#oc; asten

[maccreadysbaby]

A Hundred Ways to Become a Wayne

batfamily + oc insert

tw: anxiety attacks

wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!

want to read the first fic in the hundred days series so you understand what’s going on here? here it is!

yall this is the chapter i’ve been waiting for

part thirty-eight

❝ AIR AND FIRE AND WATER (OH MY) ❞

THURSDAY — SEPTEMBER 3 — 1:00 PM

BENTLEY WAS SILENT ALL THE WAY HOME. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself. Other than the fact he was pretty much at a standstill regarding his father and the Secret Keeper and all that jazz, he was starting to feel strange. Like a part of him had been ripped out and thrown into the Gotham Harbor. Like one of his organs had been removed and replaced by one that didn’t fit quite right — like something wrong was inside of him now. 

It was like he could feel his blood pumping in his veins. The entire car ride, he could hear it in his ears. He could hear the gasoline swishing in Jason’s gas tank. He could feel the windshield washing liquid like it was a part of him when Jason cleaned the bugs off the window. He could feel Jason’s blood pumping through Jason’s veins.

What the hell was wrong with him?

The wrongness just kept getting wronger when they pulled up at the Manor, because it went from Jason and Jason’s car to feeling the water moving through the whole house. Like he had an ear against every pipe in the Manor, listening to the liquid swish and move. He knew where it was. Where it was going. He knew where each and every toilet and sink and shower and fridge was from exactly where he was sitting in Jason’s car. Where every saline bag and liquid medicine and electrolyte drink was sitting in the cave. The drip Asten was on, how much was left in it, and every single time it dripped. 

Why the hell did he know that?

Jason said something to him when he got out of the car, but he didn’t hear it. It sounded like there was a waterfall inside the Manor. When he went through the door, it just got worse — he could hear every bead, droplet, every liquid in the house screaming and sloshing and moving and churning and bubbling. He could feel it like it was all inside of him, like it was him, like he was made out of water. He could hear his blood moving. He could hear Jason’s blood. Asten’s blood. Nico’s blood. Bruce and Alfred and Dick and Damian and the animals and Duke and everything — could feel the blood, the water, everything. He could feel everything.

He walked up the stairs one step at a time, every rational thought — every thought at all — literally drowned out by the sound. The feelings. He felt like he was going to explode. Like he was going to die. By the time he got to the top of the stairs, he was shaking, and breathing wasn’t as easy as it should’ve been. Why did he feel so wrong? So wrong? So wrong?

His mind kinda-sorta came back to him when he ran face-first into someone in the hall. Someone with a purple hoodie and black sweatpants.

When Dick Grayson looked down at him, Bentley started crying.

“Whoa, hey there, kiddo, what’s wrong?” Dick questioned, kneeling down to the child’s height, his crystalline blue gaze bouncing around Bentley’s face. His hair was wet and floppy like he’d just showered, and it reminded him of the first night he ever met Dick Grayson in the pouring rain.

Bentley could hardly think enough to make a coherent sentence. Air wasn’t coming in or out right, and he was crying and sad and so overwhelmed, why could he hear everything? “I-I don’t fee-feel right.” Was what he ended up saying, wiping frantically at his eyes. (Stuttering, more like.)

Dick breathed in, a sad expression coming across his features. “I think you’re having a panic attack, buddy. Just breathe with-“

“No! Not that,” Bentley argued, batting away Dick’s hands that had been coming for his arms. “Something inside of me. I-I feel like I’m going to die. I think I… I- think I’m about to die.”

A few words were shared between Dick and someone else, and in one fluid movement, Bentley was picked up and deposited on a bed. But hadn’t they just been in the hallway? He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything. The only thing he did know was that everything hurt and he couldn’t breathe and it was so loud.

“Bentley, buddy, tell me what doesn’t feel right,” Dick ordered. Bentley was sitting on the edge of a bed (whose bed? No clue.), halfway in reality, half in his own world of blurry confusing pain. Dick was in front of him, his hands were searching Bentley’s frame for anything abnormal. Jason was near the closed door.

Between the crying and the panicking and the not working lungs, he couldn’t breathe. “Everything. Everything feels wrong.”

Jason said something about Bentley’s dad, but he didn’t really hear him. Dick was touching his shoulders. 

“Bentley, keep talking to me,” He pleaded, rubbing Bentley’s arms lightly. He turned to Jason with a subtle: “Go get Bruce.”

Jason left the room.

Bentley couldn’t focus enough to do much of anything. With a groan of… desperation, maybe? He brought his hands up and covered his ears, trying to drown out all the noise. There was so much noise. Too much noise. 

After an indecipherable amount of time passed, someone else was touching Bentley. Bigger hands, stronger grip. He peeled his eyes open just long enough to see Bruce’s face in front of him, icy blue eyes scanning him mechanically, robotically. His mouth moved but Bentley couldn’t hear him over the crashing waves in his own head.

Gently, his hands were removed from his ears. “Hey there, chum, it’s Bruce. Do you think you can tell me what’s going on?” He was doing a pretty good job masking the concern in his voice, but Bentley heard it anyways.

“I-I can… I…” Bentley choked on a few words and sobs at the same time, his hands shaking like leaves where they sat in Bruce’s grip. “I can… hear… I-I can feel… everything.”

Bentley thought he heard something in the room bang or pop, but he wasn’t sure, he couldn’t exactly hear very good. Bruce suddenly got a strange look on his face, and Jason and Dick, who were behind him, looked stunned.

“B, his eyes-”

“Shh,” Bruce ordered, one of his hands coming up to rest on the side of Bentley’s head. “It’s okay, chum. You’re going to be okay. Just look at me.”

Bentley looked at him as best he could through the tears and panic. He tried not to pay attention to Dick, who walked over to the bathroom door looking really, really confused. 

“Breathe with me,” Bruce tried. He took a deep, calculated breath, and Bentley tried to follow suit. It only sort of worked. The roaring in his head wasn’t fading. If anything, it was starting to sound more… real?

“What the f-”

“Jason!”

Bentley’s attention broke away from Bruce just in time for him to glance at the closed bathroom door — was he in Dick’s room? — and see water. Water, just gushing out from under the door like the crack at the bottom was a pressure washer, straight into the bedroom and all over the floor.

“Bruce-“

“Bentley, just look at me,” 

Bentley did. He just looked at Bruce, tracing the fractals of blue in his eyes, focusing on every hair in his eyebrows, every shade of his skin. Bentley just looked at Bruce as the water started to climb the legs of the bed like a slithering snake, curling and wrapping around until it made it onto the mattress. Dick and Jason were standing off to the side, stunned into silence. Bentley just looked at Bruce.

Bentley continued to just look at Bruce as the water started floating — yes, floating, actually suspended in the air — around the room. Some of it crawled up the walls like vines, some spun and danced in the middle of the air like trees in the breeze. It was getting easier to breathe. The roaring was getting quieter.

“That’s it, you’re okay,” Bruce uttered, his hand moving gently in Bentley’s hair. “You’re okay.”

Bentley finally broke his gaze to glance upward. There was water on the ceiling, spinning and churning in intricate swirls and designs there, and water floating through the air in strands like string. It was moving on the walls, the floor, the furniture like snakes. 

Bruce rubbed a hand over his hair. “That’s it. There you go.”

Bentley breathed in deeply, hiccuping lightly, his brown eyes tracing the flying water. “Bruce…”

“It’s okay,”

He wasn’t… this wasn’t… he wasn’t doing that, was he? He couldn’t be. He wasn’t a metahuman. He hadn’t been in the machine long enough, Davis had said so. He was just Bentley. Just normal Bentley.

Normal Bentley focused on one specific snake of water on the ceiling. He imagined it moving left, and it went left. He imagined it moving right, and it went right. He imagined an intricate, beautiful chandelier, hanging from the ceiling, made entirely of water, and the liquid morphed and moved until it became that. Chains, dangling crystals, and metal galore, all shaped from crystal clear water.

