a first aid kit that could keep you alive through increasingly alarming injuries, wax matches and some solid fuel, and a little tin mug that had some fishing line and a bunch of hooks. God, there’s even sun cream in here, and that’s as Classic Alfred as the tiny glass bottle of exquisite whiskey. The reach of one elderly butler’s tender loving care extends really alarmingly far, and Bruce salutes the sky in his honour before taking a carefully-rationed glug of Stranahan for moral support.

It burns smoothly down his throat, and it’s as close to a second wind as Bruce is likely to get out here. Bruce sets up the solar still and has it floating on a tether right by the raft, even if he’s got at best a couple of hours of daylight left. Dinner for the night is either a protein bar or fresh-caught fish if he can swing it, and the bottle of good whiskey needs to stretch for 2 weeks for the worst case survival scenario, because that’s around when Superman comes back from his off-world mission and can come play fetch.

Best case scenario, Jason’s going to pull up in the BatWing any moment now, and Bruce will gaze upon a hideous ginger wig and once again get to marvel at the miracle of Jason alive and coming at him.

The Batman hasn’t survived so long off the backs of best case scenarios though. Fantasy revelled in, Bruce starts divvying up his resources and makes his peace with potentially having his body be found in a poncho 3 months from now by deeply unlucky fishermen.

Hell of a legacy to leave for his children, but it’s better than pearls and a dark alleyway (he sure would have appreciated a larger bottle of whiskey).

Escape was the name of the game, so Jason doesn’t burn time on thinking, just grabs his supplies and steals the tender, gunning the engine and gone out of sight before the Coast Guard could board the Penny. It’s pretty hair-raising, literally; throttle opened to full he almost loses his wig to the whipping winds.

Fifteen minutes after separating from Captain Luis, Jason’s dropping anchor in a tiny lagoon and pulling out his Bat-issued laptop. First things first, he runs through all the trackers Bruce is most likely to have on him. No point in alerting HQ if Bruce just got washed ashore on a little beach a couple of miles away. He could do without the rest of the family calling him out for simultaneously being both Bruce’s back-up as well as the main reason Bruce is currently missing, thanks. There’s already plenty of self-recrimination going ‘round.

The internet’s pretty slow considering the private BatSatellite beaming it right down at him, but it only takes a few minutes before he’s run through the checklist of the dozen or so standard trackers Bruce could have chosen from. Almost everything is deactivated, probably because a mother-of-pearl button and a tie clip aren’t options that mesh with swimwear too often, but one of his watches is active and blinking a cheerful green from the other side of the island, moving swiftly towards land.

Jason thinks hell yeah! at the start but then logic comes a-calling; neither the current nor a very determined man could move that quickly, and the blip is moving in a straight line away from the yacht. He takes another look at the list, and groans when he realises that what likely happened was that Bruce’s shiny golden Rolex was liberated from him pre-getting-thrown-overboard, and is now likely enjoying a pleasant ride to Nassau in the pocket of some pirate on the Coast Guard’s ship.

“This is why I told him to get a goddamn belly button ring,” Jason shouts down at an errant starfish, who fundamentally does not care. Garish intimate jewelry work because they can stay on regardless of the state of undress, and because not even the most determined thugs tend to be super interested about groping around a man’s navel to get half an ounce of cheap tin and silver. An ugly piercing is by far the best option for discreet trackers.

Just classic goddamn Bruce; too good for gun violence, too good for tacky piercings, too good to just stay the hell still. Jason half-heartedly goes through the rest of the list, on the extremely off chance that Bruce slapped on the temporary tramp stamp with its special magnetic ink, or decided to opt for the cute anklet with dangling shells that’s a Cass design, but no go.

There’s not a blip anywhere, and if Bruce is really really lost at sea, time’s not something either of them have a whole lot of. Jason starts up the boat and decides to head right to the outermost chain of tiny islands, because the vital thing here is making sure that Bruce doesn’t get swept right out into the open ocean. One hand on the wheel, with the other he pops an earphone back in and presses a complicated code using the volume up/down buttons. It’s another few seconds of the Fellowship coming through before the comm connects, and it’s Alfred.

“How can I help, Master Jason?”

“How much of what went down did you catch, Agent A?”

“I must confess to a little chuckle when I saw Master Bruce being thrown overboard. The onboard cameras caught the rest of your fight, and may I just say, splendid aim with the steak knife. I doubt I could have done better myself.”

That’s a blatant lie if Jason’s ever heard one, but he’ll take it. “Thanks, Alfie. Thing is, uh. Thing is, I might have misplaced B.”

There’s a short pause, and Alfred’s voice comes back on with polite inquiry. “What do you mean by ‘misplaced’, Master Jason?”

“You saw me chuck B over and leave him a life raft, right? Yeah, well, when I went ‘round to do a pick-up, he was gone. And he doesn’t have any kit on him, so.” Urgh, this is going to live on in infamy. “So I might have lost Batman somewhere in the sea.”

There’s another pause, a little longer this time, filled with enough character that Jason can just imagine Alfred with his head tipped back, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose to chase off a headache that has given him no peace presumably since B was born. “I see. Do you know if he is injured? Or if Master Bruce is missing as per some sort of plan?”

“Think he might have been grazed by a couple of bullets, but nothing life-threatening. And this could be a dick move that’s part of a bigger plan, Alfred, but he knows you’d be real passive-aggressive if he runs off without telling anyone. He pulls that kind of bullshit when things are apocalyptic, but it’s just a bunch of pirates not social-distancing.” Jason worries at his lower lip, and tries to feel more confident about the absence of serious injuries. “I don’t know, maybe he hit the water wrong and passed out and got swept out, or something. I just know I’m not leaving this as is.”

God literally save B if this does turn out to be some dumbfuck ploy to go off and Rambo a mission solo, that’s a Jason Todd guarantee right there.

“I believe not trusting Master Bruce to be all right is generally the right way of thinking, unfortunately.” Alfred sighs, and it comes off as static in the earpiece. “I will make some inquiries, and see what resources we have for a search and rescue mission. In the meantime, Master Jason, do what you think is best. Master Bruce may not have any of his usual equipment, but so long as he has the raft, he should survive for a good long while.”

