#riddler would not have become riddler if he had seen enough people as kind as you all

[edweird-nashton]

[zv5x]

Solitaire : 3

Dano!Riddler • GN!Reader

Warnings : romantic plot devices , references to the yandere trope , delusional and toxic mindsets , stalking , obsessive behaviors , implications / unrequited love , reader's boyfriend is a poor partner , breaking and entering

Taglist : @ravendgie , @repostingmyfavs @fr0gi-b0y , @chl0rinewater , @ur-moms-used-tampon101

Table of contents

He was young, promising and talented, and then video of his brutal execution started showing up on the news. His killer promised you love that your lover couldn't give, protection from the world, and now it's time to act upon those promises. Edward prays you're foolish (or trusting) enough to leave your windows unlocked.

Your home is perfectly tranquil and quiet, the perfect atmosphere to hold such a gentle and fragile being such as yourself. Edward has always admired what he could see from the binoculars he would hold to his face as he tried to get a good look at your interior sanctuary, you as well of course. He couldn't help but long to be inside such a sacred place, but the thought alone made him shiver and almost cry with anticipation and nervousness.

The thought of actually entering your home rather than imaginatively placing himself inside of you would finally become his own reality, and he was practically jumping at that fact. Finally, after all this time, he'd be able to be near you again, without the threat of that vicious scumbag this time. His time spent with the muse of his hatred was now long over, and now his time with the muse of his world shall begin.

Edward considered this romantic, as he not only was about to enter the apartment room he'd soon share with his beloved dove, but also because of the fact that he was wearing the same getup he wore when he publicized the murder of your abuser. It was almost heart stopping how giddy his outfit made him. He finally had the opportunity to tell you how he truly felt, and his clothes meant to represent his own persona will do just that, along with showing you every part of him like you've never seen before. He would have never found the courage to express himself to you if not for the Riddler, and he had to thank that side of himself for that.

He was looking into your room with his binoculars so intently, breath hitting heavy against his mask as he intently listened and watched. You seemed to be, no, that couldn't be right. You seemed to be crying? Oh dear. That just won't do, Edward knew that for certian. He couldn't have his beloved cry alone. What kind of soulmate would he be if he refused to follow the red string to his lover, who was desperate for consoling? It was settled then, he'd make his way to her. Ducktape in his pocket just in case he startled you, he made his way to your window quicker than he would have otherwise. You needed him, and he'll be damned if you didn't get him.

Staring far too intently at the television, you barely noticed the window of your apartment room opening. Tears were steaming down your face, sobs coming in between gasps and choking sounds. Of course, the cries you were emmiting weren't very pretty, but how else could you have expressed the despair the news was showing you right now?

Your poor, beloved Chad. Defiled and ruined for everyone to see. This isn't the way one would desire to find out about their lover's death, but thankfully you were given a death notification before the news was even allowed to air this story. It was so confusing at first. A cop car is the last thing you'd expect to see pulling up to your driveway, and you'd especially not expect to see two men coming up to your door right after. It was with a heavy heart, they told you, that Chad is dead. Murdered in cold blood by a man they have yet to even identity. A man so vile, a man of no compassion for the people's pain. They spoke of him like you would a horror movie villian, shivering as they talked like there was nothing they could have done to stop him. And now, here he is, posing and pruning next to your boyfriend who was sobbing in fear. Egotistical he was, insane he was more so.

This man, sick and demented, loved you. So much so, that taping a man to a chair and feeding him to your rat collection was a realistic option. This is a man who cared not for the optics of his actions. He simply wanted you, and he more so wished to prove to you that the people in your life were no good. That all you needed was him.

"Chad put on a good mask for my darling (Y/N), but little do they know that every night their precious boyfriend parades around town with whatever bitch he can pick up. Cheap whores are all he can manage." He laughs. "It's almost like he knew (Y/N) was far too good for him."

More evidence, more photos. And, most hauntingly, a voice recording to top it all of.

C : All I want is you. I completely forgot about them, what was even their name again. Fuck, see? I don't love them. They're nothing to me but a sack of meat I can take my frustrations out on

? : Frustrations?

C : Frustrations that you're not in my bed right now, babe

You nearly dropped to your knees hearing those words. All your fears were being thrown at you with evidence that confirmed them, and you could barely muster the strength to move to shut it down. The Riddler was back on screen now, tilting his head and shaking the camera as he screamed and yelled.

"NOBODY is allowed to exploit them and get away with it. I'll make sure all of you are in graves by the morning if I must. I'd do FAR MORE FOR THEM THAN YOU ALL EVER WOULD." He stopped to giggle. Long and drawn out, it chilled you to your core. "But that's alright, you can try and bring them down all you wish but I think we all know at the end of the day who they will always belong to."

You knew you desired police protection then, but you craved it now. You begged them for at least some kind of listing into a witness protection program of any kind. Please God's almighty, just anything to save you from that mental case. You told them, begged them for that, word for word. Alas, they did not listen to your cries.

You were far from on Chad's side now, seeing him with all these various women. Women with smeared makeup, and dress straps falling off their shoulders as they lean on your once boyfriend for support. Your blood was boiling, but your heart was aching too. You wished the Riddler had recorded the rats eating him alive so you could revel in his screams, and yet you wished for him to record himself going back on his plan and letting him run free in a bright, sunny park instead. Conflicted feelings poked at your heart, deflating it and allowing the blood to pool at your feet.

Having heard far enough, you mindlessly went to turn the television off. The remote shook in your hand, so much so that you could barely even aim it correctly to turn this damn report off. When you finally heard that click, it was a blessing to your ears. You didn't need to hear your boyfriend's whimpering, that man's heavy breaths beating against the camera, or the news reporters mumbling lies of pity and sorrow to the camera. Your boyfriend's, or, more accurately, former boyfriend's death was now sensationalized, and you were now a fool to the nation. Not only did you fail to realize that your boyfriend was a cheating scumbag, but you also unknowingly planted the seeds that allowed a serial killer to sprout and thrive as an invasive species.

Perhaps this was the situation finally hitting you, or perhaps it was years of trauma finally making their way to the surface, but you sobbed. Loudly, without care, you sobbed. Tears poured down your face as your couch began to change color due to the liquid, and you stomped your feet on the floor as hard as you possibly could. In the noise, you didn't realize who was standing there right in front of you.

This man hates seeing you cry. Chad has made you cry long enough, and it seems the man wishes to get you one final time before his soul finally falls downwards. Edward couldn't help himself, and he made his way down to the couch to sit right next to you. Immediately, feeling the pressure, your sobs stopped, and you looked up at your side slowly whilst sniffling in the process. Your eyes widened at the realization, and this man gave you no time to think before picking you up by the bottoms of your thighs and holding you on his lap. He almost shouldn't have touched you, because now he cannot control his breathing. It was heavy, unstable and varying in speed and length. His hands seemed to travel around you, paying special attention to your face and your thighs as if he had some kind of affixation towards them. You were absolutely sick now, squirming unconsciously and wishing for nothing more than for this to stop. You opened your mouth and went to scream, and that's when you wished you just took it.

Within seconds, you were on your back, neck slamming against the arm of your couch as you let out a gasp of shock and pain.

"N-no, please, I'll be good!" A few begs later, and ducktape was out of his pocket and being extended in front of your eyes, the man wrapping it around your head. Not before lifting your hair up of course, as he was trying to simply shut you up, not punish you. That will come only in dire circumstances, of course.

He had full access to you after some simple restraining of your arms. You could kick all you liked, he didn't budge, and he was sitting in a position that removed kicking his groin as an option unless you were built completely unbiologically. His hands continued their vicious assault on your purity, and you couldn't help but feel as if poison was in the fingertips of his gloves. Edward took your squirming and crying as you being pleasured by his touch, and of course you were! Soulmates can only be truly pleasured by their other half, and Edward knew for a fact that your bastard ex-boyfriend never was able to make you moan so passionately. Your love was untouchable. Your love was divine. Hands on your chest, sinking down to your inner thighs, he knew the love you shared with him was nothing short of perfection.

"What can you lose but still keep?" His voice matched the voice that echoed against your television just a few seconds ago, confirming the identity of his alias as the man straddling your legs right now. Out of all the perverted intruders out there, why him? Good lord, why him?" You whimpered, crying out, and he prompty shushed you with a finger and a soft hush.

"It's alright, you can think about it for as much as you'd like." He giggled, leaning into your chest and listening to your heartbeat. Edward adores every part of you. He loves you so very much, he'd even be willing to pull your skin open and rip your heart out just to make enough room for him to crawl inside and live there curled up forever. He needs you, craves you. He's got a demented, sick obsession, the most beautiful virus anyone could ever hope to catch. He's patient zero, and it will stay that way forever. Nobody else is permitted to have you.

"I'll be waiting for you forever, (Y/N). As long as you want to take, I'll be waiting. I'll never leave you."

He cupped your wet cheek with his hand, using his thumb to act as a windshield wiper to your tears.

"Not like he did."

[yoursecondfirstlove]

Apple of my eye (part 4)

Edward Nashton x F!Reader

(Y/n) invites Eddie over after their walk home one night.

Word count : 1873 words

PART 1 PART 2 PART 3

Warnings: female reader, alcohol consumption, SMUT, p in v sex, protected sex (be safe kids), oral sex (m and f receiving)

The Riddler activity still hadn’t ceased, no one really expected it to but it still made everyone nervous every time they turned in the news. The news became something of an event every day. (Y/n) especially would spend every free moment scouring her phone for articles or social media posts. It had near become an obsession, she had a sizeable mount of screenshots of anything she could find piling up on her phone. She even popped into his streams sometimes to see if they any inclination to his next move but those were reserved for some special fan club she had no idea how to gain access to.

“He’s here” Ambers voice rang, almost tired of having to shill off the regular, sometimes multiple times a day. She managed to snag a glance over (y/n) shoulder, upon realising her friends ‘research’ the quickly dawned a knowing look. She didn’t say anything but she knew she didn’t have to.

(Y/n) greeted Ed, excitedly in fact. It had been a few days since their first walk home and it had quickly become a ritual. It made (y/n) feel safer, she didn’t know if Edward knew of her run in with the Riddler, she’s been scared to ask for fear he hadn’t and then she’d have to explain it. (Y/n) had a crush on Ed, a major one, she couldn’t deny it and quite frankly she wouldn’t. She’d seen him every day for the past two weeks, he was kind, respectful and adorably shy. Ed was elated at the growing closeness, he cursed himself for not trying to get to her sooner and thanked whatever vast spirits were at play for providing him with the Riddler and in turn the confidence to speak to the woman who had captured his heart in an instant.

Once Ed had got his order (y/n) busied herself with cleaning that was close enough to him to maintain a conversation. “Are you doing anything tonight?” She asked, biting the bullet. Ed looked up at her, half shocked “walking you home, I had guess” he answered slowly, carefully almost. “Like…do you have any plans after that?” He did, a riddler steam for premium followers. “No.” He loved his followers but there was one thing he definitely loved more. “Do you want to hang out?” (Y/n) became bashful, barely maintaining a fleeting eye contact with him. “I…yeah! Yeah I’d love that” (y/n) smiled, flickering her eyes between her hands and him. “Cool”

(Y/n) walked into the kitchen, her face still felt hot and she had retained a coy grin. Dylan caught it immediately, his eyes shot to her and then where she had just been with Ed “holy shit..” he breathed, (y/n) looked up at him “what?” “You asked weird guy on a date!” He laughed out, despite his phrasing his tone clearly showed he was happy for her. Amber popped out of seemingly nowhere “what?!” She too wore an excited expression, honestly happy (y/n) was focusing on something non-Riddler related “it’s not a date! We’re just..hanging out” Dylan was quick to roll his eyes as he leaned against the sink “‘hang out’ yeah, one hundred percent, real convincing.” (Y/n) look at him with jovial annoyance, pushing her tongue against her cheek “you fucking know what” she said taking a joking swing at him commencing some light play fighting as the two giggled like children.

The day wrapped up as it always had and right before she was going to walk out the door she spotted Edward out the window waiting for her, throwing her a friendly wave as he held something under his arm. She waved back rushing to get out and lock the door. As she did Ed greeted her with another smile which she returned as she locked the door and turned back to him only then realising that what he held under his arm was a bottle of wine. He must have seen her gaze on it “oh I uh… I’m pretty sure you need to take something to peoples house so I thought ya know…people like wine so..ya know” he trailed off nervously. (Y/n) giggled finding his babbling adorable. “People do like wine. Thanks Eddie” he grinned widely at the nickname, bashful my throwing his eyes to his feet. They walked as they did every night, (y/n) felt safe with him, like no one else existed.

Once they got to her house they planted themselves on her ragged second hand couch and busted out the wine glasses. Ed clearly had a low alcohol tolerance and so did (y/n) cuz they both felt themselves get more loose lipped.

“Yeah I like…only started coming in so often to talk to you, I couldn’t muster up the courage before so..” (y/n) giggled throwing her head back slightly “well I wished you’d done it sooner, talking to you is like my favourite part of the day” Edwards head whipped to face her “really?” He was looking at her differently. “Yeah” she replied softly, she was sure she was looking at him differently too. These were the faces of too people who definitely wanted to kiss each other, (y/n) knew it.

She took the leap, leaning forward to close the space between them and connect their lips. Edward made a small noise of surprise, leaning forward as well to press his lips harder into hers. He brought his hand up to her jaw and (y/n) hand found a comfortable place on his chest. Both fought to pull each other impossibly closer as the kiss intensified. (Y/n) found herself climbing into Ed’s lap, she looked at him, his lips had reddened slightly, his hair was messy and his glasses were crooked. He looked adorable. She grabbed his wrists to place his hands along her waist as she went in to kiss him again and he eagerly met her in the middle.

Ed’s hands eagerly explored her body, hurriedly jumping from place to place. (Y/n) ground into his lap, he jerked forward in surprise letting out a small moan. (Y/n) broke the kiss, Ed leaning forward to follow her as they broke apart. “Bedroom?” Ed was breathless so he simply nodded. She slide off his lap taking his hand as she did.

Edward fell hard into bed and and once he had (y/n) was in him, kissing his cheeks and his neck practically devouring him. Ed was in cloud nine, drinking in the attention with greedy glee. (Y/n) made quick work of taking off her shirt and bra “oh my god” Edward breathed out as his eyes took in the new skin. (Y/n) giggled as she kissed his neck and down his clothed torso. She undid his belt, gently taking his dick out of his jeans, Ed propped himself up on his elbows as he watched her. She planted a firm kiss to his base and dragged her lips up to his leaking tip, taking him into her mouth greedily, he let out a hitched ragged breath as his head fell back. She hummed as she reached near his base, she couldn’t fit him into her mouth entirely and used her hand to accommodate the rest of him. She steadily began to bob her head. He was loud, moaning, whining and jerking his hips, writhing in pure pleasure. She released his cock, her lips made an obscene pop as she did. She climbed back up his body planting another searing kiss to his mouth that he readily moaned into. As she pulled back she tugged on his shirt and he quickly took it off as she practically ripped off her pants, he followed suit shimmying out of his jeans.

She grabbed a condom and her bottle of lube from the drawer next to her bed, hurriedly ripping off the foil and rolling it down his length, he moaned again, he was so sensitive. She applied to lube slowly, rubbing up and down his dick and his breathing increased. She straddled his hips and sank down onto him, not willing to wait another second without him inside her. She moaned at the fullness, Edward arched his back and whined pathetically. After a few seconds for both to adjust to the new sensation of their connection (y/n) began to bounce eagerly, her hands place firmly on Edwards abdomen for stability. Both moaned wildly, (y/n) eyes were closed with her head thrown back while Ed’s eyes were blown out taking in the sight on top of him. “Oh my god” he breathed out again “you’re so beautiful, so so beautiful, so perfect, angelic” be babbled praise between moans, his voice was higher than normal, the air refused to enter his lungs but he could hardly take notice, all he knew was the woman of his dreams was on top of him, fucking herself on his cock. He could feel the pressure building, the tightness that he had grown so familiar with, the feeling that he found himself experiencing most times he thought about her in his alone time, and he was near mortified “Im going to cum” be breathed, whining. (Y/n) threw her head back forward to look at him, nodding softly “it’s okay baby” she moaned out “let go. Let go it’s okay” she reassured him, at the sound of it he couldn’t contain himself, he came, body spasm if as he sobbed out a whine. After a while his breath steadied and she slid him out of her, kissing his neck sweetly. “You didn’t..” he breathed out softly, almost in shame. “It’s okay honey” “no-n-no it’s not, let me…let me..” (y/n) looked at him. His eyes were glassy and his cheeks shone bright red. She couldn’t deny him anything with his adorable he looked. “Okay”

(Y/n) layer on her back as Eddie settled between her thighs, “tell me.. tell me what feels good okay?” (Y/n) smiles encouragingly, nodding her head. Ed started slow, prodding at her clit with his tongue carefully, she hissed out a moan, arching her back slightly, spurring him on. He intensified his work at her clit and slid his two middle fingers into her, readily finding her g-spot. Edward within a minute had reduced her into a moaning mess, he’d had far too long to think about doing this to not have a detailed plan of action. His tongue and fingering had only gotten more intense and (y/n) was positive she was seeing stars and soon after was sure she had cum harder than she ever had. (Y/n) was shocked as she caught her breath, she had never taken Edward to be a man SO GOOD at head. She was sure she had to keep him.

Ed slid up her body to plant another kiss on her lips, she could feel the proud smile on his face as he he kissed her lovingly, once they broke apart (y/n) asked “you wanna stay the night?” Ed’s grin grew goofily wide as he nodded his head. They settled under her covers, still nude and holding each other close and tight as if both were afraid of the other disappearing.

Ed was sure if it now, she was his, and he would gladly take the life of anyone who got in the way of that.

[plasticnightmaredoll]

(artwork is a commission done by @stillfuckinbetterthanyou)

I guess because it’s my birthday soon and I’ve been obsessed with Arkhamverse Riddler lately, I came up with a kinky little drabble involving Enigma/Edward Nashton (Riddler before he was Riddler, basically) and my Arkham Origins o/c, Lorelei Jones.

This may not be part of the main fic involving them, but can be seen as a sort of “bonus” side story or a deleted scene even. 

But it’s canon (well, for this Arkham Origins A/U at least).

The main fic will probably be called, “Break All of Our Stigma,” which is a line from Lady Gaga’s song, “Enigma” (Yes, I know, I know, I just lover her, ok? And the song actually kind of fits Lorelei and Edward). This side drabble is called, “Cake,” and while it does involve Lorelei helping Eddie celebrate his birthday, the “cake” in question isn’t a literal cake.

If you know what I mean 👀👀👀👀💦💦💦💦💦

I mean, there is a cake mentioned in the drabble, but the cake Eddie gets to feast on isn’t that cake.

*cough*

Anyway, here is part 1 of what will most likely be 3 parts. Part 1 is the lead in to eating the “cake,” part 2 will be “eating” the “cake,” and part 3 will be...well, you’ll figure that out ;)

Hey, if you think this is spicy, this is NOTHING compared to what I’m writing for Telltale Riddler. Imagine all of this but, like........................MORE PORN. 

Very NSFT/NSFW content under the cut because Eddie and Lorelei are horny little fuckers 😘

Cake (part 1)

Summary: It’s Edward’s birthday and his lovely GCPD detective, Lorelei, decides to plan something special for him, including a cake. He tells her she needn’t spend so much effort on him, especially since she just wrapped up a rather exhausting case. However, she shushed him and told him he deserves, at the very least, an excellent cake for his special day. However, the “cake” she has ready for him isn’t what he’s expecting...not that he’s complaining.

Edward was more than ready to get to his apartment after a long, tiring, frustrating day at the always “glorious” GCPD. How was it that so many idiots worked in one place? Why were people in general so damn annoying? And stupid? 

As he made his way down the hall, he felt some of the tension leave him as he knew his lovely detective was waiting for him. She’d already given him a birthday gift that morning (a green-striped scarf and dark green gloves, both of which he loved but he told her she didn’t need to spend her money on him), and now she had a cake prepared for him. Sharing some cake with her on his “special day” (he still didn’t see what the big deal was) sounded like the perfect way to unwind (even if she didn’t need to go through the trouble to make one for him). Perhaps it would be relaxing for her as well, chatting over something sweet and enjoying some peace after finishing a very tiring case? He hoped as much since, again, he didn’t want her to feel like she had to spend time or money on him like this.

“I’ll be in the kitchen,” Lorelei’s text had said in response to him as he left work, and when he entered the apartment, he heard her call out.

“In here, Darling,” she said.

“Be right there,” Edward replied as he hung up his scarf and coat, then placed his gloves in said coat’s left pocket.

Loosening his tie, he placed it on the back of a chair in the living room along with his vest and ID tag. Undoing a few buttons of his dress shirt and rolling up his sleeves, he made his way to the kitchen, a warm smile on his face as he prepared to greet his sublime lover.

Edward stopped dead in his tracks as soon as he saw Lorelei sitting on the kitchen table wearing nothing except a green garter belt with matching stockings and green high-heels. He could feel his face turning red as his mind struggled to come up with something to say, something that made sense considering his thoughts were all jumbled up at that moment.

“Where’s the cake?” he finally asked, and he mentally kicked himself for asking such a ridiculous question.

“Right here,” Lorelei said as she opened her legs for him. “Disappointed?”

“Not at all!” he said with a little nervous laugh. “Just...really surprised.”

‘Well, it is your birthday...surprises are bound to happen.”

“Indeed…”

“So, are you gonna come over here and enjoy your ‘cake’ or…?”

Edward’s legs seemed to move on their own as he quickly walked over to Lorelei, stepping between her spread thighs and grabbing her waist as he pressed his lips to hers in a deep, passionate kiss. She was so receptive, moaning into his mouth as she wrapped her legs around him to keep him close. How did he get this lucky? Why was he even this lucky? The way she treated him, it was like he was the sexiest man alive, and while he honestly wasn’t, he couldn’t help but soak up all the attention. It felt good -- she felt good. Ah, more than good. He couldn’t properly describe it, especially not while he was making out with her as she was practically naked and had just invited him to enjoy her...to put his face between her thighs and…

“So, did you expect to come home to an invitation to feast on my cunt?” Lorelei asked, slightly breathless, as Edward kissed and nipped at her neck.

His cock twitched in his trousers upon hearing that, and he bit back a moan.

“N-No,” he replied, moving to her collarbones. 

“Disappointed it’s not a real cake?” she asked, and he could hear the smirk in her voice.

“Not one bit.”

“There is actually a small cake in the fridge for us to share. I literally finished icing it before you texted me to tell me you were coming home. We can have some now if you prefer?”

“No, it can wait...I mean, thank you but I...I, umm...want this other ‘cake’ first.”

“Which cake?” 

Lorelei had the most devious grin on her face, and she couldn’t help but think of how adorable Edward looked blushing like crazy and acting a bit shy while still feeling incredibly turned on. Yes, he knew how to fuck her just right so she was reduced to a moaning, panting, mewling mess, but he was undeniably sweet. He gave as much as he took, you could say, and sometimes, he didn’t take nearly enough since he always focused on her. She had no idea what she did to deserve him but she wasn’t going to complain.

“Ummm…” Edward gave Lorelei a cute bashful smile as he slowly reached down between them and pressed his fingers between her slick folds. “This one.”

“You naughty little geek,” she teased with a giggle.

“I haven’t even gotten started yet,” he said, raising a brow and smirking, feeling more and more bold as the seconds ticked by. “This is hardly naughty.”

“Oh? Then what is naughty?”

“This.”

Edward slipped a finger inside Lorelei, meeting little resistance with how wet she was, and quickly inserted a second one, curling them both against her spot and making her shudder. He watched her eyes flutter closed as he carefully stroked her inner walls with his fingers, using his free hand to help guide her head down onto the table. 

“Mmm...that’s more like it,” Lorelei purred as he continued to finger her at a steady pace. “But is that all you--Oh!” Her eyes shot open when she felt Edward’s thumb rub her clit. “Oh, fuck…”

But Edward wasn’t done yet.

He hadn’t failed to notice the green-gemmed nipple piercings Lorelei was wearing (she really knew exactly what turned him on, didn’t she?) and he leaned down and gently sucked on her right nipple. Her fingers threaded into his dark brown hair as a sigh escaped her, and when he lightly tugged on the nipple ring, she inhaled sharply, her fingers scratching at his scalp. 

“Mmm...Eddie,” she panted, chewing on her lower lip. “That’s so good…”

Edward started to use his palm to stimulate Lorelei’s clit as his fingers moved more roughly against her g-spot. Coupling that with the way his mouth was teasing her breasts and Lorelei was no longer as chatty.

“Yes, yes, Eddie, fuck!” she moaned. “Just like that, please, fuck, fuck...ah, shit, fuck!”

Or rather, she wasn’t very coherent anymore.

As much as Edward was loving the sexy noises Lorelei was making, the feeling of her elegant fingers grabbing at his hair, and the lewd wet sounds caused by his fingers between her legs, he knew he had to stop or else this would all be over too soon.

“Sorry,” he said as he slipped his fingers out of Lorelei, causing her to whimper at the loss. “But we can’t let things end too quickly…”

Edward kissed his way between Lorelei’s breasts, up the side of her neck, along and jaw, and stopped at her lips. Their eyes met and they both couldn’t help but smile warmly at one another, her hands cupping his face. Time seemed to stop in that moment, and all he could think of was how much he loved her, how much he craved her, and how he’d give up anything and everything for her. Her thoughts were nearly the same as she delighted in the fact that her life had become so much brighter since she’d let him get close to her.

The kiss they shared was tender this time since neither of them were good at being very sentimental with words. It was enough, though -- or they hoped it was enough to convey how much they cared for one another. It didn’t take long for the kiss to become hungry, however, both of them practically gasping for air as they clung to each other and nearly refused to take proper breaths. 

Lorelei’s fingers moved to Edward’s shirt, undoing the remaining buttons before tugging it out of his pants, watching him sit up and practically tear it off before pressing his now naked upper body against hers and kissing her hard. They were almost forgetting what they were even doing on the kitchen table, and when she reached down to grasp his erection through his pants, he hissed into her mouth and rutted against her palm. She hastily unfastened his belt and ripped it from the loops, then went right for the button and zipper of his trousers, allowing her to reach into his boxers and take hold of his cock.

“Ah, L-Lorelei!” he groaned as he lightly bucked against her hand. 

Honestly, she wanted to beg Edward to just fuck her already, forgo this whole kinky surprise ‘cake’ thing and let him raw her, but no, no, she wanted to do this right. It took all she had to resist but she managed to get herself together so she could speak.

“You haven’t had your ‘cake’ yet,” Lorelei said as she removed her hand from Edward’s pants. 

“You’re right,” Edward said, letting out a breathy laugh. “I want to taste you, Lorelei. Can I? Can I put my mouth on you?”

“It’s your birthday, Baby. Have at it!”

Edward flashed her a grin before giving her a sweet kiss and standing up.

“Let’s get you situated,” he said as he looked her over.

“Yes, Sir,” Lorelei said with a wink, and a shiver ran through Edward.

God, she was going to be the death of him and he didn’t have one complaint about that.

[batman-story-ideas]

I Question Your Authority!

CH 1- Birth of an Enigma.