“Oh my God,” Jason muttered. He and Dick were staring at the chandelier made of pure water, but Bruce wasn’t. Bruce was still looking at Bentley.

The water slowly moved from the chandelier back to its spot swirling on the ceiling. 

There was absolutely no way Bentley was doing that. Right? There couldn’t be. He couldn’t be.

As a last ditch effort to prove that he wasn’t controlling the water, he imagined it going back where it came from.

And the water, ever-so-slowly, started to crawl off the bed, down from the ceiling and the walls, across the floor again at a glacial pace. Dick swung the bathroom door open. Bentley watched in a mixture of awe and terror as he watched the vines of water slither back into the toilet and faucets.

When all the water was gone, nothing was wet, not even the mattress, and the room was eerily silent. And Bentley was oddly drained.

Fire, Air, and Water. How clever, Mr. Whittaker.

Bentley looked back up at Bruce, who had a reassuring smile on his face.

“Are you going to get rid of me now?”

Before he heard the reply, everything faded to black.

—

The first (and pretty much only) thing he got back was his hearing.

“-telling you, this is different. The whole structure of his DNA looks strange. It’s different from the last blood sample we have from him — It almost looks like a whole new strand,” That was Tim’s voice, he was pretty sure. 

“So you’re saying that whoever kidnapped him changed his human DNA into metahuman DNA?”

“It looks like they… tore apart his original genome and spliced other parts in… like they manufactured synthetic DNA with the genetic mutation of a metahuman and replaced pieces of his own with it. It looks like… whoa,”

“What is it, Timmy?”

“It’s changing. The synthetic DNA is actually… turning the rest of his DNA into metahuman genomes. Spreading… like a virus,”

“Will that hurt him?”

“Let’s just say… I understand why he thought he was dying,”

“You think that could be why Asten-“

Bentley, had he been any more lucid, would’ve flinched at the absolutely gut-wrenching scream that ripped through the air. He was laying on something soft — it just sort of felt like his bed. A bed, at least. And the scream sounded strangely close to him.

“Well, his genes are being ripped apart and replaced, so, if I had to guess, yeah. That’s probably why he’s screaming,”

“What about Bentley?” He was pretty sure that voice was Dick, now that it said his name.

“It seems to be the beginning of the change. I don’t think there’s much we can do to help,”

Suddenly, Bentley’s eyes began to burn even though they were closed. He moved a hand to rub them, but as soon as he moved his fingers, his entire arm erupted into a blazing, fiery pain that made him whine.

“Are they going to be okay?” Came a third voice — the voice of Nico. Bentley felt a hand land on his shoulder, but instead of being soothing, it left a ripple of burning agony that made him choke out a strange sound. The hand jumped away.

“Yeah, they will,” Replied Dick. “We just have to get them through this. How are you feeling?”

There was a silence where all Bentley heard was his own bated breathing. 

“Well, I… I was already a metahuman, so…”

“Oh… okay,”

Bentley tensed, gripping whoever’s covers he was under hard when a surge of absolute burning agony washed over him. It felt like when he was poisoned. Worse than when he was poisoned — like someone was searing his veins closed with a blowtorch. Another choking sound made it's way out of him, but he couldn’t produce words.

“You’re okay, kiddo. You’re going to be okay,”

Asten screamed again. Nico was suddenly crying.

Another wave of absolute searing agony came and went, and Bentley fought it good — he really did. He kept his whining to a minimum for a solid ten minutes.

But then the fire reached his head, and suddenly, two children’s screams were ripping through the halls of Wayne Manor.

And everyone inside just had to listen.

—

dedicated to @sassenashsworld 💚

—

tag list! (If you want me to remove or add you, ask in comments!)

@fleur-alise @sarcopterygiian @flyrobinflyy @skylathescholar @gayboss-too-close-to-the-sun @xiaonothere

[mothdogsart]

My Tav, Asten, tells Gale the story behind their face tattoo (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

[hellleo]

akademiya oc :)

[saltypeepo]

asten, a character from my book.

[breathturrn]

[scaliecoran]

i felt like redrawing this bc its cute

[princess-of-slaughter]

To practice more with this new art style I drew more UVA gals: Becky, Danny, and Kimmy.

If y’all wanna know more about them and the UVA universe, follow my and  @envy-is-a-genderfluid-dragon ‘s trash blog dedicated to it--- @officialuva

[empressofegypt]

Graphtober Challenge

WEEK - 1 Typo’motion @andthereisawoman​ @graphtober​

Day 1. Bodoni&Passion | OC: Itheus Day 2. Bodoni&Lato &Power | OCs: Asten&Ahmose Day 3. Bodoni&Courier&Sadness | OC: Chalalampos Day 4. Bodoni&La Storia&Anger | OC: Konstantin

I know I am late to start but I will try to make everyday from now on. As always, I wanted to open Graphtober with some of original characters. Characters belong to me & my beloved @olympianofficial

[inkyfeather]

Oop-

More ship art you say? Well okay!

These OCs belong to me and a user on discord. Their OC is the one on the left, his name is Asten. The other is mine, Vantablack. Which is basically the dragon version of Noah.

[thatsnakeman]

Sunset on Kahler Asten, Germany [4000x3000] (OC) via /r/EarthPorn https://ift.tt/30NoTE9

[maccreadysbaby]

A Hundred Ways to Become a Wayne Masterlist

in which, after falling into bruce wayne’s custody, bentley whittaker endures the struggles of your average ten-year-old-boy: starting school, making friends, solving two dozen missing persons cases, having an anxiety attack in a morgue, playing robin for a single night, and catching the eye of gotham’s newest and most dangerous rising supervillain. (he’ll tell bruce about it soon, he swears.)

first fic of the hundred days series linked here! this is fic number two!

one — miracle worker

two — metahuman problems

three — worry yourself sick

four — useless, worthless, and everything in between

five — bristol vs crime alley

six — juvenile delinquent

seven — the secret keeper

eight — safe with me

nine — pity

ten — bludgeoned by a book

eleven — babybird

twelve — targeted

thirteen — acquaintances

fourteen — bird of prey

fifteen — unwelcome memories

sixteen — without a trace seventeen — revelation eighteen — hail the puppeteer nineteen — taking the lead twenty — i‘d give you my lungs (so you could breathe) twenty-one — murder central twenty-two — too close to home twenty-three — boiling twenty-four — breakout twenty-five — hurricane twenty-six — a glimpse into the future(s) twenty-seven — breaking and entering twenty-eight — the truth twenty-nine — the reaper thirty — asphyxiation thirty-one — homebound thirty-two — reunions thirty-three — drowning thirty-four — windstorm thirty-five — arsonist thirty-six — over the edge (almost) thirty-seven — plan b thirty-eight — air and fire and water (oh my)

BOOK ONE! 😆

FACECLAIMS FOR BENTLEY, ASTEN, AND NICO 🥳

BENTLEY’S PORTRAIT! 😭

HOW ASTEN MET NICO (A GLIMPSE INTO HIS HOMELIFE AND MENTAL STATE) 😢

WHERE WAS ASTEN IN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN? (A LOOK BEHIND THE SCENES OF CHAPTER SEVENTEEN)😔

[mothdogsart]

There are countless ways to declare love, infinite ways to express it. Too much for one night…

[kuroshitsujiundertaker]

not to be a dirty homestuck in 2019 or anything

but i made a masterlist of the signs, lunar sways & god tiers of my Uni η ocs huhu

Tabaga – Aquaries: the heroic – derse – knight of time

Zetta – Arpia: the examiner – derse – prince of time

Roman – Sagittanius: the nascent – prospit – maid of void

Meretto – Cango: the opus – prospit – mage of space

Racuço – Caprisci: the mendicant – prospit – knight of life

Luleyon – Cirrius: the vindicated – derse – prince of hope

Kiri – Taurra: the transient – prospit – heir of mind

Asten – Libicorn: the dismantler – prospit – thief of rage

Ashet – Pimini: the adjuster – derse – seer of doom

Ish – Lepio: the fortunate – prospit – witch of light

[askcarou]

My lil sweetie

[maccreadysbaby]

A Hundred Ways to Become a Wayne

batfamily + oc insert

tw: death and gore

wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!

want to read the first fic in the hundred days series so you understand what’s going on here? here it is!

here’s bentley and his friends going through it™︎

part thirty-one

❝ HOMEBOUND ❞

MONDAY — AUGUST 17 — 10:42PM

BENTLEY, ASTEN, NICO, AND DAVIS DIDN’T MOVE AN INCH. Instead, they all stared at the bodies of the guards that had just choked to death on nothing.

