Ultimate Escape Room
Sam, Danny, and Tucker are bored. Nothing seems to be a challenge anymore. Summer vacation is coming up but they can’t agree on anything . Themepark? What’s a better roller coaster than Jack driving? Scary movie? I’m sorry, nothing beats Fright Knight’s nightmare realm. Bungie jumping? Danny can fly. Then Tucker, who’s been typing on his computer, asks “what about an escape room?”. The others are about to shut the idea down because seriously? Easy. But Tucker just grins and shows them his computer screen.
“Ever heard of Arkham?”
Danny and Sam lean over to read the description and all three turn to each other and grin.
Now, what’s the fastest way to get into Arkham?
…
So the chaos trio do ✨something✨ that gets them locked up in Arkham and then try to escape and they keep. You know, normal stuff for Arkham inmates. Except this trio? Keep. Getting. Out. Of. Their. Cells. So they are just passing by locked up rogues and waving at them as an army of prison guards chase after them. Sure they could get out the easy way (Aka powers) but no, this is a challenge so they have the normal rules of an escape room. Aka, you can’t break anything and an extra rule where if a guard catches you, then you can’t fight back (also, no one can get hurt). (They make fake identities and everything). So they need to go through the whole process. Figure out how to unlock cuffs. Could be learning to pick a lock with a spoon/stick/long nails. Then find the keys. Possibly having to crawl through vents to get in the warden’s office. Or making deals with prison inmates. Like, I’ll get this for you if you give me that (however they extract a promise that the rogue can’t kill anyone with whatever they help them with.) So they are in prison literally doing errands like find freeze’s weapons in exchange for him telling them the passcode to the gate or something. Or getting Waylon some meat from the cafeteria and he’ll break the lock on this movable vault that has materials to make smoke bombs they can use to distract the front guards.
These kids are just going wild and it gets to the point where Arkham has to call the bats (like no Waylon, we won’t escape with you, we have to do it without breaking any walls!) So literally the only reason they are not escaping is because they want to do it ‘right’. But they are also aiding other rogues in their escape (at least certain ones. They aren’t helping joker no matter what he offers)
It’s driving the bats mad. They have vigilantes stationed in each hall, in multiple monitor rooms.
They aren’t even using anything clever to block the cameras. They’re using mirrors. Mirrors! Where did they even get so many handheld mirrors!
They are running circles around the bats. The escaped rogues literally aren’t doing anything yet because they want to see how the three hellions will escape the entire bat clan. They have bets going. So there is a temporary truce.
Just imagine the conversations/interrogations the bats will have with trio, trying to figure out their master plan - because surely there's something more going on than three chaos young adults playing a game, right?
They trio each have a different story. And they are so passionate/convincing actors that no one knows which story is real. At least one of them told a sob story with legitimate tears.
Danny: (all mysterious) You shall never know our master plan….until it is too late. And just casually dropping hints that there is something greater or that the bats are playing right into their hands. Even using ridiculous scenarios like yesss the ketchup explosion in the cafeteria….We are one step further….Mwa ha ha! (Rubs his hands together)
Sam: (absolutely distraught with literal tears running down her face and ruining her mascara.) There is a terrible organization holding their parents hostage. They had been framed and forced to be in Arkham. If they don’t do exactly as they are told, their loved ones are in danger! Should we stay? Should we escape and help them!? No one will believe us and what if we make things worse? We don’t know what to do!
Tucker: (takes a long slurp of a smoothie. Where he got one? No one knows). Yeah we were bored and had nothing better to do than mess with you guys. (Sluuuuurp).
The bats are trying to figure it out. Is the black haired guy telling the truth and the other two are just manipulating them? Is it the girl and the others are only following the plot of the organization? IS THE BARET KID RIGHT AND THEY’RE JUST MESSING WITH US!? WHICH STORY IS IT!?
Under normal circumstances, Sam wouldn’t give a sob story because It’s not really her vibe. But Sam has the opportunity to pull one over on a bat. Do you honestly think she won’t take a chance to mess with them? Also, Dick is the one who is interrogating Sam.
He’s crying too by the end of the story.
Poor guy, Sam will play his heart like a fiddle.
Also, their fake identities are Jordan for Danny. Mortica for Sam (or Macey for short) and Phineas for Tucker. The fact that they are using fake identities is the only thing they all agree on in the interview. But the bats find nothing on them and the identities are so realistic they wonder if they are even fake at all. If the three are faking fake IDs to throw them off their tail from looking deeper. Apparently their ‘parents’ having a missing persons report.
Damian is interrogating Danny. It’s just so easy to rile him up and get under his skin. It’s absolute drama in that interrogation room.
Danny: ah yessss. Master plan.
Damian: you shall never succeed! Justice shall prevail evil scum!