Edward Nashton was thirteen when he decided to test out of highschool, after forging his father’s signature, and to sign up for online college. He refurbished old junk he dug out of Gotham’s Dump, mainly using them as parts for inventions Eddie would then sell to pay for his tuition, though he hid little caches of money in various hiding places. One should always have a contingency plan.

At fourteen, Eddie had managed to move mostly out of his father’s basement and into a rundown, abandoned building near the outskirts of the Bowery. From what he could tell it used to be either a bakery or a front for a villain's hideout. Oh well, it was his new hideout! Here he was mostly free from his abusive asshole father!

Keyword- Mostly.

Sadly to keep his freedom, Eddie had to come by twice a month with money for dear old dad or the man would report his ‘truancy’ and the fact that he ran away to the GCPD. It didn’t matter that he graduated from high school and already had multiple degrees, thanks to his online courses. Edward was still a minor and legally could not live on his own without a guardian of some kind. Which left the young genius scrounging for ways to make money in order to pay off his genetic donor, who liked to raise the price for his freedom now and then.

Edward Nashton was fifteen years old when his father tried to sell him to one of the villains of Gotham. Apparently dear old dad got into gambling and managed to fall into debt to the Penguin of all people. Eddie always knew that ignoramus would be the reason he died. But he didn’t think it would be like this! The ginger sneered at the henchmen holding him in place as his lovely, dear old man begged for Penguin to take Edward as collateral until Jeremiah could gather up the money.

Jeremiah Nashton was a coward and a cheat, this was true. But never had Eddie thought his own father, no matter how much of an abusive asshole he was, would sell his own flesh and blood to pay off his gambling addiction. Though...looking back, the teen should have honestly seen this coming. Especially when he was met with a bat to the back of the head when Eddie had come by to drop off the stack of cash for the drunk and with the following beating at the hands of said drunk before being dragged to the Iceberg Lounge.

He was dizzy from blood loss, pretty sure two of his ribs were broken and half his body beaten black and blue. But, as Eddie pretended to hang limply from the lackey’s hands, there were two things he was thankful to Jeremiah for. 1. His amazing pain tolerance. This wasn’t even the worst he had ever been beaten. And 2. That his dear old dad was an absolute imbecile. Because really who blatantly drags a bleeding person to the den of a known criminal when Gotham was the home of multiple birds and bats, who just loved busting stuff like this shitshow up.

CRASH!

Never had Eddie been so glad to hear the sound of breaking glass then he had been right now. Especially as it bought the young genius the time he needed to escape when the goons ran to fight the Bat. The teen may be rather tall and lanky for his age, but he was scrappy and had learned out to hold improvise when it came to escaping a beat down. (Which was why his father had surprise attacked him with a hit to the back of his head then faced Eddie head on. If he didn’t have time to improvise an escape, Eddie was down for the count until he could.)

Somehow, some fucking way, Edward found himself out of the Lounge and running for his life whilst everyone was distracted fighting Batman and his latest Robin. He was racing towards his little hideout outside the Bowery. Eddie knew he had to get there and pack quickly. He needed to find a new hideaway before the Bats or Birds came knocking on his door demanding answers as to why he was being sold to Penguin. Yeah, no fucking way was he getting put into the system or some fucked up protection detail.

By some miracle of a God he doesn’t believe in, Edward managed to get to his little lair and even if he was swaying and in tons of pain- he got to work. He got to work quickly downloading all his data onto multiple flash drives and ripping his little caches out of the walls and floorboards. Soon enough he had all the essentials he needed packed in a duffle bag, changed into a spare pair of clothes (one of his grandfather’s old suits) and had rigged the place to blow.

After one last look around, Edward picked up the old cane he had been gifted to him from his grandfather on his mother’s side. The old man had been a carnival game worker back in the day and had loved telling little Eddie all about his riddle show whilst showing off the odd question marked shaped cane. Remus Nygma had been a swindler and a con man, but he had been an honest man at the end of his life and had always dreamed of becoming a Private Detective, like Sherlock Holmes. A dream he had shared with his only grandchild along with his love of riddles and games. When Remus passed away shortly before his mother died, he had left Eddie his old cane, a book of riddles his grandfather had written and a note telling him to not give up on their dream.

With a press of the first button from the remote in his hand, Eddie unleashed a virus that would erase all information of one Edward Nashton from Gotham’s digital records and all information of his activities from the dark web. Fifteen year old Edward Nashton no longer existed in this world.

In his place was nineteen year old Eddie Nygma and he was determined to make his grandfather proud. He was going to become the Detective Remus had always dreamed about. Sure his plan was being set in motion sooner then Eddie had thought it would be. But, sometimes beggars couldn’t be choosers and it looked like his origin story was playing out sooner than he had hoped.

Turning, Eddie pushed the second button on his remote setting off the timer before tossing the remote over his shoulder as he casually strode out of his old hideout. Good thing he always had a contingency plan and a new hideout picked out already.

The teen was two blocks away hiding in an alley as one of the Bats swooped past overhead when an explosion was heard. The timer had finally ran out and set his lair ablaze. With a satisfied smirk, Eddie disappeared into the night whistling a cheery tune.

It was good to be free.

Look out Gotham, here comes your newest self-appointed Private Investigator- The Riddler!

[themattress]

My Top 15 Favorite Gotham Characters

Plus one Honorable Mention.

Honorable Mention: Silver St. Cloud - She's an honorable mention because of how tragically the show wasted her. Silver was a standout character in 2A's “Rise of the Villains” arc, as we see all the layers peeled back from whimsical, kind-hearted, well-mannered young socialite to cruel, manipulative, cold-blooded agent of an evil religious cult to vulnerable, scared and remorseful girl in way over her head who forges a real emotional connection with Bruce. However, despite all the rich potential for her to develop even further as a character, she was never seen again after the 2A finale. 

15. Tabitha Galavan - While as a character she's the very definition of a second-stringer, Tabitha is an interesting case study in what happens when a single ember of innocence is still left burning within the darkest of souls. Raised in the evil Order of St. Dumas and kept firmly under her older brother's thumb, Tabitha is certainly no angel, being the sort of person who will fatally stab an innocent old woman in the back and feel no remorse. But the desire to care and be cared for is still very strong in her, and we see it manifest many times: with Silver, and with Selina, and with Barbara, and of course with Butch. Unfortunately for Tabitha, she is also a case study in how this doesn't guarantee that such a person will receive a happy ending, as she is unable to avoid karmic justice.

14. Butch Gilzean - I didn't really care about Butch initially, since he didn't seem like anything more than Fish Mooney's affably evil muscle. After he became brainwashed into obeying the Penguin's every command, he gradually became more interesting and sympathetic, and by the time he got romantically involved with Tabitha I had become so accustomed to him and his perversely likable sort of villainy that I couldn't imagine the show without him. But maybe the show would have been better off without him after his death in the Season 3 finale, as the immediate retcon afterward of his real name being Cyrus Gold and his resurrection as Solomon Grundy in Season 4 was just nonsense, especially when he ends up just as dead in the Season 4 finale as he was in the Season 3 finale, so what was even the point? Sometimes, dead is better, and I’m sure Butch would agree.

13. Harvey Bullock - For much of Season 1 it felt like the writers were trying to play Harvey Bullock too seriously, and I think that was a mistake because the character always benefits from being played more broadly, and lord knows that Donal Logue can do that very well. Thankfully, that's exactly how he started to be played more often from Season 2 and onward, with whatever serious arcs he did receive such as in Season 4 benefiting from him being so much more likable as a result. I'd rather watch him on screen than Jim Gordon any day.

12. Leslie Thompkins - While initially kind of bland, Leslie "Lee" Thompkins is a character that grew on me overtime. I felt really sorry for her throughout Seasons 2 and 3 as Jim Gordon proved to be the worst love interest ever, bringing her no end of pain, and then in Seasons 4 and 5 she used that pain and anger to shape herself into a total badass anti-heroine who was still all about helping those in need but now was open to using less than moral means to accomplish this. She's a character who finished the show stronger than she'd ever been, and her and Barbara becoming bros is everything I never knew I needed.

11. Sofia Falcone - Sometimes, a sharp and devious mind is all it takes for someone to be a great villain, and damn did Sofia ever put hers to good use. In the comics, this was a forgettable character who was just an obvious thug in design and demeanor, but Gotham's version is terrifying in how petite and pretty and kind and charitable and all around attractive in every way she is...the perfect way to manipulate others and conceal that on the inside she's beyond just a thug; she's a raging, ruthless, vindictive, amoral sociopath who only cares about herself. And kudos to Crystal Reed, whose performance sold the character perfectly. The only real downside to Sofia is that the writers clearly were forced to write her out earlier than anticipated, and her abrupt exit from the show is nowhere close to being as satisfying as the build-up to her gaining power within the city would lead you to believe.

10. Ra's Al Ghul - As wonderful as Sofia was, there was never any question as to whom Season 4's most formidable villain was: the same villain who is the series' ultimate Big Bad, Ra's Al Ghul. Beyond the phenomenally perfect casting of Alexander Siddig, who is hands down the most comics-accurate portrayal of the character in live-action to date, Ra's benefits from the series positioning him as the final answer to the long-running "who killed Thomas and Martha Wayne?" mystery and totally being able to convince viewers that most of this series' events were according to his plans due to the self-assured, in-control and borderline omnipotent way the Demon's Head carries himself. No-one in Gotham City is left unchanged by his machinations, least of all his chosen "heir" Bruce Wayne. 

9. Hugo Strange - The Big Bad of 2B's "Wrath of the Villains" arc is in the running for the show's most despicable villain. Professor Hugo Strange is a brilliant psychologist and scientist, but he is utterly devoid of a conscience and will do anything to achieve his twisted aspirations, from ruining peoples' lives with his experiments to bringing people back from the dead to personally ordering the death of those he considers to be friends. What makes Strange enjoyable in spite of his depravity is B.D Wong's performance: he looks absolutely perfect as a younger version of Hugo Strange and his voice seems to be channeling Corey Burton's Christopher Lee-inspired take from Batman: Arkham City.  He's a much stronger villain than 2A's Theo Galavan, and tellingly got to return in every following season.

8. Edward Nygma - I really wish I could place Ed higher on this list, since the Riddler is one of my favorite Batman villains and Cory Michael Smith is perfect in the role. But sadly, he's the subject of some really weak writing throughout the show that holds him back from breaching my personal Top 5. Whether it be the constant Nice Guy(TM) hounding of Kristen Kringle, the bizarre Two Face-esque split personality angle, the ungodly stupid Isabella plot device and subsequent clashing with the Penguin because of it, his needless romance with Lee that didn't make sense for either of their characters (which wasn't helped by the fact that it happened at a time where he kept on getting made a fool of in a way that undermined how menacing he was just a season ago), and being used as an obvious red herring in the Haven explosion mystery...he really deserved better material, and it's lucky that Smith makes him so enjoyable to watch since it would otherwise drag him down much further.

7. Jerome Valeska - Cameron Monaghan's performance as Jerome single-handedly forced the Gotham producers' hands when it came to their original plans (or lack thereof) for the Joker in their series, as right off the bat he managed to perfectly capture the same maniacal energy that the likes of Mark Hamill and Heath Ledger did, meaning fans would accept no-one else in the role. While Jerome ends up being more of a test run for the actual Joker - the Beta Joker, so to speak - he still is one of the most frightening and malevolent characters in the show's entire run, spreading chaos for chaos' sake and causing pain to others just because he finds it hilarious, and doing it all in the most theatrical way possible.  

6. Jeremiah Valeska - Yes, I agree that this character's whole basis - Jerome's secret twin brother who actually becomes the Joker - and how he was introduced is unbelievably stupid writing; in hindsight it would have made more sense to just find a way to transition Jerome into this kind of characterization as part of a continued evolution toward becoming the Joker. But we're stuck with Jeremiah, and as it stands he is a much worthier Joker than Jerome was. I don't really like the Joker whenever he's written to have no motivation beyond "random crime and chaos because LOL crazy!!!" - the best Jokers always have a reason for doing what they do, it's just that it's always a twisted reason that holds no basis in reality and just serves as an excuse for the Joker to spread pain and chaos across Gotham City and match wits with Batman. (Ex: Heath Ledger's Joker may say he has no plans and just "does things" as a manipulation tactic, but in reality he does make plans and does have the tangible objective of proving his nihilistic, anarchistic worldview to everyone; Batman in particular.)

Jeremiah's penchant for intricate planning combined with the psychotic objectives that lie behind his plans is what makes him more believable as the Joker compared to Jerome, and it really felt like the show's stakes rose to an entirely new, darker than ever before level when he stepped up to the plate at the end of Season 4. I also love his development: being in denial about his own insanity and likeness to his brother until his personal obsession with Bruce overpowers that and causes him to willingly give into the madness so that he can be a worthy enough foil for Bruce as Gotham's Dark Knight, since that gives his miserable life a sense of purpose. Add to this Cameron Monaghan still pulling off that Joker energy flawlessly and you have a Joker that can stand beside Nicholson, Ledger and Phoenix's portrayals.

5. Barbara Kean - This one really took me by surprise. I knew going into the show that Barbara was considered a poorly written, irritating obstructive love interest to Gordon in Season 1, but that she got Rescued From the Scrappy Heap in the following seasons. What I didn't know was the way that rescuing happened - she goes crazy and becomes a surprise villain in the Season 1 finale, and from then on out she is freaking nuts in the most hilariously over-the-top way, with Erin Richards chewing the scenery for all it's worth. Barbara is so entertaining throughout the various guises and positions she goes through across the series, not to mention a complete badass who you just can't help but respect for being true to herself even if she's an awful human being. Her redemption arc in Season 5 was a beautiful way to bring her journey full-circle, and I don't begrudge her the happy ending she got at all.

4. Alfred Pennyworth - We're all used to Alfred the butler, but Gotham got me accustomed to Alfred the soldier. Sean Pertwee is thoroughly convincing in the role of the hard-assed, frequently grumpy or moody yet caring, loyal and dependable Alfred, whose relationship with young Bruce Wayne is perfectly depicted. The only time I didn't care for him was during 2A, where he was cruel and unfair toward Selina because she killed his treacherous war-time buddy who almost murdered him and was planning on doing harm to Bruce. Thankfully, from the midseason finale and onward he managed to redeem himself, regaining his status as one of the show's best-depicted characters and maintaining it all the way to the end.

3. Bruce Wayne - This character was always going to live or die based on what child actor was playing him, and by God did David Mazouz nail it in his performance. Even putting the dead parents and destiny as Batman aside, Bruce Wayne is clearly not a "normal" kid, being raised in the lap of luxury and privileged to the point of extreme naïveté, with an overly formal way of speaking hammering in his distance from the rest of Gotham City. Watching him grow stronger and smarter and more worldly and responsible as the series progressed was always a pleasure, and he naturally made a far more compelling protagonist than Jim Gordon did, with the show ending on the shot that it does making it even more clear that this was primarily his story all along; just one elongated origin story for the goddamn Batman.

2. Selina Kyle - For quite a while in Season 1, the teenage girl who would be Catwoman spent a lot of time just slinking around the fringes of the story and accomplishing little of value. But once she finally met Bruce, Selina's character really took off, and she ended up becoming my second all-time favorite character in the show. Aside from the strong writing and character development, much is also owed to Camren Bicondova, who is utterly charming in her depiction of the cynical, sharp-tongued, street-smart thief with a heart of gold, and she is even able to make her rushed final transition into Catwoman in Season 5 believable. And kudos to Lili Simmons who plays her in the final episode, she is perfectly convincing as an adult version of Selina, looking and sounding just as I expect Bicondova to in a few years. 

1. Oswald Cobblepot - OK, this is probably an unoriginal choice, but I can't help it - Oswald Cobblepot, aka the Penguin, is the one character on this show who just did no wrong as far as I'm concerned (as a character, I mean, he obviously did a lot wrong morally!) In addition to being the role Robin Lord Taylor was born to play, there is a consistency in the writing of his character and in the quality of his development that I think is unmatched by anyone else in the cast. Aside from that one blip in the Isabella plotline of Season 3 that I credit as more of a blemish on Ed than I do Oswald, he was always a fully three-dimensional character who acted and reacted believably, and he always stayed firmly on the line between being a heinous, ruthless, murderous criminal chiefly seeking power and a tragic, sympathetic, even funny and likable person chiefly seeking love.  And he always remained the "noble villain" when compared to the other villains around him; always the one you could count on to join the heroes and do the right thing when it counted because he's a pragmatist with moral lines he will not cross....and because he loves and believe in Gotham City too, in his own way.

[ethelphantom]

Always Been The Missing Piece

This is, uh, a sequel to the Maribat Secret Santa thing I wrote for @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry because Ailelie over at Ao3 gave me a good idea in the comments for an identity reveal fic because obviously they don't know the other isn't a civilian. So. Uh. I am planning at least one more sequel after this because I was given a perfect idea for BartAdrien identity reveal on the Maribat discord server and I need to write that too. Just, don't expect it to turn as long as either of these. And seriously, you really should read this only after Like You Could Be Family, because I seriously doubt this will make much sense without, but it's not like I will be able to actually stop you so....

(Also how the hell did I get to 13k? This has got to be the longest one-shot I've ever written please help me I have a problem)

Ao3 || First part | Third part

This is Maribat -- Don’t like; don’t read.

___________

“I don’t think disowning him is even necessary to make him my brother, and it seems there’s a chance we might become family regardless of whether this Bruce adopts me or not.”

Tim stared at the words written permanently on his wrist, rubbing the skin as though to see if they would smudge and leave. They did not. He had never truly thought of even getting a soulmate when he was young.

(Well, obviously he’d thought about it, rather often too. It was just that he always thought he wasn’t going to get one — either because his parents didn’t have one and he would surely be just like them, and then later, once he became Robin and later Red Robin, he thought that even if it wasn’t going to be because of his parents, then he wouldn’t get a soulmate because he wasn’t going to make it alive to 18.)

But, as all things that had anything to do with Fate always did, it didn’t go as he thought. After all, Fate was never quite so simple.

As it turned out, he made it to 18 and got a soulmark.

There was someone in the world Fate thought was the perfect match for him.

Then he for the longest time believed he would meet them while he was in the vigilante business because if his soulmate was a civilian, what would he even do? There was always a high chance of death because of what he did on a nightly basis, and it was certain he would have to disappear on multiple nights and occasions just to be Red Robin — no way he was going to give that up. That meant, that if he had a civilian romantic soulmate, they might accuse him of cheating, and then his life could be ruined because he was the damn CEO of Waye Enterprises and thus in the public eye all of the time. The words written on his wristed also sounded both like they could be romantic or platonic soulmates, since usually soulmates considered one another family of some sorts automatically — it didn’t necessarily mean his soulmate was speaking about one of his brothers becoming their brother-in-law. They all knew there was a chance Bruce would adopt his soulmate one day (no matter what they said about that being unnecessary.)

Then he actually met his soulmate.

He met Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

A sweet young woman almost his age, perhaps around a year younger than him (turns out he was right when she told him of herself later before he managed to go and search her up), with black hair the shade of midnight sky, her eyes blue as Morning Glories. She was kind, thoughtful, great at baking (she could so some pastries better than Alfred could, and that said a lot about her skills), and she shared Tim’s love of coffee (Dick had been horrified when he found her pouring energy drinks into extra strong black coffee after the first night she spent at the manor).

She was also MDC, Tim’s all-time favourite designer, and it was suddenly much easier to commission her when she could just show him the designs in person and talk about them — why she wanted this thing here and that thing somewhere else. Tim was also much more eager to pay her a whole lot more than what she ever asked for, even if that was partly because Marinette was trying her hardest to lower her prices for him.

Yeah no, that didn’t work with him at all — she was fantastic at what she did and he’d be damned if he let her do the work underpaid.

She never pushed his boundaries too far, only enough to have him open up a little, but because she never made him feel uncomfortable or like she was trying to use him, it was fine; He was horrible at opening up himself and wouldn’t have done it without her. It was clear she knew what was alright and what was not — most of the time anyway. And even when she did push his boundaries too far, it was because she tried to show her appreciation to him or got too excited, and when he or someone else pointed it out to her (because she was bad at noticing it herself), she immediately stopped doing the thing and apologised over and over because she never meant to violate his boundaries.

And then she made sure to never overstep it again unless he gave her the explicit permission to do so.

That told him more about her than many other things did or even could.

She was also intelligent, sassy and sarcastic when she wanted to be, had a strong sense of justice and he knew for a fact she knew how to fight and well. She’d mentioned having done martial arts for quite some time and because she made a complaint about having nearly no opponents on her level, Jason asked her if she wanted to try and spar with him. She agreed and won two out of three matches, and though there was a chance he was just holding back (unlikely, considering how much Jason had talked about it on patrol that night), Damian had challenged her after that and they came to a tie. Twice. Damian then won the last round, probably when he finally stopped underestimating her and holding back. There was no way she wasn’t good.

Marinette always tried to help people in need if she could and wouldn’t take no for an answer when she decided that a person beaten to a bloody pulp was in no condition to walk home, especially not alone. If she had to pay for the taxi to get them home, well, she did, never expecting anyone to pay back.

She was absolutely perfect, if you asked Tim.

The problem was, she was a civilian regardless of how well she fought or how intelligent she was. He could never risk her safety by being in a close relationship with her in case someone found out his identity and decided to use her against him. Wouldn’t be the first time that happened in vigilante business. It had given him enough of a heart attack to be with her while in civvies and get caught by the Riddler because of course he had to be there and there was nothing Tim could do to help her himself — the small and young CEO was not supposed to be able to punch a guy’s teeth in.

And then she’d gone and insulted his fashion taste. Tim agreed, definitely, that green and purple three-piece suit was atrocious, but it was a horrible idea if you were a civilian because the Riddler was extremely sensitive about his fashion choices and a villain and he had hardly any rules as to what he did and to whom, unlike some of the Rogues. Marinette didn’t even have any protective gear against him.

So yeah.

An almost-heart attack.

Turns out, she solved all of his riddles rather quickly, some of them with Tim once the Riddler noticed him, and in the end they all got out safely and unharmed.

At least half of the credit of that definitely went to Marinette.

The best course of action would either be to tell her, or cut ties with her, make her hate him or anything that got her out of the danger zone that came with being in a close relationship with him.

The second option was definitely not what he wanted.

And that was what led him to here, sitting at the table in the apartment he used (especially) when he needed an escape from his dear but way too invasive family with Kon and Bart.

“It’s just, I don’t know what to do! I like her, I really do, but I can hardly pursue a relationship with a civilian. I might endanger her life! We’ve seen that happen with enough many of us. Someone figures out our identity, kidnaps a loved one and puts them at risk. Or sees us too close to a civilian while in the suit and decides they’ll put the loved one at risk anyway. I can’t risk my soulmate’s life for something like that, she doesn’t deserve it,” Tim exclaimed, groaning as his head hit the table. Thank heavens Bart had pulled the plate from under him just in time before his forehead would have ended up in his food.

(Though it was likely he was going to lose half of his food to Bart as well, it was likely he was going to eat Tim’s food while Tim wasn’t there to protect it. Asshole friends and all that.)

Sure, Kon and Bart would have probably had fun watching him ruin his looks (and hair, especially his hair) because of the tomato sauce and spaghetti he somehow had not managed to burn, but maybe they were pitying him enough for his soulmate problems to not just let it  happen for this one time. That, and he’d gotten injured in their latest fight and he would not honestly be surprised if they blamed themselves for it at least a little — that was what Tim kept doing if any of his teammates got injured when he was there and even theoretically could have helped.

“Tell her?” Bart suggested, shrugging as he filled his mouth with the spaghetti. From Tim’s plate. Oh well. Telling him to stop would probably not really help and it’s not like Tim couldn’t just steal Kon’s food later. Bart continued speaking as soon as his mouth was empty. “I don’t see why not. If she’s as amazing as you make her out to be, I can’t see a reason why you shouldn’t tell her. I’m gonna tell Adrien, by the way.”

“Do you have any idea when you’re going to do it?”

“Nope, but not yet ‘cause I don’t think it’s fair or appropriate since Paris just declared their heroes dead ‘cause they haven’t made any appearances — but that’s not to say they don’t know where the bodies are, perhaps they’re just protecting them? — in quite the while, but I will soon enough. Wouldn’t be fair to him to keep it a secret, right?” he chuckled and chewed on his (Tim’s) food.

Oh yeah. Paris’ heroes, the ones that were apparently dead. The heroes they had thought didn’t actually exist and were just a make-believe story to entertain people until Paris held a public memorial for them because they were nowhere to be found and told the people they just hadn’t found their corpses, but maybe that was just to protect their identities. The reminder they hadn’t helped them with their villain felt like a punch in the gut to Tim now, even if he hadn’t been the one to make the decision to not help.

He shook the thoughts away. This was not the time for blaming himself or anyone else for it, he could very well do that later.

“Kon?”

“I agree with Bart. If you think she’s good for you, I think it’s better if you just told her. It’s not like you would want to just cut ties with her to protect her and hurt the both of you at the process. It would definitely be like you, but I know you don’t want to do that to the one person meant for you.”

Tim sighed and stole his plate back. It was significantly emptier than it had been two minutes ago. Damn Bart. As a last-ditch effort, he stole Kon’s plate and scooped some of his food to his own plate, ignoring the rather offended look on Kon’s face. His fault, he hadn’t protected Tim’s food from Bart. Besides, Tim needed to eat something proper, after all. It might have been a little too long since the last time he ate more than an energy bar… so probably around three days since.

No wonder he was the smallest of them.

Munching on his food, he sunk back into his thoughts while Bart and Kon chatted animatedly, the few words he picked up indicating the conversation was about soulmates and Adrien in particular.

It had been a few weeks since he and Bart met their soulmates, but both of them were definitely interested in them — likely romantically, but only time would tell for sure. Marinette was amazing and sweet and Adrien must have been the only one as much of a sunshine child as Bart was, though according to Marinette, he could be a little shit when he felt like it. Then Bart and Kon had overheard Marinette discussing Adrien’s father with someone and turns out, Bart was ready to run to Paris and kick the man’s ass himself, regardless of whether he was in prison for being a supervillain and terrorising the city for years or not. Not that Tim would have stopped him. After all, Stephanie too had decided to ruin his father’s plans when it turned out he’d become a villain.

...That was something Adrien could probably bond over with Stephanie at some point. Maybe they’d found the “my dad’s a supervillain and I had nothing to do with it” club.

(“The list of bad dads just grows and grows,” Tim swore he’d heard Bart say afterwards with a suspicious grin on his face. Tim wouldn’t disagree with him though, he could name quite the number of them himself as well, one of them being his very own father.)

Then Marinette had heard Bart declare war on Gabriel Agreste and immediately told him she was joining — according to her, he didn’t have a choice in the matter because she really wanted to kick his ass again.

(Again? When had she managed to do it in the first place?)

So yeah. Having a civilian soulmate was difficult.

Then again… What if he made her a vigilante? She did possess all of the necessary qualities and even more to become a good vigilante that he could think of. Perhaps he should ask her if she’d like to do that. After all, she was now family, both Bruce and Dick had declared so (rather clearly and Dick loudly), accompanied by Alfred’s nods, Jason’s approving humming (and the way he started treating her better than he did most of the family), Cass’ silent approval visible in her smile as she looked at Marinette, and a little reluctant Damian as well.