Nico’s glowing white eyes faded back to their normal blue, rolled back into his head, and he fell over without a warning. Thankfully, Asten was quick and close enough to keep his head from hitting the white tile of Dr. Keene’s screwed-up child experimenting facility.

Bentley blinked, taking several moments to look back and forth between the pile of dead guards in the doorway of the sterile white room, and Nico. Had he just… killed them all? With superpowers?

He turned back to Nico and Asten — the latter now had the former’s head on his lap, and he was staring at him, stunned. So many people were… dying. Bentley had to have seen at least twenty people die right before his eyes in the past, what? Thirty minutes? And each one at the hands of people he knew as friends. The thought made him kind of dizzy. He’d seen so many people die.

He flinched when Davis’s metal glove landed on his left shoulder, and when he met his eyes, the green orbs were dancing worriedly across his face and bloody frame. Bentley looked away and sniffled quietly. “You think you can walk so I can carry your friend?”

Honestly, Bentley was running on nothing more than fumes and fear, and had been for at least a solid few days. The added pain and terror from the gunshot was almost inconceivable, blending into one big blur of full-body agony that he couldn’t stop crying over. Even though Davis said the shot wasn’t that bad (he knew it would be a very different situation if he had been shot in the chest or head), keeping himself from falling over seemed to be the most laborious task he’d carried out in a long time. 

But… Nico was passed out, and Bentley wasn’t yet. He wasn’t sure how many steps he’d get in — but if worse came to worse, he was probably small enough that Asten could get by with dragging him or something. So, as much as he wanted Davis to keep carrying him around, to hide his face from the world and pretend he was in Bruce’s arms, he wiped at his furiously leaking eyes and nodded for him to carry Nico instead.

With that, Davis moved across the room to pick him up, which he did while enduring the longest death glare Bentley had ever seen Asten throw in someone’s direction. He didn’t argue, though — much to their surprise. He just stood up once Nico was securely in Davis’s arms, eyes flicking over to Bentley, around the sterile white room. He also sent a glare to the Synchronizer that surely would’ve made it wither had it been anything but metal and machinery.

“We have to get to Titus. He’s on the other end of the facility,” Davis said, shifting Nico around until his head was securely against his shoulder. He was holding him bridal style like he’d been carrying Bentley, and Nico looked really small in his arms.

Asten breathed in, brushing a hand over his blue and black hair. He was still standing ahead of the Synchronizer where Nico had hugged the life out of him. “Titus. The one who can teleport?”

“Yeah. He can get you guys out of here, if we can get to him. If. I’m not sure how far we’ll make it with no self defense. I would offer up my hands, but they’re kinda full,” Davis glanced down at Nico momentarily, something like the vaguest hint of nostalgia or deja vu swirling in his green irises. “We-“

“I can help with that,”

Bentley, Asten, and Davis all flinched in tandem when a fourth voice came — a disembodied female voice that had no obvious user. The voice had come from near the back wall, across from the door, but… there wasn’t anybody there.

Bentley wasn’t, like, losing his mind, was he? The thought made more silent tears slide down his face. He’d lost so much blood he was losing his mind.

“Who’s there?” Davis questioned, taking a few steps past Bentley in the direction of the mysterious voice. Asten moved toward them, ever so slowly inching away from the Synchronizer and ending up at Bentley’s left side.

Suddenly, eliciting a flinch from Asten and a gasp from both Bentley and Davis, the redhead girl that they’d ejected from a Synchronizer on their search for Asten and Nico appeared out of thin air. She was standing against the back wall of the room in a hospital gown that mirrored theirs, picking at her nails. Her light blue eyes seemed to be an odd mixture of color that made them look silver, and her red hair was long and wavy down her back. Her face had much more color than it had earlier.

Davis glowered dangerously at her, tugging Nico closer to himself. “Who are you?”

She stepped forward, a ghost of a smile growing on her petite face. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna hurt your little sheep. I’ve been following you since you let me out of the machine, which I’m here to repay you for. That is, if you can get your teleporty friend to get me out of here, too.”

“How are you going to help us?” Davis questioned, his voice layered thick with uncertainty and doubt. The girl smirked — smirked.

“I might be straight out of the mad scientist’s oven, but I have a pretty good handle on this whole superpower thing,” She explained, glancing down at her own blank nails, strangely nonchalant now — way calmer than she was earlier. “The names Lydia. Lydia Venice. And with me at your disposal, you’ll be able to walk your happy selves straight to the other side of the compound without a hitch.”

Her freakishly calm demeanor didn’t go unnoticed by Bentley. Either she was adapting extremely well to being kidnapped and experimented on, or…

“And how am I supposed to know if you’re being mind controlled?” Davis questioned, mirroring exactly what Bentley had been thinking. The thought sent a shiver down his spine. What if she was just going to take them back to Dr. Keene? Put them back in the machines to finish the process?

“I guess you don’t… but I feel like myself right now. Making my own choices and all that,”

Bentley would’ve been intrigued in the conversation, had the blood loss been taking less of a toll on him than it actually was. The floating feeling was now putting a fog over everything in his mind, and he was really cold. He could hear his heart beating in his ears, and it seemed to be going way too fast even though he was literally just standing there.

That’s about when his legs decided to give out beneath him.

Thankfully, a pair of arms looped around his middle in a rather un-graceful way, catching him in a position that made his shoulder momentarily set itself ablaze with agony. He let out a cry. Why? The pain? The trauma that was being burned into his head for the rest of his life? He wasn’t sure. But he was pretty sure it was enough to cry about. 

“Whoa, whoa. I’ve got you, red,” Whispered probably the most comforting voice in the room.

Voices were running in the background, Davis and Lydia, but the Bentley was too focused on the fact that Asten had wasted no time pulling him gently back onto his feet. He slung Bentley’s arm around his shoulders, looping his own arm around his torso so he could hold him up. Nearly all of his (minimal) weight was leaning into Asten’s right side, which might’ve felt bad about if his mind wasn’t floating like he was fresh off of anesthesia. He noted the fact that he kind of felt like he wanted to hurl. He also noted the fact that everyone was suddenly looking at him.

Davis stared at him for a solid ten seconds, before he huffed and looked back at Lydia with a tense: “Fine. How are you going to help us?”

She smiled. “Observe.”

She walked over to the Synchronizer in the room, and with the cock of an eyebrow, put her hand on it. She disappeared. The entire Synchronizer disappeared with her. 

“Whatever I touch turns invisible, too. If you hold onto me, no one will see us,” Her voice came from the nothingness in front of them.

“Alright…” Davis sighed to himself, blinking a few times to right his mind. “But if you try anything-“

“You’ll kill me?” The girl reappeared and cracked a strangely genuine looking grin, cocking a hip to the side. “I’ve seen quite the spread of bodies you’ve left in your wake, Reaper. This time and last.”