Knowing how extremely over-prepared Bruce is in almost every aspect of his life, Jason wouldn’t be too surprised to know that all WE rafts came prepared with spear guns and a bar of solid gold. Best case scenario, he’ll find Bruce in time for dinner, and they can have an(other) awkward meal where Bruce does his damnedest to be inoffensive and haltingly the best father he can be, while Jason tries not to get ticked off by every third word out of the man’s mouth.

Jason tells Alfred that he’s going to whip out some maps and do a lap around all the tiny little cays that dot the sea to try and find Bruce, and half his head’s thinking about a memorial service where Clark will presumably burst into tears while stood in front of a casket that’s got a symbolic Speedo in it, and that’s how Bruce is going to go down in history, which is what he deserves.

The other half decides that now is a good time to remember how Bruce had once gone all-out on a search-and-rescue mission for Jason too, many many years ago, and oh, look how that turned out.

What a fucking feast or famine man.

Fishing is an accursed activity for accursed men. Bruce is somebody whose hobby slash raison d’etre involves getting dressed up in armour and perching on a gargoyle somewhere high up in an unmoving manner for hours at a time, and he still finds himself bored almost to tears by the lows and lowers of idly holding a fishing line in his hand, being convinced something has gotten hooked, and pulling up absolutely nothing (again and again and again).

It’s blissfully sundown by now and there’s no fresh fish on the menu, but he has a mouthful of fresh water thanks to the solar still, and he’s got half a protein bar in him for dinner. The moon’s nowhere near full and the stars are obscured; he’s completely enveloped in the kind of darkness that’s so, so foreign to a city like Gotham.

It’s all blackness as far as the eye can see, which is not very far, and all he has for company are his thoughts and the quiet splish splish splish of little waves pattering against the side of his raft.

It’s deeply unnerving even for Bruce, a man who has on occasion described himself as The Night. He has a fire starter and nothing to start a fire; he has a phone and no way to connect to anyone. He has a lot and very little all at once, and despite his best efforts, no amount of focus can get anything done .

So Bruce sits with his back to the opening of the little tent, and over the next couple of hours finds himself slumping and sliding lower, til his head is thrown back across the edge and all he sees is nothing.

Stoicism in the face of terrible odds is an important part of being the Batman, but Bruce has no cowl and no cape; he’s just him right now. As he stares at what may or may not be the North Star, he finds himself thinking about how dinner was supposed to be scallops and baked fish with a side of exquisite wine, and gently mourns just a little. If his luck held, Jason would have swung by later to help himself to the dessert tray that Bruce has delivered straight to his room, and he could have sat there and basked in the unending pleasure of Jay's healthy and hearty and whole company.

Instead, he’s stuck out at sea trying to guess how close or far away he is from 10:47 PM, which is the default time to throw up a signal in cases where a team’s been broken up. In Gotham, even if he didn’t have a watch or a phone or a comm unit or a car, he could usually guess the time down to 15 minutes, just based on which shops were open and which shops were closed, what buses were running and what colour the WE building was lit up to, by the presence or absence of the tinkly elevator music that accompanies the fountain light show in the main plaza.

Here, there’s nothing. The position of the planets would be a bit of a hint on a good day, but on a bad day with heavy clouds and a concussion he’s not confident Venus is real. The outdoors are a mistake, and laid out in a raft miles and miles away from the nearest cityscape Bruce feels homesickness so keenly he has to turn over and throw up a little bit.

At least the concussion is keeping him company.

The first hour after nightfall he had taken the initiative to just sit there and count time out, but there’s something spectacularly soul-sucking about counting down seconds. Bruce was somewhere in the 3000s when he came to the conclusion that he would rather not reinforce his concept of mortality by literally calling out each moment he comes closer to death, thanks. It’s been a while since he stopped counting, but time’s a mess in the absence of manmade context.

He’s also, shamefully, a mess in the absence of manmade context.

Bruce has 3 flares and a son out there somewhere looking for him. Having a predetermined time to launch a signal is not a fundamentally bad idea, but it’s not practical when out in the field, and right now he’s even willing to go so far so as to admit that using the time of his parents’ passing is both extremely grim and extremely unkind to all parties involved.

All factors considered, it’s as good a time as any to get the flare gun. If he’s lucky, Jason will be ‘round to pick him up in under an hour. If he’s less lucky, it might be a different band of roving pirates that come for him, though by this point the company of sun-dried criminals is greatly preferable to just his own.

If he’s really, really unlucky, the flare’ll explode big and bright up in the sky to the attention of absolutely no one, and when that happens Bruce can begin to doubt his reality as much as he doubts Venus’.

“Please let it not be 10:47,” he says in the vain hope that karma’s looking out for him as he sticks his upper body out the tent flaps and shoots at the sky.

The flare goes up straight and true and explodes into bright bright light, and all of this would be a thing to be happy about if the presence of light didn’t highlight the clear, helpless absence of everything else.

For the first time in a very long time, the fearsome big bad Bat of Gotham turns in early for the night, but nobody is even around to appreciate it.

(He will find out that it was, in fact, just around 9 when he shot off the flare, or just about 3000 seconds after the 3000 seconds he’d already counted.)

(The invention of time was a Mistake.)

[1/2]

#batfam big bang 2020 #batman #bruce wayne #jason todd #whale writing #the vibe is v much that specific kind of humid depressed u get in summer #when ur not feeling great but #the overwhelming presence of the sun tells your body to #keep on keeping on #anyways i love the sea thanks for coming to my community tedtalk

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chronicbatfictioner · 4 years

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Exchanges and Compromises - Chapter 11

Details, details, details. For someone looking like a pro-wrestler, complete with the dress-up gimmick, Jason Todd - the Red Ghost - turned out to be a very good listener and paid attention to details. He listened quietly as Oracle put out the proverbial lay of the land.

"So to make it clear and recorded redundantly, Talon was an enforcer with the Court of Owls; supposedly the entity that controlled all of Gotham, consisting of the 'builders' of Gotham as well as the 'money' that built Gotham. This guy Bane just out of the blue came to Gotham and killed the members of the Court and Talon's teammates. And now he claimed to be Dr Thomas Wayne's son, and therefore Bruce Wayne's half-brother." Jason recited. "Are the Waynes a member of the Court of Owls?"