It wouldn’t matter she didn’t have any superpowers like some people did — none of the family did, and they were all great at what they did, even if Gotham was nearly impossible to save at this point anymore. She was already good at martial arts, knew how to take care of herself (if it didn’t mean her inability to eat when she was supposed to or her reluctance to go to sleep (nightmares, perhaps?), but she knew how to defend herself and others.) She would make a good vigilante, especially with some special and personalised training. Now he only needed it approved by the rest of the family because she could and would put two and two together and realise all of them were involved with the vigilante business if he came clean to her as one.

Actually, that sounded like a good idea.

Then his phone chimed on the coffee table in the living room and he all but ran there, injuries be damned.

“Hey, careful there, you wouldn’t want us to tell Alfred you need new stitches,” Kon called after him before turning to Bart. “How much do you want to bet that was Marinette messaging him right there?”

“Nope, not betting anything when we both know full well it was Mari. There’s no one else he’d practically dive out of the table for and leave his food unguarded with us. Speaking of...”

“Bart! Do not even think about eating my food while I’m gone! It better be still there untouched when I come back, or so help me god I will kick your ass back to the next millennium!”

Bart just snickered.

God, why was he even friends with Bart?

Oh yeah, because he didn’t know how to live on without him (or Kon) anymore anyway.

⬷۵⤐

Marinette paced around her room in the Manor, panic clearly showing on her face. Adrien sat on the bed placed near the wall, leaning to it, seemingly unconcerned. He was mostly waiting for Marinette to calm down enough to stay still and just listen for a second in between her freak outs.

Thank kwamii for the fact they had gotten Wayzz to secure the room and create a shell in which they could talk without needing to worry whether someone heard them or not. No one would. They were safe.

...They also wouldn’t disturb anyone with it since it was way past midnight already.

“But this ruins everything!” Marinette exclaimed, finally standing in one place long enough for Adrien to decide paying attention to her would be worth it. Or, could be worth it.

Adrien rested his chin on his palm, tilting his head. “Now, Buginette, I love you and all,  but this is getting ridiculous, utterly ridiculous (“Don’t you dare sound like Chloé right now, Adrien!”) Are you sure you need to panic about all this? As far as I see it, you could just, I don’t know, tell him. Gabriel isn’t a threat anymore, and even if he was, we aren’t in Paris,” he said, and plopped down on the bed, propping one leg on his knee. Plagg seated himself on Adrien’s head, ready to take a nap, while Tikki had nestled on Marinette’s shoulder. It was amazing how she was so used to Marinette freaking out that she could just stay calm on even a pacing Marinette.

“I know I could tell him because Gabriel is behind bars, and I should tell Tim because otherwise it won’t be fair to him and I like him, probably romantically soon, and I can’t let myself pursue a romantic relationship with anyone that doesn’t know because it’s too much to keep a secret, but I have no idea how to! What if I scare him off because right now it looks like the both of us are staying here in Gotham — or at least the States — and knowing the two of us, we won’t be able to just quit hero work either! Speaking of which, we have to design ourselves new suits because Paris just declared us dead like a week ago. Not Marinette and Adrien, obviously, but Chat Noir and Ladybug. Understandable, we just disappeared after the fight with Papillon and there’s no way anyone would believe him if he said he didn’t hurt us so why would they believe he didn’t also kill us and—”

“Nette, please, try to breathe and calm down. It’s not that serious of a situation,” Adrien tried but Marinette had resumed pacing around and it was clear as day she was freaking out. It was also clear she wasn’t listening to a word he said anymore, and barely even paid attention to the fact she wasn’t, in fact, alone in the room in general. He sighed and stood up, grabbing his best friend by the shoulders. Plagg shrieked before he shut his mouth because of his holder’s sudden movement.

Now that had her stop and concentrate her attention on him again.

“I know it’s difficult for you to reveal your identity to anyone, including me even long after I realised my behaviour was a big no-no and apologised to you, and that’s fine. It just means you’re being responsible. But. This is your soulmate we’re talking about. There are so many reasons why you should tell him and you know that if you don’t, whatever relationship you might end up in with Tim might go horribly wrong if all the while you’re keeping a secret such as this from him.” Adrien took a deep breath and looked Marinette directly in the eyes. “I am well aware you like him like, a lot, so there’s no way you’d want to risk losing him in either way — by putting him in danger or by having him tell he can’t take you disappearing on him all the time anymore.”

Damnit. Adrien was right. Marinette hated it when Adrien was right. Mostly, because usually when Adrien was right and even she had to admit it because it was so obvious, it meant that the kwamii also agreed with him. And well. When Tikki, the literal miniature goddess of creation, said something should be done, her word was final. She had no way out of this, now did she?

“Nope!” said Tikki from next to her ear.

Oh. She’d said that out loud. For crying out loud.

But yeah, she truly did like Tim, a lot. He was smart, could banter with her rather easily without ever making her uncomfortable by doing so, was never put off by sarcasm (which was, unfortunately, quite rare nowadays and that meant she found it rather refreshing), and he was kind. Also, he had a huge sweet-tooth and mostly a good taste which meant she could freely bake a lot and Tim would likely enjoy any and all of it. She could use him to test new recipes, too.

She also liked his appearance — a lot. His looks were definitely nothing to scoff at. His hair was black and silky, and his eyes were so enchantingly blue (as were many of his brothers’ and Conner’s, if she was being honest, but his were her favourites) and she couldn't help but just drown in them. He genuinely liked her designs (he says he loves them, her mind not so helpfully reminded her, because that made it even better and even harder to let go of him if the need be), he wasn’t pretending to do so because they were soulmates. Tim also had such great ideas for new clothing sometimes — he had been a massive help with the design for her latest dress that she was planning on making for the up-coming Wayne Gala where he (and the rest of the family) had invited her.

Yeah, and Tim knew how to paint nails a little too well. Marinette was certainly going to use that little fact to her advantage and have him do her nails at some point.

Marinette also truly enjoyed spending time with his family and him. All of them respected her at least on some level (gave her the basic respect Jagged had taught everyone was supposed to give her automatically unless she actually did something to warrant them to lose said respect) and didn't try to have her bake or design clothes for them or have her do their chores they were supposed to do because they wanted a little more time to themselves — especially not for free. Never for free. And, even if they did ask her to do something for them (usually it was Jay or Dick doing so), they never failed to remind her she could say no and that depending on what they asked her to do they’d compensate it to her as soon as possible in whatever form she wanted — whether that be money or new fabric or favours or them helping her the next time she baked something.

They didn’t take her for granted, and that was freeing.

She was genuinely happy to spend time with them. Their presence, especially Tim’s, was comforting to her, with him it was safe for her to just be herself.

Yeah, she was too far gone for one Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne and definitely did not want to lose him. She could only hope she was someone Tim could be himself with as well.

Honestly, her biggest problem with all and any of this was that Tim was a civilian and in case someone found out he was close to her, it would be no good for him to know. If the threat was magical, there was no way he could fight it off even if he was anything like his brothers when it came to fighting (she just didn’t know, but she did suspect he was). She herself could get out of problematic situations rather easily, but there was no telling just how bad situation could get until Tim would no longer have any way to get away. She figured he had to have at least some kind of basic training because so many in his family seemed to know martial arts, he lived in Gotham and was a CEO, but she had no idea to what extent he could protect himself.

And indeed, because the miraculous considered her an adult now and she no longer had a time limit after she used her special ability (whatever it was depending on the miraculous), it meant there was no way she would even consider stopping. Of course, she still tried not to push too far after she did use that ability as to not exhaust the kwami she was using too much and she’d made it her point to wear multiple miraculouses at once at all times so even if she had to detransform to let one kwami rest, she wouldn’t need to stop fighting right away or wait until they recharged.

In a city like Gotham where she could be needed, this all meant she could not stop being a hero. (Though, she knew that Batman wasn’t known for being too fond of magic users, or metas, whatever it was they called them, so she would need to have him somehow accept her presence or prepare to fight him and perhaps also all of his team that seemed to actually be his family — especially Robin seemed to still be a little child, younger than her when she received her miraculous.) Not since they had seemed to decide they were going nowhere from there, most of all not Paris.  

They were never going to return, they really didn’t want to do so, what with the entire city being full of traumatic memories to them. Maybe they’d visit Kagami and Luka and her parents, maybe his aunt and cousin, but otherwise, no. Besides, their soulmates were both here, they had hardly any people they had good relationships with in Paris anymore because they’d both eventually stood up to their class, Gabriel was in prison — which, in turn, meant that the majority of Paris blamed Papillon’s actions on Adrien at least on some level. It didn’t matter to them that he had said that no, he had nothing to do with his father’s actions, and that his father actually abused him and he was glad to be finally free from him.

It wasn’t like they didn’t have a list of excuses to stay.

(Marinette wasn’t going to admit it any time soon, but she had an actual list of the excuses to stay written down in case someone asked her and her brain wouldn’t agree on cooperating at that time. It was also partly in case she ended up mentioning there were many, many, many reasons for them to stay and someone asked for a list; This way she could literally provide them with one. It was both on multiple papers and notebooks and on her phone — after all, back-up copies were very useful.)

Yet another reason as to why she should tell Tim — even though her Miraculous Cure healed and restored almost anything, it had mostly stopped working on her as it drew its energy from both her and Tikki, and now she was full of scars. Sure, it mostly healed the biggest injuries so she was rarely limping or bleeding long, and they never became devastating, but well. It still wasn’t any good that she had to keep covering some of the scars behind layers of makeup or hide them under clothing. Thank kwami Adrien had yet to report the same was happening to him.

There was no way Tim wouldn’t discover the scars’ existence at some point, regardless of whether their soulbond was romantic or platonic (although she certainly hoped it was romantic), so it would be far better to just come clean about it before he eventually found out about them on his own anyway.

So yeah.

She also had a long list of very good reasons to tell Tim.

The problem here was, she had no idea how.

She could hardly just walk up to him and blurt out she was Ladybug when it had just been announced that Ladybug (and Chat Noir at that, but it was up to Adrien to decide whether he wanted to tell his identity to anyone aside from Bart — he likely wanted to tell him) were dead, she would have to come up with a better plan to that. A lot better plan.

But perhaps… perhaps if she presented him with a miraculous and asked him to fight alongside her and Adrien… Maybe Bart could be there as well if Adrien considered it a good idea?

“Hey, Adrien, what do you think? Would Tim be a good miraculous user? And how about Bart?” she asked. Fiddling with the mouse necklace she was wearing, Marinette turned to look at Adrien who had, at some point, left from her side. Mullo was sleeping somewhere inside her hood.  “They both seem like people that would like to help others if they could — I mean, Tim already tries as a CEO and I simply don’t know Bart that well yet — but I don’t know. I want to hear your opinion on this as well because even if I am now the guardian and could technically just do whatever the hell I wanted, you’re still my partner in crime… fighting, and since some of my previous choices weren’t too good…”

Yeah, she did mean Alya and Nino. Also others, but those she’d trusted the most, so…

“Are you seriously asking me if I’d like to have both our soulmates by our side if— no, when we are fighting possibly magic-based crime in Gotham or elsewhere in the States?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest. She nodded slowly. Adrien arched an eyebrow as he looked at her like she had made the stupidest question he had ever heard in his life before. “Duh, obviously, of course I want them there. Bart would be good. He’s so fast already — no, seriously, I swear, he’s quicker at doing things than Plagg is at eating camembert —, he’s a quick thinker and okay, he’s a little impulsive, but most of the time his ideas haven’t been that horrible, so a miraculous could probably enhance all of it in a good way.”

“And Tim’s got a good sense of justice and he’s one of the smartest people I’ve met. He’d be great at any strategic positions and— you know, I think he could work either the snake or the dragon miraculous really well.”

Adrien nodded enthusiastically. “Now you’re talking my language. Mayhaps the fox miraculous would be good for Bart, he’d get to be creative and I’m sure if he got up to any mischief, Trixx would only be more than happy to help. Or maybe the horse— actually, no, forget about that, I don’t think that’s a good idea because he might get the idea to send us all to anywhere in the world because it seemed like a good idea to him for all of two seconds and that’s the one thing that would make everything really problematic.” Adrien sunk into his thought for a moment, tapping his nose with his finger absent-mindedly as he tried to think of something else. Then his eyes brightened as he came up with an idea.

“Oh, the turtle! He’s quick so it wouldn’t take him long to protect those in need of it, and maybe in some moments when he’s too impulsive, Wayzz could be there as a voice of reason and common sense in his head. I don’t actually mind his impulsiveness at all but sometimes all of us could use a Wayzz to help us slow down a little.”

Wayzz himself looked torn between agreeing, and strongly disagreeing and escaping before Adrien could convince Marinette to give him to Bart.

“I’m seriously considering this now. I have no idea how to give them one, though. It isn’t as simple as it would have been in Papillon’s Paris — we don’t have a Miraculous threat here and no one knows us. I mean, they’ve probably heard of the deceased Ladybug and Chat Noir, but not the ones we’re going to become. We can hardly just swing up to them and be like “hey have you ever wanted to be a hero? Well, here’s a miraculous that will transform you into a magical superhero with the help of jewellery and a god like in some anime—” God damn it Adrien, now I consider transforming into LB the same kind of thing as your anime’s girls with objects to make them magically transform.”

“They’re magical girls, actually. And well, I have to say, we kind of are magical girls, you know. Magical transformation, magic, magic provided superpowers, magical healing, double lives, way too obvious costumes for anyone to not figure out our identity yet none of them do it anyway… Oh, and we have specific words to transform us along with magical accessories or jewellery and we have a literal transformation choreography! Clearly magical girls!”

“Magical girls, then, whatever. Never compare us to them again.”

Adrien just snickered.

“Ugh, shut up, will you?”

“Of course. But yeah, you’re right, we can’t just appear behind their windows and give them a miraculous. That would be just stupid and irresponsible, now wouldn’t it?”

“Why do you sound so sarcastic?”

“That might be because I kind of am.”

“Go away.”

She had no idea how she could still stand Adrien. Why was he her best friend again?

Oh yeah.

Because he was the one who had stood right there by her side through thick and thin.

That’s why.

⬷۵⤐

“So. Let me get this straight—”

“In this family?”

“Shut up, Jaybird. So, what you’re saying is, you want to reveal us all to your girlfriend because you don’t want to keep secrets this big from her?”

Tim sighed and ran a hand down his face, exasperated. Hadn’t he just explained this? “No, Dick, first of all, she’s not my girlfriend — at least yet. What I’m asking is if it’s okay to everyone I tell her I’m Red Robin and get her to start training so she can become a vigilante as well. She’d be good at it. I don’t want to keep my identity from her in case we do start dating because then what if she thinks I’m cheating on her or up to some other not-good stuff when I keep sneaking out in the middle of the night and can’t even tell her what for.”

“And why do you want her to be a vigilante? You know it’s dangerous.”

“Then why is any of us doing it? It would anyway be her choice. Besides, if she was fighting beside me, she wouldn’t even need to worry about me that much because she could technically probably see me and not have to stay at home, you know? I know I can see there’s something in her that reminds me a lot of most of us, the need to fight for justice and for those in need of help because no one else does either. I can see the crave to fight in her.”

Dick sighed and tilted his head, his expression hard as steel. “You really thought this through, didn’t you?”

“Obviously. And as to why I’m asking you is because she’s actually smart and would definitely put two and two together when I tell her I’m Red Robin; The likeliness of Robin, Red Robin, Batman, Nightwing, Batgirl, Red Hood — yes, Jason, you too, have you seen the giant red bat on your chest you insist on wearing even though you claim to detest us half the time because we all can see it —, Black Bat, the Signal and the rest of us being close with each other, if not family, is quite high. Basically, she would most likely connect you all to the vigilantes running around.”

Bruce crossed his arms over his chest and shot him the Batdad-Look™, and if he hadn’t been so determined to get them to agree, it would have probably made him a… little too nervous to keep on talking. Alas, it wasn’t going to make him stop because he really, really wanted Marinette to fight beside him and if it meant he needed to bear with Bruce’s Batdad-Looks™, then so be it. He was not about to go down without first putting up a fight.

Tim couldn’t even explain how grateful he was for the fact Bruce stayed quiet despite the expression on his face. It helped his situation a little.

Instead, it did not help that he could feel Cass’ eyes on his back. She was sitting on the ground a small distance away from them, probably reading all of them like they were open books. He decided to ignore it for now — there was really nothing else he could do.

“And you know she’s a good fighter — you saw her spar with Jason! You saw how she fought against Damian who actually, officially challenged her, like she were equal. He doesn’t do that too often. We all also know neither of them wasn’t holding back too much on second matched anymore, if at all in the in the third one. She only lost once they stopped holding back and even then she put up a good fight — the matches weren’t over in minutes. Like, we’ve all gotten training from at least the Bat himself, likely from many others too. She has not. That makes it an impressive feat. With training, she could probably be one of the best of us!”

Steph lifted her hands above her head as to surrender and to draw attention to herself. “Alright, I’m cool with it. Timmy’s passionate about his cause and also I like Mari. It could be fun to have her in the team.”

Thank goodness, at least someone was on his side.

Dick’s phone chimes and he looks at the message, groaning when he reads it. “Babs told me to tell you all that she also says yes, that she trusts Marinette with all of this if others are fine with it as well,” he says slowly, before he puts his phone away. It’s strange seeing him not cheerful, but Tim can’t afford to care about it too much now .

Another voice spoke up softly. “I think… Marinette makes a good fighter,” Cass said from her spot, resting her body weight on her arms with the flats of her palms on the ground. She seemed thoughtful. Her words carried a meaning all of them understood, even if she didn’t say it out loud — she liked her too and wanted her in, but that she too would like Marinette to get some training first before letting her out.

Just in case.

They knew she wanted to lose people just as much as the rest of them — which meant, she didn't want to lose any more people she cared about.

Then, a sigh. “Yeah, gotta agree. Could be nice to have her on our side, she’s fun. And Timber’s right, she does seem like she’s achin’ to go fight a bitch. It’d be better if we made sure she’s got the necessary skills and stuff, and I’d rather not have to fight her because one of us considers her an enemy or because she thinks that of us. Girl’s got some mad skills. Also, B, if you think about it for a second longer, I’m sure you’d realise that if there’s a chance she is going out anyway, I’m sure you’d prefer she followed your rules, too, right?”

Tim… wasn’t sure when the last time he’d been grateful for Jason’s input had last occurred, but he was certainly ready to let Jason do whatever the hell he wanted with criminals during their next patrol together, that’s how grateful he was. Yes, even if it meant Jason shooting them in the fucking kneecaps.

“Yes, but she’s still—”

“She’s what, Grayson? She put up a respectable fight even thought she’s still clearly inferior to me, but I do not doubt she could do the same in the field. Her skills most certainly require improvement and bettering, and she needs to fine her techniques if she wants to hold her own out there without getting killed, but I’m certain she’s more than capable of getting to Todd’s level with guidance.”

Okay, wow. Damian was defending Marinette. He definitely needed to tell this to her — he was sure she’s appreciate hearing the little demon of the family respected her enough to speak up against Dick and his father, the only ones of them he’d ever openly admitted held his respect, even if he didn’t necessarily word it as “I respect you” or “you have my respect.” It seemed Marinette got the honor of being the third one, and she had been family for all of some weeks. She’d even gotten him to use the word “respectable” when talking about her.

She got him admitting to all of them, all of them, that he thought she was good and worth his respect. Now that was something.

So, Tim also appreciated him speaking up. This tiny (alright so he may not have been that tiny anymore and there’s a chance Damian was now taller than Tim, but who cared, he would always be tiny to Tim) teenager was still the only biological child of Bruce and also one of the hardest of them to impress, so if he said something of this sort about anyone (the last time it was something about Jon but Tim hadn’t cared enough to remember what it actually was about anymore), everyone would at least listen to him before simply jumping to decisions.

So yeah. If there ever was a time Tim wanted nothing more than to take his little brother out and let him find a few new animals to keep as pets, even if they weren’t good as pets, it was now. It certainly was now.

“I’m siding with Tim here — don’t give me that look, Dick, the ones already sided with him are scarier and more dangerous than you and Bruce together, so even if I didn’t agree, his side would be the wiser choice—”, Duke starts, shrugging, though there was a clear smile on his face. “But like, Marinette’s nice, like actually nice, and if she’s going to become family anyway, I don’t see why we couldn’t have her in this as well. Tim has a good point — several good points, actually, so the logic is also on his side.”

Yeah, Tim certainly couldn’t hide his smile any longer. Only Dick and Bruce were yet to say yes. Maybe he could actually do this.

Of course, he was not going to go through with any of this if all of them didn’t agree. He could risk his own identity to his soulmate, but there was no way he was going to force anyone else to do so for anyone, least of all for someone that wasn’t literally linked to them by their very soul. He would never compromise all of them for one person.

“Okay, fine. It seems everyone else is saying yes, so I guess I’m outvoted here. I just want every one of you to stay safe, you know? I don’t want this to end up being the reason any of you gets hurt.”

Yes, Tim knew that. Regardless of how annoying Dick managed to get a lot of the time, or how frustratingly stubborn he always was, or how his attitude was irritatingly similar to Bruce’s even when their personalities weren’t even remotely similar most of the time (that one was probably causation of Bruce taking care of Dick for like a decade), there was never any doubt his love or concern for any of them wasn’t genuine. That much was more than obvious.

He managed to give Dick a small smile, hoping it would convey he was grateful he finally said yes.

Now there was only one left to convince.

The most difficult of them (if you didn’t count Damian in, anyway) to convert.

Bruce was stubborn as hell when he wanted to, but seeing as he was stubborn even if he wasn’t trying to be, this could either be easy or the most difficult thing Tim had ever done. It had taken him a while to convince Bruce to make him Robin, but back then all he was trying was to have him take himself in and train him; Back then Tim wasn’t planning on telling his identity to someone who didn’t know yet, someone who could figure out the rest of them as well, and then have her trained to become one of them. Tim knew it, it was a lot to ask, but he wanted to do it anyway. It was important to him, alright?

Tim turned to look at Bruce. “Well? How is it?” He placed his hands on his hips and tilted his head, waiting for an answer. Any answer, really.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Tim. What if something happens to her? Or what if something happens to you? Or any of your siblings?”

“But what if something happens to her because I didn’t tell her? And besides, something could happen to any of us at any given time, given what we all do on nightly basis. We could have also just not done it, but we are doing it anyway and like hell is any of us going to just quit. Out world is full of what-ifs, we cannot help them, and I’ll be damned if I let them make me lose the one person actually made for me, the one person that I was tailored to.”

“With all due respect, Master Bruce, I must say, you have told your identity — even if only subtly hinted at it with a very specific set of words so that it’s enough for them to make the connection — so many times that I think you can hardly be against this. None of them were even your soulmate. Need I remind you of who everyone knew or found out without ever even becoming one of us? At least Master Tim is planning on bringing her in on all of this and planning to have her properly trained,” Alfred said, appearing in the doorway behind Bruce.

So sure, Cass and Damian knew exactly how to seemingly just appear and reappear without anyone noticing as though they could teleport, sure, Commissioner Gordon always complained about Batman doing it, and sure, the rest of them knew how to blend in with the shadows (they just didn’t always do it), but Alfred also seemed to possess this skill — better than most of them, anyway. Tim had absolutely no idea how, but he wasn’t about to complain.

Besides, it was Alfred, so it wasn’t surprising. Honestly, was there anything the man couldn’t do?

But the thing is, Alfred was also right. He had let Rachel Dawes find out. He let commissioner Gordon find out. Mr. Fox knew because Bruce had asked for help and equipment he then used as Batman while he was being Bruce Wayne — now that right there had never even seen subtle hinting. A whole lot of other people knew as well, though many had found out on their own — such as Tim, while some found out because of other, not so lovely circumstances, like Selina.

So, all in all, Bruce was the worst of them to say anything about it. True, he was mostly protective of them, always thinking up the worst-case scenarios about everything, something Tim himself did as well because that was the easiest way to make sure they were prepared for absolutely anything and everything, but Tim trusted Marinette. He wanted to trust her, just like Bruce had trusted some people. And in any case, he’d rather trust than live his life in suspicion of most people, like some people he knew did. Like Bruce.

Bruce opened his mouth to say something, but as nothing came out, he just closed it again. A defeated sigh slipped past his lips and he let go of the tensity in his shoulders, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fine, I can see when I’ve lost. I want to meet her soon after you tell her, maybe right away after it, though, regardless of whether she makes the connection or not. I would prefer if all of you were here then,” he said, motioning at all of them before he placed his hand on Tim’s shoulder. “And that you—” he cast a pointed look at Tim, “—tell us when you are going to do it. I trust that you understand what you’re doing. I do not want to find out Ms. Dupain-Cheng is a danger to any of you, but especially you.”

“Of course. I take full responsibility of her and her training—”

“No you won’t. I’ll do that, although I do expect you to be there for her and to be a major help. I’m still your father and I don’t care if you’re already 19, because I’m not letting my children be that much of adults just yet.”

“Hey!”

Bruce just smiled (a tense smile, one that was half-forced on his face) and left all of them (except Cass whom Tim couldn’t see anywhere anymore) behind, gaping.

“Did he just—”

“Oh my god he totally did!”

“Please tell me someone recorded B calling himself a father and calling us his children.”

Tim had a vague suspicion that Cass had indeed recorded it, was going to send it to all of them, and then, depending on the reactions to it, would send a voice message of her laughing to their group chat.

Well, that definitely went better than he thought.

⬷۵⤐

“You know, I’m glad I have you as my soulmate,” Marinette began around a week later as they were sitting in the living room of the Wayne Manor. She snuggled closer to him and Tim wrapped an arm around her, comfortable and relaxed for the first time in a few days. “I’ve known you for not that long, but I already know I don’t want to lose you.”

She reached for his hand and took it in her own. Tim squeezed her hand back.

“Me neither.” Tim saw this as an opening — after all, most, if not all, of his reasons to tell Marinette who he was and all his plans about how exactly he should do it were born from the idea that he didn’t want to lose her. And so, he stood up, still holding her hand, and pressed a light kiss on it. “I need to show you something important. Will you follow me?”

A soft laughed escaped from Marinette as she replied, smiling, “Always, to the ends of the world.”

Marinette let herself be pulled up to her feet and led through the endless dark hallways of the manor. He quickly shot a message (“I’m prepared to do it, I’m taking her down now. Be there in five”) to the group chat before putting his phone away. When it vibrates in his pocket, he first looked at Marinette as though to make sure it was fine with her if he checked and possibly answered — after all, he knew it wasn’t too urgent or they would have called, and as far as Marinette was aware, this was supposed to be their time together to get to know each other better and all, not time for either of them to spend talking to other people via phone —, the corners of his lips turning upwards at her when she nodded with a smile on her face.

It seemed smiles liked to creep up on his face a lot more now that Marinette was around.

The message was from Jason, and Tim rolled his eyes fondly at it.

I thought you were supposed to tell her instead of fighting her, babybird.

shut up jason

You know pwefectly well what taking her down means int his case

Oh yes, I most definitely do.

It’s just so much fun reminding you of the existence of double meanings you either use to insult people or forget about completely.

But yeah, we’ll be ready.

“One of your brothers?”

“Yep. Jason is being a cumberworld.”

“And him being a cumberworld definitely makes you grin and roll your eyes as though he merely made a stupid joke and you, unfortunately, thought it rather amusing. Got it.”