Davis scowled, a far-off look growing in his eyes momentarily. Bentley remembered hearing about the last time Davis had killed a bunch of people — if his brain wasn’t so foggy he might’ve even remembered what Dr. Keene said the reason was. But he couldn’t. He felt like he was drifting away into darkness. Like the agony was fading and so was he. Even the crying he’d assumed would be endless was tapering away due to the haze he couldn’t get out of.

“Asten,” He whispered, breathing deep despite being relatively still. The Brazilian immediately whipped his head around, his hold on him tightening the slightest.

“What is it?”

Bentley sniffled, batting away the wetness in his eyes to no avail. “I don’t feel good,” He muttered, but he couldn’t bring his gaze up to look his friend in the eyes. How was Asten so warm and everything else was so cold? Bentley was freezing.

The blue haired boy grimaced, glancing back up at Davis and Lydia. “As much as I love spitting empty threats at people, you seem to have forgotten that ginger over here is literally bleeding out. Let’s get this trainwreck on the road, yeah?”

Davis and Lydia’s eyes flicked between each other, Bentley, and Asten, before the former nodded. “It’s now or never.”

Lydia walked toward the door, grabbing onto Davis and Asten’s hospital gowns as she went, tugging them along. Bentley and Nico didn’t have much of a choice but to join them. “You’ll still see yourselves and each other, but no one else will. They can hear and feel us, though, so don’t be idiots.”

Bentley walked along, and he was thankful for Asten baring most of his weight — the strangely dull agony of the gunshot was sending waves of pain pulsing through his muscles, and it made his legs not want to work. It made nothing want to work, really — not even his brain, which was still getting fuzzier.

They left the Synchronizing room and moved into the long, sterile, white hallways, Lydia’s hand staying on the others’ gowns all the way. For now, the corridors were empty, but they branched off into other halls and areas not too far ahead of them, and Bentley wasn’t sure those would be so vacant. Red alarm lights were flashing in the halls, but there were no alarms.

“Titus is in the medical sector,” Davis nodded to the left, down the long hall. Thankfully, they weren’t facing all the dead people left in Davis’s wake. Bentley wasn’t sure he could stomach staring at them all again, black growing and writhing under their skin like a parasite. 

Lydia nodded. “Don’t pull away from me, and keep your mouths shut,” She ordered.

Bentley had no problem with that. The rag-tag group of five, one shot, one unconscious, all supposedly invisible, wearing matching hospital gowns made down the white hallways with Lydia at the lead. Bentley was hardly able to focus on anything except keeping his own two feet under him as Asten walked. Why was it so hard to move his feet the right way?

At one point, a group of guards with guns walked right past them without batting an eye, which meant they really were invisible. And Bentley had never been more grateful in his life.

For a long time, all Bentley saw was bright white and flashing red moving around him. The occasional guard or few passed every now and then, paying them no mind at all. Lydia’s plan was going, dare he say, good. Maybe he would actually make it home.

They were just about to pass a group of six, solid white, armored and gunned guards when Nico decided to wake up.

Screaming.

“No! No, I didn’t mean to! I didn’t mean to!”

Bentley was shocked back into reality at the noise, and everyone began to move. The guards whipped out their weapons, Nico flailed in Davis’s arms, Lydia whipped around to see what was going on and Asten flinched so violently he nearly dropped Bentley on his face. 

“Hey, hey, shh, shh, shh,” Davis tried to hush Nico. He was squirming to the point where Davis had to set him down in favor of not dropping him, his eyes wide and brimming with tears, and the guards were aiming their guns around the hallway in a blind panic. Lydia hadn’t let go of them, and the men in white looked confused, which was a good thing, Bentley thought.

…Until it wasn’t.

Until they began to pull the trigger of their guns blindly, one shot after another, each one aiming in the group’s general direction. There were probably ten or twelve gunshots that erupted from the group, at least two of which were aimed pretty darn close to Bentley and Asten. Lydia let go of everyone in a panic, making them visible to the world.

Bentley was overtake by dread at the realization that he was really dead now. And so was everybody else.

There was a flash of yellow lightning. 

Everyone stood, frozen, unmoving, unblinking. The guards didn’t move. None of Bentley’s group moved. Not a single one of the five captives hit the floor, screamed, or started bleeding like he’d anticipated. Bentley looked down at himself and Asten, examining for blood or gunshots hidden by adrenaline, but there was nothing. At least a couple of those guns had been aimed freakishly close to them.

Nico was now standing directly in front of Bentley and Asten, his chest heaving and eyes sparking with an ever present yellow electricity. His right hand was balled into a fist.

When opened it, all of the bullets that had just been shot fell through his fingers and dinged on the tile.

Suddenly, it all seemed to make sense in Bentley’s only half-working mind. Nico’s hands moving so fast he couldn’t see them, the yellow lightning, the letter from his real parents talking about the Speed Force — Nico had super-speed. Super-speed that was so fast he’d just caught a dozen bulletsthat had been shot not ten feet away from them.

The guards were stunned, and Davis used the moment of confusion to his advantage, flicking a glove off with one resounding click. 

Bentley jumped when more gunshots rang out — directed right at Davis. There was another flash of yellow lightning and Nico was in front of the men with the guns. He dropped another handful of bullets on the floor.

Bentley made sure to look away when Davis used his hands to kill the guards — just like he’d told him — but Asten watched in some mixture of horror and intrigue. Bentley saw Davis move in his peripheral, heard the dull thuds of the guards against the tile.

Nico stumbled back away from Davis, knocking into Asten, who almost dropped Bentley again. 

“Dude, that was awesome! You’re like the freaking flash!” He heard Asten mutter, like he wasn’t literally shot at twenty seconds ago.

Suddenly and silently, Lydia hit the floor in front of the three of them.

They all flinched and peered down at her — she had small streams of blood dripping from her nose, her eyes, her ears. She was staring at them… but wasn’t really looking. 

Bentley inhaled sharply when he realized that she wasn’t looking at all. That her chest wasn’t rising or falling, that she was laying eerily still. In his peripheral, he could see someone standing a ways off in the hallway. Someone with platinum hair and glowing yellow eyes, a twisted stitched smile that would forever be engraved in his mind.

Nico let out a strangled whine at the sight of Lydia’s body, and then promptly threw up in the floor. Asten had a grip on his shoulder with the arm that wasn’t around Bentley.

Davis was suddenly in front of them, obstructing their view of the Secret Keeper. He thrusted the keycard he’d been carrying around toward Asten. “You’re almost there! You just go to the next hall and turn left — you’ll be looking right inside his cell. That should open it. Go!”

Bentley’s heart was hammering in his ears, threatening to split his ribs clean open. Nico looked so pale he might pass out, he was crying again, arms wrapped around himself and looking really tiny. Asten took the hand off of his shoulder to grab the keycard.

Davis un-latched his other glove, but didn’t let it hit the floor yet. He pointed down the hallway when not one of them responded, glancing behind them. “Go!”

“What about you?” Bentley croaked, the sting of tears behind his eyes starting up again. He didn’t have much of a response when Asten rubbed his back. He wasn’t sure he could take any of the self sacrificial bullcrap — he wanted to survive and he wanted Asten to survive and Nico to survive and Davis to survive. Davis had to survive. He’d saved Bentley so many times and death was how he’d repay him?

“What’re you gonna do?” Bentley choked.

Davis turned, moving just enough so Bentley could see the silhouette of the Secret Keeper standing eerily still at the other end of the hall. Then the waiter smiled fondly, green eyes sparkling a little even despite the circumstances. “I’m going to try and have a conversation with my girlfriend.”

Bentley blinked. They all blinked, and he looked at Asten, who look at him, and then at Nico, who looked at them. 

“Charlie?” Asten muttered, eyes falling to the tile. “My God, you must’ve thought she was… for two years…“

“You guys need to get out of here. Get to safety,” Davis replied, agilely avoiding Asten’s statement. “Remember, the first hall that branches left, Titus will be straight ahead.”