And Duke is interrogating Tucker. He just…has no idea how to respond to this. He wasn’t trained for this response. Hostile, yes. Mysterious, yes. Scared, yes. Civilian, yes. Even Flirtatious! YES! But not…this. What does he do? should he take out his note cards?
Also, I’m adding a mix of home alone elements to this. They have to get past the bats somehow and it can’t be lethal. Poor Jason and Steph who are patrolling the halls fall victim to most of this.
At one point, both of them are tied up together and hanging from the ceiling. While the trio just casually walk by under them.
It’s dental floss. Really strong dental floss.
Then the bats start taking sides.
Jason? once he hears Sam's story, he's immediately willing to help her. He and Dick are searching for that missing person's report almost religiously.
Tim believes Danny's story. part of it is because it makes the most sense, and the other part is that he's slightly biased from becoming an evil megalomaniac in every timeline he's seen so he's subconsciously trying to stop that from happening here.
Cass believes Tucker because come on, it's Cass.
Steph is siding with Tim because her father was cluemaster so same reasons.
Bruce is trying to fact check all of them and is failing desperately.
Sam added some ‘clues’ in her interrogation and basically threw the GIW under the bus as the organization. So the bats do find a shady organization but so far no missing persons so the other bats still don’t know if what Sam is saying is true or not while Dick takes this as absolute proof and Jason feels like it doesn’t matter if she’s telling the truth at this point. It’s a corrupt organization. So he’ll still blow it up.
I think in this AU, the GIW isn’t a threat and more of an annoyance so Sam just plays them up as even worse. Like, she doesn’t say anything untrue just makes it sound worse out of context. Oh yeah, they opened fire on this random kid. (Gregory when they thought he was phantom) Oh yes, they have destroyed Danny’s house at one point. (The prank war with Vlad) Yes, the have an unhealthy obsession with dissecting people. (Even though they are too incompetent to actually catch anyone).
So again, they don’t know if Sam is telling the truth of the organization or they just used this random organization to draw their attention away from the three’s plans (as Danny implied). Possibly an enemy organization or a competitor.
I know everyone makes the GIW a big threat but I decided to change it up. They aren’t a threat but still get obliterated by a pissed off Red Hood and Nightwing.
And that’s another reason why Sam gives the sob story. Danny and Tucker are great but they wouldn’t actually sick a crime lord on the GIW. Sam? Absolutely would. She does not care what happens to them. They tore up her garden one time with a stray shot. She wants revenge. And sure, she didn’t actually know what would happen to them after the bats find out but she still doesn’t care.
And through all of this, the rogues are sitting back and eating popcorn while Joker screams bloody murder from his cell.
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Accidentally started rereading Northanger Abbey, and was sudden reminded all over again that Jane Austen is, in fact, fucking hilarious.
NA is her parody/satire of Gothic novels at the time, and she starts the book by choosing violence-- she describes the "tragedy" of the main character, Catherine Morland, a girl Determined to be a Heroine even though ALL ODDS are against her: she has a sane father who doesn't lock up his daughters, a healthy mother who didn't die in childbirth, no preternatural talent for music or drawing through which to reveal her Deepest Soul, and-- most shockingly of all-- absolutely zero love interests for whom she can wander the hills mourning their starcrossed fates until she wastes away from the sheer Sentimentality of it all.
But don't worry! She's got this FIGURED OUT. She KNOWS why she has not yet found her TRUE LOVE:
There was not one lord in the neighbourhood; no—not even a baronet. There was not one family among their acquaintance who had reared and supported a boy accidentally found at their door—not one young man whose origin was unknown. Her father had no ward, and the squire of the parish no children.
But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.
(SPOILER: She is introduced to a mysterious young man who lives in an ABBEY, which everyone knows means he has a DEEPLY MYSTERIOUS SECRET PAST and is maybe a TRAGIC HERO or even a ROMANTIC MONSTER and either way this is IT this is Catherine's TIME TO SHINE she is going to get a good grade in DOOMED LOVE, a thing that is normal to want and--)
(...meanwhile Henry Tilney-- an ordinary guy who never expected "get cast as the Hero in some Grand Gothic Romance" to show up on his bingo card-- starts wondering when exactly he started finding Catherine's attempts to locate bloody daggers in his linen closet charming.)
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The night before Iwaizumi leaves for California, his mother gives him a gift. It's wrapped delicately in yellow wrapping paper.
Iwaizumi has a feeling he knows what it is.
"I know it's last minute," She says, sitting next to him on his bed in his childhood bedroom. "Your bags are all packed, I don't expect you to make room to take it with you or anything, of course." She watches him, hands folded in her lap. "Ah, and you'll probably think it's embarrassing any-"
"Mama," Iwaizumi interrupts, fighting back a little smile at her fretting. "Let me at least open it before you try minimizing it."