“Wait. You actually know what it means?”

“Duh, obviously. After listening to you and your family for a while, it seemed like a good idea to do some research on different English insults so they wouldn’t fly by me all the time.”

Tim snorted. Of course. Only Marinette would. Only her. Everyone else outside of their family seemed to give up on trying to understand after a little while, but noooo, this girl decided she was going to spend extra time doing some research just to be able to understand — that, and also most likely to be able to laugh at them. She definitely fit in just fine.

It didn’t take them too long after that to get to the main study in the manor that Tim had earlier told her was Bruce’s and told her not to go in. Maybe that was why Marinette now looked quite nervous and anxious as he unlocked the door and pushed it open, motioning for her to go in.

“Are you sure we can go in here? Mr Wayne— I mean, Bruce, isn’t going to get mad at us? And you aren’t about to kill me, right?” she laughed, trying to mask her nervousness with humour, but walked in anyway. She relaxed a little and the tensity in her shoulders slipped away the slightest bit as Tim shook his head as no.

He walked to the grandfather clock in the room and let go of Marinette’s hand in order to be able to turn the hands of the clock. The clock hit 10:48 (Tim had always thought there was no one more grim than the Batman but then he actually met Bruce Wayne and found out you needed to turn the clock to show the time Bruce’s parents had been murdered, and was just like that forced to change his view on the matter) and the panel unlocked, opening the door hidden from view behind the clock.

Marinette’s jaw dropped open. This was most certainly not what she had been expecting, that much was sure.

“Well then, my fair lady, shall we enter?” he asked, grinning at Marinette’s flabbergasted expression even as she walked closer and tried to figure out where the entrance would take them.

She could keep trying; he was not about to tell her just yet.

The elevator took them down and soon enough, they were in the cave. He stepped out of the doors and waited for Marinette to follow him.

“...Where are we?” she asked, her voice a little strained.

“Uh.”

“Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne, where in the world exactly did you take me?”

It seemed actually telling her turned out a little more difficult than he thought. Well, no use crying now — he couldn’t just brush off all of this like he hadn’t just taken his soulmate down to the Batcave either.

“Alright. So, this might come as a shock and for the love of all that’s still holy and sacred in this world please do not freak out. I just decided I needed to tell you this before we consider pursuing any relationship on a deeper and closer level than what we have now, regardless of in what sense it would be.

Marinette nodded slowly, encouraging him to go on even as she seemed suspicious (and anxious) about what was going on. Perhaps that was a good thing since they were in Gotham, in the city where you never knew who the person in front of you was or what they did in their free time (or at night).

Tim took a deep breath before dropping the bomb on her. “I am Red Robin, one of the vigilantes of Gotham.”

At his declaration, her jaw dropped. Again. “You— I— What?”

“I’m Red Robin,” he repeated and pulled out the domino mask he had taken with him and slipped into his pocket, putting it on his face. Thank heavens for Marinette and her need to give him big pockets whenever he commissioned her (and there was any reason to put pockets to said commissioned clothing) because of that one offhand comment complaining about too small pockets some of his clothes had. He scratched his chin awkwardly before realising what he was doing and pulled his hand down, pressing his nails to his skin to keep himself from bringing it up again. “I was also thinking, you’d make a good vigilante if that’s what you wanted to do. Obviously, I would need to train you first to make sure you’d be ready for Gotham’s streets, but I thought it could help you not to worry about me if you saw me in action and actually had the chance to help me if necessary?”

That… wasn’t supposed to come out as a question. Why did it come out as one?

But Marinette’s silence was worrying him. It would be understandable not to get an answer now, but he knew her well enough by now to know that she would be mindlessly rambling at this point if it were merely shock she was experiencing.

“You… You aren’t a villain or planning on becoming one, right? Because even if you were my soulmate, that would mean I’d have to take you down.” Almost certain he could feel Dick’s pointed (and amused, definitely amused) look on his back, he added, “I’m not about to go down the Batman-Catwoman route with this.”

That startled Marinette out of her shock and as she stared him dead in the eye, she blurted out, “Spots on!”

Tim could have almost sworn he heard an exasperated and quiet “Marinette, why couldn't you just tell him like we agreed?” as bright pink light enveloped her and soon revealed that in her place there stood a young woman in a red suit with black spots.

And a spotted mask.

Which made it a ladybug suit.

Or the Ladybug suit.

On his soulmate that came from Paris.

Paris’ Ladybug…

“Oh my god. You’re Ladybug. My soulmate is Ladybug. This is a thing now, apparently. Aren’t you supposed to be dead? Actually, no, I’ve seen enough people that were resurrected, it wouldn’t even be that surprising. How were you—”

Ladybug’s shoulders lifted to her ears and she smiled sheepishly. “Hi? I’m not a villain as you can see?”

It was Tim’s turn to simply stare at Marinette. He— he was not expecting this turn of events. He sighed and waved his hand a little in a “come here” gesture, knowing they were there and that they’d seen her transform anyway. That would mean there was no secret identity problem anymore as her identity wasn’t really a secret anymore, per se. Besides, since she was a hero already, they could very well just introduce themselves to her already.

He had to admit, this was absolutely wonderful as it meant she fit in perfectly — it was as though she had always been the missing piece of the puzzle that was his life and family.

Of course, though he was expecting fate to be a jerk and give him a civilian soulmate, Fate instead decided to cut him some slack and just give him someone that could actually keep up with him and the family he wasn’t going to get rid of anyway, no matter what he tried or wanted (not that he wanted to get rid of them most of the time).

But well. A soulmate was supposed to suit you perfectly, so maybe it wasn’t that surprising.

Ladybug didn’t seem to notice his family approaching them as she kept on rambling and tried to explain herself. “I’m also not dead and never was. Chat Noir isn’t dead either though he has died multiple times during akuma attacks and was resurrected by my Miraculous Cure. Paris just happens to have a tendency to get overdramatic and jump to conclusions, and Chaton and I decided we didn’t want the Ladyblogger on our backs any longer. Neither of us is too fond of her, especially not after the phenomenon that is Lila Rossi,” she said, sighing as she cocked her hip. Ladybug shook her head and turned her eyes to the side. It seemed the name meant a lot, just not in any good way. “Wait. If you’re Red Robin, then—”

“Hiii!”

Aaandd it seemed that Dick had taken that as his cue to make his presence known. How lovely.

Ladybug turned to Dick and then back to Tim, arching an eyebrow. “Since you’re Red Robin, I’m going to go ahead and suppose this is your family. Am I right?”

“Yeah, unfortunately.”

“They’re not going to try and fight me or drive me out of your city for having powers, right?”

Batgirl cuffed him upside the head as she skipped to them, walked past Tim and then looked Ladybug up and down before nodding approvingly. “Definitely approve, though that suit… Am I seriously supposed to believe you’re our sweet, wonderful, talented fashion designer? Also no, even if B-Man or Dickiebird over there tried, Timmers, Damian and I would fight for you. You’re staying because I like you. We all like you.”

Ladybug flushed lightly at the compliments and the otherwise sweet words, but to her credit, her voice didn’t even waver when she replied (unlike usually), “I just haven’t had the energy and time to change it yet. It’s magic, can’t change it that easily.”

“Oh, okay. Well, try and see if you can recognise all of us!”

Ladybug bit her lip and looked at each and every one of them separately, her calculating eyes feeling like they could see right through all of them. She walked between them and around them, a sly grin appearing on her face.

“Well, Bats here is probably Mr Wayne. He’s the oldest of all and I strongly doubt any of you could be doing what you are if he didn’t know — unless, of course, it was Alfred, and I don’t doubt Alfred’s skills at all, but I’m pretty sure that back when Robin wasn’t there yet, someone needed to look after Batman and I honestly think only Alfred could have that much power on him. So. Mr Wayne.”

Batman took off his cowl, indeed revealing Bruce himself.

As she moved on to Nightwing, she winked and laughed with an “I did do my homework on the flight here. Seriously, did you think I wouldn’t?” Then she turned to look Nightwing in the eye (or, would have looked him in the eye if not for his domino. “I’m going to say Dick. I’ve been watching you all while I’ve been here — in both forms, it seems —, and I doubt any of you could pull some of the moves, or the attitude, Nightwing does, except for Dick. Don’t give me that look, you did jump from the balcony at some point last week, landing safely on the ground after showing off and doing like a million spins and somersaults.”

Tim laughed. “Dick, I told you, someone else besides me was going to recognise you for your somersaults one day.”

“You too?”

“Oh yeah, I worked out Dick’s, Bruce’s and then Jason’s original identities because of Dick’s quadruple-somersault when I was a kid. Nightwing’s identity wasn’t difficult either since, well, it was obviously the previous Robin.”

“Of course you would.”

Then she turned to Oracle in her wheelchair. “Anyway. I know you’re Barbara, and I’m so glad to see you here too, but I’m nor sure about you alias,” she said, her voice clearly apologetic for the fact.

“It’s alright,” Barbara comforted her and gave her a smile, “I wasn’t expecting you to know it. I’m Oracle, it’s nice to meet you. I’ll probably get you on the comms at some point as well because managing things is what I do now. The woman in the chair, if you will,” she continued, making Marinette chuckle. Tim loved the sound.

“Then the big bad Red Helmet over there is Jason — no, seriously, Jay, why in the world are you the Red Hood if you aren’t even wearing one?” she asked, her face twisting as she looked at him. God, Tim loved this girl, she would happily stab any of their fashion sense with a smile on her face, and honestly, the helmet was horrible. Her words earned her snickers from all around the room. She was obviously pleased with herself as Jason took off his mask and gaped at her, offended.

She didn’t even pay him attention too much, continuing on with her list. “The scowling Robin over there is definitely Damian, only he could pull off those expression with a hint of Bat in them, and the current Batgirl is obviously Stephanie. Duke is the Signal — that was your name, right? Oh, and Cass, you’re Black Bat, aren’t you?” At Cass’ nod and her revealing her face, Marinette let out a sigh of relief. “You’re one of the only ones here with an acceptable suit.”

Ladybug transformed back into Marinette, a small creature appearing from her… earrings? before hiding inside her jacket. Tim decided to ignore it, maybe it was nothing. Marinette turned around, spinning on her heel to face Bruce. “Like, I know you need protection because there’s no magic to do so, but you could have protection with suits that looked less ridiculous and atrocious than this,” she said, motioning at their clothing. “That actually goes to most of you. I especially hope there’s a really good reason and a story behind Robin’s colours, because otherwise I will not possibly be able to understand why anyone would go around as a vigilante in colours this bright.”

“There is a reason behind the color choices,” Dick said disturbingly quietly from where he was standing. “They were my family’s colors.”

Marinette winced lightly — she too knew what had happened to them on that fateful night. “Alright. That’s a good reason, even if they’re still horrible colour choices. That would make you the first Robin, right?” Dick nodded. “It’s understandable for you to want to use your family’s colours.” Her solemn tone indicated she accepted Dick’s reason for it completely, telling them all she felt bad for saying they were horrible but knew she wouldn’t back off — and they wouldn’t blame her for that either —, and they all knew she was going to leave arguing and pressing for explanations away completely. Her limitless capability of empathy was admirable.

Then she turned back to Tim. “Is that offer about training still on the table? I’d love to take it if so. I could probably win any of you as Ladybug because magic and a goddess in my pocket, also known as Tikki— Oh, actually! Tikki, come on out, come say hi to Tim!”

A small red, ladybug-like creature flew from under her jacket to Tim, smiling brightly. He immediately recognised it as the fairy he’s seen earlier. “Hi! I’m Tikki, the goddess — or as we like to call ourselves, the kwami — of creation. It’s lovely to finally meet my holder’s soulmate!”

“It’s, uh, nice to meet you as well, I guess? I take it you’re the one that helps Marinette transform,” Tim said, a little confused by the flying, speaking creature.

“Yup, I’m an ancient being, older than anything and everything else, so while she’s not the only one I’ve helped — the history is full of Ladybugs —, she’s my current holder. Remember that if you hurt her, while Adrien can do a lot of destruction and damage —” there seemed to be a double meaning behind those words but he just couldn’t figure out what it was. “—I will be the one you actually want to look out for!”

Tikki’s words were single handedly the single most terrifying thing Tim had ever heard, and it did not help at all that she was smiling all through it, her voice gentle and kind, her entire demeanour bright even when she was threatening him. He didn’t even want to know what a goddess of creation could do as retaliation.

“If I hurt her, I’d let you do whatever you wanted,” Tim finally heard himself say. Those words were surprisingly true and ran deep, he realised. It… should honestly have been alarming. It was not.

“Good, you understood quickly. This one’s good, let’s keep him.” Tikki patted his head — and such a weird image it must have been, a creature maybe the size of his hand patting his head —, bringing Tim comfort for some reason. He had absolutely no idea how she managed it, being terrifying and so sweet and safe at the same time. He could totally see where Marinette got it from. “Also, some of you have definitely been in close — too close — touch with the Lazarus Pit, this place reeks of it. Marinette, tell me, why haven’t we already taken Plagg with us to the Lazarus Pit and gotten rid of it for good?”

Marinette shrugged, unaware of what was happening in the background behind her — Jason gaping, Bruce in shock, Damian just staring at them like he had seen a ghost, which was a rather disturbing picture because sometimes it seemed the boy could get fazed by nothing. The rest looked just confused. Maybe he should just leave them be and try to focus on Marinette and Tikki right now. “Jeez, Tikki, I have no idea. Maybe, maybe it’s because this has got to be the first time I hear about them and honestly, it should be more disturbing than it is that I, for some reason I don’t want to know, actually know what you’re talking about. Is that a guardian thing?”

Tikki nodded before speaking. “Well, we have to do it at some point. Let’s take the cat with us as well, I’m sure he’d prefer not to be left alone if we’re taking Plagg with us anyway. For now, though, I’m sure we can talk about it later.”

Tim shook his head, trying to concentrate. “Yeah, the offer is still on the table. I’d be happy to train you. You’d also get training from the Bat himself if you wanted — he actually insisted on it before this,” he laughed. “But yeah, I’ll be there anyway. Fun soulmate bonding and all that, right? Fighting, training and sparring until we can no longer stand on our own two feet, that’s all anyone could ever want,” he mused, odd warmth filling his chest as Marinette chuckled at his comment.

“Yes, you get it. Finally someone gets it — looking at you, Chat. Having said that, I do have to tell you it’s a little awkward and a huge coincidence you happened to ask me if I wanted to become a vigilante, as I was kind of going to ask you the same.”

“Huh?”

“You just beat me to revealing your identity and asking. I was wondering if you’d like to try using a miraculous, you know? It’s so much fun unless you’re trying to save an entire city that’s flooding and your partner is not doing what he’s supposed to and you have maybe five minutes left after you use your special ability but other than that, it’s great. I know you sometimes get even magical threats here, and I’m sure you’d rather be able to deal with them yourself instead of having to get the magic users not from here involved every single time since it’s your city. Also, since I’m not going to quit being Ladybug, and I will be out there doing my thing, I’d like to have my soulmate in the team sometimes as well, by my side. Obviously, you can refuse, but like, I could see you being a good snake. Sass would like you.”

Tikki nodded, clearly agreeing with Marinette. He knew better than to ask if they realised what sass meant, or to tell them that he was already familiar with sass, since it was probable this Sass was one of the Kwamies. Kwamiis. Kwamii? He had no idea.

Then she turned around to face the others whose attention — all of it — went immediately to her when she focused hers at them. “It could also be fun to see how any of you work with a miraculous once I get to know you better and know which kwamii would fit to each of you — I do have quite many of them travelling with me, after all,” she said, and the smile playing on her lips was easy to hear from her words. Come the next words (and the jab at most of them), Tim also knew for sure there was a mischievous glint dancing in her eyes. “That, and the kwamii come up with alright costumes most of the time even if you have no idea how to design a good one yourself. The suits are much safer than yours, too, because again, magic . And god-given powers, quite literally.”

The little fairy — kwami, wasn’t it? ... she. Something. — settled herself on Marinette’s head while Marinette took out a small box from her purse, opening it. A bright light with a yellowish or orange hue appeared in front of her as another one of the kwamii took form. Marinette put on a necklace that looked like a fox’s tail, which honestly looked logical as it resembled the kwami as well — if they had something to do with each other, that is.

“Heya Marinette! What is it today? Ooohhh, there are more people to mess with today! The cat isn’t here, I see… Wait, is this the soulmate thing you and Chat discussed? Is one of them your soulmate? Do I actually get to meet him before any of the others do?” The fox looking kwami seemed excited and it was a little bothersome to realise how much the kwami reminded him of Bart. They would probably get along, if they ever got the chance to meet. Probably not.

“Well, Tikki met him already, but yes, you’ll get to gloat about this to Plagg, Wayzz, Mullo, Longg and the others. Except for Duusu, that’s forbidden. She’s not in a good enough mental state for that yet. But anyway, Trixx, Tim is my soulmate, the one that’s probably standing right behind me right now unless he actually somehow managed to stay still even in the presence of something new he doesn’t understand just yet,” she said and pulled out two cookies, handing one to each kwamii present. Tim flushed as he realised she knew exactly where he was and why he was there.

Marinette didn’t pay any attention to any of them anymore, only the kwami in front of her.

“Besides, you complained about not having gotten to patrol in a long while last night and as it seems they don’t hate the idea of a miraculous user here, yet anyway — not that it would stop me, honestly, you guys need to get out and be used sometimes and as the guardian, it’s kind of my responsibility —, they might even let me patrol with them and thus give you a chance to go around. Chaton and Plagg won’t be there, though, and I’m not going to tell him about them, so keep your mouth shut. I know you love knowing things others don’t, but you don’t get to tell them because then you won’t be able to keep the knowledge of more heroes to yourself, and I’d honestly rather have Chat and Plagg only know I’ve told my soulmate now so he’s free to tell his. Also, they—”, she pointed at his family, “—Get to keep their secrets, so there’s that too.”

It felt a little too familiar to hear Marinette call someone Chaton, and it irritated Tim to no ends to know that he knew the one Marinette had called Chaton earlier by name, but yet could still only connect it to Chat Noir and Chat Noir only.

Trixx flew around Tim’s head a few times until deciding on landing on top of it. The kwami started to eat the cookie, still there on top of his head, damnit, leaving cookie crumbles in his hair. “Hello there, Marinette’s soulmate! You seem rather interesting. Are you going to be trying to use one of us? It’s going to be so much fun seeing what kind of a hero you could become with our help!”

But, just as Tim was about to answer, an alarm went off in the cave. They all knew it was a villain attack, and soon all of them got notifications of said attack to their phones, computers, tablets, clocks, anything they had promised to carry around everywhere for this specific thing. Tim groaned and ran a hand down his face.

Not now, we don’t have time for this.

Even so, Tim ran off to put on his suit. There was a big chance Marinette would be coming along since she was, apparently, already used to villains (even if quite different from theirs), and he wanted to be there to see it.

At least Trixx let him leave without following.

⬷۵⤐

Marinette watched in wonder as everyone got a move on the second the alarm went off. It was so different from Paris. She hoped the civilians had more basic common sense than Parisians did, too, and would try to escape the danger zone instead of trying to get into it.

Barbara went to get a small piece of technology before wheeling to her. She took Marinette’s hand and pressed it on her palm. “Here. This is a comm. I want you to wear it when you’re out in the field at all times so you’ll be able to contact everyone, me included, at any time you need. They can also contact you if they’re in need of help or something. That, and I’ll be able to locate you at any point I want or need to, so yes, you have to use it,” she told her, but Marinette gave it back. Under Barbara’s rather scary and very unimpressed glare, she decided to give in. After all, she was — even bound to a wheelchair — one of the scariest of them. She was also one of Marinette’s favourites in the family and would probably admit this to any of them at any given time, so she reasoned that played a part in her decision as well.

“Fine, I’ll take it, but I need to transform first or it will disappear, though I’m pretty sure I could actually connect my own, safer communicator to yours,” she said before stepping back. “You might want to close your eyes, the light can be blinding. Tikki, spots on!”

Once the bright light went away, she got ready to unify Trixx and Tikki together. It would take her a lot of energy, but the stealth abilities Trixx came with were useful, as were the illusions, especially in a city such as Gotham, and Tikki, well, Marinette knew how to work with her the best, and the Miraculous Cure Tikki provided was the best thing ever since it could repair anything and everything if she was involved in it with the miraculous (and better yet, no one would need to pay for said repairs.) “Tikki, Trixx, unify!”

“Alright, I’m done now. I can take the comm now if you so insist,” she said, opening her palm and waiting for Barbara to hand it to her again. “You can call me Lady Vixen for now until I come up with a better name, Oracle.”

Oracle smiled at her and dropped the comm on Lady Vixen’s palm. She put it on, adjusting it until it no longer felt uncomfortable in her ear. Red Robin had just finished suiting up by then as well, and with a grin on his face, he stepped to her side. He brushed over her wrist with his fingers and she did the same to him, because even with their suits covering up the skin of their wrists, it made them more comfortable, more at ease, more focused. Happier. They turned to look at the rest of the family, waiting for the go-ahead since she still needed one from at least Batman.

After Batman nodded to her and smiled (which honestly was not a smile and looked more like a grimace, like seriously, Mr Wayne needed some help with how to smile), Nightwing gave her a bright smile (like, an actual smile, unlike Batman’s) and said, “Welcome to the team!”

She didn't reply, she knew she didn’t need to, and decided that swinging off with her soulmate was going to be enough.

Yeah, she was happy to be a part of the team, a part of the family.

Especially if her soulmate was going to be there for her and stay at her side through all of it.

____

@the-navistar-carol @kris-pines04 @thethirdwheelfriend @daminett4life

[nokomiss]

I'd love to see G - a fistfight with best girl Steph, please, if you're still doing your fic thing.

Hope you enjoy this, @shauds02! Sorry it took so long. ♥

*

If you do something often enough, it becomes habit.

Sometimes, that’s unfortunate. Super unfortunate. Like, for example, if you’re sitting there with your college study group, struggling your way through the week’s assignments (well, Steph’s struggling, everyone else is acting like it’s fine, though none of them had fought Firefly until 4am the previous night, but that wasn’t exactly something she could advertise) and a supervillain bursts into the library.

Jordanna shrieked and ducked under the table, Francisco held up his binder like a shield, and Steph leapt to her feet, rocked back on her heels, and punched the Riddler square in the nose.

“What the fuck,” he said, words garbled as he held his hand over his now-bleeding nose. “You broke my nose.”

“Move, you’re bleeding on my textbook,” Steph said, trying to shoulder him away from her books but not before they’re splattered with Riddler blood. Probably she should burn them now, no matter how much they’d cost her. Maybe Bruce would fund new ones. 

She distantly realized that her study group was staring at her. Most of the library was staring at her. Even in Gotham, the normal designated response to an A-list supervillain wasn’t to break their nose and then bitch about the mess.

“You little--” Riddler started to point at her, then stopped. “Wait, I know you.”

“No you don’t,” Steph says quickly. She could feel Jordanna and Francisco’s eyes on her and resolutely did not look in their direction.

“No, I definitely do,” Riddler said. He squinted at her, one hand still cupped around his nose. Steph probably could have gone easier on that punch, given how he hadn’t seen it coming at all, but old habits and all that. 

“Aren’t you meant to be doing crime or something?” she said, hoping to derail him. Babs was on campus today, and no doubt had already sent out the alert. Encouraging the Riddler to go back to crime was totally not that bad, since there was no doubt a superhero on their way.

Because this is not how she wanted her secret identity to be revealed to the world. How did the Riddler even recognize her as Batgirl, anyhow? She hadn’t had any encounters with him in the suit-- maybe he was going to tell everyone she was Spoiler? She could maybe play that off as a thing of the past, that she’d left it all behind…

Ugh. She grimaced, bracing herself for her world to come crashing down.

“Stephanie!” the Riddler said loudly, pointing at her with the hand that wasn’t cupping his nose. “Cluemaster’s girl! I stayed at his house a few years back and you were a real brat about it.”

Steph blinked. 

“I was not a brat, I was totally justified in not wanting to share my bathroom with your gross henchwomen,” Steph replied back heatedly. “They got what they deserved.”

“I had to pay them hazard pay because a goddamn teenager kept hiding the toilet paper, putting hard candies in the showerhead and filling their shoes with jell-o,” Riddler said.  “Do you know how embarrassing that is to explain to your accountant? Huh? Do you?”

“Do I look like I have an accountant?” Steph pointed out. “And maybe you should have used that money to get yourself a lair instead of squatting in my house and then bitching about the treatment.”

Riddler narrowed his eyes at her. Steph narrowed hers back.

Then he tossed his head back and laughed. “Yeah, your dad always said you were a handful. Laughed when I told him what you were doing. Bastard.”

“He is,” Steph said, nodding, always happy to talk shit about her dad.

He looked around, at the cowered students, and the work spread out on the table. “You’re not following in his footsteps, right? Actually gonna make something of yourself?

“I was trying until some dumbass supervillain interrupted my study session,” Steph said. 

“Touche,” said Riddler, and sighed. “This idea’s toast now, anyway. Can’t make a good speech for the hostages looking like this.”

“You technically haven’t done any crime yet,” Steph agreed. “You could just stroll out. Start fresh.”

They’d had a few snacks from the food cart outside before starting the study session, and she grabbed a few napkins left over from that off the table and handed them to Riddler. 

He accepted and used them to mop up the blood around his nose. “Fair point. Next time you talk to your dad, tell him we’re even.”

“Bold of you to assume I talk to him, but okay,” Steph said, and waved a little as the Riddler motioned for his henchmen -- not the ones Steph had pranked, thankfully, henchperson turnover was a real problem in Gotham -- to follow him out of the library.  She wondered briefly what her father could have done for the Riddler to owe him, then decided she didn’t actually care.

Silence filled the room after he left, and Steph sat down in her chair, staring at her ruined textbook and avoiding her friends’ stare.

“Okay, I’ll be the one to say it,” Jordanna said. “What the fuck was that?”

“Uh,” Steph said, “nothing important? Do you have the answer to number fourteen yet?”

“Oh no,” Francisco said, leaning forward on his elbows and staring her down. “You are absolutely telling us how you know the freaking Riddler.”

“He was work buddies with my dad?” Steph said. “So like, number fourteen. I’m thinking it’s C, because--”

“So when you found out about my dad, you never felt like you should mention that yours was a supervillain.”

“To be totally fair he’s a shitty one?” Steph said. “And he’s in Blackgate and I hope he stays there forever, so. Not really comparable to your family, who you actually talk to.”

“This explains so much,” Jordanna said thoughtfully. “You’re such a weirdo, and the fact that you think punching the Riddler in the nose is a valid response to a hostage situation is so much more understandable now that I know that you grew up in it. You know, I bet I could do a really interesting psychological study on the effects that growing up with a supervillain has on appropriate stress responses.”

“Absolutely not, no,” Steph said. She refused to answer any more questions, and hoped that the topic would drop.

*

The topic most decided did not drop.

Steph had been living a blissfully nondescript college life. She hadn’t even realized how blissful it was until suddenly everyone knew that she was the daughter of a supervillain.  Like, she’d dealt with this shit enough in elementary school, she thought that by college it would be no big deal. But the thing about college is that it’s made up of people from all over, even at a place like Gotham University, and apparently supervillains were still a noteworthy thing for a lot of people.