"Not according to the database Talon gave us." Oracle replied. "Evidently, the Court had... harassed them to join, but they have repeatedly refused. And by 'repeatedly' I mean over like, three generations of Waynes."

"Yeah, I didn't think so, either. Talia wouldn't have... well, associated herself with Bruce Wayne, otherwise." Jason agreed. "Ra's didn't like to share control with a random group of people who have assassins as doormen. The public disruptions would have been too overwhelming."

"So the Waynes have made an actual tangible alliance with the Al Ghuls, I presume..." Tim commented. "Corporate-wise, the Al Ghuls owned almost half of Gotham, while the other half belonged to the Waynes. Yet they were in different lines of businesses that if the two families were to unite by means of - say, marriage - it would definitely fit the description of a monopoly."

"You're a corporate goon, aren't you?" Jason remarked. Tim preened a little.

"Kind of. I run a much-smaller family business." he admitted.

"I'm... not sure if I should consider it cool or horrific." Jason commented. "What's the business line?"

"Generic meds." Tim replied, and then stopped himself. There were a mere handful of generic medication companies in Gotham, and he might have given away his own identity.

"Ah, cool, then. Generic meds for poor people? Did you leech off the prices?" Still, Jason's disarming smirk and seemingly innocent questions were too inviting to not be answered.

"Of course not! I'm a hero, aren't I?" Tim replied coyly. Jason seemed satisfied with the answer.

"Cool, then. Anyway, to answer your question, yes, there were business deals between the Al Ghuls with the Waynes that are limited to the form of businesses either parties would do. And yes, you're right. If or when Bruce Wayne passed without any other heirs, Damian would own both conglomerations and would have been a form of monopoly. There were... contingency plans to avoid that." Jason elaborated. "But if Bane is a son of Thomas Wayne, he would have inherited half of the Wayne Enterprises, regardless."

"I sincerely hoped that Bane was not Ra's 'contingency plan'," Oracle intoned.

"I've never heard of his name until now." Jason clarified. "And I know all of Ra's associates and agents. Visible or otherwise. And Talia's. But for the issue with the Court... you people think that the Waynes bankrolled Bane to eliminate the Court of Owls."

"We suspect. We haven't found evidence to support or deny it." Oracle said. "You're quick."

"I'm not slow just because I came from Crime Alley, thanks." Jason retorted. "And I'm starting to realize... if I - on behalf of Damian - am staying at the Wayne Manor, I might be able to look for evidence thereof."

"Really quick, I wasn't even going to suggest that yet," Oracle replied glibly.

"And if they were innocent - because of course, we all believe in the 'Innocent 'til Proven Guilty' adage - then you can ally with the Waynes to indict and/or remove Bane out of the equation." Jason continued.

Well, Tim was impressed.

"That's it, in a nutshell."

"I hope you have a contingency plan in case your plan goes sideways..." Jason sighed.

"...you technically have nothing to lose," Tim assured him. "You'll have an escape, where you can bring Damian to a place that is both reinforced and semi-publicly visible; you'll have the Birds of Prey as your backup. And if - in a scenario where Bruce Wayne did not accept Damian, you'll still be welcomed here."

"Why? Just because I'm a Gothamite or what?" Jason challenged.

"Because..." Tim sighed. "Okay, look. I see it more as for Damian's sake, right? If he's accepted, and you don't want to help us, that's fine. We'll figure out something else. But if he's... denied his father..." he shook his head, pushing out the images of himself as a 12-year-old who'd just received the news of his parents' death. "...I know what it's like to lose a parent through violent means, alright. I don't... I'd rather Damian not take the path I took."

Jason's smile looked more like a snarl. "Now that's noble, Stray. You don't want Damian to be a thief like you, but you forgot who you're talking to. I grew up here, in Crime Alley, until my mom died. My dad was gone years before. I lived on the streets, had a box for a bed for weeks. That's the kind of life you won't want a ten-year-old to have to face."

Tim chuckled uneasily. "Okay, that's fair. But considering he's the only heir of the Algol Enterprises, I doubt he'll end up on the streets, am I wrong? Not to be insensitive, but there's a reason why Talia chose you to take care of him, and that wouldn't be the muscles or the pretty face."

That was a logical explanation, so Tim thought, but he could swear that Jason was blushing - even under the tanned skin. He shook his head lightly, and said, "No, I'm also his legal guardian unless his biological father files for custody; and am in charge of the Algol Enterprises," He scowled lightly. "...in spite of the fact that I don't like the corporate world in general. Damian is actually more than smart enough to supervise the companies, but he is still a minor. His signatures should always be accompanied by mine."

"Good system," Oracle commented. "I don't see you as someone easily persuaded if you don't believe in the matter."

"I believe in fairness and assisting those in need, not feeding those in power," Jason muttered. Then sighed. "For now, though, I'll need your help to fend off the League of Shadows. There won't be any steps taken toward your goal if Damian is assassinated."

"That, I believe, I can help. It's not gonna be pretty, but..." Dick remarked, stepping out of the bedrooms. "Boy's sleeping like a log. I mean, literally like a log: on his back, straight-backed and all." He added when Jason's eyes found his.

"You know how to contact your... uh... friends?" Tim tried, cringing, knowing how Barbara felt for violence.

"You thinking about rising the other talons?" Barbara must be cringing, too.

"Unless you can think of utilizing Superman or something, I don't see any other way..." Dick argued.

"Wait," an epiphany suddenly hit Tim. "I... hold up, let me think..." he raised a hand, stopping the questions he knew would be coming out of both Jason and Dick's mouths. A half a minute later, it hit him in the full picture. "Wasn't Green Arrow trained by the League of Assassins, too?"

"Oliver Queen, you mean. Yes, he was." Jason confirmed. "Funny dude, all sass and pretending to be no-brain. Shiva trained him--" Jason suddenly stopped.

"Does he know you?" Tim asked.

"He should... he got in just about a while after I did. I'd trained with him before Talia sent me training elsewhere..." Jason replied, and then his face brightened. "You scary-scheming little shit..."