"Right, right." She laughs, waving her hand. "Of course. Go on then. Open it."
Iwaizumi doesn't take his time tearing it open.
It's a book. A scrapbook, Iwaizumi guesses. It has his name handwritten in both kanji and hiragana on the front. It's a little smaller than the other scrapbooks his mom has on her shelf. The binding is a dark forest green.
The only sound in the room is the flipping of pages. Iwaizumi takes his time to study each page, his chest feeling a little tighter the more he flips through the book.
Iwaizumi knows his mothers have always taken lots of pictures, ranging from polaroids to digital. His aunties too but he still finds himself surprised by the amount Sachiko has collected in the book. Including pictures she must have received from other people because neither of his moms were present at said event.
The pages are simple. Each one has about two to five (depending on the sizes of them) pictures on it. They're decorated with stickers and little notes written in his mom's graceful handwriting neatly squeezed where they can fit and still be legible.
Notes like "you gave your poor mother a fright the first time you came into the house with one of these" under a photo of Iwaizumi proudly showing off a jar with a beetle in it and "i'm surprised you convinced tooru to go, lol" by a photo from a fishing trip Iwaizumi took with the other third years.
"This is one of my favorite pictures," His mom says, watching as Iwaizumi flips pages over his shoulder. She points to a picture of the two of them when they first moved into the house. He was only three. They're sitting on the front steps together, neither of them are looking at the camera. He has his arms wrapped around hers and is looking up at her as she laughs.
And he breaks.
"Oh, Hajime." She says softly, pulling him into a tight hug. He tucks his face into the crook of her neck and she strokes his hair as he cries. He feels like he's five again, crying because he accidentally squashed a bug when he was trying to catch it. Ten, crying because he was sick with the flu and thought he was on the brink of death. Thirteen, crying because he and Oikawa had a fight and he thought he would never talk to him again.
Eighteen, crying because he's leaving the country tomorrow and it suddenly hit him that he doesn't know what he's going to do without his mom.
He doesn't say that though.
He doesn't tell her that he's scared, scared that he's going to crash and burn in California, scared that his friendship with Oikawa won't survive the distance, scared that everything is going to go wrong because he left.
Or that he's really going to miss her.
(Maybe he should have told her that.)
-
That night before Iwaizumi spends his last night in his childhood room, he wraps the scrapbook up in the hoodie that Oikawa gave him and tucks them both into one of his bags.
He thinks about where he's going to put it in his dorm room when he gets to California.
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working on a concept for a dpxdc fanfic.
Tim, 17, is at the tail end of junior year at Gotham Academy. During gym he typically ducks into the toilet stalls or showers to change. He’s a vigilante and he can’t exactly explain his bruises/cuts/scars without causing concern, thus he just avoids anyone finding out at all. Unbeknownst to him, one of his classmates was in the same situation.
Wesley Weston was always late to the class after PE, he was always the last out of the locker room. He always showered after class and was very meticulous about putting away and taking out his uniform. He’d even refold his gym clothes a few times and comb his hair until nothing was out of place. Some thought he had OCD, others thought he was vain, and others still thought he was fruitlessly trying to be accepted; Wes was a known loner. There was plenty of speculation when the gossip mill was slow but in reality, Wes always stalled so he could change as quickly as humanly possible, but only after the room was empty.
By pure chance Tim forgets to switch out his gym shoes for his uniform shoes after PE one day and when he gets back to the locker room, it’s locked. Makes sense, the coaches always lock the locker rooms when there isn’t a class using them. Not having time to track down the coach and not wanting to be late to class, Tim picks the lock and out of habit, slips in quietly. He rounds the corner and sees Wes changing. More than that, he sees that Wes is covered in scars and scrapes. And in plain view is the still raw and distinctive injury Damian gave a mysterious, non-bat/bird affiliated vigilante recently.
That is how Tim accidentally discovers that Wesley Weston is Spyris. Spyris who appears and disappears without rhyme nor reason, who sometimes will hunt down Batman’s rogues and who sometimes will walk right past them. No one knows what Spyris does or why, just that he’s there and he’s competent enough to evade the batclan for the several months they’ve known about him.
Maybe he notices then or maybe Tim confronts him about it later but in any case, Wes automatically threatens to out him as Red Robin if he says anything and Tim is shook. When did Wes find out, how long has he known, how did he figure it out. Was anyone else compromised? And what did Wes want? What was Spyris’ goal?
Overall I want Valerie, Sam, Tucker, Danny, and Wes to be vigilantes in Gotham for whatever reason (ghost stuff?) working as a unit, but Spyris is the only one the bats/birds are aware of.
Tim and Wes passive aggressively stalk each other back and forth.
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