Steph finds this out in class.

She’s sitting there, awake, taking notes, minding her own business when the person behind her taps her on the shoulder.  She turns, and the girl whispers, “Is it true you beat up the Riddler?”

“Of course not,” Steph said reflexively. “Or, I guess. The library thing? I, like, barely broke his nose.”

She turned back, ready to listen to her professor, only to find that apparently he’d been listening to her. She stammered out an apology, and he waved it away. “I think we all would like to hear a firsthand account of what happened there,” he said instead, eyes alight. 

“Uh, what?” Steph said, entirely unused to being asked about fighting supervillains.  She realized everyone was looking at her in a way -- well, she’d seen it before, but typically she was wearing a Bat on her chest when it happened.

It wasn’t a very dramatic story, though Steph added a little pizzazz to it so she didn’t disappoint anyone. Afterwards the lecture went on as usual, though she noticed she kept getting looks.

She got invited to three different parties on her way out of class, and fled to Babs’ office. She was actually in, though she gave Steph an annoyed look before returning her attention to her computer screen. 

Steph waited as patiently as she could until Babs sighed, took her hands off the keyboard and said, “You wanted something?”

“So my identity’s blown,” Steph said, flopping into the chair across from Babs. 

This got an immediate reaction. “Batgirl? Who all knows? We need to--”

“Not Batgirl,” Steph interrupted, before Babs started launching some sort of secret identity fail protocol. “The Riddler talked about recognizing me, and now everyone knows about my dad.”

Babs blinked. “I didn’t realize that wasn’t public knowledge.”

“The fact that Arthur Brown is the Cluemaster is something you can easily google,” Steph said, “but not that I’m his daughter. Brown’s not exactly an unusual last name. And people are being weird about it since I broke the Riddler’s nose in front of the whole library.”

“You don’t think that maybe the weirdness has to do more with your actions than your dad’s?” Babs said, with that eyebrow raise that Steph hated so much. 

“I will admit to it being a factor but let’s be real, I’ve done weird shit before and no one invited me to parties over it.” Steph leaned back in the chair, staring up at the ceiling. “Of all the damn things to finally make me cool in the eyes of my peers.”

Babs was definitely laughing at her.

*

It was weird, no doubt, but Steph actually was kind of enjoying the attention. Sure, it made dashing off on Batgirl business a little more difficult -- she actually had to tell one group of people, who were wanting to hear what it was like to live with supervillains firsthand that she had ‘urgent supervillain business’ to attend to in order to escape, and while it wasn’t an actual lie, it definitely made her feel kinda gross -- but overall? Suddenly getting the respect and admiration of her peers, and seemingly a lot of it having to do with her own badass actions? Pretty great.  Total confidence booster. 

 Especially since with the other Bats, her own supervillain ties were embarrassing, given that the others who had been born into supervillainy were related to the A-list. The Cluemaster was laughable when compared to David Cain, Lady Shiva and the al Ghuls. 

So she laughed and demonstrated her left hook and did a few impromptu lessons showing girls how to get more power behind their punches, which was a definite public service for college girls in Gotham.  She avoided actually talking about her dad or glorifying his actions, since she still hated his guts, and the vagueness of her answers on that topic only served to add more mystique to her growing legend.

Then it happened.

She was sitting in the commons with some of her new buddies, eating some nachos that had been gifted to her, when the girl beside her -- Frankie, that’s what Steph was pretty sure her name was -- sighed dreamily and said, “He’s just so hot, you know?”

“Who?” Steph said through a mouthful of tortilla chips and queso.

“Cluemaster.”  Frankie flipped open her notebook, and wow. Wow. She’d drawn a picture of Steph’s dad.  He was shirtless and had his hair fluttering over his shoulder like he was on the cover of a romance novel. Steph distantly noted that the art itself showed a lot of talent and effort, but most of her mind was occupied by the sound of the Kill BIll sirens echoing louder and louder.

“Right?” another girl -- Kala -- sighed. The guy next to her -- Miles -- nodded in agreement.

“What,” Steph managed to say.

“Like, you know how most of Gotham’s male villains are really gross-looking?” Kala continued, “which is totally unfair, given how fucking hot all the lady villains are.”

“Seriously,” Frankie said. “I mean, I enjoy looking at Ivy as much as the next person, but no one wants to check out Killer Croc or Two-Face, you know?”

“Well, Two-Face is at least half-hot,” pointed out Miles. “But the other half is a definite dealbreaker. But your dad, on the other hand…”

“No deformities, great hair, hot bod,” Frankie said. She smiled at Steph. “You’re so lucky.”

“I… what?” Steph struggled to find words. “Not really the word I would have chosen?”

Kala leaned in on her elbows. “He’s in Blackgate, right? Do they monitor his mail?”

“Do they--” Steph blinked rapidly. “You are not allowed to write dirty letters to my dad.”

They all laughed merrily, like she’d made a funny joke. Steph put down the plate of nachos and said, “That’s gross. He’s a terrible person! And in prison! And he’s married!”

She left off the fact that her parents’ marriage, at this point, was more a forgotten legality than a relationship. She stood up, brushing the crumbs off her lap and saying, “I’m gonna go now.”

She fled.

*

This time she didn’t wait for Babs to finish with her work when she burst into her office. “Babs! My life is a living nightmare!”

Babs gestured for her to be quiet, but Steph couldn’t hold in the horror of her discovery. “My new friends just wanted to be around me because they wanted to bone my dad.”

A choking sound from Babs’ computer, and Steph hurried around the desk to find that Babs was in the midst of a video call with Dick.  He looked entirely too amused.

“Are you sure?” Babs said doubtfully.

“One girl showed me her gross horny drawing of him,” Steph said. “I’m sure. They asked if Blackgate monitors his mail.”

Babs bit her lip, clearly holding in laughter. Dick didn’t bother with dignity and was full-on laughing at her.  

“This is a nightmare.” Steph clunked her head down on Babs’ desk, then had a thought. “Dick, how do you shut this kind of shit down?”

“Huh?” Dick said. 

“Like, with your buddies, how did you shut them down when they realized your dad was a hottie?”

Steph found that her own misery was somewhat lessened by the appalled look on Dick’s face.

“I mean,” she quickly clarified, so that no gross rumors got started, “I personally don’t find him bangable, you know, but clearly a lot of people do. He was voted People’s Sexiest Man Alive three times.”

“You’re very well-informed on the subject,” Dick managed, still making a face like he’d just tasted a lemon. Steph wondered if she’d been making that face at those awful Cluemaster fangirls. She hoped so.

“For his birthday this year I gave him a mug printed with the covers,” Steph explained with a shrug. “I think he took it to the Watchtower.”

Dick’s face went on another journey through a variety of emotions, then he said, “Babs, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye,” she said, waving her fingers cheerfully as he hung up. 

Steph sighed. “That wasn’t very helpful.”

“You certainly enjoyed it, though,” Babs said, words tinged with laughter. 

Steph couldn’t even deny it. Misery loved company.

*

Steph took to avoiding as many of her classmates as she could. She no longer trusted them. She went to class, hunched down in the back row like she thought she was famous, hoodie up and giant sunglasses on the second she left the building. 

The only ones she trusted to eat lunch with were Jordanna and Francisco, who tolerated her presence.  The revelation that her dad was a supervillain and that she was willing to punch supervillains in the nose hadn’t been enough to change their opinions of her, which she was grateful for.

She was listening to Jordanna give a detailed rant about the reasons her new roommate was a nightmare when Jordanna went quiet.

Steph realized someone was approaching, and she glanced up to see Tim sit down on the bench beside her.  She blinked at him.  “What are you doing here?” she asked, confused.

“I was in the neighborhood,” Tim said with a shrug, and opened up a takeout container. “Thought I’d have lunch with you.”

Francisco and Jordanna were staring again, Steph noticed. She glared at Tim, who calmly started unwrapping his gyro. “You could have asked.”

“You always tell me to leave you alone at school,” Tim replied easily. “I brought you some baklava, though.” He pushed the container towards her.

Steph accepted the baklava, but not the explanation. “Yeah, because aren’t you supposed to be at work.”

At Wayne Enterprises. She was ninety percent sure that Francisco and Jordanna totally recognized him.

“Meeting got cancelled,” Tim said cheerfully. 

“Timothy,” Steph said, putting all of her angst into his name, dragging it out.

“You are Tim Drake-Wayne,” Jordanna said. She turned to Steph with narrowed eyes. “Why do you know one of the Waynes?”

“Good question,” Francisco said.”I mean, first the Riddler, now a Wayne? It’s like we don’t even know you.”

“We dated in high school,” Steph said, because the truth was always the best lie.  

“And now we’re best friends,” Tim confirmed. “She’s basically part of the family.”

Steph looked briefly heavenward. This was not happening.

Jordanna looked between them. “How did you meet? I mean, a supervillain’s daughter and a billionaire’s son?”

“It was before he was a Wayne,” Steph said quickly.

“Because of the supervillain thing,” Tim said.  Steph glared, but he continued on. “My real dad was murdered by one, you see, and Steph here wrote me a really nice sympathy card. We bonded.”

“How sweet,” Francisco said.

“Yeah,” Steph said, “so sweet.”

Lunch continued on, and by the end of it Steph realized that there was no way that Francisco and Jordanna were going to let the knowledge that she had an in with the Wayne family die.  When Tim offered to walk her to class, she accepted, and hissed into his ear, “What the fuck, Tim?”

“Dick told me about your problem,” Tim said cheerfully, waving at a few people as they passed. “We thought that you needed to distract from the issue at hand.”

“By showing everyone I’m even weirder than they thought? Ugh,” Steph said, clunking her head against his shoulder. “Tim, my friend, light of my life, how are you so smart and so very dumb at the same time?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said cheerfully.

“See, if you’d gone to college, you would, you high school dropout,” Steph grumbled.

“You didn’t finish high school either,” Tim pointed out.

“Yeah, but I got a GED and continued my education, so suck it.”

*

Steph found herself in the center of so many rumors after that. She understood what Dick and Tim had been thinking, but god, boys were such morons.

“True enough,” Babs agreed when Steph came in exclaiming that. Steph angsting in Babs’ office was becoming quite the habit.

“So now I’m the girl with the supervillain dad who is cozying up to the Waynes,” Steph said. “I heard a conspiracy theory that I’m trying to marry Tim and steal the Wayne fortune to disperse amongst the Gotham rogues.”

Babs snickered. Steph was beginning to think that her visits were the highlight of Babs’ workweek. 

“I’m thinking about faking my death,” Steph said conversationally. “Then starting fresh with a completely new identity. That’s how I fucked it up last time, I went back to the old one. New me is the only way to go. Thinking about naming myself Esmerelda. Or maybe Jane. No one would notice a Jane.”

“Faking your death is not the way out of every problem,” Babs said. 

“I mean, you say that, but are you sure?” Steph said. “Pretty sure I’m the resident expert on the topic here.”

“Rumors are only interesting for a little while,” Babs said calmly. “Just hold out a week or so, everyone will forget about this.”

Steph sighed. “I miss the good ole days when my biggest woes were finding out people were horny for my loser dad.”

“That was yesterday,” Babs said.

Steph wondered if Babs would fail her if she flipped her off.

*

The best and worst part about Barbara Gordon was that she was always right.

Steph suffered through the next week, but sure enough, the rumors swirling around her began to die down. She began her (thankful) transition into just another college student, instead of That Girl.

She no longer got free nachos, but she also no longer had to hear anyone talking about how hot her dad was, so that was an absolutely fair trade-off. Her connection to the Waynes was largely forgotten, her college friends just started talking to her about ping-pong tournaments and answering her questions about readings she didn’t get done.  It was great.

Then a giant alien worm crash-landed in the center of campus, followed quickly by Supergirl. She wrestled the worm, taking out the math building in the process, and once the worm had been subdued, she spotted Steph.

“Hi, Steph, wanna go get ice cream?” she said cheerfully, seeming to completely forget that she was both still in her Supergirl costume and also covered in alien worm goo.

Jordanna and Francisco both slowly turned and looked at Steph, who had absolutely no idea how to explain that one.

Might as well lean into it. She shrugged at them and called back, “Sure!” to Supergirl.

Let the rumors fly.

[frankendykes-monster]

So probably the best way to start this is to mention the obvious and say that Joker (2019) has pretty much all of nothing to do with...The Joker.  I had mention to someone else a week or two back, but for as much as The Joker can work in a wide variety of stories, the character is inherently limited, my go-to phrase being “one dimensional.”  The Joker’s ongoing motivation is that he wants to defeat Batman, nothing more, nothing less.  “Killing Batman” is only a single part of it, “it” being proving that Batman is fallible and has some weakness.  There are characters like The Riddler that zero in on a single aspect of that such as, surely there are some problems that can be created that even The World’s Greatest Detective cannot solve, but The Joker is a convenient character in that he can be applied to any aspect of Batman’s character, which is why you get stories like Batman and The Joker getting into a surfing contest, because it all goes back to that theme of if there’s something that Batman is not the best at, Batman is ultimately doomed to fail (with regards to suspension of disbelief that is needed for superheroes to work, both creators and the audience have to commit to the concept that superheroes existing 100% makes the world around them a better place, and a major incoming failure on Batman’s part makes for greatest suspense in that it threatens that concept.)

But then, there lies the issue.  Joker does not actually have any driving motivation for WHY he wants to defeat Batman, he simply is.  It’s my theory on why no origin story has ever permanently stuck, because you can’t ever really make sense of that.  This compounds itself into Batman and Joker’s relationship and can never really evolve, it’ll play out in the same way every time just with new set dressing.  What you can do is raise the stakes, but with the back to back publishing of “The Killing Joke” and “A Death in The Family” in 1988, raising the stakes meant making The Joker a sadistic serial killer at the cost of everything else about the character, creating a Joker where everyone questions why he deserves to be alive to appear in another comic three to six months down the pipeline.  There have been some instances of trying to make The Joker more nuanced, like Grant Morrison introducing the concept of “super sanity” in their Batman work and addressing how The Joker reinvents his personality on the fly, but it’s ultimately set dressing that doesn’t alter anything.

So, that begs the question of why Joker, the film, calls itself “Joker” in the first place or why it takes place in Gotham instead of New York and blah blah blah the short answer is if they didn’t, Warner Bros wouldn’t have been able to rake in a billion dollars.  It’s on par with Sony deciding to make Venom (2018) and never addressing why Venom has those large white eye covers if his design isn’t based on Spider-Man, I’ll give Joker (2019) the compliment that it’s more interesting than that film at least.  I really did not want to bring up all this Batman shit while watching this but then they started addressing Thomas Wayne and I began mentally groaning.  I don’t want to dive into the concept of how or if the Batman mythos is impacted if you make Thomas (and Martha Wayne, who like in most Batman stories is more of a cameo than an actual character here) a shitty person, but then again I wouldn’t have to bring that up if the film didn’t cram it in in the first place.  I am...SO...SO THANKFUL I did not see any memes or theories or head canons surrounding “B-B_BUH JOCKER IS BEETMANS HALF BROTHER?????/???” which...whatever. Come to think I didn't see anyone bitch that he doesnt become The Joker until 90 minutes in either.  I think the majority of my goodwill (what turned it from, oh you know the good outweighs the bad enough for me to be able to tell someone this is watchable, to, oh you can skip this) was destroyed at the Waynes getting shot scene with, WHOOPS, The Joker was responsible (indirectly!)  That gave me BAD Batman (1989) flashbacks, and when you remind me of Batman (1989), you kind of do get on my bad side.  Fuck that movie.

SO.  In the midst of ALLL of this.  Let’s talk about the “““real source material”““ for Joker (2019): Taxi Driver (1976) and The King of Comedy (1982).

I don’t think I’m ruffling any feathers by saying that that is the case and that both of those films are wayyy better than Joker (2019).  I mean, there’s a reason why Robert De Niro was not only cast in this film, but he’s second billed right under Joaquin Phoenix.  Those are two fairly different films but they’re, at their core, stories of men who are ticking time bombs of violence ready for someone to light the fuse.  It’s another point against Joker (2019), not only for reminding me of much better films, but forcing me to ask why another pastiche of this story needed to be told.  Martin Scorsese kind of made his career with a monopoly on men losing their shit and everyone around them being caught in the tornado.  Joker (2019) admittedly plays the material much differently, in that all the way through we are supposed to sympathize with Arthur Fleck and stand alongside him every step of this of his downward spiral, and even with where he ends up, I’ll admit I don’t have an issue with that, but the film struggles with making me care half the time.  Like, yes, when Arthur is alone at home trying not to go awol, yeah, I get that, but at other times there’s stuff like how Arthur’s relationship with Sophie is never developed in any meaningful capacity, like why is enamored with him, why is she not as disturbed by him as most other people seem to be?  When we discover she’s not real, that explains it from a logical perspective I guess, but it isn’t a shock or a gut punch.

Can I be real for a second?  There are a lot of moments in this film where it made me embarrased as a neurodivergent person.  The number of people who definitely saw this, because, once again, it made a billion dollars, and came away thinking oh so that’s what mentally ill people are like, even if they’re sympathetic about it, it makes me sigh.

Even though the crux of this film is Arthur’s descent, it desperately wants to be important.  I know I’m not the first person to make this observation, but it does read like, oh, what’s popular now?  Incels?  Better make part of Arthur’s character arc that he can’t hit up any actual real women so he has to entertain himself with fantasies.  Antifa?  Better make it so Arthur accidentally inspires a movement of nebulous anti-rich people who all wear masks.  And so on and so on with no actual commentary while simultaneously it’s not really world-building either because it’s so front and center to the plot. I gotta say, if the film is about people in general not putting up with things anymore after being shat on nonstop, why oh why is there a joke aimed at a little person pretty early on, even through some meta lense where “oh the person telling the joke is an asshat who dies later so it’s cool”?

Now I’m not sure what to say next about the film itself so I guess now would be a good time to discuss the film’s ~impact~ as it were.  If it weren’t for Parasite (2019) I’d have no problem saying this was the biggest film of 2019 in the grand scheme of things, like EVERYONE came in with every possible perspective on this thing long before it came out.  I remember how back in like, late-2017/early-2018?  A bunch of people were shitting on the announcement of this film and Warner Bros had to do damage control by releasing some on-set photos of the second subway scene two days later.  It’s surreal more than anything actually watching this film now and seeing, wait, this is what everyone was memeing about nonstop?  This is a mainstream film?  With the directions it goes in?  With the topics it brings up?  Well I’ll be damned.  This is probably the first time since Les Miserables (2013) and Man of Steel (2013) where a movie comes out and no two people have the exact same opinion on it, so I’m curious as to how Joker is going to age in like, a decade.  So fucking weird that this is called a “superhero film” in retrospect just because it shares a name with a comic book character owned by the same company that developed and distributed this.

I wouldn’t be talking about this film if it wasn’t called “Joker” but then again hey nobody else would either.  I don’t hate this film despite how I’ve said nothing positive about and I was pretty prepared to call it “barely good” before the finale, so I don’t regret watching it, I don’t know what the fuck to say anymore.  Gang Weed memes are pretty funny if you haven’t actually seen any in the wild.  1940: “Let’s throw him into chemicals.”  2019: “Let’s throw him into society.”

[gothamsnightmare]

Imagine...

… The Riddler trying to woo you into being his new partner in crime

Pairing: Edward Nygma/The Riddler x female reader

Warnings: A little bid of bloodshed and murder, nothing to serious

Word Count: 1.829

You had just spend the last few weeks doing a job for Oswald with the help of The Riddler. You both had skill sets that he needed, and he had insisted that you were one of the few people left in Gotham aside from Ed that he deemed trustworthy enough. Knowing Ed’s reputation and his particular way of doing things, you first weren’t particularly keen on working with him, but Oswald was paying you well enough and you knew helping him now would definitely come in handy in the future. But then, to your surprise, Ed and you worked fantastically well together. He was no doubt a brilliant planner, and he continuously played to your strengths, gave you free range in doing things your way when you didn’t feel you could pull it off his way, took a lot of your suggestions, and despite the constant riddling, you actually had a lot of fun.

But now you were off on your own again, and despite enjoying yourself hugely the last couple of weeks, you were glad you were back to it just being you. You had spend the last few hours terrorizing the streets of Gotham, robbing a few places and killing the odd random people here and there, something you didn’t really get to do lately. Now you were currently in the process of cornering some low-life thug in an empty alleyway, a man that had just been trying to get smart with you after he’d seen you rob and murder a lot of people in a bank. He had been threatening to turn you in, and seemed to think by doing so he’d gain the favor of people wanting to get back at Oswald.

You had chased him down a couple of streets, away from the direction you knew the cops were going to arrive from, and now he was lying on the ground begging for his life, after you had pulled him down roughly from a fire escape he had been trying to climb to get away from you. „Ah, Hank…“ You said, while aiming your gun at his face with your left. „I know you’re not the brightest Gotham’s underworld has to offer, but did you actually really think you could tell on me?“ - „Alright, I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking, I was just trying to get back at Mr. Cobblepot, I swear, it’s nothing personal, please don’t shoot me!“ He was sobbing, covering his face with his arms. This made you let out a very amused chuckle. „Ooooh, I’m not gonna shoot you!“ You said, actually lowering your gun. Hank let out a sigh of relief and took down his arms. But then, in a flash, you pulled out your ankle knife with your right and drew it across his throat. „… I’m going to slash you.“ You stated matter-of-factly after he dropped dead, then throwing your bloody knife into the air and catching it again with ease. 

The sound of loud, appreciative clapping coming from behind you made you turn around in confusion. „Fantastic! Mmmmarvelous execution! Threatening him while holding the gun in your left hand, when you’re clearly right handed… You really excellently had him fooled!“ Ed was showering you with praise, walking down the alleyway towards you in his trade-mark green suit and bowler hat. „What the hell are you doing here?“ You hadn’t actually realized you hadn’t been alone down in that alley. „Oh, I’ve been following your latest crime spree.“ Ed came to a stop in front of you and conversationally leaned against the wall, sounding like the two of you had just met up for coffee somewhere. „You have?“ You were taken aback. Usually not one to miss these things, you were shocked to find out someone had been keeping an eye on you this whole time. „Well, I heard about those robberies down in the Narrows, and I just knnnew it was you (he was poking at you with his finger), so, I decided to come and see what you were up to.“ He finished, still acting like you were just two friends catching up. „You did?“ -  „Mhm!“ He nodded, smiling at you very brightly now. „Why?“ You asked suspiciously, while starting to pull back a little from him. You knew about Ed’s stalker-ish nature, and with the way he was looking at you, like you were the most fascinating, inspirational female criminal he had ever seen, you were starting to wonder if he had become obsessed with you while you guys were working for Oswald.

„Because (Ed was moving away from the wall) you’re brilliant (he was pointing at you with two fingers) and I’m brilliant (he was pointing at himself now), so I thought: why not do things together all the time?“ He said while waving his arms all over the place in classic Riddler-fashion, then leaning back against the wall. „You wanna… work with me? But I’m nothing like you!“ You found this a very odd way to ask someone to be their partner in crime. „Opposites can balance each other out.“ Ed claimed. „Besides, you’re blood-thirsty (he pointed out the fact that you were still holding both a gun and a knife in your hands), and unpredictable, and that makes you very intimidating to people, and I could use someone around me who can scare people off.“ He explained.  „So… what, you want me to be your bodyguard?“ You were absolutely not fond of that idea at all, you didn’t want to be reduced down to being someone else’s permanent muscle.

„No! No, no, no, no, no, no!“ Ed quickly said while moving off the wall again, starting to wave around his hands anew. „I’m asking you… to be my equal.“ He gave you another bright grin, but you were still not convinced. „Ed - I work alone.“ You reminded him. „I know.“ He acknowledged. „And, no offense, but you don’t have the best track record when it comes to women!“ It felt necessary for you to point this out. „That was different.“ Ed disagreed with you, leaning back against the wall again. „How was that different?“ You were still convinced you couldn’t rule out the fact that Ed was only here because he had developed a crush on you. „I don’t see you in a romantic way.“ Ed wasted no time in clearing this up for you. Unbeknownst to you, he had already become very much aware that this was what you were afraid of a few minutes into your conversation. „Never have, never will. You’re not my type.“ He quickly added. „Oh.“ You were relieved to hear this. „Well, good.“

„So you’ll agree to be my partner?“ Ed just wouldn’t let up. You sighed. „Look, Ed…“ - „The Riddler.“ He interrupted you. You let out a little laugh at this. You had noticed during your time working for Oswald how particular he was about this, which you found a little ridiculous. „Right. Whatever.“ You said, and, to your surprise, Ed didn’t actually seem to be offended at your refusal to address him by his chosen crime name. „I’m… flattered, really, I liked working with you.“ He seemed very happy to hear this. „But…“ you were moving a strand of hair out of your face with the bloody hand holding your knife, trying to find the right words without offending him. „I’m… just… not sure this is how I wanna do things.“ You apologized. „You sure?“ Ed said, moving off the wall yet a third time. „I think we could be great together. The Riddler and (y/n)! (he moved his hands as though presenting an invisible headline)… come on, no one would see that coming!“ He was definitely right about that one. „What do you say?“ Ed was starting to sound excited. You still weren’t really sure whether you should agree, you were just really set in your ways by now. But seeing Ed look at you so very eagerly, you couldn’t help feeling the odd rush of excitement return that you felt while working with him a few weeks ago.

„… ok, let’s give this a shot for a few weeks.“ You finally found yourself saying. „YES!! Oh, you won’t regret this!“ Ed actually did a little joyful jump. This made you laugh again „I’m kind of already.“ You said, but with a smile. „No, come on, this will be great.“ Ed assured you. „Hey: What has no hands, but might knock on your door, and you better open up if it does?“ - „An opportunity.“ You answered, without even having to think about it. „Correct!“ Ed said with a satisfied smile. „You know, as fun as it is standing in this alleyway, I think it’s about time we leave before the cops catch up with you after all.“ He indicated for you to follow him. „Oh. Yeah, I guess you’re right.“ You said, finally putting away your knife and gun, then wiping some blood off your cheek with your right hand, and, when you inadvertently looked at it and realized just how much blood you had just wiped off with it, you went „I should probably clean up too!“ You were looking down at yourself now, only just realizing how blood-soaked your clothes had gotten throughout this day. „Might not be a bad idea.“ Ed agreed. He seemed to find it amusing that you hadn’t even been aware of your appearance. „If you want, you can clean up at my place, it’s closer.“ You considered this a few moments, but in light of what you had just agreed to, it seemed impolite to turn down his offer. „…ok sure.“

„Oh, by the way,“ he began, as you two now started walking out of the alley together. „I took the liberty to short out the security cameras when you entered that bank, nobody will know that was you.“ - „Wow, thanks Ed!“ You were surprised, and impressed that he’d managed to do that so quickly. You hadn’t actually been planning on robbing the bank, it had been a spur-of-the-moment-type impulse of yours. „And I took out the 3 store clerks you left alive in the Narrows, and those patrons at the bar down town.“ Ed continued. „You did?“ You stopped walking now. Had he been cleaning up after you this whole time? Ed stopped as well and turned around to you „Partners gotta have each others backs, right?“ Your face was starting to light up while you were looking at him. „... right!“ As much as you usually didn’t mind getting caught during your crimes (you loved having a destructive reputation), you actually found yourself appreciating this. „So, what do you say?“ Ed offered you up his arm. „Wanna start planning a few crimes?“ This made you smile. „I’d love to.“ You said, taking his arm. Ed gave you another satisfied smile, then turned to lead you out the alleyway while adjusting his hat.