Bentley pulled himself out of Asten’s hold and managed to stumble forward just far enough to wrap his arms around Davis’s torso with a poorly stifled round of crying. “Please don’t die.”

Davis patted the top of his head with his still-gloved hand. “You heard it yourself, kid — I am death. Now go.”

Bentley was gently pulled away by Asten’s hand, and despite everything that was screaming for him to stop, they ran. (Well, as much as Bentley could. He was more or less being dragged around by Asten, who had resumed their previous position.) They booked it down the sterile halls and turned down the first one to the left. This one was different — lined with large viewing windows that were accompanied by metal doors. At the end of the hall was a window and door, larger than the others. There weren’t any guards or scientists around. Not that they could see, anyway.

The three of them slowed to a walk, peering into the windows as they passed. Most of the rooms were empty, filled with cabinets of medical supplies and gurneys, but every now and then the gurney would have a human shaped bag that Bentley refused to look at any longer than he had to. Each room had a little plaque on the front, but none of them had any words on them. 

Not that he would be able to read them anyways. His crying had ramped back up to a ten at the very prospect of Davis going head-to-head with the Secret Keeper. He wasn’t… he couldn’t… Davis… he had to touch to kill. As far as Bentley knew, the Secret Keeper — Charlie — didn’t even have to seeher victim to kill them. It was a battle that was already lost, and Bentley already knew the winner.

He could barely breathe.

Asten dragged the heap of crying disaster until they made it to the dead-end, to the largest room. Bentley managed to see that, through his tears, the plaque on that door read: Titus Lancaster.

But the room was empty.

Asten stepped right up to the widow, so close that it fogged up the glass under his breath. “Merda.”

Any shred of hope Bentley had dissipated at the sight of the empty cell. Dr. Keene said on video that had to make it especially so Titus couldn’t teleport out — why would they take him somewhere else? It wasn’t time for his mind control surgery yet, unless Bentley had been in the Synchronizer for a longtime.

They were all going to die.

Nico anxiously ran his hands over his hair, a few quiet sobs wracking his whole body. “This is hopeless!”

Bentley hiccuped, trying his best to choke back the endless crying, trudging through the fog in his brain to try and remember anything else that might help them. Nico plunked himself down against the wall and cried unabashedly, just like he had at the bus stop. Asten stared into the room like, if he looked hard enough, Titus would materialize there.

Even through the crying and agony looming over his head, Bentley managed to remember Dr. Keene talking about when Titus got sick. He remembered seeing him in the hospital bed on the video, and he remembered the second video, where he made him perform his abilities so Bentley’s father could see. And at the end of the video, he said…

Bless him; he prefers to stay in the rafters of his enclosure like some kind of bird at the zoo.

Bentley suddenly leaned forward, peering through the glass up at the ceiling. There were metal beams that spanned the length of the room, and there was a dark blob resting on one. “Titus,” Bentley said, pointing toward the ceiling.

Asten followed his finger with his gaze, and Nico threw himself off of the floor, both peering through the glass. They seemed to visibly relax when their eyes landed on the blob. 

“Good eye, red,”

If Bentley were more lucid, he might’ve replied.

Just like all the other doors, there was a blue light next to the entrance to Titus’s cell — the one Davis had always tapped the keycard on. Below that light was a little screen, no bigger than Bentley’s hand, that read: EM Field Activated.

He and Asten shuffled toward the door, and the latter tapped the keycard on the light just like Davis had. After a moment, it turned green, and the words displayed on the screen changed — EM Field Deactivated.

The door slid open.

None of them moved for a moment, peering around, checking if there was a chance anyone had seen that. Through his own tears and now-slightly-blurry vision, Bentley couldn’t see much of anything except white. 

Asten cleared his throat. “Titus?”

Quickly, the blob in the rafters shifted around, presumably to get a good look at them. 

“A guy named Davis sent us. He… said you can teleport us out of here,”

In a whoosh of wind and color, Titus appeared in front of them. He looked worse than he had in the video — he was twelve, Bentley remembered, but looked like he didn’t even weigh sixty pounds soaking wet. The hospital gown swallowed him. He was only a little taller than Bentley, Nico’s height, but really frail looking. His skin was pale as a sheet of paper, and his deep gray eyes were sunken into his face, his nearly-black hair frizzed up in all directions.

Bentley wasn’t sure which of them was worse off.

Titus’s eyes flicked around warily, from Asten’s calculating stare, to Nico’s sobbing form, to Bentley’s half-red hospital gown. Then he looked at the door behind them, taking a few steps to comprehend if it was actually open or not. He seemed almost… afraid of it. Like he’d been tricked before, or something.

“Yeah, hey, we kinda need a fast exit here,” Asten said, glancing between Nico and Bentley, then looking back at Titus. “Will you help us? You’ll be able to escape, too.”

Titus’s deep gray eyes flicked between the three of them. “Don’t lie.”

“Wha- I’m not lying! We were kidnapped and put in a freaking oven and my friend got shot and we need to go!” Asten replied. Titus flinched backwards at the smallest raise of Asten’s voice, which Bentley didn’t much like.

Asten noticed and took a breath. “Please, Titus. We won’t hurt you. We need your help.”

“You’re just another test,” Titus muttered, backing up until he came in contact with the wall, sliding down until he could curl up on the floor and lacing his hands in his hair. “I’m not gonna try and escape, you can stop making me see things now.”

It made Bentley kind of sad how absolutely… broken Titus seemed. Like a kid that had been stripped of his entire personality and left with nothing but dread. What did he mean by seeing things? Had Dr. Keene been training him into submission like some kind of dog?

“Titus, hey,” Asten tried, looking to Nico for help. “We aren’t a test, we aren’t. You see the alarm lights in the hallway? We need your help getting out of here before guards come.”

Titus looked back up at them warily, his gray eyes watering. “Please go away.”

Gunshots came, making all four boys jump violently in their spots. There were no guards in their hallway yet, but Bentley could only assume the worst — that those had been aimed at Davis.

“Please!” Asten begged, looking out the window into the halls. “Please, please, please. Nothing bads going to happen, I promise. Just… please. We need out of here. Bentley needs a hospital.”

Panic shot through him like an arrow at those words, and he exclaimed: “No! Not a hospital — Wayne Manor.”

Asten didn’t seem to find it in him to correct him. 

“Please, you’re the only one here who can save us. Our friend Davis — you know Davis? — he’s fighting the Secret Keeper right now and-“ Asten breathed in, glancing into the hall anxiously. Bentley was getting so floaty it got kind of hard to tell what he was saying. “-take Bentley to the Manor, and you can take me to Crime Alley. Nico-“

“I’m going to your house,” Nico replied firmly, hazy gaze fixed on Asten. “I can’t… I can’t let my parents see me like this. All screwed up and played with. I can’t.”

Titus stared at them, and Asten huffed. “Okay. Bentley to the Manor, us to Crime Alley. Then you can go wherever you want. Please. Please.”

That was the moment Bentley promptly remembered that Titus’s parents were dead.

“Please?” Nico added, a desperate attempt at getting Titus to oblige.

“I… can… only go where I’ve seen before,” Titus said softly, carefully unraveling himself from the ball. “I can do… Wayne Manor. Not Crime Alley.”

Asten huffed. “That’s fine, that’s fine. We can figure that out after we get Bentley home.”

Titus let out a puff of air, then stepped forward slowly. He reached out, hesitantly, like they would bite him, and then he grabbed onto Asten and Nico’s wrists. “Don’t let go of him,” He ordered softly, gesturing to Bentley. “It’s gonna feel weird. Might hurt. Ready?”

Bentley wasn’t sure if he could survive any more hurt in one day.

Right then, a group of guards — probably ten — turned the corner into the hall. Bullets clinged wildly against the window of the room, not even making a dent in the glass.