"Green Arrow opted to use his skills as a hero, protecting those who can't protect himself. I know he's good - a little unfocused in a hand-to-hand and more reliant on his bow and arrows, but he's good." Tim pointed out. "And he has his own group of 'family' - all fighters for good. I'm sure he'll be happy to help us." he hinted to Oracle, deliberately pointing to Oracle as the decision-maker of the 'group'. With the way Dick was glaring at him, Tim knew that he was following Tim's hints - and not mentioning that Tim could have asked aunt Dinah for Oliver Queen's help. Dinah has been dating him for a good long while, after all.

"I'll put out feelers," Barbara stated. "Jason, do you have inklings or list on who we might want to chase after? You mentioned they're covert, and about half of the identity of people rounded up by the GCPD earlier were locals."

Jason shrugged helplessly. "They don't usually trust digital stuff for this... membership thingy. Not especially for foot soldiers."

"I think I can figure out how to sift them out..." Tim commented, ideas after ideas churning through his mind. "Want me to come over and powwow, O?"

"Yes, sure. That'll be great." Oracle replied, even with the metallic voice modulator, Tim could sense the relief.

"Okay, you wanna come with?" he asked Dick.

Dick shook his head. "Not that I'm guarding you or anything, 'cause I'm sure you can figure out how to get out without me noticing, anyway. But I'm... I'd prefer if the boy wakes up, he'll still see me, you know? So he's convinced that he's not... being abandoned or anything."

"That's sweet, but I agree. Do you mind, Jason?"

"Having another body to stand guard? Not at all. I'll need to shut my eyes for a few, anyway." Jason replied with a small smirk. "Would've been nice to shut-eye with a warm body next to me, but hey, beggars can't be choosers," he added blithely just as Tim got up and walked away.

Tim paused, turned, and blew him a kiss. Because that's what mama Selina said you should do when someone openly flirted with you if you also want to flirt with said someone. Jason's smirk just got bigger but didn't give any more reaction.

Tim continued his exit, his mind partially mapping out his plan to clean out the League of Assassins from Gotham; the other part mapping out his plan on to figure out if Jason was as compatible as he suspected.

#Batless!AU #Tim Drake #Jason Todd #JayTim #stray!tim #RedGhost!Jason #Dick Grayson #Talon!Dick #Damian Wayne #Barbara Gordon #Oracle!Barbara #Birds of Prey #BatFam

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firefrightfic · 7 years

Note

I was wondering if you ship Robinpile? And if you do, how do you think their dynamics would work? My personal theory is that Dick might feel guilty at times because he's the oldest, he's supposed to... Idk, not 'sin'. lol I'm sorry if I bother you with this. I love your characterization and I kind of want to hear your opinion. Thank you and congrats on your followers milestone

I absolutely do ship Robinpile, not as much as some other combinations, but it’s one of those things that when done right can be really wonderful to read. Whether as an actual dedicated relationship, or a sex only deal to relieve stress between them. These guys go through so much on a nightly basis, and there’s something to be said for being able to fall back on your teammates, who also know exactly what you’re going/have gone through in potentially more ways than one. They could be very very good together, or well… it could also be a damn mess (Either way works fine for me, but we’ll go with the former for the rest of this post).

This got long, so the rest of my answer is below the cut!

I agree that Dick probably would have some guilt, mostly towards Tim and Damian (and for Dick, I think trying to make the shift from a platonic to sexual/romantic relationship would be the hardest with Tim, as they’ve always read the most brotherly to me), but I also think out of anyone, Dick is the glue that’s going to hold the entire group together. He’s the leader, the one they all trust without question and are comfortable listening to (well, mostly comfortable in Jason’s case), and he’s also the best at smoothing over some of the more fractious elements among them *cough*TimandDamian*cough*. And though I don’t believe he’d be the instigator that gets the relationship going in the first place, once it does happen, he is definitely the driving force behind most of what they do together after that. Dick likes being in charge, and the others are happy to let him take that role.

Jason is the gruff mother hen of the group, and you can fight me on this. He is also, surprisingly, one half of those who started the ball rolling in the first place (my own personal interpretation on how it happens is that Jason and Dick were a thing, then after a particularly intense mission Jason got into some adrenaline fuelled making out with Tim, which in turn led to a guilty fear-of-rejection fuelled confession to Dick, who while upset at first, was also willing to talk to him about it. Especially when Jason and Tim’s attraction to each other became apparent as a thing that was not going away even though Jason was steadfastly in love with and not wanting to end his relationship with Dick.) Jason is the one who fusses over everyone else, while at the same time adamantly insisting that he doesn’t fuss over them, because what the fuck. He also deals with a lot of insecurity over the relationship because he’s Jason, and a part of him will always look at the rest of them and can’t help but wonder if they’d work much better if he wasn’t there. Luckily, Dick and Tim are very good about picking up on that and reassuring him he’s a necessary part of what they have and that it wouldn’t work the same without him.

Tim is the most laid back out of the group. He got swept into this relationship and even after it’s been going steady for a while still occasionally wonders exactly how he ended up here. He also doesn’t much care about the why though, because he can see more than anyone that it works for them. He doesn’t give a damn either about anyone else finding out about it or what they’ll think if they do; contrary to the rest, who can’t help but worry a little about the reactions they’d get (especially from Bruce). He likes knowing that he has that support, that affection, that outlet to come home to when he needs it. It works, and he’ll absolutely be the first to fight anybody who tries to tell him it shouldn’t. He’s also the best at figuring out when any of them are having a problem they’re not talking about, though he usually leaves the actual confronting/solving of those issues to Dick, if Dick’s not the one causing them (if he is, then Tim passes it on to Jason).