[thegreenfairy13]

We Only Come Here To Sleep

A new Gobblepot fic cause I need to do something on the weekend. 

Summary: Three infants have been murdered and their bodies have been found at various places in Gotham City. The public, as well as the mob, want to see a culprit for different reasons. After everything Jim Gordon has been through, one wouldn't think an ordinary case would take its toll on him. But it does.

Read the first chapter on Ao3 or here: 

In the end, it wasn’t one of the Riddler’s elaborate schemes, or one of the Joker’s ludicrous plans. It wasn’t Bruce Wayne and his determination to become a vigilante, or even the Penguin and his golden empire of crime. In the end, it was a usual case, an ordinary crime that did James Gordon in.

Gotham City seems to know only two seasons. Through most of the year, there’s an icy wind sweeping through the city, biting into the grim faces of her inhabitants. Most of her days are dark, giving the impression of an endless night.

But then comes the summer. And for a few weeks, Gotham will be tinged with yellow. But it won’t be a bright summer showing off clear skies painting the city with gentle colors. No, it will be harsh and brutal - like everything in this godforsaken city.

The sun will be beating down, baking pavements and glass-facades until each breath in the overheated air will be painful, until each step will be a battle. And the light! It’s never a bright yellow, but a color reminiscent of piss. It suits this pain-filled place, though.

Jim Gordon curses under his breath as exists his car. When putting his feet on the ground, his soles practically fuse with the ground. A wave of hot air hits his chest, and Jim can instantly feel the sweat covering his chest, causing his shirt to cling uncomfortably to his upper-body. Reaching for his sunglasses, he gestures for Harvey to follow him.

The heavier man pulls a face when being ordered to leave the chilled cocoon of his car. Jim ignores him. Sighing heavily, he nods towards the other officers already crowding the scenery.

Despite the buzz, he feels alone. Out here, Gotham is at her worst. For miles and miles, there’s nothing to see but the grey of the concrete and colorless sand. It’s a place where people disappear in the filthy water never to return again. Jim is certain his colleagues will lay him to rest out here one day in the future - he wouldn’t blame them.  

After taking a few more hesitant steps, Jim hears the sand crunching beneath his shoes. If he closed his eyes for a moment, he could easily pretend to be somewhere else. At a proper beach maybe, under a benevolent sky. Instead, he thinks how annoying it will be to get the sand out of his shoes.

“Where exactly are we?” Harvey asks with a slight growl, startling Jim.

Jim tilts his head. He contemplates giving his partner a snarky reply but thinks better of it. So instead of pointing out that he didn’t spend the car-ride blindfolded and handcuffed, he explains, “Common ground.”

Sucking in a shuddering breath, Harvey tilts his head. “That’s bad.”

Jim doesn’t reply, simply grits his teeth. ‘That’s bad’ doesn’t even start to cover how bad this could be.

One of the younger officers picks up on their conversation. Confusion written all over his face, he addresses Harvey. “What do you mean?” he asks.

Huffing out a humorless laugh, the experienced cop indulges the lad. “That’s the land between the turfs.” Pointing across the river, he elaborates, “That’s the Valeska turf.” He turns slightly to the right, “The Siren’s oasis.” Making a full turn, he points vaguely in the direction Jim is standing, “Tetch’s outdoor amusement park for the hopelessly lunatic, right beside the Scarecrow’s House of Horror.”  

At last, he circles his partner fully. “The Narrows,” he says then, ignoring the slight pang of pain on Jim’s face deliberately. “None other than the Queen rules this shitty piece of the city.”

Taking a deep breath, he finishes his quick initiation to Gotham’s inofficial districts. “But they all pay their tribute to the Penguin.”  Adjusting his sweat-sodden fedora, Bullock spits on the ground. “And this crap place? That’s no one’s ground. If a body is being dropped here , the rogues passed their judgment. Together.”

The young police-man gulps. He stares at Bullock and then back at the riverbank where the coroner is already busy taking samples. “So they…?”

Pushing the lad aside, Jim steps forward. “So if a body ends up here without permission here, that means the mob will interfere,” he states grimly.

Approaching the riverbank, the Commissioner finally takes a good look at the corpse before him. Despite all the horrors Jim had been through before, nothing could have been able to prepare him for the sight before him.

For a long moment, he merely stares, unmoving. He has seen corpses before, has been the cause of untimely deaths more times than he’d like to admit, but this is new.

No, in fact, it isn’t. Jim has been confronted with this kind of death before, has tried his very best to suppress that memory as best as he can, but given the context, this is new .

Looking up, he nods for the coroner to start elaborating. Never before has Jim missed the previous forensic, Edward Nygma, as much as this very second. For once, he wishes for someone to wrap up harsh truths in distracting riddles. Jim would give up his year’s salary and then some, if the forensic would give his mind an opportunity to wander off, to focus on something else than the task at hand.

What he gets, though, are simple facts. “Infant. Male. Probably not more than a couple of days old. Maybe not even that. Probably strangled. No severe trauma,” he rattles on, unfazed by the tiny body lying on the dirty ground. Maybe she hardens you to this point.

A baby. Just a little, innocent baby. Jim can hardly breathe as he stares down at what has been a living being, if only for a few hours. His skin is already peeling off due to the merciless heat, turning black and blue beneath Gotham’s sun. Jim wonders if it was rosy, once. He stares down, unable to look away, takes in the little knobs of fat on its upper arms and legs, and tries to suppress a sob.

Somebody should hold this little thing in their arms. It should still be alive, making happy noises, as one gently pinches those tiny rolls of fat. It should squeal with delight, and only cry if it’s hungry.

At last, Jim has to turn away. This is not right. Nobody should discard a child as if it was trash. Especially not here, at this godforsaken place.

His fingers itch to pick up the small body, to hold it, if only for a moment, the way it deserves. In another life, he would know exactly how to go about it. He and Lee would have awaited their child’s arrival with excitement. Would have picked out a crib, toys, rompers, and books, maybe. They would have laid in bed, Jim’s hand on Lee’s belly, waiting for their kid to move, knowing full-well it’s still shielded from this city, from her .

This reality never happened, though. Will probably never happen to Jim, for he doesn’t deserve such happiness, he knows that. But still. It’s unfair. This infant lies there on the ground, discarded like trash, and it’s everything someone like Jim has ever wished for.

He bends down, almost touches the tiny cheek before remembering he’s still a cop. Swallowing heavily, he disguises the motion by wiping the sweat from his forehead.

A heavy hand lands on his shoulder. “You alright, partner?” Harvey asks quietly enough that nobody else hears them.

Jim’s chest constricts, he has trouble taking a breath, and still, his jaw is set tight. Nobody but Harvey would ever catch on, would note that anything was wrong. Jim is thankful for the warm hand, the solid weight on his shoulder. He’s grounding him in his pain, forcing him back to reality, when all he wants to do is float away and wallow in his grief.

“Of course I am,” he replies, a tad bit too quickly.

Harvey arches an eyebrow at him, but doesn’t reply. This is neither the place nor the time anyway.

“Won’t you finally pack up the evidence?” he snaps when the coroner gives them both a look that is too curious for Harvey’s taste. The coroner squints in disdain, but does what he’s told. After all, Bullock has a natural authority to him, he’s a character only Jim questioned successfully so far, and today, he’s glad for it.

They get back into their car, where it’s cold and sterile and death is but a memory at a riverbank. He blinks as he tries to wrap his head around what he just saw: an entire life, wasted in the sand. Neither of them talks as Harvey drives back to the city, back to the living.

Finally, Harvey glances over at Jim, now and then beating nervously the devil’s tattoo on the steering wheel. “That’s the third,” he whispers.

“I know,” Jim replies. He’s too exhausted to say anything else. Over the course of the last three weeks, they found three dead infants. All scattered around the city. The first two had been siblings according to their DNA-analysis. Jim wouldn’t be surprised if the third one is related to them, too.

“You want me to drop you off at the weasel’s place?” Harvey asks, and Jim flinches.

“What am I supposed to do there?”

The other man shrugs. “We found it on Common Ground.”

Jim hums in agreement. “Doesn’t look like a mob-job, though.”

Tilting his head, Harvey acknowledges the statement. “He could still know something,” he states petulantly and both men know he’s reaching for straws there.

“This case is getting to you,” he adds after a moment. Jim rolls his eyes but can’t find it in him to disagree. “You could at least get a free drink.”

The blonde snorts. “I think I’m outta favors.”

Harvey scratches his chin. “Still. Maybe one of his goons has seen something.” He clears his throat, looks over at Jim. “And it wouldn’t hurt for you to let off some steam. You always seem to be better off after pushing the Penguin around for a while.”

Jim sputters. “That’s not true!” he protests.

Holding up his hand, Harvey interrupts him. “It is. Go there. See what he knows, rough him up, arrest one or two thugs. You’ll feel better.”

Horrified, Jim stares at his partner’s face. “You make it sound like I’m harassing an innocent citizen for nothing. You’re still aware we’re talking about the Penguin?”

Harvey snorts in response. “That’s exactly why I’m suggesting.” He clicks his tongue against his teeth. “Not accusing , just to be clear.”

Jim falls silent as he clenches his fists. He’s so damn tired, he doesn’t even want to put up a fight.

“He’ll find out anyway,” he demurs. “And he’ll want answers. You don’t simply drop off a body at the riverbank and expect Cobblepot to keep his hooked nose outta your business.”

“This is a police investigation,” Jim snaps back, unfazed, and Harvey’s jaw drops.

“Even after becoming the Commissioner, you still sound like a petulant rookie on some days.

Leaning back against the seat, Jim closes his eyes. Even before today, he had been exhausted to the point of not being able to sleep properly for weeks. This city just won’t let him.

And now there’s a body on Common Ground.

This city doesn’t seem to rest when it comes to her sinisterness. If Gotham doesn’t want to swallow her entire population whole, she now goes for her most vulnerable inhabitants. Jim wishes he could for once simply search for stolen paintings or chase a burglar. But no, there’s always something bigger, or something more diabolical lurking in the shadows.

Jim’s shoulders slump as he gives in. “Let’s do the paperwork first,” he suggests, cause he’s still the commissioner. “And then we’ll inform the Penguin like the good, little cops we are.”

[violetsmoak]

Philtatos [4/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20101543/chapters/47615902

Blanket Disclaimer

Summary: During a patrol where Red Hood and Red Robin cross paths, Jason is infected with the blood of the Eros, the ancient God of Love, who informs them that they must track down his missing bow and arrows, or Jason will go slowly mad with an obsessive desire–for Tim. Though overwhelmed by the sudden attention being paid to him, Tim sets to work trying to solve the case, before Jason succumbs to madness. In the meantime, Jason discovers that there’s more than godlike powers at work here, as well as a legacy that reaches back through the sands of time.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

Beta Reader: None at the moment.

JayTimBingo Prompts This Chapter: #gods in disguise #secrets #shield #undying love

First Chapter

Author's Note(s): This one's a little less polished since my computer decided to eat half the chapter and I had to rewrite it in a hurry, but I'll fix it later.

________________________________________________________________

How does this even happen?

It’s tempting for Tim to let his head fall against the computer console in his frustration.

A week in, and nothing. No reports of random people wandering around with a bow and arrows, none of his underworld contacts have mentioned anything showing up at on the black-market or at illegal auctions. It’s as if Eros’ diviners have vanished into thin air.

That he’s frustrated is putting it lightly.

Adding to that is the fact he hasn’t seen or heard from Jason in the same amount of time. The other vigilante finally appears to have found the tracer Tim stuck on him and sent it on a trip to the Gotham City dump. It’s both a relief, because it means he’s acting like himself, and a disappointment, because it means he’s still resistant to Tim’s help.

Apparently when he asserted the Red Hood would eventually reach out to him, he underestimated the exact amount of stubborn that is Jason Todd. He’d come to Eros about something, as Tim discovered when checking his now blank security feeds; the Olympian wouldn’t say what, instead complaining about rude capes and the obstinacy of men.

Tim scowls at the dot pixel pattern of static where the footage of their meeting should be, trying to get his emotions under control. He’s annoyed, because Eros is annoying, but also because Jason managed to not only get into his apartment undetected, but down into the Nest.

Yes, he knows Jason is a lot smarter than he pretends to be, but it’s a dart to his pride because he thought he was being clever.

He’s also worried, since something upset Jason enough to come here in the first place. And he’s hurt because he’d chosen to speak to the winged appetite that compromised him to begin with instead of the one person trying to help him right now.

He waited until I wasn’t around to come here. And Eros won’t say what they talked about.

Mostly to be contrary.

As for the reports coming in from the authorities cleaning up after the Red Hood in the past few days, his take-downs are edging toward the worse side of brutal once again.

Something must be going on. If he’s being affected, though, wouldn’t he not have the interest to keep on with his usual activities?

It’s been an almost physical effort not to approach Jason once again, to plead with him to just accept help for once.

Versions of that plan have never worked for Bruce or Dick—or, well, any Bat, really—so Tim doubts it will work for him.

It’s why he now forces his focus back onto Eros’ case, as futile as it’s been. He knows he’s has more difficult cases, but this one feels like it’s intentionally trying to frustrate him in a way even the Riddler’s games never have.

You’d think people carrying around a bow and arrows would be pretty easy to find, but apparently not.

The Olympian is irritating, even as he answers Tim’s questions. His story hasn’t changed from when he first told it—a trip to Amsterdam that didn’t go as planned, and then a desperate hunt throughout all the cities where Tim tracked thefts.

So far, everything lines up with the investigation Tim was running before and offers no new information.

“Are your diviners like you?” Tim asks, considering the giant map on his computer screen; a red line drags across the Atlantic Ocean, connecting locations on the bordering continents. “I mean, will they not turn up on CCTV or other security devices?”

It would explain why he hasn’t found anything yet.

“Nah, that’s just me,” Eros tells him as he flips through a gossip rag. “I have to make the conscious decision to not show up on camera. It’s a strain on my abilities.” He sighs, putting down the magazine. “I used to be able to go completely invisible in the good old days. Back when people truly believed in us.”

“And now you just, what, mess with imaging frequencies?”

“Pfft—Glorified camouflage.”

“Considering government reliance on facial recognition software, you’re still able to ghost the system. That’s something.”

“Don’t patronize,” Eros grumbles. Then he tilts his head as something occurs to him. “Although, now that you mention it, they can change forms.”

Tim stills. “…What.”

“Yes, to make them less conspicuous. You don’t think I wander around with a bow and arrows all the time, do you? Outside of a Renaissance fair that sort of thing catches the wrong kind of attention—”

“Why the hell didn’t you say this before?” Tim hisses, fingers itching with conflicting impulses to tear at his hair or punch the Olympian in the face. Luckily for the well-being of all parties involved there’s a thick sheet of bulletproof glass between them.

“Uh, one, you didn’t ask. Two, I’m the only one who knows how to change their form, so I didn’t think it was an issue,” Eros replies, ticking options off his fingers.

Tim takes a deep breath through his nose and releases it. “If you want me to solve your case and get your property back, you have to tell me all the information. Even if it seems insignificant.”

“Well I know that now,” Eros huffs; at Tim’s continued unimpressed expression, he rolls his eyes stands up. “Fine! Mea culpa. What do you want to know?”

“What forms can your diviners take?”

“Since they were forged to be divine weapons, they have to conform to their purpose. So they can only be reshaped into other weapons.”

“Any weapon? Knives? Brass knuckles? Mace?”

“In theory?” Eros answers, and then looks curious. “Actually, that’s an interesting concept. I might try those out when I get them back.”

His attention span is possible worse than Bart’s.

“Focus—what form were they in when you were in Amsterdam?” There’s no footage of that, because apparently that café valued customer privacy over possible security issues.

“Well, I’d just finished watching a James Bond marathon, so I was inspired. I made them into these sweet, gold-plated .45 calibre revolvers. Single shot, custom-design, monogrammed.”

And another breath…

“Which you didn’t think to mention.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, was that important?”

“Yes, it was important! How am I supposed to help you find your diviners when you have me looking for a bow and arrows, and they’ve basically become the Golden Gun?!”

“Guns. Plural.” Eros corrects reasonably. “And you’re a detective. It’s what you do. I already said I don’t tell you how to do your job.”

Tim’s heard that love is blind; it turns out love is also an idiot.

With monumental effort, he lets it go; he’ll revisit the shape-changing weapons on his own time. There’s other information he needs. “Back to the theft, though—is there anyone you were with at the time, anyone who might have witnessed what happened?”

“I was with a lot of people that night. And it’s not like those people are going to a pot café to pay attention, if you know what I mean?”

“Not really.”

“Well, that’s not surprising. You don’t strike me as the fun one.”

Tim rolls his eyes at the dig, “What about other Olympians?”

“What about them?”

“Could they have stolen it from you?”

“In theory, but I would have noticed. And then booked it in another direction.”

“You don’t get along with your family?”

“Do you?”

“It’s…complicated.”

“It always is.”

“What about your wife?”

Eros tenses, expression going unnaturally blank. “What?”

“I started doing a bit of research on you,” Tim explains, studying the sudden change in demeanour. “Just the basics. But the most popular story about you has to do with your wife, Psy—”

“Dead,” Eros cuts him off, abrupt.

“But I thought she became an immortal goddess?”

“How many times do I have to explain that the stories don’t get everything right?” Eros sneers. “She’s dead. Point final.”

The message in his voice and eyes is for Tim to drop it; even as his curiosity grows, filing the information into his mental dossier of the Olympian, Tim can recognize a painful topic.

He lets it go. For now.

“So, no one was around? The coffeeshop, I mean.”

“I don’t know,” Eros groans, body language easing out of it’s rigidity once more. He winds his fingers into his hair. “There was a pair of identical twins from Sweden that looked like walking Alps, and by the Styx did I want to climb those.”

“Gross.”

“And then there was the clingy redhead, the hot waiter with the manbun, one total MILF relieving her glory days—I don’t know, okay? There were a lot of people!”

Tim leans back in his chair, carding his fingers together. “What exactly is a god of love doing getting stoned in Amsterdam, anyhow?”

“Hey, I don’t judge your life choices.”

“I’m not judging, I’m just—curious. You’re not human, you can go wherever you want, do whatever you want, without being tracked—can probably influence people to get whatever you want. And you decide to gorge yourself on pot brownies in a glorified basement?”

“You might not understand this, but sometimes it’s nice to go somewhere and forget for a little while,” Eros drawls.

Actually, I get that more than you imagine…

“That’s unexpected,” Tim offers. “Considering who you are, you’d think you’d be happier."

"When has love ever been synonymous with happy?" Eros challenges. “You know that better than most, right?”

“I’m fine. I’m living with it.”

“Not talking about your walking Alp, darlin’. I mean the loss you’ve gone through.” The Olympian is studying him now. “I can see the scars left over from every person you let into your heart and who left you. The boy you loved, your parents, your best friends, your father figure…and it’s not just death I’m sensing. You’ve had things taken from you, things you loved more than anything, just wrenched away.”

“My entire life has burnt down! Again! I don’t call this ‘okay’, Dick.”

“You have to understand—”

“Oh, are you still here?”

“What Earth are we on that you choose him over me?”

Even after all this time, it hurts.

He is uncomfortable at the reminder of blacker times, some fresher in his mind than others. He still has moments when his mind is trapped back in the days after losing Robin, after his father’s death, when he gets stuck in those memories and can barely get out of bed. It’s like sleep paralysis, except he’s awake, and it usually takes Dick dropping by his place unannounced or Alfred phoning him to remind him not to miss upcoming family dinners, to get him out of it again.

To remind him it’s in the past and can’t hurt him anymore.

But now, this latest thing with Jason has more than just the potential to hurt, it’s practically a certainty. In fact, Tim wonders if Jason being cursed to desire him isn’t just the universe continuing its general theme of dumping on him.

“I don’t need a replay, I was there,” Tim says stiffly, and decides he needs a break from Eros for a little while. In about three hours he has to get up and go to work, something he’d rather skip, but the old guard on the Board of Directors is getting up to their usual bullshit and he can’t skip the meetings today.

The rest of the week continues in the same trying fashion. When he isn’t working the case, going through hours of footage from various airports, train stations and other checkpoints for a sign of someone carrying any weapons this time, he’s at WE fighting a bunch of old, fiscal conservatives trying to undercut employee wages. Neither initiative seems to be going anywhere.

On the sixth night since the warehouse fight, Tim is running on very little fuel, to the point his judgement is starting to waver. He’s weighing the pros and cons of checking in on Jason again. He thinks he could probably manage it without him noticing this time. But then, Eros is taking one of his rare (and much appreciated) food-coma naps, which means some valuable quiet time for him to think.

The main computer chooses that point to blink to life with a message from the Tower, and Tim’s stomach leaps with hope that Cassie has something for him.

Except it’s not her that grins down at him.

“Superboy? Where’s Cassie?”

His best friend makes a face. “Ouch, not even a ‘hello’?”

“Sorry, just a bit stressed,” Tim groans. Apparently his exhaustion has brought him past the point of basic etiquette. He needs another Red Bull. “Hi.”

“You sound so enthusiastic,” Connor deadpans. “Anyway, Cassie’s gone to see her Mom in Gateway City. She said she’d be back soon.”

Tim nods. That makes sense, considering Dr. Sandsmark’s knowledge of Ancient Greek artifacts and mythology; he feels stupid for not thinking to contact her before.

“Hey Rob!” Bart shoves his face into the frame. “When are you coming back?”

“Might be a little while. I got side-tracked with a case here that’s, uh, time sensitive.”

“Sucks.”

“While you’re here, can I get some of those bars of yours?”

He thinks Batburger is about to offer him and endorsement deal.

“Are you pulling another case where you’re too lazy to get up and eat? Dude, we talked about that.”

“Also, those bars are gross.”

“Of course they’re gross to you, you’re used to homemade Kansas awesomeness that fills you up if you just look at it.”

“They’re not for me,” Tim interrupts. “It’s for a…actually—” There’s no other way to see it. “He’s my prisoner.”

His friends look impressed.

“Damn, Rob, are you going Dark Side on us?”

“Ooh, do they have cookies?”

“Ha, hah. And even if I was, everyone else has already done it, I’m due. But no, the guy’s a glorified witness, with the metabolism like a Speedster.”

“So, hell on the grocery bills,” Connor says with a nod.

Tim’s comm buzzes, the line from his cellphone; against the backdrop of his mask, Cassie’s number pops up.

“Gimme a sec, incoming call,” he says, and patches into the line. “Hey—”

“Everything he said is true,” Cassie interrupts before he can finish the sentence. “Eros, I mean. People infected by his blood only get worse unless treated—think the Henry VIII, the Manson family, or John Hinckley Jr before they were cured.”

Tim recognizes all of those names. “Wait, but they all lived afterward.”

“They were the ones who got cured. Other’s haven’t been so lucky. Medea killed her own children and set her ex’s new girlfriend on fire.”

The blood rushes from his face. “What?”

“I mean, all those people had severe issues before they got infected, which might be a factor, but if your victim already has trouble controlling their emotions…”

Cassie trails off.

It’s like the bottom has dropped out of his stomach. “How long?”

“Two weeks, give or take. It depends on the mind frame of the victim.”

A very real, visceral fury spreads throughout Tim’s body, anger on Jason’s behalf and at the spoiled godling that’s watching all this unfold like it’s one of his TV dramas.

“…Thanks, Cassie,” he manages to croak. “Call you later.”

He hangs up.

“Are you okay?” Connor asks; on screen, his body becomes more tense in response to Tim’s expression.

“I have to go,” Tim replies, tipping his cowl over his head.

“Need help?” Bart asks. “You know we can be there in less than three hours if you do. Two if we’re really booking.”

Tim considers, then shakes his head. “I—we should be able to handle this.” Bruce is never happy when metas show up without his permission, even when they’re saving the collective asses of the Family. “But I’ll keep you posted. If there is anything, I’ll contact you right away.”

“Good luck,” Connor says, still concerned.

“Thanks,” Tim replies, ending the call.

I think I’m definitely going to need it.

⁂

The sun beats down on him from its zenith, and he can feel his arms burning. The air is hot and humid, carrying with it the taste of the sea he usually associates with the Mediterranean, yet he’s still sweating in his linen tunic.

In his hands—browner than he’s used to, scarred but in a different way than he expects—he carries a wreath of laurel leaves, woven together with fine gold thread. In front of him, a giant mound rises out of the earth, grass and wildflowers covering it, rippling lazily in the wind. At its base, a thick column of aged marble, already falling into disrepair.

He should see about having that fixed before they head for Sardis.

Jason takes a few steps forward, kneeling to place the wreath at the base of the column; despite the heat, a chill moves up his spine as he presses his hand to the earth, clutching a handful of dry soil and bringing it to his lips.

“It is my privilege to stand at the hall of your rest, Honored Forefather,” he murmurs. “And know that I will do your blood proud.”

The words are less flowery than anything the priests and governors might come up with, but the sentiment remains just as genuine.

Glancing to his right, he sees a similar column several yards away, and another man is kneeling there with his own wreath. It takes him a moment before he recognises him.

Tim.

Except—he’s different: his hair is longer, skin darker than Jason can ever remember seeing, because Tim is supposed to be a pasty-faced nerd. He’s also wearing a red tunic and lace up sandals, and his features are much more relaxed than Jason is used to. No dark circles beneath his closed eyes. He mouths words that are lost in the breeze.

Jason’s own gaze falls there for a moment, taking in the flushed colour of his lips. Something at the back of his mind chides him for looking, but it’s lost within a burgeoning warmth in his chest.

He’s lucky to have him here, someone as faithful and intelligent and honest—

Eyes blinking open, Tim notices him watching; his mouth tilts upward in amusement, and Jason’s heart seems to beat faster. The smaller man straightens up, leaving his offering behind him and wanders over, movements as smooth as a cat. And—

No, this isn’t a good idea, he’s supposed to be avoiding him, right? He can’t remember why, but—

“What are you thinking of?” Tim asks softly. “You’re supposed to be making sacrifices to your ancestor’s memory, not staring at your liegeman.” He adopts a severe expression. “It’s distracting me from being appropriately solemn.”

Jason shrugs, fond smile on his own face.

“He was happy, when he lived,” he says, nodding at the column where he knelt before. “And fortunate in finding a faithful companion, and a great poet to sing of his deeds after his death.”

“You say that as if you have neither,” Tim snorts.

“There are no more poets of merit to speak of my deeds. Everything is lost to the logical, pedantic record of history.”

“And there’s the sense of drama I was waiting for,” Tim deadpans. “You could always write the histories yourself.”

“Hah! You would say something like that. Always planning, aren’t you?”

“Well, someone has to.”

Jason rolls his eyes, and gestures with his hand that Tim should follow him. They amble down a grassy footpath, returning to the level ground where their horses wait for them. There are guards spread out around them, close enough to help if something should happen but far enough away, they can’t hear what’s said.

He approaches the massive black Thessalian, absently patting the ox-head brand on its haunch with one hand while his other reaches to detach a large cloth-wrapped package from his saddlebags.

Tim appears curious when Jason hands it to him.