“Go now! Go now!” Asten ordered. Titus closed his eyes, squeezed Bentley’s friend’s hands tighter, and then the world swam.

Bentley squeezed his eyes shut. It felt like he was falling, like he was spinning and whipping around in the air with zero control of where he was going. It felt like he had pins and needles across his entire body — the burn of his atoms being ripped apart and put back together in another location.

It only lasted for a split second, before there was a loud whooshing sound, and the ground seemed to rush into Bentley’s feet so hard he stumbled. It was cold, and Asten wasn’t holding onto him anymore, and he was laying on wet grass. He winced when the impact sent waves of pain pulsing through his whole body.

The only things that kept him conscious were the muted groans came from around him, so he looked up. The first thing he saw was the nights sky — big and black and cloudy. He, Asten, and Nico were sprawled on the dewy grass of Wayne Manor’s front courtyard, and Titus was in the middle of them, just standing there like nothing happened. He was spinning around, though, looking at the sky like he had never seen it before.

The Manor was there, glowing against the darkness of night. He didn’t know what day it was, what time it was, but he was home. Bentley had never wanted to bawl his eyes out more.

He used all of his remaining strength to haul himself out of the grass, his friends doing the same with grumbles of discomfort. His entire body seemed to be throbbing and screaming and he pretty much felt like a balloon with the amount of floating his head was doing.

“Want me to come with you?” Asten questioned, brushing dirt off of his hospital down. Bentley shook his head. 

“No,” He replied, bringing his hand up to rest against his injured arm. God, he looked like a disaster. He felt like a disaster.

And Davis might’ve been dead.

“You guys go. I don’t want you to get in trouble,” He forced the words out of his mouth, looking back at them, probably some of the hardest things he’d done. He wanted to pass out so bad. So bad.

“You’re planning on telling them?” Asten questioned, his voice laced with a little tinge of venom.

Bentley blinked, glancing between Nico, who looked terrified, and Asten, who looked suspicious. Even Titus, who was crying now (Bentley guessed it was because he was free?) turned to look at him.

“I… uh…” He did not have the capacity to make a case right then. He just wanted to go inside.

“You can’t tell them, Bentley. You’ll never be allowed out of the house again, and you’ll probably be banned from seeing us for the rest of your life,” Asten stated, throwing a hand to the side. “Plus, you’ll never see the Secret Keeper destroyed.”

“Are you kidding me?” Nico questioned, crossing his arms and peering over at Asten with a dull glare mixed with tears. “We just got kidnapped. Bentley got shot. I got turned into some kind of monster… how can you still care about that?! We could’ve died.”

“Because the Secret Keeper killed my parents! I’m not resting until she’s underground.” Asten shot back, and the lot of them went still. Bentley wasn’t sure if he should pretend he didn’t know that or not, so to play it cool, he just stood there. 

“You can’t tell Bruce, Bentley,” Asten directed his attention back to the redhead. “Lie to him; tell him you just got kidnapped and never saw us. We’ll be hiding out at my house, and no one will find us there, so we’ll still technically be missing. It won’t be so suspicious if we don’t show back up at the same time.”

A pit formed in Bentley’s stomach when he thought about lying to Bruce again, after all of that. It made him want to cry. All he wanted was to let them handle it.

He breathed in, stumbling faintly to the side. “I… I don’t…”

“You can’t tell him not to tell his dad, Asten. He got shot,” Nico spoke up, crossing his arms lightly. “That was freaking traumatizing and you’re asking him not to tell his family about it?”

“You’re hiding out at my house to avoid yours!” Asten argued, flicking a hand toward Nico.

“Because they’re not my real family!” Nico exclaimed, and Bentley blinked. Apparently they’d entered into truth-telling hour. “I’m adopted, and I can’t freaking look at them, okay?”

There was a brief moment of silence where Asten sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I know you’re into the whole can’t-tell-anybody-how-upset-I-am-so-I-bottle-it-up-and-act-broody thing, but not everybody is you, Asten. Some people will destroy themselves doing that,”

Asten huffed, looking back at Bentley and tossing his hands to the side. “Fine. Tell them whatever you want, Whittaker. I’m going to beat her with or without you. Let’s go. Gotham Heights.”

On command, Titus put a hand on both Nico and Asten’s shoulders, and without another word, they whooshed away in a mixture of color and wind. Bentley was left alone.

He breathed in the cold outside air, turning back to look at the Manor. He really had intended on telling Bruce everything, but now, he wasn’t sure what to do. 

For now, he settled on dragging himself to the front door.

What was he going to say? How was he going to explain? He was pulling himself shot and half dead up to the door of Wayne Manor after hours, maybe days of being missing. He’d run away, broken into a cabin, gotten kidnapped, experimented on, watched one of his friends get turned into a metahuman, and got teleported home by a boy with superpowers. How was he supposed to tell them that?

Plus, he was pretty sure as soon as he saw somebody’s face, he’d start crying.

He made it onto the front entrance, facing those massive wooden doors just like he had the night Nightwing brought him to the Manor for the first time. Why were those doors scarier now than they had been then?

Bentley glanced down at himself. At his half-red hospital gown, his botched shoulder, his bare feet and bloodied skin. He looked like a disaster. He felt like a disaster. He was a disaster.

What was he going to say?

With not much more motivating him than the fact that he felt like death, he lifted a hand and tried the doorknob. Locked.

With a puff of air, he knocked.

A few terrible moments passed where he stood alone on the front step, waiting to see if salvation would come.

And then it did.

The door to Wayne Manor swung open.

“Bentley?”

Like that was the exact moment his body had been waiting for, the darkness he’d been fighting all night finally swept him away. And he let it.

—

dedicated to @sassenashsworld 💚

—

tag list! (If you want me to remove or add you, ask in comments!)

@fleur-alise @sarcopterygiian @flyrobinflyy @skylathescholar @gayboss-too-close-to-the-sun @xiaonothere

[maccreadysbaby]

A Hundred Ways to Become a Wayne

batfamily + oc insert

tw: none

wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!

want to read the first fic in the hundred days series so you understand what’s going on here? here it is!

i did so much “how to break into a house” research for this one my fbi agent is probably on his way :,)

also I was peer pressured into picking face claims for bentley, asten, and nico. here they are

part twenty-seven

❝ BREAKING AND ENTERING ❞

MONDAY — AUGUST 17 — 7:34PM

OKAY, SO MAYBE THIS WHOLE CATCH THE SECRET KEEPER THING WASN’T GOING EXACTLY TO PLAN. 

Nonetheless, they persisted. 

After the second massive breakdown of the night (Asten was now the odd man out because he hadn’t had one.) they pulled the remains of themselves off of the concrete and pushed on. Turned out, Somerset was, like, extremely far to walk. Strolling around in the daytime wasn’t exactly what they’d intended on doing, but it was what they ended up doing, anyhow.

Asten conned some old man from a burger joint into giving them leftover food (he was strangely good at conning people.) that was at least partially out of date. They moved all the way from Crime Alley back to the mainland — and by then, it was nearing four in the afternoon.

Bentley had been floating ever since the Secret Keeper got him. He couldn’t stop thinking. Thinking about Asten’s parents dying because of her, about all the futures she showed him, wondering which one he was unlocking by continuing on the search. He couldn’t stop thinking about the Wayne’s. About Dr. Keene. About his father. About getting found by a wandering vigilante. Part of him wanted to go home, but the rest of him knew he couldn’t. That he had to see this through.

The sun was down when they made it to the outskirts of Somerset. (Or what Asten called the outskirts of Somerset.) It didn’t look much different from the Bristol area — they’d passed many suburbs full of nice houses and large Manor-like homes that were already quiet for the night. The streets were peaceful, and nothing was happening there. Almost like time was at a standstill.