Damian, like Jason, deals with a lot of insecurity about being part of the group. A large part of that owing to the fact that he comes into the relationship at least a couple years later than everyone else does, after he finally works up the courage to kiss Dick (not knowing that he’s already together with Jason and Tim both since they’ve managed to keep the relationship secret up until that point). At first, Damian would take the invitation to join in for the wrong reasons; namely believing it’s the only way he could get to be with Dick, and that he’ll just have to put up with Jason and Tim as a necessary evil to reach that goal, which in turn leads to a fair few problems down the road until the others catch on and confront him on it. But by that time, Damian has also surprised himself by finding that he does have a genuine affection and attraction towards Jason and Tim as well. Once they get that straightened out, everything starts to go much more smoothly as – just like with Jason – the group does their best to assure Damian that they all really do want him there. Yes, even Tim. (And as a quick aside: I also can’t help but imagine that Damian is the one that’s constantly overwhelmed during sex, as he’s the least experienced and can never quite seem to keep up with Dick, Tim, and Jason, who love conspiring to drive him crazy, because “Damn it, brat, stop overthinking it and just enjoy.” Not to mention, Damian is adorable when he gets flustered, as Dick loves pointing out to him).

Of course, Damian will still deny forever just how much it means to him to be part of this, but there are those moments, where they’re all laid in Dick’s huge bed together, or maybe they’re in the living room of one of their apartments where Jason is reading while he sketches, and Dick and Tim are watching a movie or playing a video game together on the tv, and it hits him – hits all of them – how good it feels to be there together, and none of them ever considers taking the decision back.

#asks #anonymous #robinpile #we got there in the end anon #dick grayson #Jason Todd #Tim Drake #Damian Wayne #meta

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bluboothalassophile · 7 years

Text

Give Me Back My Mind! I'm

Missing Bats, Dead Bats, New Bats

“You’re really going to break into Shadowcrest?” Constantine asked ludicrously.

“What’s the problem, it’s not like I’m robbing the House of Mystery, and she double crossed me first,” Jason growled lowly as he sipped his beer.

“It’s not that, it’s… I thought you were done with magic,” John sighed.

“I am a thief,” Jason repeated. “I was contracted to steal the book, I did, I even had a pissed off demon after me, and I got paid for stealing the book. However, as in the terms of agreement for acquiring my services, no double crossing or the other Red comes after you.”

“No, I get it, but I just… are you sure Z took the bloody book?” Constantine asked.

“It’s my fucking starting point, and I’m relatively certain she hired me to steal it,” Jason stated flatly.

“Well, I’m always up for a wee bit of mischief, but I’ve got my own problems to handle, I’ll help you with Shadowcrest, but then you’re in my debt,” Constantine warned.

“Fine,” Jason waved off. He didn’t mind owing John a favor, it wasn’t like John’s favors were all that horrible. “Whatever you want pal.”

“You do know my friends die, right?” Constantine said with dark humor lacing his tone.

“You do know I’m allergic to death,” Jason countered. Constantine was laughing then as his head fell back.

“Yeah, here’s the Shadowcrest blueprints, but you did not get them from me. And tell your sorceress that the house doesn’t take too kindly to demons,” Constantine waved his hand and a set of scrolls materialized.

“I never…” Jason started and John gave him a hard look.

“The Gem of Scath is an elusive demon, and a hell of a sorceress but she’s a demon all the same, Jason, a very powerful one at that,” Constantine said firmly as he sipped his drink. Jason lifted a brow.

“Gem of Scath?”

“She’s the daughter of Trigon, a king of demons, she was born to rule at his side, a Princess of Hell so to speak, no doubt if she were to be in her father’s realm she’d be a Queen. The Azarathians who sheltered her and raised her, they supposedly taught the Gem to control her demon. The Azarathians prophesized her opening the door which would bring Trigon to earth and destroying all worlds mortal. They were right in a manner of speaking, but Azarath will never know that.”

“What is Azarath, I know in the League files it’s listed as a dimension and that book as the last relic of Azarath, but I’ve seen a good portion of the multiverse and never heard or saw it,” Jason said.

“Not surprising, lad. Azarath was sort of behind the veil of all multiverses, all seeing, all knowing behind the veil of the universe. It was said they were a peaceful world, and spiritual, practicing mystic arts we could only dream of, I’m sure if Fate were here he’d have more to say on the Azarathians,” John said as he sipped his beer.

“What happened to them?”

“Azarath was destroyed, by Trigon,” Constantine said indifferently.

“How?”

“The Gem of Scath, she’s a conduit for Trigon, a very powerful one at that, she accidenitally opened a door to Azarath and Trigon came, destroying it all; she was merely a child, and then Trigon stole her away to his realm, after that, somehow, she came to be on earth. I don’t know the whole story, just the whispers and rumors of what I have heard from other demons and sorcerers,” John shrugged. Jason frowned as he stared at his beer.

“’Side’s the silly prophecy came and passed already, she was powerful enough to banish Trigon back to his realm, saving us, can’t be all bad if she banish a demon as strong as Trigon,” Constantine chuckled.

Jason shot him a confused look. “I thought you wouldn’t like demons.”

“They aren’t all evil, a bloke I know is merged with a powerful one and he’s not all bad. Demons are just… dangerous. They’re like a wild animal, impossible to predict, and very dangerous, but dangerous isn’t always bad. The Gem of Scath, from what I’ve heard, is a passive creature, while her nephew, the bloke I was telling you about, he’s aggressive,” Constantine shrugged.

“Passive my ass,” he snorted. “Thanks for the blue prints.”

“Jay, be careful in that house, Z isn’t a weak one, and she hates the Gem of Scath,” Constantine warned.

“Her name is Raven,” Jason warned lowly. “And Zatanna is only on my shit list because she double crossed me. That makes her my enemy, and if Raven’s my ally, I think Zatanna should be the one worrying.”

“Agreed, I won’t be warning her if you’re concerned about that,” Constantine said slowly. “Azarath sorcery belongs to the last Azarathian, not to anyone else.”

“Thanks Constantine, I owe you one,” Jason said as he walked out of the bar then and made his way to his safe house.

He frowned at the paintings on his floor, the wax, the candles, the scent of inscents and the faint scent of blood. However, he ignored it as he carefully moved around all the paintings; not willing to fuck with magic and end up in another dimension or turned into a bat or something.

He made it to his sleeping room and saw Raven sound asleep on a bedroll, Damian claiming the mattress. Sighing he stripped off his clothes and pulled on his pajama pants; snagged a shirt as an after thought and stretched out beside Raven.