“I made sacrifice at the temple this morning before we rode out and left them with one of my finest sets of armour,” he explains. “They insisted it was too much and that I should take something in return. This called to me.”

Tim opens the bundle, eyebrows raising at the bronze shield that gleams in the sun.

“It was found in the ruins of the great city herself after the battle. It made me think of you.”

“Oh?” Tim watches him from beneath hooded eyes, a delicate colour blooming across the bridge of his nose. “You think of me as a shield?”

“I think of you as my shield,” he corrects seriously. “I will always be a sword. I can’t be anything else, or others would see it as weakness. But you…you protect everything that I am, even from myself. You throw your own needs and wants to the dirt to raise up mine. You weather the anger of men who believe themselves to be greater. For my sake.”

Tim appears struck mute at this, clutching the shield to his body as he stares at Jason with shining eyes. His mouth parts several times, as if he’s trying to figure out what to say, and once again Jason’s gaze falls upon his lips.

Tim shoots a darting glance at the guards near them, and something like frustration passes across his features, mixing with calculation.

And then he’s grinning that sharp grin again, and Jason’s stomach flips pleasantly as it fixes on him. Tim sets the shield to one side with careful reverence and takes a step forward until their faces are within inches of one another.

Jason licks his lips, expectation weighing heavily on him, and waits for Tim to break the silence.

“I think we should run a race.”

Which...was not the response he was expecting. Jason blinks at the non sequitur. “What?”

“In the old style,” the younger man continues, setting the shield on the ground and backing away. He’s reaching for the belt of his tunic, eyes sparking with mischief and something else. “To honour our ancestors, of course.”

“Of course,” Jason agrees, and reaches for him, but Tim dances out of his way.

“Ah, no! You’re entirely to dressed for that.”

He’s jogging backwards now, and Jason laughs, reaching again for him, “Get back here—”

“You’ll have to catch me—”

“Hood!”

Jason gives a full-body jerk, dragged out of his reverie by a voice that is no longer laughing, but tense.

“Red Hood!”

The world returns to him, gritty and smelling like rancid trash and smoke. There are several bodies at his feet and the smell of blood in the air; he hears groaning, so he knows they’re alive. That should be a relief, somehow, except he’s distracted.

There’s someone standing in front of him, the height and build familiar, it could be him, except the eyes are wrong and he’s younger and—

Not him. Nothing like him.

For a beat Jason is irritated when he realises the person in front of him is not Tim, because he was sure he just heard him. On the heel of that annoyance is the realisation that he’s looming over a kid that can’t be more than a few years older than Damian, who’s staring at him with unbridled terror, pressing himself into the walls of the alley.

New kid on the corner. Johns were harassing him, so I taught them a lesson, but then…

Jason’s hand lingers in front of his face, inches away, fingers curved like they intend to brush the boy’s jawline.

Realisation hits at what he must look like, what the teenager must think, and it’s soon followed by disgust because he knows the motivation behind his current position. He pulls back, staring down at his hands in horror.

What the hell did I almost do?

“Hood, look at me,” Tim says, only it’s the Red Robin voice, growled from the shadows, and it sends a shiver up Jason’s spine.

He immediately turns to face him.

The nameless teen take off at a run, but that’s not important; what’s important is that Tim is here, barely three feet away. He moves to close the distance, posture open and soothing, and Jason is already relaxing in response, twitching to reach toward Tim’s outstretched hand.

And…no.

He should not be relaxing. He should not be reaching out or touching Tim in any way because—

Because…

It’s hard to think why, but then he remembers.

Because it’s not him who wants to, it’s the infection. And he might do something worse.

Jason’s entire body seizes up again, and he stumbles backward.

“Hood, it’s okay,” Tim says in a placating whisper. “I’m going to help you. I promise.”

And Jason wants to, he really does. Wants to just go with him, maybe let himself fall against his body in exhaustion, because Tim might be small but he’s strong and could hold him up and—

“Back off!” Jason snaps, both to himself and to Tim, who jerks as if he’s been slapped. The sight helps ground him a bit more. “You are the lastperson I should be around right now.”

“Ja—”

“No!”

He takes off. Doesn’t bother with shooting a line into the air—his hands are shaking too much for that—and just runs. He knows this place better than the other vigilante ever will, knows how to disappear even when being pursued by a Bat.

And right now, he needs to disappear.

Grotty buildings and dark alleys fly by him as he crashes through the backways.

This is better, just one foot in front of the other. The icy air in his lungs is painful, but the good kind—distracting. Waking him from whatever funk he was in.

What the hell was that before? A dream?

But he was awake. And since when are dreams, or even hallucinations, so cohesive? Sequential? He knows it happened like he was living it, though he can’t remember exactly anymore. The details are drifting away like sand grasped too tightly in a fist, but he remembers feelings. Warmth. Safety. Laughter.

And Tim smiling at him; everything else is hazy, but he remembers that detail without difficulty.

Jason’s stomach lurches, torn between something fond and possessive, and the sense of disgust crouching at the back of his mind and spreading through his body the more he thinks about it.

He has to stay away—from Tim, from anyone who looks like him. Just until he can figure out a fix (or hell, even afterward, just to be sure). No, wait, he can’t figure it out. It would involve investigation, chasing down leads, probably running into—

No. Better barricade himself in somewhere. Take himself out of the equation.

Tim will be fine to figure this out on his own—he said he was trying to help, which means he’s aware of what’s going on with Jason. Which, yes, is mortifying, but also a comfort, because he trusts the younger man to figure it out.

He wonders for a moment if that’s because of the growing fascination, and then decides it’s not. Even before, he’s had an inexplicable amount of faith in Tim’s abilities to plan and get results.

It’s why he wanted him to be his Robin.

Why he still wants—

“Damn it!” Jason growls, stopping for a moment to breathe and then to punch the nearest wall in frustration.

The comm in his ear buzzes to life.

“Red Hood?”

Not Tim, but Oracle.

“Tell me you found something,” he orders, trying to get his mounting panic under control.

“Not yet. I’ve got a lead that looks promising, but still waiting on confirmation,” Oracle replies. There’s a pause, and then when she speaks again, it’s without the voice synthesizer. “Tim told me what’s going on.”

Shame hits him. “Of course he did.”

“We want to help you, Jason. This isn’t something you have to go through on your own.”

“Tell me that the next time you get shot up with Olympian blood that makes you fixate on Huntress or Clayface or someone. I just need somewhere to ride this out—”

“I can think of somewhere that would be well-equipped.”

The Cave.

“No.”

“Now isn’t the time for your pride. If you really don’t want to hurt someone—to hurt Tim. Again. Your best bet is to get B’s help.”

The kicker is, Jason knows she’s right. And he’s off his game enough that all of his usual arguments and complaints and resentments just don’t seem to register. All that he can focus on right now is Tim—and wanting to do everything he can to stop obsessing over him.

To stop wanting him, wanting to touch and taste and—

“Damn it,” his says again, but this time it’s whispered, almost defeated.

Bruce is the only one Jason knows that will do anything in his power to stop him from becoming exactly the kind of monster he’s been fighting his whole life. Even if it means throwing him in Arkham until whatever is driving him insane gets fixed.

And even if it doesn’t…

He’ll lock me up and throw away the key to keep me from hurting Tim. And I’d let him.

“He’s enroute to you now,” Barbara says.

“Is the demon brat with him?”

“Yes.”

He remembers the terrified expression on the nameless teenager’s face as he reached out to him.

“Keep him away. I don’t…know what I might do.”

Barbara’s silence is heavy, and Jason feels a wave of disgust with himself rush over him.

“I’ve told B to send Robin to rendezvous with Red Robin,” she says, and it’s Oracle’s voice again. “He’ll be there in five minutes. Try not to bolt.”

It’s the longest five minutes of his life.

⁂⁂⁂

Next Chapter

[justgotham]

The fifth and final season of Fox's Gotham begins in five months, and it will - finally, for some fans - take David Mazouz's Bruce Wayne into his first steps as Batman. In an set visit earlier this month, Newsarama spoke with the cast and crew about 2019's ten-episode final season and the finale to the story of Bruce Wayne, James Gordon, Oswald Cobblepot, and more.

The set visit began at Gotham's Sirens Club, with Donal Logue (who plays Harvey Bullock) talking about his character's moral compass and how it's changed (or hasn't) in the past five years.

"The most important thing to me is that the idea of moral relativism is this notion of black and white," Logue told Newsarama. "Jim Gordon is all good, Harvey Bullock is all bad or crooked, but we’ve seen Jim do some dark, shadowy type stuff and we’ve seen it go both ways. I think that’s an imperative moment you hit on."

When cast, Logue became the first live-action iteration of the decades-old character, bringing life to one of Gotham P.D.’s most controversial characters and someone who defined what kind of people Gotham could turn them into. The veteran actor opened up about the challenge to bring this character to the screen and putting his own personal stamp on Bullock.

"You know, I think it would have been very difficult - it was beautiful in the animated series - but it would have been difficult to have played somebody who was so misogynistic and possible homophobic," he explained. "I think that I had to make this guy more empathetic and to see the humanity in him in all the way he had to play the comic relief for a while, too."

Gotham's final season is only scheduled to run 10 episodes - less than half of the previous four seasons. Logue admits that he wish he had more episodes - or more seasons even - to continue this story.

"I wish we had twenty more seasons for our stories to tell. There’s part of me that misses Gotham Central with the sense of the noirish sort of police department, I liked that kind of stuff in the comics," he said. "The internalized conflict within the department itself, I liked the politics of the precinct and I don’t know if we got the time to tell that as much I would have liked."

After that, actor Cameron Monaghan - who plays the Joker-ish twins Jerome and Jeremiah Valeska - stepped up to talk to the press. The twin sons of a snake dancer and fortune teller, Jerome was the manic and explosive twin while Jeremiah more collected one, but still very dangerous. Monaghan explained what it was like being able to make this version of the Joker his own not once, but twice during the show.

“I think what’s awesome was it allowed so much freedom for a performance and it could have gone in so many directions with someone who isn’t constrained by social conventions, his behaviour is defined by what he wants to do," he said about these proto-Joker characters.

“Which means as an actor you can bring it any way you want. With Jerome, I wanted it to be heightened and sort of cartoony, but with [Jeremiah] I wanted him to be a bit more chilling and internal with his mania," Monaghan continued. "That being said this year, he’s sort of gained an ego and started to lose some of the plot and go off the deep end in the fact he was successful for causing so much destruction."

The actor continued praising the show’s creators for letting him to be able to play characters like these two.

"It’s just an amazing opportunity as a performer to have gotten to do this."

Monaghan went on to explain that there are definite highlights in these upcoming episodes for his character that allow them to use classic Batman/Joker moments.

"I have a couple moments this season, especially deeper towards the end where the character gets to play with some iconic imagery that I love that we’re bringing from the history of the character and there’s moments that are huge for people who are fans of the comics," he said.

"I will say that the final episode of the season there’s some stuff that I’m really excited for. I’m champing at the bit to get to that."

In Gotham's fourth season, Monaghan-as-Jerome said that Bruce was his only friend - hinting at the conflicted dynamic that the Joker and Batman have had in comic books. The actor says that they will "absolutely" explore that more in these last episodes.

"That’s sort of Jeremiah’s main plot point this season, he’s relating into Bruce," he replied. "I think the main difference between Jerome and Jeremiah was that Jerome was destructive and most of his anarchy came from the fact that he wanted to destroy things and didn’t have much of a plan. What’s interesting with Jeremiah is that he’s this strange craftsman. He gets his joy from engineering these things that tend to hurt a lot of people. So most of his amusement is coming from his influence on Bruce and I think the reason he’s so obsessed with Bruce is this strange sense of love."

He went on to say that for Jeremiah, Bruce is the only person he felt connected to emotionally, intellectually, and he’s coming from this place of almost admiration.

"I do think there is this weird sense of appreciation for each other in this strange way. Jerome wanted to kill Bruce since he didn’t care for him that much, but Jeremiah very much does and that it is emblematic of the Batman/Joker relationship and I don’t know if it’s been really explored enough in live-action yet so I wanted to push that if we could."

Following that, the assembled press were taken to several sets including the Riddler's and Bruce Wayne's libraries, the new City Hall, and Penguin's newest base of operations. After that, we were circled back to Siren's to find Ben McKenzie (who plays James Gordon) "tending bar," in his own words.

The first question McKenzie was asked concerned Jim Gordon’s trajectory at the beginning of the season with No Man’s Land in effect.

"Gordon is literally and figuratively on an island so he’s not in a great place when we first see him...and it gets worse."

McKenzie said that Gotham's final season will be teasing the adult relationship between Gordon and Batman down the road.

"I think we are definitely leaning in to giving the fans those iconic moments between Gordon and eventually adult Bruce," said McKenzie. "There will be more of those to come but it’s been such a rewarding thing to watch, and of course it mirrors real life over the course of over five years, to see him grow from a boy into a man."

He went on to say how there is a certain pressure to say everything that they’ve wanted to say and get it said in the final episodes, but also it’s a "certain blessing" to know the end is near.

"So many shows get cancelled at the last minute based on things outside their control so they don’t get time to ramp up towards the conclusion or sense of closure and we are absolutely trying to give the fans a lot of these iconic moments that everyone is thirsty for," McKenzie explained. "Everyone is going out of their way to take time and appreciate each other."

At the end of Gotham's fourth season, Gordon stays behind in the ruined and isolated city - something that affects the character coming into the new season.

"Well he’s the last guy to go down with the ship, and the pressure becomes more and more intense, almost like Atlas carrying the weight of the world," said McKenzie. "It’s interesting because then it leads him to make decisions he otherwise wouldn’t make which there’s a big one in the middle of the season in the heat of passion that will have serious ramifications for himself and others."

These last ten episodes are packed with Easter eggs according to the actor - something he, the cast, and the crew wanted to make sure to include.

"All the questions we got at Comic-Con International: San Diego were ‘When are you going to do this’ and the answer is right d*** now! We don’t have any more time so might as well throw it in here, though, you know, in a well-constructed way. John Stevens and the writers have created a plan to sprinkle in things they want to see that doesn’t come across as lip service, but actually part of the 98 episodes that we made."

With things winding down, McKenzie talked about whether or not Gotham’s version of Gordon has reached his apex and finalization.

"I hope that with each season new layers are discovered and explored, but some of the events in season five are things that we’ve never seen Jim go through before and I would imagine we would see new sides of him."

Lastly, he talked about his relationship with Bullock and how it’s evolved from the beginning when Gordon joined the ranks of the GCPD.

"I think that their friendship was at the core of the show and I always appreciated how it never devolved into the classic this guy says blue, the other guy says red...I always felt it was more nuanced than that and as we get into this apocalypse, staring down the face of Death in season five, we can watch these two men who started out with a huge distrust and almost animosity towards one another to a true friendship."

After that, David Mazouz stepped in to talk about his final season as Bruce Wayne - a role the 17-year-old actor started when he was just 13. Is he ready for it to end? Not remotely.

"No, not at all. 70% not ready," he said shaking his head.

Mazouz is also one of the youngest actors to ever play Bruce Wayne in a setting that allowed some time to show his point of view of Gotham and his surroundings. The actor said he enjoyed showing a side of Bruce that isn’t explored in live action media, saying it’s all about making sure he gets to do the character justice, first and foremost.

"I get a lot of fan letters around my age and a lot of them say the same kind of thing and that is it’s great to see a hero that’s our age and somebody we can identify with," said Mazouz. "Seeing Bruce take on this mantle was such an inspiration for me. We just had a scene with all the good guys and discussed their game plan and realized I’m the only kid in the room and it’s cool."

Expanding on what McKenzie said about trying to cram so much material from a full-length season into a half length episode order, Mazouz emphasized that yes, it is a lot, but completely worth the wait.

"It’s so action-packed and we really do cram into the action from twenty-two episodes into ten which makes it a fascinated read when you’re looking over the scripts. It makes me think how the hell are they going to get the money to do that. Every episode is huge and almost its own finale and as an actor the hard part is keeping up with it and knowing what’s going on."

Circling back to Monaghan’s comment about some "iconic" imagery with his fight with Bruce, Mazouz said it’s incredibly special to him and so glad they included it.

"I won’t say much about it, but it’s very reminiscent of other incarnations of the Joker."

Playing Bruce’s faithful butler and father figure Alfred Pennyworth, Sean Pertwee added a level of toughness to his usual olden characteristics.

"Bruno and I had this conversation about why is Alfred there and who is he and what is he to this young Master Bruce, and that’s been the biggest thrill, to give him this difficult journey," said Pertwee. "He had no experience with children, he never asked to be a father, he has PTSD and he’s a disaster himself but through the darkness they find each other.”

Gotham’s Alfred also wasn’t afraid to take out any and all threats to young Master Bruce, but Pertwee himself is a bit more sensitive. When we sat down, he talked about how he just learned he had filmed the final scenes in Wayne Manor and the emotions he felt when he wrapped.

"Yeah, I didn’t know until [series writer] John Stevens told me last night. It was very emotional for David and I as it seems like only yesterday and he was a young boy that I could pick up with one hand and now in that scene he could look me in the eye."

Pertwee went on to explain how Alfred and Bruce’s relationship has strained but also grown and matured as the series has gone on.

"Their dysfunctionality is their reality. The boy needs the man just as much as the man needs the boy."

As for the show being allowed these last ten episodes, Pertwee feels lucky that they get to still end with a bit of closure.

"It feels like we’ve been lucky enough by Fox and Warner Bros. to grant us to finish with dignity. It feels like we can exhale and let Batman rise. We’ve earned it. I wish we would have had more time in the proper cave. I mean, we’ll get there, but I wanted more to that point of their true relationship. I never wanted it to stop really."

Pertwee went on to say how he hopes people will look back at this iteration of Batman and how it has defined the world for generation.

"There are so many versions, ours is our generation’s. Ours is Taxi Driver meets Brothers Grimm. People have accepted it and I think people will now reference us. I think people will look back at this for future iterations."

Following Pertwee was Robin Lord Taylor, whose breakout role as Oswald Cobblepot helped define Gotham early on - even before he amassed his criminal empire and obtained his trick umbrellas. The actor began by reflecting upon his time in the tuxedo and prosthetic nose.

"It’s one of the things I’m most proud of in my career. Just to take a piece of American pop culture and bring it into today and especially that it’s so dynamic and brilliantly layered and sketched out, but to bring it to now and something that’s never been done before feels incredible. It’s exhilarating."

Shane West was announced earlier this year to be joining Gotham as Eduardo Dorrance, the father of Bane in comic books, and Taylor talked about interacting with the new addition.

"Yeah we just had a scene but we’ll have more in the future. It’s interesting because as you know Penguin and Jim have this interesting dynamic, there is this weird sense of trust there but Eduardo knows Gordon very well, but he sort of comes in the beginning and disrupts that connection and no, it’s not good for anybody."

Taylor offered his own thoughts about whether or not ten episodes is enough to give this world and these characters a proper ending, saying he has faith in the writing team to bring everything to a close with a nice superhero landing.

"I mean, I think there’s a lot to cram into 100 more episodes, you know what I mean? We’ve shown in previous seasons this story, this city, these characters...there’s so many of them and they can go in so many ways. I think the way it’s coming down it’s very concentrated. We’re bringing storylines to a close, relationships to a close, and it feels like a rush."

When asked about what he wished he had more time for, he thought about it before coming to an answer.

"I wish we had time to take a closer look at these individuals’ lives. I wish we could spend a day in Alfred’s shoes and see Gotham through his eyes. Or Selina. To really solidify who these characters are."

The last question for Taylor was if his character will get an ending that the actor felt he deserved.

"Absolutely," Taylor replied with a laugh. "I mean we’ll see, but I’ve said before the ending I want for Penguin is that he becomes the classic supervillain we know. Somebody devoid of humanity and somebody who has done so much damage not only to himself, but to so many people. I want to get that point and ultimately, we’ll be seeing that."

[themattress]

Battle of the Seasons

Gotham: Season 1 vs. Season 2 vs. Season 3 vs. Season 4 vs. Season 5

Let's take this season by season, shall we?

Season 1 has a different style to it than the rest, being more of a grounded, gritty police procedural with cases-of-the-week (or two weeks) while both an overarching mob drama and an overarching mystery (who killed Thomas and Martha Wayne?) play out on the side. This is a frustrating season for me because this style could have worked - if I gave a damn about a majority of the characters, and I just don't. I don't care about Jim Gordon, Harvey Bullock, Sarah Essen, Barbara Kean, Selina Kyle, Ed Nygma, Kristen Kringle, Leslie Thompkins, Ivy Pepper, Commissioner Loeb, Mayor James, Harvey Dent, Renee Montoya, Crispus Allen, Fish Mooney, Sal Maroni, Carmine Falcone, Butch Gilzean, Victor Zsasz or many other of this city’s miserable people. They're either boring, annoying, or utterly unpleasant, which means that I often found myself watching the show out of obligation rather than truly enjoying it. 

The exceptions to the rule would be the young Bruce Wayne and his hardass yet caring butler Alfred Pennyworth (and Selina whenever she's around them, as the chemistry she has with them really brings her character to life), and, of course, the show's breakout character: Oswald Cobblepot, the man who will become the Penguin. David Mazouz, Sean Pertwee and Robin Lord Taylor sell these roles so perfectly that I just couldn't look away from the screen whenever they were on it. And while I love Oswald the whole series through, I do need to mention that this is the only season where he comes off as legitimately intimidating to me: his murderous rage can be a little over-the-top but it's anchored with a patience and a calculated skill for manipulation that makes him a force to be reckoned with as he climbs the ladder of power all the way to becoming the leader of Gotham's mob (”I’M THE KING OF GOTHAM!!!")

Season 2 is split into two distinct halves, with 2A being the "Rise of the Villains" story arc and 2B being the "Wrath of the Villains" story arc. Very quickly, it becomes apparent that the show has undergone a massive improvement - not only is it more serialized than procedural-based which ends up working better for it, but many of the characters I didn't care for are gone now, and most of the ones still left I'm finally made to care for: I actually like Harvey Bullock, Barbara Kean, Selina Kyle (on her own, not just w/ Bruce and Alfred), Ed Nygma, Ivy Pepper, Leslie Thompkins, Butch Gilzean and Victor Zsasz now, and they are now complimented by even more great characters like Lucius Fox, Nathaniel Barnes, Theo and Tabitha Galavan, Jerome Valeska, Silver St. Cloud, Bridgit Pike, Victor Fries, and Professor Hugo Strange. 

The only weak link remaining is, ironically enough, the lead character himself, Jim Gordon. Maybe this character would have been interesting if he was someone else, but I never buy him as the future Commissioner. Ben McKenzie's try-hard edgy performance doesn't help.

In terms of the story arcs themselves, I like them both but much prefer "Wrath" to "Rise".  "Rise" deals with Theo Galavan's rise to power in Gotham, with it revealing that he is actually the chief agent of the Order of St. Dumas, a secret society that desires the death of "the son of Gotham" - namely, Bruce Wayne. Most of what I like about this arc comes from the side stories and character development; I never really got into the central plot thread. James Frain, while good, doesn't hold the same villainous presence here that he does in, say, Elementary, and given how obviously evil he and his sister are it got tiring to see them score win after win over the good guys until the last minute. Also, certain interesting characters such as Richard Sionis, Jerome Valeska, Silver St. Cloud, Bridgit Pike and Butch Gilzean are shamefully wasted. Lastly, early into the arc the show actually makes Alfred unlikable, and since he's one of my favorite characters from the first season, that really hurt to watch.

"Wrath" deals with Professor Hugo Strange and his insidious secret experiments in Indian Hill, an underground division of Wayne Enterprises beneath Arkham Asylum that holds the key to the Wayne murder mystery. This arc just seems to flow together more smoothly than its predecessor, its contents are the type of overarching mystery I'd wanted the show to explore since the beginning rather than all the diversions from false leads, mafia wars and religious cults infiltrating the city's political structure, it provides pay-offs that I'd long been waiting for, and Professor Hugo Strange as played by B.D Wong is the perfect Big Bad. My one quibble with this arc is the decision to resurrect Fish Mooney at the end - I never cared much for her, she had a good enough ending in Season 1, and the revived, superpowered version of her ultimately accomplishes jack-squat in Season 3 before dying again anyway.

Season 3 is just one story arc, centering around the conspiracy of the Court of Owls that secretly controls all levels of power in Gotham, but its first two thirds go under the title of "Mad City" while its final third goes under "Heroes Rise". There is a good reason for this, as the events of "Mad City" see things at their bleakest yet for the forces of good in Gotham, with the forces of evil seemingly unstoppable, which makes the turning of the tide in "Heroes Rise" all the more gratifying. It’s a textbook “it’s always darkest before the dawn” storyline.

I greatly enjoy this season. There are certainly some flaws here and there - Jamie Chung's Valerie Vale is done dirty, I still can't get invested in Jim Gordon no matter how hard the show is trying to make me, and the way the writers drive a wedge between Oswald and Ed is some of the worst writing the show has ever had - the break-up ultimately needed to happen, but it didn't need to happen like this! However, so much more is done right here: the Court of Owls' portrayal, Bruce's further development, Bruce's creepy doppelganger Subject 514A aka the future Owlman, the show's depiction of the Mad Hatter and how pivotal he ends up being to the plot, Captain Barnes’ descent into madness and becoming the Executioner, Selina and Ivy just being awesome both individually and together, further great comedy from the likes of Harvey Bullock and Barbara Kean, the more interesting usage of Carmine Falcone via his "legit" son Mario who in turn helps Lee become even more interesting, the return of Jerome Valeska as the Beta Joker, Ed fully transitioning into the Riddler, Oswald finally embracing himself as a "freak" and ultimately getting his revenge on Ed, and the finale which introduces Ra's Al Ghul (played to perfection by Alexander Siddig) as he engages in a Batman Begins-style plot where he unleashes a virus that threatens to make Gotham tear itself apart.

However, there is one major drawback for Season 3...in spite of all this great stuff, it ultimately amounts to just being more set-up. And as such, all of the big dramatic conclusions that are reached by the end get completely reversed early into the following season. Bruce and Alfred have a rift with Selina? Mended shortly into Season 4! Bruce has dedicated himself to being a vigilante? He'll walk that back soon enough! Oswald is back in power and owns the Iceberg Longue? Not for much longer! Ivy works for Oswald? She'll be done with his shit by the end of the Season 4 premiere! Ed is frozen? He's thawed out a mere three episodes into Season 4, and the negative effect to his brain from being frozen don't even last! Lee leaves Gotham in order to escape her dark side? Nope, she's back in the city and her dark side continues to grow. Butch and Barbara are dead? Aha, they're both back alive! The loss of big characters like Nathaniel Barnes and Fish Mooney? Never mentioned again! And of course, there's the presence of Ra's Al Ghul and the League of Shadows as the group behind the Court of Owls, which just goes to show that despite all the build-up, the Court of Owls was never truly the end-all be-all force of evil in Gotham, so this show ain't over yet.