They had been on a rather long, foggy, seemingly empty and dark road that Asten had been insisting was the right way for a while now. It was still pouring rain. There were only a few street lamps on the right side, lighting the sidewalk they were on, and the left side of the road was lined with woods.

They were, more or less, lost.

Asten was still charging ahead of the younger two, a map that he’d printed out clutched tightly in his hands, trying to shield it from rain with his jacket. It had the route from Nico’s all the way to the Cabin scribbled across it in red ink. If they weren’t lost, surely, they were close. They were in Somerset — Asten said the Cabin was in Somerset.

Bentley was walking quietly, side-by-side with Nico, their heads down and hoods up to avoid the rain. They hadn’t spoke much since the whole Secret Keeper thing; none of them had. Asten just kept to his papers and maps, only talking occasionally about where they should go or what they should do. Nico didn’t talk unless he was antagonized. And Bentley… well, he just didn’t talk much anyways. The three of them had taken to fiddling with their fingers and pulling their jackets closer as the night drew on. It was very cold. And very wet. And very cold.

After what seemed like an eternity on the creepy road, Asten sighed lightly, squinting through the darkness at the paper. Bentley could barely see the deep blue tips of his hair through the dark and rain and fog. “Alright. If my intuition isn’t failing me, we should be getting close to-“

“Arkham,” Nico said, nearly breathless. Bentley paused when the blonde fell out of step with him, hanging back, his eyes trained on something in the distance.

Bentley followed his gaze into the foggy downpour past Asten, where the faintest image of a walled-off area came into view.

“I was gonna say the cabin, but Arkham is also accurate,” Asten shrugged, glancing down at the map. He drifted toward them so they were standing in a triangle. “The cabins not that far past it, actually.”

“Past it? Past Arkham? You do realize that’s where insane magical supervillains go, right? People that, like, kill people? You do realize the Jokers in there, right?!” Nico rambled, bringing his arms up and around himself. He was staring so intently at the walls in the distance that Bentley thought his eyeballs might roll out of his head.

He couldn’t see very much through the fog and rain. All he could see were the walls. Sure, Bentley had heard of Arkham — that’s where many of Batman’s adversaries had ended up. But to be right next to it was kind of… weird. Was his father in there? No, his father wasn’t crazy. Was he?

Bentley startled when Asten elbowed him lightly. “Nico is embarrassingly terrified of the Joker.”

“I am not!” Nico argued, punching Asten in the shoulder.  Bentley had heard about the Joker, too — a creepy clown that did all he could to destroy Batman. Bentley was pretty sure… he was even the one who killed Jason when he was Robin. And he’d kidnapped Tim, too, he thought, back when hewas Robin. 

Apparently the Joker didn’t like Robins.

Asten snorted, glancing at Bentley momentarily. “I dressed as the Joker for Halloween last year-“

“It wasn’t funny!”

“-and Nico cried for like, three hours,”

“You jumped through my window!” Nico defended, an exasperated look on his face, his blue eyes wide with layers of swirling emotion Bentley couldn’t even begin to decipher.

“Your parents said I could!”

Nico huffed, crossing his arms over his chest, and his gaze fell to the wet sidewalk under their feet. He dragged the toe of his shoe across the pavement below, mumbling softly to himself:

“Did they?”

Bentley caught the underlying meaning.

Asten’s green eyes flicked between the both of them oddly for a moment, and then he turned. “We’re almost there, you guys. This case is almost closed.”

Nico huffed again, tossing his hands to the side. “The case is barely open, Asten. This whole thing is balancing on a conglomerate of coincidences, conspiracies, and spite.”

“My entire life balances on those things, and I’m not dead yet,”  Asten replied with a shrug, his eyes trailing back down to the soggy map in his hands. “Seriously — we have maybe another half hour to walk, tops.”

“You do realize people have broken out of Arkham, right? Like the Joker…?” Nico muttered, and all it earned him was an are you serious? look from Asten. “What? He’s killed people!”

Asten continued down the road, the other two following reluctantly behind. “So has the girl we’re going after, bucket-head.”

Asten and Nico continued to bicker as they made their way down the dark road. Bentley’s eyes lingered on the massive, walled building that they were approaching. ARKHAM ASYLUM, the gate said, and the storm only worked to make it creepier. He wondered how many bad guys were in there. There could’ve been a ton. All different kinds with all different superpowers, waiting for something to happen so they could get out again.

Surely his father wasn’t in there.

Exactly thirty-six minutes later, much to Bentleys disbelief, Nico’s disdain, and Asten’s relief, they paused at a gravel drive with a little wooden sign sticking out of the ground right at the end. The words PINEWOOD CABINwere carved into it, with a big arrow that pointed down the road. Arkham had long since disappeared behind them, replaced with forest on either side of the road and rain pouring from above.

Asten clicked his tongue, turning back to them with a triumphant look spread across his dimly lit features. “Am I awesome or what?”

Nico, from Bentley’s right, deadpanned: “Or what.”

Asten gave him a pointed glare, then began to peel the black backpack off of his shoulders.

To be best friends, they sure were sort of mean to each other. It was confusing. Because, in all the time Bentley spent with them, they were hardly nice. They teased each other and called each other names and said stuff that would probably make Bentley rethink his whole life if it were directed toward him.

But Bentley also knew that Asten would probably throw himself in front of a moving train to shove Nico out of the way. And that didn’t make sense. Why were they not nice if they cared about each other so much? He guessed it was kind of like Jason and Dick, maybe. They were brothers, but not exactly the nicest brothers.

Neither Asten or Nico had ever been mean to Bentley.

Did that mean they weren’t actually friends with him?

“Here,”

Bentley snapped out of it, dumbly reaching for the definitely-too-large black gloves Asten was holding in his direction. He dug around in the backpack and pulled out an identical one for Nico. Then himself.

“When we go inside, we’re gonna keep our hoods up incase there are security cameras, so don’t look up at the ceiling like a bunch of ding-dongs,” He ordered, pulling a large flashlight out of the backpack, too, and shoving his map inside. “We have to assume cops will be on the way. From any of the surrounding police stations, it would take at least fifteen minutes for them to get here. So we’re going to tear the place apart in ten. Leave no fingerprints, no DNA, and for goodness sake, don’t look at the ceiling.”

Bentley quietly pulled the gloves on as Asten spoke. His former assumption was right — they were kind of huge on his hands, but his ice-cold, basically numb fingers were grateful. He could see Nico doing the same in his peripheral.

“We’re looking for anything suspicious about the place. Literally anything. Rat poison in the kitchen, creepy computer in the bedroom, splatter of blood on the carpet — I don’t care. We just have to find something.”

Bentley hummed, glancing around at the dark forest that was towering over the three of them in every direction. “And if we don’t?”

“We’ll hunker down at my place and then do it again,” Asten shrugged, tugging his gloves on, too. “It wasn’t my intention for everyone to think we’re missing, but it works. You guys can’t go home until we’re done. The police will be crawling all of Gotham for you nosebleeds. But me? They won’t take a second look at my place if they can help it. That, plus the fact that there’s no risk of Sam coming home, makes it a good place to lay low.”

Bentley blinked. Sam. Who was Sam? Was that the uncle that Asten lived with?

“You sound like you’ve done this before,” Bentley commented, glancing up at Asten in the darkness.

The Brazilian merely shrugged, eyes trained on the gloves. “I live in Crime Alley, kid. You have to do what you have to do to keep yourself alive.”

Bentley said nothing.

“Oh, and when we get there, don’t talk unless you have to. Whisper. We don’t want our voices or intentions being realized if the place is bugged,” Asten continued, zipping up the bag and throwing it back over his shoulders.

Bentley creased his brow. “Bugged?”

“It means, like… that there might be little listening devices hidden around the cabin,” Nico explained softly, his attention turning to Asten. “So the dimbo with the Portuguese accent is gonna have to keep his mouth shut.”