For such a powerful demon, she was tiny, he thought as she shifted on her stomach and scooted into him on her own. Exhaustion claimed him as he yanked a blanket over him and Raven and he decided he wouldn’t be childish about sleeping with her. It was chilly in the apartment after all.

~~~*~*~*~~~

He was too fucking exhausted after dealing with Superboy the day before and yesterday that he had collapsed in his living quarters on his bed and opted to sleep for a year. Between talking to Superboy the day before, and having Tim sit there and talk to Superboy, Dick had spent most of yesterday trying to figure out how to talk to Superman about the existence of the clone; it was exhausting.

Life was exhausting as of late.

Not in the bad, depressing way, but rather in the ‘there’s one of me, eight of you, a thousand things to do, have patience, I’m working on it’ way. When Damian had shown up earlier this year and they had sorted everything about the League of Assassins, the Pit, Slade Wilson, and where Damian would be staying, Dick had decided he’d have to step up more as a big brother. With both Tim and Damian. And while he and Tim were good; had been since Tim had donned the mantel of Robin, Damian was a different story.

Damian was a handful to say the least, he was so unlike any other child that there was that it was a bit ridiculous to try to treat him as a child. However, Damian was ten, and he needed to be a child. And after all the shit the kid had gone through, both before being dumped on Bruce by Talia al Ghul, and after, the kid needed… family. And the Bat family was perpetually dysfunctional as hell. Also, by taking Damian out of Gotham he was out of the reach of both Talon and Talia, and Dick would do anything to keep his baby brother away from the psychos of Gotham and the League of Assassins.

But aside from Tim and Damian, there was Bruce to worry about; not that he had to worry about Batman, but Bruce he had to worry about. Bruce was the not-great-but-still-trying father who was paranoid that something bad would happen to them, Bruce was the father who had lost his son, and who didn’t know how to be a father but tried all the same.

And to add to his exhaustion of life there was now Barbara and Kori to deal with. He and Kori had a nice thing going, steady for a year, not quite boyfriend and girlfriend, but more than just friends with benefits. Truthfully, until Bruce had insisted on the Titans having technical support and Barbara being said support, he had been planning on taking Kori on an official date and uncomplicating this part of his life. But with Barbara here he wasn’t certain about this, or how to proceed. Dick had loved Barbara, and he still did in a way, for a long time, she’d been a dear friend in a moment of his life where he’d been in hell, and she’d helped save him. But whatever spark, whatever flame had been between them in their youth, it had extinguished when the Joker had broken her and she had shut him out and he’d let her shut him out.

But with his family, and confusing relationships, also came all the work he did as Nightwing, Dick, Richard Grayson, and a member of the Titans and the League. It was exhausting to try to keep up with all that.

And perhaps it was this exhaustion which had made him miss it. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed because he was already stretched so thinly and he had come to rely on Raven to be there to keep him propped up. Raven was good like that, she was like a sister to him and she was his savior where Damian was concerned. Perhaps it was the fact he was so comfortable here in the Tower that he hadn’t noticed it. However it had slipped his notice, even as he cracked his weary eyes open at the sound of his ringing phone and an empty bed.

Yawning he reached for his phone and looked at the caller before sighing, wincing, sitting up and looking around his room for Kori. She wasn’t here, he felt his cold bed and groaned as he fell back; complicated! For about a year, whenever he was in Tower or in San Francisco, he and Kori shared a bed; and right now she wasn’t there.

Groaning he got out of his bed, noted that it was five in the morning, the only two who would be up would be Raven and Damian. Damian got up and four-thirty every morning to train; unless the Titans had had a ridiculously late night mission. And Raven would be getting ready to meditate at five, they always shared a morning cup of tea and coffee at five.

Walking out of his room with his phone in hand he made his way down to the kitchen and noted the absolute silence, not even the hum of the holographs running, which had him sighing as he walked to the coffee. Raven hadn’t made it, frowning he just did it himself as he waited, waited for both the coffee and Raven to materialize from the shadows.

She didn’t show, he just shrugged it off to her being exhausted as he sat at the kitchen table and dialed back Bruce.

“Dick I need you to do me a favor,” Bruce started when he answered the phone on the second ring.

“Morning Dick, how are you? Oh, I’m good, just exhausted, Supes has a clone, I haven’t slept well in four days, and I’m exhausted. Also, my alien girlfriend, the one you’re not overly fond of, is mad at me for letting my childhood sweetheart live here, and I woke up in my bed here, alone for the first time in a year after having a steady thing with Kori going, thanks for asking though,” Dick sarcastically filled in his guardian. As much as he loved Bruce, Bruce wasn’t his father, no one would ever be able to take his father’s place in his heart or mind, and Dick refused to entertain the idea of calling Bruce ‘Dad’. But Bruce was a guardian, and Bruce was alright with that.

“Sorry, Dick,” Bruce sighed.

“It’s alright, we’re still training you,” Dick shrugged; he had Tim in on him with the correcting Bruce on how a father was supposed to be, hopefully Bruce would be a better father for Damian. “Now, what’s so important you’re calling at five in the morning?”

“I have some news,” Bruce started.

“Of course you do, else you wouldn’t have been calling,” Dick stated as he sipped his overly sweetened coffee, it was so warm, and good, it was like coming to life again.

“I’m going to need your help talking to Damian and Tim about this,” Bruce said firmly, but the undercut of uncertainty was what had Dick sitting up straight in his chair.

“What is it Bruce? You’re officially scaring me. You’re not dying are you!?” Dick felt the panic coming at the thought of losing Bruce; he wasn’t ready to be an orphan again, and he was not ready to be shoved into the mantel of Batman; and he didn’t want it. No, Dick was happily waiting for Damian to be all grown up to take the Batman mantle.

“I’m not dying,” Bruce stated firmly.

“Oh thank God,” Dick sighed as he fell back in his seat. “So what’s up?”

“Selina’s pregnant,” Bruce stated and Dick burst into laughter; it couldn’t be helped. From the age of thirteen Bruce had been hounding it into him to use protection, to be safe, to be smart, to accept the consequences of sex if protection failed and to never treat a woman as anything less than a lady; regardless of what she did for a living or how she acted. And now, in the span of a year, Bruce was telling him that he had not only sired one baby, but two; it was priceless!