Season 4, "A Dark Knight" is kind of Season 3's equal yet opposite. There is a lot of stuff in it that doesn't quite work for me, moreso in the execution rather than the conception - Alexander Siddig as Ra's Al Ghul credited as a regular and yet only actually showing up in the first few and last few episodes, Oswald being betrayed and losing all of his power again, Ivy Pepper's long-awaited transformation into Poison Ivy taking ten whole bloody episodes, Ed's severe case of Badass Decay and pointless romance with Lee, Butch's transformation into Solomon Grundy not lasting or amounting to anything important which makes me question why it even happened, the Sirens being formed and also not lasting or amounting to anything important, Bruce's long period of being unlikable (far moreso than even Alfred's period back in 2A), and the Beta Joker only turning out to be the Beta Joker because his twin brother whom we'd never seen or heard of before shows up to become the real Joker!

However, there is also a lot that does work for me - Harvey Bullock finally ascending from just comic relief and having some well-executed character development as he clashes with Jim, Lee's arc of becoming the leader of the Narrows, Oswald's touching relationship with a young orphan boy and his reconciliation with Ed, Ra's Al Ghul whenever he is around, Professor Pyg who is equal parts terrifying and comical and played masterfully by Michael Cerveris, Sofia Falcone who - being a sociopathic master manipulator who even manages to serve Jim a permanent and well-deserved defeat - is hands-down one of the most brilliant villains the show has ever had, and the perfectly-done sense of escalation and excitement throughout the second half of the season which concludes in the best season finale in the series' history, where the good guys contend with a team-up between Ra's Al Ghul and the Joker. And that's what Season 4 has over Season 3 - it builds to a true climax for the entire show's story, almost everything that goes down in the end is permanent (emphasis on almost - looking at you, Lee and Ed), and it retroactively makes the lack of pay-off in Season 3 and the less-than-desirable parts of this season worth it. It made me grateful for sticking with this show.

Season 5, titled "Legend of the Dark Knight", is the show's final season, and its biggest strength is also its biggest weakness - it is a truncated season, lasting only 12 episodes. On the one hand, this is perfectly appropriate - the Season 4 finale was the story's climax and there's not much left to do, so having roughly half a normal season's length for the falling action and wrapping up of all loose ends makes total logical sense. But on the other hand, there are certain ideas for plotlines and character arc resolutions that end up feeling incredibly rushed due to the shorter runtime. It feels like they are rushing down a long checklist rather than allowing anything proper breathing room. Also: yes, a lot of Season 3 and Season 4 clearly borrowed from Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, but they did it in clever ways. This season shamefully rips off The Dark Knight Rises by having a plot inspired by the No Man's Land storyline from the comics, a big focus on the relationship between Bruce and Selina, the main hero (Jim Gordon in this case) falling to his lowest point before rising again, the final battle being between the GCPD and Bane's army, and having the main villain be Bane except that he's actually working for the daughter of Ra's Al Ghul (Nyssa in this case) who was masquerading as someone else! Did the writers really think that they could outright cheat off of Christopher Nolan's homework and that viewers wouldn't notice!?

In the end, my ranking is Season 3 = Season 4 > Season 2 > Season 5 > Season 1. 

I think that Seasons 3 and 4 are equally strong but hold just the slightest personal preference for Season 3, Season 2 is also really good and mainly just suffers from its adequate first story arc being weaker than its more interesting second story arc, Season 5 is a middling season that somehow manages to be both the ideal conclusion for the show and a less-than-ideal conclusion at the same time, and Season 1 is the weakest due to all of the growing pains the show had to go through before it could become entertaining on a consistent level and make me care about most of its characters. On the whole, Gotham is a well-executed series. It’s far from perfect, but it could have been far worse....it could have been Smallville! (Cue rimshot!)

[optimisticcritique]

Gotham 4x17 - Review

The season is getting close to the end, things are about to get crazy(er). Let’s see what crazy stuff happens this week. Tagging characters that I mainly focus on in the review. Sorry if it is kind of long.

Getting right into the action! Go get him Bruce!

How did Jerome have time to get dressed, meet back up with Scarecrow, release Tetch, and send Tetch to hypnotize the guy before Bruce got there? He wasn’t that far behind Jerome. No GPS? Was he stuck in traffic? Maybe Tetch hypnotized his way through the traffic to get there first. I mean, that’s what I would do if I could hypnotize people.

Xander…yeah, seeing spoilers, I predict this is Jerome’s twin brother, right? This is the one time I wish I hadn’t seen spoilers, no big reveal.  

Oh boy, he has a bomb. Duck and cover!

See, now Jim and Harvey aren’t that far behind Bruce. Did they take the short cut?

Bruce trying to help the guy. I love it but I don’t know if it’ll work.

Question: Why did Tetch hypnotize the guy to trigger the bomb by a clock? Wouldn’t it make more sense to have him press it on like a key phrase (like “if someone asks you about Jerome/Xander, press it”) so that Bruce couldn’t have time to jump away? Or was killing Bruce (or anyone else) not the intention?

Shooting the clock! Quick thinking. Learning tricks from being a Tetch survivor.

Aaand he has a watch. Of course he does. Well, at least you tried.

Wait, it’s the dinner already? That happened fast. How did Jerome get them all together? How did he contact Oswald and Oswald just agreed? Did it take some time or was he reluctant at first? Were they all agreeable at first? Did he threaten them? Bribe them with free food?

This is the villain dinner I always wished for…if you had told me we would have all these villains together in one place seasons ago, I would have been floored. I probably would have freaked out, running down the street while yelling “Yessss! Bring me all the villains! A few years can’t come fast enough!!!!” as all the neighborhoods stare at me.

I love villains interacting. I also love seeing characters that have been previously introduced, having scenes with one another that they have never shared scenes with before. It’s the individual character build up and mixture of personalities.  

The only thing missing from this wonderful dinner is Ed :( I guess The Riddler isn’t considered “freak” enough for them…

“Put all questions on ice until the end” Awe the ice puns. Well great, now I want to know what Victor’s question was going to be. I do love how he just raises his hand, like he’s in school and trying not to interrupt the teacher.

“Mr. Oswald” lol well, that’s an interesting choice. I would have thought he would call Oswald by his Penguin name. Really gives me Ed flashbacks to “Mr. Penguin”, which is fun.

Oh Oswald looks just…I have no words. What a fashion icon. I love his fur coat and hair. Real perfection. Fish would be so proud!  One of these days, I really want to see him doing his hair in an actual scene, instead of being off screen. I’m curious how long he spends on it.  

This is Sofia’s old place that Oswald took over XD Wait, Oswald hosted? Option A: Jerome barged into the house and just told Oswald that they are having it there or Option B: Oswald wants to seem supportive, just so he can be involved and know what is coming for his city. Me: Probably both.  

“Anything for a friend” pfft uh huh. I bet. He is probably planning a back stab or just waiting for Jerome to fail.

Got to say, I wasn’t sure about the new scarecrow actor but he’s pretty good. His facial expressions are dead on.

Yeah, Oz doesn’t seem very keen on these plans. His facial reactions say it all.

He’s probably thinking either “What I have I gotten myself into” or “I should have made more food”  

Alfred!!! Where have you been? Been partying? Taking a spa day for a couple of episodes?

Jim, no! Let Bruce do his thing! Sure, he could potentially die horribly but be reasonable here…

Yeah, Bruce will not take no for an answer. Will Jim change his mind or will Bruce take on a mask again?  

“Maybe he wants him to build him something” You can’t fool us! We all know what he is really after!

Yeah, that woman is probably regretting not calling in sick to work today.

Jerome trying to whistle… it wouldn’t surprise me if that is the only thing he hates about his new stitched up face. Who cares that his face is different…he can’t whistle anymore!!!

“Don’t bother going to security! They are all…headless” Wait, you have a gun. You could shoot them in the heads but not cut off their heads. How are they headless?  

“Drop the gun!” “Oh you are such a stick in mud” Would you have preferred a western style shoot out or for him to just be like “Oh hey Jerome. Go on ahead and do what you do with the gun. Have fun” as he casually walks past you?

Xander knowing Bruce’s father…hmm…

“What time is it?!” Tool-no-Mail-no-Extra time!!! “Riddle time!!!” …that was my next guess.

Wow, everyone is so loving this. I guess this has been going on for quite awhile.

Speaking of which, what did happen between that pier scene and now? Did Oswald and Ed become friends again? Make a deal? Just go their own ways? I feel like there is something missing here.  

Oh, you know Ed is just loving this. This reminds me of that episode back in season one (1x09?), where he is listening to a game show on the radio and answering the questions as he is working. You know that was one of his inspirations for this!

Bet you that brief case has no money even in it. The Riddler is just that cocky.

“The street demons!” Lol the way that he says that! I just love it when he does voices or accents. Pulling out all the stops to make things extra.  

The Riddler totally doesn’t even seem like he cares about what is going on in this guy’s life.

How happy he gets when he hears “Riddler”. Not many people have called him that in the show yet, have they?

“I’ve fallen on hard times but happy to be here with you Riddler” I relate to this on a spiritual level. Ed making my week better <3

Ooh this Lila has the best get up. Please tell me Ed made it himself.

Lars, you are over thinking! Don’t ever over think it!

I would half expect the crowd to give out answers but you just know they want to see people getting tortured.

“Rabid sack of rats” Awe man, I was hoping for the barracuda stapled to the forehead….you know, for curiosity purposes…

“Enough!” Nooooo! Never! Don’t ruin this Lee!

I actually saw an interview right before this episode, with Cory saying the episode will end “hot” and “romantic”. It won’t surprise me if Lee/Ed kiss by the end of this.

Wow Lee, you look stunning. Love the new hair.  Also love Ed’s too.

What’s up with the new hair styles lately though? First we mourn see Jervis and Harvey getting their longer hair cut. Now we see Ed and Lee both have hair cuts, with Oswald serving up a new hairstyle. Did we miss a national “change your hair day” in Gotham or something? Or did one person do it and the rest got jealous so they changed their hair too? Or did the actors all decide to get new hair styles at the same time?

“We put Oswald on ice” you make it sound like you both attempted to kill him or something. The vagueness.

So I guess Ed knows about Sofia. Is he impressed with her doing that or not so because she didn’t finish the job?

“Whatever the hell this is, it’s over” “I don’t think so” I’m just waiting for this to be turned into a reaction gif. Like, people upset about something to Gotham writers and Gotham writers going “I don’t think so” or vice versa.

“And my name…is The Riddler” Awe so we are on this again. So, he still isn’t whole. Funny how he is still saying this to people a season later. Also, Oswald called him Ed…but maybe it is because he called him The Riddler first? Or “because we have history” thing? …Even though he and Lee technically have history too, with working together at the GCPD.

*challenges Ed* First: Lee that is bold and I am impressed with you. Second: Noooo! I knew this was going to happen but I didn’t want it to happen so quickly. We only got to see him have one contestant, who we didn’t even see get tortured. Let Ed/Cory have more fun! Let us have our showman Riddler!

Who is this woman? Just a random character that’ll die this episode or the next?

Umm are you implying Jerome is a dog? ;) Also, isn’t that cage a little bit small to fit Jerome in? I just picture her trying to push and squeeze him into that cage, just barely closing it.

Oswald and Butch reunited again! I kind of missed their…complicated relationship to be honest. They also have a long history, probably knowing each other as long as Oswald knew Fish so I can only imagine what Oswald will think of this new Butch.

Oswald’s eyes when he sees Butch. Yeah, totally unprepared for that.

“I will be honest, I like it…” It’s like when a friend pretends to like your bad hair cut, even when they know it looks bad.

“Just came from brunch with Jerome Valeska…” Oh yeah, that’s a great way to start this. He says it so casually, like it was just an everyday civil affair with food and great conversation. Bet he thought he would never utter those words though XD  

“Seemed to involve a great deal of paint” lol that was totally not the point of that, you forgot to mention the mass crazy Ozzie.

Oswald wearing green gloves with that outfit.

“You must be all out of allies” “Don’t be modest” Yeah, he still has Ed as an ally so he isn’t COMPLETELY out of allies. He has…one….

Again, what happened with Ed and why Butch? Option A: He asked Ed, Ed refused, saying he wanted to do his own thing. Option B: He started to ask Ed, Ed talked about a Riddle factory and he immediately went “yeah, nope. Never mind” Option C: He knows Jerome will want someone who is a “freak” to add to the group. Oswald also wants someone strong (let’s face it, Ed is not) and not easily killed. Butch fits that mark, not Ed. He doesn’t want Ed to get involved with this mess either. Which I think is the most likely. Option Q: Forgetting own writing.

Oh, you just totally made him angry. You won’t like him when he’s angry! …Wait, totally wrong universe and different comics.

Okay, I know you look bad now Butch. But look at the bright side, you’re strong, you’re practically immortal, and-with a good hair dye and spray tan-you could look fairly the same. Think positively!

*pushes Oswald on the floor* Nooo! Don’t ruin the majestic hair and coat! They must be protected at all costs!

I don’t know why but, even though I already love Oswald, this episode has made me love him a million times more… *stares at his hair and coat* Not sure why…

“like a flower” well, that choice of words is threatening but also not.

Oh sure, you only want them involved when you want something. It’s a two way street, Jim. Now you have to let him risk his life and you can’t say a thing.

“I love you” In your own twisted way, I bet.

*does a heart with his hands* Jerome fans: Awe that’s what we do when we see you on screen… :’D

He’s freely letting Harvey and Jim in? No booby traps? It kind of looks like a place that would have traps like that.

Ecco! In the same episode as the riddle factory…Some say this woman would be Harley Quinn because she is devoted to this guy…I kind of doubt it. There is also an Echo who worked with the Riddler (although I think Query was the blonde, not like it matters) The name is spelled wrong so she is most likely a throw away character but…why Ecco? Why use a similar name to tease fans?! Why?!    

“Oh my god, there’s two of them!” Oh Harvey…seriously, this is a Cameron/Jerome fan’s dream right there. Not one but two? Alittle over a season ago one didn’t exist and the other was “dead”.

“Please don’t touch that! That is very sensitive equipment” Yeah, sure looks sensitive to me. Especially the couple of buttons that turns it on.

Jerome doing yoga because why not?

Him waving right when Jim sees… o_o It’s like he knew…  

How much you want to bet that someone followed Jerome? If Firefly followed to the office, you can bet he didn’t go see Ecco on his own. It’s the only way I can see him getting out of there.

“She thinks stapling a live barracuda to someone’s head isn’t damn good entertainment” The nerve! Wait…did he just say “damn good”? Has he ever said that word before? :O But your fake swearing was so pure, what has the world done to you?!

I think it is interesting that he only puts his hat on when he speaks a riddle.

I’m not going to even attempt these riddles. I suck at logic.

Scenes like this make me wonder if we will ever get a “whole” Ed or just get this Riddler from now on.

Wow. Who knew the Riddler was so upset about all this?

Lee’s face…yup, she got what she wanted. Smart cookie right there.

The Riddler totally played himself.

Haha! Called it! Knew he would be followed. Don’t underestimate him.

“If I knew this thing was a 100 acres, I would have stopped and had a sandwich before we came” Harvey, you are so relatable. I don’t blame you. My ship of Harvey + food continues to sail. The ship I can always count on <3

“The End” Wait, is the episode over? Is this where the story ends?

Wow, the acting right here is so good. I keep forgetting both Jerome and Jeremiah are both Cameron.

“His bearded sidekick” Hey! He has a name and thy name is Harvey!

“Born bad” that’s lousy reasoning.

Ooh so he lied? Well, this intrigues me. I am so skeptical of this guy. I just know there is more to him than meets the eye. I don’t believe this facade!

“You killed our mother” “She did deserve it though” Lol no care whatsoever. Again with the lousy reasoning.

“Listen to what I have to say” “Oh hell no! You are not hypnotizing me again!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHH!” *Jervis and Jonathan run for their dear lives as Harvey charges towards them* ….LOL Oh my god. Harvey, you are a blessing to this world. Most iconic moment. He is so done with Jervis. The way he just let out a war cry, causing the duo to flee is just…it’s beautiful. I’m dying. I will never be over this. Favorite part of the episode. Batman should take notes.

Jim being like “Welp, okay then” as he follows Harvey.

Just imagine Harvey chasing them all around the maze, with the video sped up and silly music playing. Or slowed down with suspenseful music playing. 

“Must go! Must go! They’re after me and the Scarecrow!” Oh my god I love this so much. I am going to put this on a loop forever.

I love how Jonathan doesn’t even try spraying or anything. He just follows Jervis wherever he goes. I am loving this duo.  

Jerome watching them run off like “whatever”.

*can still hear Harvey screaming* Me: *is dead*

*kisses Jeremiah’s head as he flees* Awe brother love…nothing like wanting your sibling dead and in misery one minute and kissing him in the next.

Whoa. That disappearance happened fast. Did he find a prototype invisible jet or something? Or did Jervis just have the car right outside the door, Jerome leapt in, and they drove away as fast as possible? Scratch that, they are totally hiding on the side of that building, shushing and tip toeing away.

The Riddler being all cocky and smug. Yeah, you probably won’t be feeling this way in a few minutes…

Hey, even I know this riddle! Oh, I see what you are doing there Lee.

It’s simple Ed. Just look at the audience as you say “I love you”. There you go!

Wow, he is pushing Ed back so much that he risks losing in front of an entire crowd.

Lee outsmarting him, good on Lee but sucks for the riddle factory :( I feel robbed.

A little bit late but I’d like to imagine Ed making all of these props himself. Cutting out a giant wheel, painting it, sticking two giant beakers together…

Wait, Oswald knows how to reverse it? Will it actually work though? I kind of feel like it would be a bummer to get rid of Grundy after all this…

Hugo Strange! Of course it’s Hugo. If it is monster related, it’s always Hugo lol

Yay! Oswald and Butch team up once more!

Poor Ed losing his riddle factory. A loss for us all :’(

“they didn’t come here because they love you, Ed” Wow, that’s harsh.  

“Because I know what you really want…” Validation? Wait, no… Lee:  *pulls out the glitter suit from thin air* The Riddler: :’D You found it! I thought I lost it!

Knife to the neck! Always going for the neck.

Oh, they are totally going to go on a robbing spree. Does Lee really need the money? Or is this also a way to appeal to The Riddler to get him back on her side?

….

I am reserving any specific opinion/judgement on this situation until I see more of it. But I definitely see some manipulation at play here. The question is, is it just one or both manipulating? I am actually a bit surprised Lee would play this card.

Oh, I can just imagine reactions from others. Jim, Harvey, Oswald, Butch, Barbara…they all have a decent history with both of them.

The music is the same music that played when Ed killed Kristen. Hmm…This does not bode well. It never does for Ed and anyone he is involved with.

“I don’t know. I thought it already was” Oh, you have no idea how mad this city can get Harvey…you don’t even technically have the Joker yet.

No! Not Carl! We hardly knew thee. Justice for Carl!!! 

*Jerome punches Grundy’s shoulder, shakes hand* Parallel to when Ed high fived him and did the same thing. Probably like hitting a brick wall.

Joker toxin!!!

The Jervis reaction XD Like, he knew the plan right? He looks so shocked.

Everyone’s reactions emoticon style: Jervis: 😮Jonathan: 😬  Jerome: 😆  Bridgit: 🙂 Victor: 😏 Butch: 😕Oswald: 🐧  

Oh god that looks painful. Looks like the “fun” is about to begin.

Man, if Jerome does end up dying, I won’t know how to feel. Jeremiah intrigues me and I think he will eventually grow on me but...he doesn’t have the same history that Jerome has with the characters. Why even have the twin twist? ...I guess I’ll just have to wait to see how it all plays out before deciding what I think. I will say, at least Cameron will still be playing him so it isn’t gypping him from the role.

Over all: Good episode. I felt like some of it was a bit fast paced. I was a bit surprised by how quickly the dinner began, Jerome got his info, the riddle factory ended…that being said, some good villain interaction and Harvey being amazing. The legion of horribles succeed in finding Jerome’s twin brother Jeremiah, the GCPD to put Jeremiah in protective custody, the Joker toxin has been created, Ed/Lee kiss while deciding to go rob banks, and Oswald recruits Butch in promising he could reverse his condition by finding Hugo Strange.

Previous Review: 4x16  Next: 4x18

[canadian-riddler]

The Riddler’s Horoscope

By Indiana

  Characters: Edward Nygma, Riddlerbot OC (Alan)

Synopsis: Horoscopes are never accurate, except when they are.

 AO3

Dad, were you born in the month of July or August?

“July,” Edward said, looking up from the machinery he was working on, somewhat nonplussed.  “Why on earth would you ask me that?”

Alan was carrying a magazine, and he showed Edward the page he was looking at.  This sounded a lot like you.

Edward glanced at the headline before rolling his eyes.  “Alan, horoscopes are meaningless.”

I don’t know, Alan said, looking at the magazine again.  I mean you do kinda…

When this failed to lead anywhere, Edward scowled at him.  “I do kind of what?”

Alan continued to inspect the page in front of him.  You’re reckless with your health, like this says. And –

“Alan,” Edward interrupted, “you do know how people come up with those things, don’t you?”

No.

Edward put down his screwdriver.  “Persons calling themselves ‘astrologers’ have divided the circumference of the Earth into twelve sections.  They call them ‘houses’.  These houses, for some reason, control certain parts of your body.  They then make up a ‘prediction’ based on which planets happen to be where at the applicable time of year.  They lift trends from society and pretend that the planets caused them.  Horoscopes are, most of the time, outrageously wrong.”

But this one isn’t.

Edward inhaled in exasperation.  “Are you sure?”

Pretty sure.

“So it’s accurate as pertaining to you, then.”

Alan looked away from the magazine for a moment.  Probably trying to determine, exactly, what his date of consciousness had been. Edward had not told him, considering he had created him by accident in the first place and had not held much stock in birthdays in many years anyway.

Yes.  Yes it is.

“Oh, let me see that.” Edward got up and Alan relinquished it to him, and Edward scanned down the page.  He shook his head.  “This says you’re hiding from your problems.  What problems could you possibly have?  And even if it were relevant, could you say the same for Nikola or Ada, all under the same bogus star sign as you?”

I’m uncertain Nikola is actually conscious, Alan answered, accepting the magazine again.  And Ada hides from all of her problems.

Edward returned to work. “That is mere coincidence, and means nothing.”

But Alan seemed unable to drop it.

The horoscope in the magazine had been for the entire month, but Alan had discovered the newspaper ran them daily and was very intent on retrieving one to read it.  He seemed to be taking it all extremely seriously, though Edward reminded him at every opportunity that it was just superstition. After the culmination of a particularly successful meeting Edward had decided to make himself tea and call it a day when he saw Alan sitting on the counter with a page from the newspaper and what probably would have been a very intent expression, if he’d had a mobile face.  “What,” he said, not bothering to hide his lack of interest.

This said that ‘your proven skills and talents will lend weight to your suggestions.’

“And?”

There’s usually a lot more arguing during your meetings than there was today.

“Alan.  The planets did not align in such a way that determined a particular outcome of that gathering.  They are my employees, and I am their boss.  They can listen to me or they can become suddenly destitute.  That is all.”

Okay, Alan said, but he did not look up from the paper.

The next day he was forced to admonish Ada, though he hated it, because she did not seem to grasp the fact that, although she found it very amusing to generate frequency sweeps, he found it extremely annoying, not to mention painful.  She did not stop until he yelled at her, at which time she ran away, and instead of even trying to figure out where she’d gone he just sat down and leaned his head against the wall.  His ears hurt.

It’s okay, Dad, Alan said.  You were supposed to do that.

“What?”  Alan was difficult to hear over the ringing.  He would go downstairs and work on the computer for a while and hope this faded sometime soon.

‘A young person in the family may need some discipline. Sometimes there is a need to be cruel to be kind. You-‘

“Alan,” Edward said, standing, “shut up.”

 //

 It kept happening.

He didn’t believe there was any truth to it.  That would be stupid.  But every day the horoscope would have made a prediction for some event, and it was happening often enough he was becoming unnerved.  They weren’t real.  They couldn’t be real.

But the day Edward completed one of his puzzle rooms and was getting started on the cleanup, he discovered all three of his Riddlerbots helping without being asked and without causing a fuss… which the horoscope predicted. ��The day after that he sent out the emails informing his better informants that they were being elevated a pay grade… which the horoscope predicted. Two days later he had a somewhat unexpected and confusing invitation from Selina Kyle, of all people, to assist her with some nonsense that gave him an idea for a future plan he had not quite worked out yet… and the horoscope predicted that too.  For two weeks straight, every day the horoscope foretold a significant event, and this event actually happened.  Edward didn’t believe in these things, of course, but he was beginning to wonder if someone was playing a trick on him. It was uncanny.  It was unlikely.  But it was happening, and more often than he would ever have liked.  

The following evening Edward was having a cigarette on the porch and Alan was reading his horoscopes, and Edward side-eyed him, waiting for the prediction.  “Well?” he said, when his expectation was met only with silence.

Well what? Alan asked.

“No ‘I told you so’ today?”

I’ve never said that, Alan said. But none of this applies to you.  It says you shouldn’t spend money on extravagance you can’t afford, but you have a lot of money.

“I haven’t spent any money today either,” Edward told him, throwing the end of the cigarette into the yard.  “Well, it was fun while it lasted.”

I have the one for tomorrow already, Alan said, picking up a paper Edward hadn’t seen from beside him.  Do you want to hear it?

Edward stood up, shrugging, stuffing his hands into his pockets.  “Why not.”

'Though you feel confident about certain issues it can sometimes be hard to express your thoughts without sounding smug. You have firm opinions and you know you are right. Unfortunately, other people feel equally as strong in their views. Why not think twice before sharing your ideas? Use tact and diplomacy and you will retain your popularity much longer.’

Edward actually had to laugh at that one.  “All right. You got me.  That is quite accurate.”

Alan laughed as well. You’re not going to listen to it though, are you.

Edward shook his head. “Why should I?  It says right there I’m right, doesn’t it?”

It does.  And Alan folded up the newspapers and stacked them on the side of the porch.  I don’t think I’m going to look at them anymore.

“Why not?”  He waited for Alan to pass through the door before moving over the threshold himself.  “You were having fun, weren’t you?”

Not really, Alan said, shrugging a little.  Horoscopes make it look like someone already planned your life out for you.  I’m glad it was wrong today, because it was starting to bother me.

Edward pressed a hand to his shoulder.  “Don’t you worry, Alan.  Nobody directs my life but me.  The arrangement of the planets certainly does not.  Astrology is merely cheap entertainment for the easily swayed masses.”

It can be very convincing though, Alan told him, and belatedly Edward realised what he’d just said might have been taken as an insult. He made an attempt at correction.

“Oh but of course!  If the predictions didn’t somehow connect with a sizable portion of those reading them, they would not be so popular. Things that appeal to the lowest common denominator are quite often very convincing.”

They almost started to have you there for a minute though, didn’t they?

“Of course they didn’t!” Edward protested.  “What can some yutz pulling generic descriptions out of a hat possibly tell me about myself that I don’t already know?”

Still, he thought as he and Alan made their way to the basement.  It couldn’t hurt to give the horoscope a look-over tomorrow.  Just in case.

  Author’s note

My Riddler’s birthday is July 29, 1973.  It was a wonderful coincidence that, when I was looking through horoscopes to determine when his birthday should be, Leo was bang-on AND July is a prime number.  

I wanted to write this fic because I saw a monthly horoscope post for November and, while it was about 0% accurate for me, it was 100% accurate for Riddler, as usual, and I find that super hilarious.  The horoscopes in this fic are from a website that archives them back for three months./