Asten snorted. “We all have to keep our mouths shut. You have a weird Bristol lilt and Bentley has not an ounce of Gotham in him. If the police are any good at their jobs, our voices will give us away instantly. That is, if they’re dumb enough not to link our disappearances to the three kids on the security cameras first.”

Bentley cringed. This was going to be a disaster, wasn’t it?

“If they’re doing crime in that cabin, though, don’t you think there wouldn’t be any security cameras?” Nico piped up, blue eyes bouncing from Asten to Bentley a few times.

Asten shrugged. “Good thought. But it’s still smart to act like there is.”

Bentley wondered how many places Asten had broken into. He already knew one — Nico’s house. Why had Asten broke into Nico’s house, anyway?

Asten clicked the long flashlight on, peering down the gravel road. The cabin was buried deep in the woods, out of their sight, which meant they’d be taking a long walk through foggy, creepy woods in the freezing cold rain.

Yay?

“Asten,” Nico spoke up, shivering under his jacket, tugging the wet material closer to fend off the cold. “We’re going to get arrested. If we don’t die of hypothermia first. It’s cold.”

“Then let’s go. A dry cabin awaits,” Asten announced, setting off down the gravel road with his flashlight.

So they went.

— 

The cabin was not as pretty as the pictures made it out to be.

Maybe it was the fact that Bentley couldn’t really see it through the pouring rain and fog and darkness. It looked just… like an old cabin. None of the lights were on, and there were no cars, which was good. At least they knew that there was actually nobody home.

The woods had grown up a bit around it and sort of closed it off from the rest of the world. Massive trees towered over it, swaying in the wind and the storm. (At least it wasn’t thundering.)

Asten turned to them as they neared the building. His expression was a strange mixture of excitement, surprise, and maybe doubt. “Hoods up. Heads down. No talking.”

Bentley, with nothing else to do anyways, obeyed.

They walked, Bentley in particular looking straight down at his feet, until they made it on the red-painted front porch and the rain stopped tapping him on the hood. The porch itself was long, with a few rocking chairs and a swing. The floor was fading, some paint chipping off near the edges of the stairs, and moss was beginning to creep up around the perimeter. 

The front door was bright green, and each window had curtains pulled over them so weirdos couldn’t see inside. (Weren’t they technically the weirdos, though?)

Asten dropped his bag on the porch, unzipping it and pulling out a ziplock of… metal wedges?

Bentley and Nico both watched in varying levels of confusion and interest as he pulled a rubber hammer out of his belt and began to wedge the metal triangles into the crack between the door and the frame.

Nico cringed, whispering: “I feel like I’m seeing something I shouldn’t be.”

“Sh!” Asten ordered. Once he had at least six wedges in place, he pulled out the crowbar, jammed the flat end into the crack, and shoved it with his entire body weight.

The door popped open, swinging inward and banging against the wall behind it, and all the wedges clattered on the floor.

Nico and Bentley stood in silence until Asten turned to look at them, calculating, waiting. No alarm. No hiss. No beep.

Asten gathered his wedges, put his tools back in his belt, threw his bag over his shoulder and walked inside. 

Oh God. They really, literally had just broken into a house. For real. 

Bentley was so dead.

Nico seemed to come to the same conclusion, because he paled dangerously and stayed rooted to his spot.

Bentley stepped inside behind Asten.

The front door opened straight into a living room. Directly ahead was a stone fireplace, flanked by nice, cozy couches and a few chairs. They were sitting on a large, animal-pelt rug that looked extremely expensive. There was a kitchen off to the left, a dining room to the right, and a hallway right next to the fireplace that led to what Bentley assumed was bedrooms. The warm air washed over him, and he sighed.

Ten minutes.

Ten minutes had never passed so fast in Bentley’s life. They tore the place apart. Not one part of the cabin went unchecked — cabinets were emptied with stealthy and calculating hands, cushions were removed from furniture pieces, curtains and paintings were checked behind, closets were sifted through, and, by minute eight, they’d turned the entire place upside down.

 By minute nine, they still hadn’t found anything.

Not that Bentley really knew what he was looking for. Sure he could find, like, blood or something, but he wasn’t even sure what else would be considered suspicious for the most part. Sure, like, weapons and stuff, but Asten’s examples were rat poison. A computer. Why were those things suspicious? 

When minute ten struck, Asten told them it was time to leave.

Bentley pulled himself out of the guest bathroom floor (he was checking cabinets there.) and made his way back to the front of the cabin. 

They hadn’t found anything. Which meant they were going back to Asten’s house. Maybe they could stay somewhere closer — he’d have to ask about that. Crime Alley was a long way away for them to come back another time. (And kind of scary, too. And a place vigilantes spent too much time in.) Yeah. He wasn’t sure he wanted to stay there.

(He was also trying to ignore the disappointment that lingered when he realized  they’d done all of this for nothing.)

The three of them were corralling toward the front door when a Wham!followed by a little “Ow.” Erupted from behind Bentley.

Both he and Asten pivoted, eyes landing on Nico, who was on his hands and knees in the floor. The corner of the animal skin rug in the living room was bunched up like he’d tripped on it.

Bentley instinctively knelt next to him. “Are you okay?” His whisper was so soft it was hardly audible — he didn’t want his voice caught on a bug.

Nico nodded, only glancing up at him for a moment before he started to pull himself out of the floor. The simple motion pulled the animal skin rug more.

Asten gasped.

Bentley was blissfully aware of what was going on as Asten basically careened toward them, ushering Nico off the rug as quickly as he could. 

Instead of flattening it back out, he pulled the whole thing to the side, and Bentley’s heart skipped.

In the deep hardwood floors, there was a crevice. A crevice that made a square, like someone had pulled out a saw and cut a perfect little shape in the wood. One end of the square had hinges — the other, a tiny metal rung for someone’s fingers.

A trapdoor.

Asten looked at Bentley, his excited, triumphant attitude gone, replaced by something like shock and nerves. His green eyes had something swirling in them.

Bentley glanced over at Nico. He sincerely looked like he was about to pass out or throw up — one of the two. His face had gone paper pale. His eyes met Bentley’s, and something in them was pleading. Begging for them to just go home.

“Asten,” Nico said through clenched teeth, in the smallest voice he could muster. “I don’t want to go down there.”

Asten’s green eyes floated between his two friends. “Then stay. I’ll be back.”

“No!” Nico suddenly exclaimed, glancing around the room like he was nervous someone would walk in. “You don’t know what’s down there.”

“Which is why I’m going to figure it out,” Asten whispered back, in a soft duhtone. His eyes shifted to Bentley. “Are you coming?”

Silently, he nodded.

If Asten was going down there, he sure as heck wouldn’t be going alone, that was for sure. 

“Please, let’s just go,” Nico continued, rubbing a hand over his face. “This isn’t our problem. We’re not the cops. People get straight-up murdered in creepy basements like this. I… think I’m gonna puke.” 

Bentley let his hand drift up to rest on Nico’s shoulder, but it only helped to make him jump. When he looked over at him, his blue eyes were on the verge of glassy, and he really did look like he might throw up.

“Just stay up here. We’ll come right back up and tell you what we see. Promise,” Asten said with a forced little smile. 

“No. You can’t,” Nico argued, a familiar thickness coming over his voice like he was only moments away from being in tears. “Please, can we just go home? I’m so freaking scared.”

“We can’t give up now,” Asten stated, sending a glance to Bentley. “Everything will be fine.”

Asten pulled the trapdoor open, revealing a long, deep, pitch-black abyss with old wooden stairs that seemingly led to nothing. Bentley heard Nico’s breath hitch beside him, and he squinted to try and see the bottom. He couldn’t.

Asten didn’t hesitate to step inside.

Bentley didn’t hesitate to follow.

—

dedicated to @sassenashsworld 💚

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