It also revoked Bruce’s lecturing rights on protection.

“After all the lectures you gave me!” Dick laughed. “You have a ten year old show up on your door step, and now Selina in less than a span of a year! This is great! You can’t lecture me anymore about protection! I’ve never even had a pregnancy scare! This is great!”

“I will still lecture you so you do not get to being my age and have a ten year old showing on a yacht not the doorstep,” Bruce grounded out.

“Nope! I’ve never had a pregnancy scare, and my current girlfriend and I haven’t even had to worry about the possibility. And yacht, doorstep, tomato-tomata,” he shrugged. “Congratulations are in order I take it.”

“Yes,” Bruce said uncertainly.

“Tell Selina I said hi, congrats, and welcome to the family. Oh, and I want a baby brother,” Dick stated happily. “She is going to be a part of the family, right? I like Selina, why better than that manipulative bitch Talia.”

“She’ll be happy to hear that, and we’re working that out,” Bruce sighed. “Also, you know you cannot make requests as to the gender of a baby, right?”

“I know, but face it Bruce, we have no idea what to do with girls, Barbara’s Barbara, and Cass is a former assassin, and Stephanie’s Cluemaster’s daughter, both girls are more of Barbara’s than ours,” Dick pointed out.

“Still can’t will it to be a boy,” Bruce pointed out.

“I can hope, also, is this why it was suddenly imperative that Tim and Stephanie join up with the Titans? I get having Damian here, and I get that those three need to work on being a team, but your push was sudden,” Dick pointed out.

“The reasons of needing them to be a unit are also true. And after Wonder Girl, Supergirl, and Superboy’s near death attempt at a mission is also a true factor in my pushing them to join the Titans. But yes, the pregnancy was a private factor as well, Selina and I will work this out, without interference, but Dick… I’ll be in San Francisco next week, I would like to sit down with all of you and talk about this,” Bruce carefully and the wheels in Dick’s head spun.

Damian wasn’t overly fond of Tim and he barely tolerated the rest of the adopted clan and preened over being Bruce’s only blood son and rightful heir. There could be problems forming with this announcement and Damian’s attitude.

“I’ll talk to Raven, see if she can help me with talking to Damian,” he sighed. Raven was perhaps Damian’s only friend outside of the family, Dick was hoping this would change in time, but it was a good start. Also, Raven was a good role model for Damian, Dick would have sworn she was like a big sister or mother to Damian with how she had taken to treating him.

“Raven?”

“I need reinforcements, and Raven’s good at getting through to Damian, you know this. Besides she’ll keep it all to herself, Raven doesn’t gossip,” Dick pointed out. He was pretty certain that all of Damian’s calls home had elements of Raven in them.

“Just… don’t have the entire Titans know, else the League will know and everyone will know,” Bruce grouched.

“I get it, how far along is she?”

“Ten weeks.”

“Hey, wasn’t that after…” Dick started and frowned. “How long have you two been officially, secretly dating then.”

“Since before Damian came here,” Bruce answered.

“Wow, almost a year then,” Dick said in awe. Brucie tended to be frivolous in his dating life, Bruce Wayne sought to stay single or have a connection, and Batman couldn’t have attachments or love. Dick was impressed. True Bruce and Selina had been dancing around each other since before he’d ever even known Bruce, but to actually hear that they were a couple… it was impressive.

“Congrats, send Selina my love and try to do right by her,” Dick grinned at taking over the father role at the moment.

“Talk to Damian,” Bruce pleaded.

“No worries, baby bird will be ready to be a brother before I’m through with him,” Dick announced. “Call me when you want to arrange that sit down, I’ll make certain Tim and Damian won’t kill each other before then.”

“Thank you, Dick,” Bruce sighed.

“Talk to you later Bruce,” he smiled as he hung up and then stared up at the ceiling.

Another sibling…

Another spawn of Bruce Wayne, with Selina Kyle as the mother, the world wasn’t ready for that but Dick was kind of looking forward to it. If Jason were alive to be here he’d have been excited, Tim was going to be nervous but thrilled, and Damian… Damian was a wild card. Hopefully Dick could coax the youngest Robin around to the idea of being a big brother; this was going to take a lot of help.

Thank God for Raven, demon or not, Raven was an angel for putting up with him and his family being shoved on her. Finishing his coffee he noted the time and decided he’d go find Raven and talk to her about helping him with Damian and getting Damian to like the idea of being a big brother. After making his way back up to the living quarters he walked the hall, pausing outside of Kori’s door he was tempted to walk in and join her in bed for some more sleep, however, he needed to talk to Raven. He’d talk to Kori later. Walking to Raven’s room he lightly knocked, there was no answer. Slowly he walked in, careful of her wards, and left the door open just in case her room decided to pitch him out.

“Raven?” he called out, he stopped at her bed and frowned at the man’s leather jacket on it and the empty bed. Where was she? And who’s jacket was this? Picking up the jacket he slowly walked out of the room; careful not to touch anything. Coming into the hall he quietly shut the door and looked up when Victor emerged from his room.

“Hey, Cy, have you seen Raven?” he asked.

“Who? What!? I don’t know anything! Rae’s out!” Victor scrambled and Dick’s eyes narrowed on his giant friend.

“Victor, where is Raven?” he repeated slowly and clearly.

“Uh… She’s tracking Red X! He broke into her room, stole something and she’s been tracking him down, Damian is with her, I insisted she didn’t do this alone, and obviously, I can’t leave else who’d be in charge of her team!? You’re too busy for the training stuff, and Damian volunteered to go with her! I don’t know anything else! I swear!” Victor balked.

“Raven chasing Red X! And my baby brother is out there without protection!” Dick paled at the thought; Talia wanted Damian back and the League of Assassins would go after him now that he was out of Batman’s protection! Oh shit!

“He’s with Rae,” Victor pointed out.

“That’s not the point! The League of Assassins, Talia al Ghul, wants him back!”

“What!? Does he know!?”

“No! Bruce and I thought it was for the best if he wasn’t tempted to return to them!” Dick snapped.

“Oh shit,” Victor paled more.

“We have to find him before the Assassins find out he’s out there on his own with only Raven to protect him!” Dick shouted.

He also had to find Damian before Bruce found out he was missing; else Dick was dead.

~~~*~*~*~~

Bruce felt a bit more confident about broaching the whole family thing with his children now that he had talked to Dick and Dick had been excited. Truthfully, though he had suspected Selina was pregnant, he hadn’t officially known until yesterday when he’d met up with her for lunch and he’d never been more scared. Well, except when Talia had shown up and presented Damian as his son, finding out about Damian had scared the shit out of him. But he loved that boy, just as he loved all his sons and he was striving to try to be a father to Damian and to teach his boy that there was more to the world than the Assassins who had brainwashed him and were now seeking him out.

Sighing he leant back in his seat as he contemplated how this could work and tried to predict how Damian would react to the news. Of all his children Damian was the most difficult, and the most like Jason; more serious than Jason, but Damian still possessed the same anger, rage, temper and views on killing and going off alone. Bruce was trying to reign him in, trying to stop his youngest’s reckless behavior, but found it difficult.

At least until Dick had decided to move Damian in with the Titans.

True Damian was still reckless, still violent, still brash, but he was calmer. Bruce figured it was Raven’s doing, all of Damian’s calls home were filled with the demoness’s words, her advice, her help, and just Raven. He’d have found it amusing that his youngest had a crush on the Titan if not for the fact that Raven was a demon. And while he trusted Raven with his family completely, he was also well aware that she had dangerous powers she chose to keep to herself that no one in the League knew about.

Dragging a hand through his hair he took another steadying breath before standing, buttoning his suit, grabbing his needed files, and walking out of the office to head for a board meeting. Tonight he and Selina would be talking, and Alfred had the night off. It was all quiet in Gotham, and if he hadn’t known where all the lunatic criminals were at this moment, he’d have thought it too quiet. Like the calm before the storm.

Still, Bruce couldn’t shake this uncanny feeling that trouble was coming despite the world all but telling him it was at peace.

Something bad was about to happen, he could feel it in his gut.

~~~*~*~*~~~

Raven was not surprised to wake with Jason again, or to have his heavy arm tossed over her back, or for him to be so close. He was very warm, and she was very comfortable where she was. Turning her head she looked up on the bed to see Damian staring at her with curious, unblinking eyes; a habit from his father and brothers no doubt, Dick and Tim both did this look as well. A low moan escaped her as she stretched out a bit on her stomach, not dislodging Jason, and then she sighed before giving Damian her undivided attention.

“Morning,” she breathed in a hushed tone.

“When are we moving on Shadowcrest?” the boy asked.

“Tonight,” came the mumbled reply from Jason who was sleeping on his stomach, facing away from them. “Go to sleep.”

“I can’t there’s gunshots across the street,” Damian hissed.

“Go to fucking sleep! Cops will take care of it!” Jason hissed.

“This is a very unsafe place to have a safe house, worse than Crime Alley,” Damian wrinkled his nose a bit in disgust and Raven chuckled as Jason came awake then and propped himself up beside her.

“Not all of the world grows up in palaces with guards, tutors, and money Damian. Be grateful, and this is a perfectly safe, safe house!” Jason growled lowly. The sound of sirens blaring had Raven rolling onto her back as she stretched and sat up.

“How about tea and breakfast then we’ll discuss Shadowcrest,” Raven yawned.

“Please don’t cook,” Damian pleaded.

“I’m cooking twerp so shut it, sunshine’ll make the tea,” Jason groaned as he stretched and sat up too.

“You can cook?” Raven and Damian asked at the same time.

“Yes, and I’m an excellent cook,” Jason stated.

“I doubt it,” Damian snorted.

“Just cause you can burn water does not mean the rest of us mortals are inept at cooking,” Jason sighed as he got to his feet and left them in the bedroom. Raven looked at Damian who was now looking a bit more curious than angry.

“Why is he sleeping with you?” Damian asked.

“You mean aside from the fact it’s cold, there’s one mattress with good blankets, and I have the bedroll?” Raven clarified.

“He did it in the hotel too,” Damian pointed out.

“Because he wanted to sleep on a bed, and now, probably because it’s cold,” Raven admitted. She doubted there was another reason she and Jason had taken to being so close so quickly.

“Grayson shares a bed with Kori,” Damian said so innocently Raven felt like she’d been creamed by a linebacker then.

“That’s different,” she assured him.

“I know, but I thought that’s why people shared beds,” Damian snorted.

“Damian, worry about it when you’re older, for now, Red seems intent on sleeping on a bed or with a blanket, though he’s a furnace,” Raven sighed as she dragged her fingers through her hair.

“If he tries anything I will disembowel him,” Damian said firmly.

“Good to know, let’s get breakfast,” Raven decided as she stood up and stretched. She was still in her pajamas as she walked into the living area.

~~~*~*~*~~~

Damian wasn’t a fool, he knew why people slept together and what they wanted; he’d walked in on his grandfather once, and his mother was not shy about the men who came to her bed. Dick and Kori slept together, Damian had snuck in one night before the dawn curious as to what Grayson’s relationship with the alien was and found them sound asleep. And he’d seen his father sleeping in Catwoman’s bed before too. He knew what people wanted when they shared beds, and what that usually meant.

Waking up to Jason and Raven together was different though.

It was comfortable. Damian had waited until they were awake before speaking, he did not want to disturb the peace he felt around them.

And now he was sitting at a battered table as Jason made batter and Raven made tea. Was this what normal felt like? To just sit at a table for breakfast and have people be calm? Damian didn’t know, he didn’t think there’d ever been a calm moment with the Titans or the Wayne family. And despite the obvious chaos outside, it was calm in here.

“Vanilla?” Jason yawned.

“Here,” Raven said as she waved her hand to have a bottle float out of a cabinet.

“Thanks.”

“What’s for breakfast?” Damian asked.

“Waffles for me and little bird, you like pancakes so you’ll be getting those,” Jason informed him.

“That is acceptable,” Damian decided.

“It’s too early for the prince shit,” Jason growled.

“Knock it off Damian,” Raven chided and he just blinked at her as she made him a mug of tea. It was comfortable here, he kind of liked it as he accepted the mug Raven placed before him and she sat, Jason continued to make batter.

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