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louwhose · 2 years

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Blind Spots | Scars

AO3 | First | Previous | Next So, on AO3, I changed the rating from G -> T and added the warning "Graphic Depictions of Violence." Because, as I was writing a scene in a later chapter yesterday, I realized that it seemed a little... intense. More will be said about this on the relevant chapter. Also, there are some spoilers in here for anyone who only watches the anime. I don't think there's anything huge, but I'm not sure how good of a judge I am. If you're concerned about that at all, this is your warning.

scar | noun

\ ˈskär \

4 : a lasting moral or emotional injury

Twilight had many scars.

There were just as many missions where the stakes were those of physical danger rather than detection, and sometimes, he wondered at how he managed to survive. He was thankful to have those scars, if they only meant another day of life, to keep fighting the silent war he fought to protect others from having as harsh a life as he did.

Though, there was one scar that belonged not to Loid, not to Twilight, not even to Roland Spoofy, but to [REDACTED]. A simple child that lived before war reached him, that tried to pick a rose to give to his mother, and a thorn stabbed him as he tried to pick it up, leaving a faint scar to this day.

Twilight looked down at the scar, then back at the roses in the flower stand, remembering this story. Of course his mother had tended to it and made it better, and of course he went and got the roses later, more careful this time.

He missed her. Someone to give flowers to, for no other reason in the world than to see a smile on her face. Now, there was someone else he wanted to give flowers to, someone he wanted to see smile, but gone was the time when it wasn’t mixed up with conflicting interests.

Flowers. Roses. Thorns.

The Thorn Princess.

Once he suspected something was not quite as it appeared with Yor, it hadn’t been difficult to confirm that she was, in fact, an assassin. A member of Garden, to be precise. The Thorn Princess.

But he had yet to determine what he should do, if anything, moving forward. For the time being, he chose to err on the side of maintaining the status quo, reasoning that everything had gone well enough so far. At the very least, he could keep an eye on her assignments to see if she were supposed to deal with anyone from WISE. Not to mention, at this point in Operation Strix, he could hardly go and find another mother for Anya, and both of them would likely be traumatized in the process.

But he needed to certainly try to take extra precautions, now more than ever. Because if Yor ever discovered that Loid was Twilight, who knew what might happen? Yes, Garden didn’t typically seem to target WISE, but still, it was an Ostanian organization looking out for Ostanian interests.

But even then, was there anything he could do to prevent a potential fallout if his identity was somehow broken? Normally, he wouldn’t be concerned about this at all, but he was living with Yor. And she was often willing to be blinded, but he could hardly count on that working everytime, so it didn’t hurt to come up with something as a… just in case.

Perhaps his best insurance was her emotions. Making sure that she does begin to care for him more and more, but… he also cared for her, so it was likely to make it so that they both just got hurt worse if things do go badly. Then maybe it would be better to put distance between themselves. Hint at her identity, maybe?

Loid glanced at the roses, walked up, and bought them, despite the 20 dalc price tag on the bouquet. He couldn’t quite tell which plan he was going with.

“What are the roses for?”

Loid reluctantly dropped his gaze from Yor to stare at the roses. He wasn’t quite sure. Was it to see her smile? To make her smile for his own protection? Or to tell her he knew who she was, subtle though it may be?

“Ah, I saw them on my way home from work.” True enough. He looked back up to meet her eyes again. “And thought of you.”

And Yor did smile.

It was a small smile of gratitude, mouth barely rounding upwards, cheeks flushed. But still, a smile, unmistakeable, breathtaking. Lovely.

And that was the moment [REDACTED] realized that he had fallen in love with Yor.

But that was foolish, Twilight knew. Any unnecessary emotions had to be pushed away. Loid could have them, but Twilight wasn’t quite Loid, now was he?

“Papa and Mama are going to kiss!” Anya said loudly, interrupting the moment.

Loid sighed, looking down at his daughter. Why was she like this? It wouldn’t be surprising if she wanted to have an actual family, but… well, no matter how much even he might like that idea, it couldn’t be.

He shifted the bouquet to one arm to pull Anya away from his leg. “Why don’t you go put your stuff down in your room, and we’ll get a snack for you once you’re out?”

He watched her walk reluctantly down the hall towards her room to do as he asked, grumbling the whole time. Loid turned around once he saw her go through her door, and was met with Yor right next to him once he looked back. It still took him by surprise, how she was able to move without his notice. I suppose it must be useful in her profession, he thought. But still.

Yor tugged lightly at his coat, encouraging him to remove first his free hand before switching the roses to that arm in order to extract the other. As she turned to hang it up, Loid contemplated how… natural it felt. How decidedly normal.

And again, Loid wished that the truth of that, or at least as close to the truth of that as the two of them could get, wasn’t impossible.

Yor placed her hands around the bouquet and Loid loosened his hold so she could take it out of his hands. She smiled at him. “I’ll put these in a vase. Thank you so much for these, Loid.”

Then, softly, sweetly, quickly, she placed a hand on his shoulder to steady herself before she went onto her tiptoes and planted a kiss on his cheek, lingering just too long to be considered brief. Before Loid had a chance to react, she lowered, turned around, and sauntered off to the kitchen.

He stared after Yor in a daze, hand coming up to linger on the spot she had kissed him, feeling a blush coming on.

There was a movement to his side and he glanced over, met with the sight of Anya staring at him. Since when had she been there? He let his hand drop to his side, the flush starting to creep onto his face.

“Mama kissed Papa,” she remarked, huge grin and lit-up eyes on her face.

That stopped the floodgates preventing his blush. “So? What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing!” Anya squealed. “I love it!”

Loid sighed, contentedly. Of course she would want her parents to get along. That’s what any child would want. Something very… reasonable, even. That’s why it would hurt more than he cared to admit when this mission came to an end.

He tucked those thoughts away even as they flitted through his mind, barely even registering them himself, before fully immersing himself back into his role as Loid Forger, the father. “So, what do you want for a snack?”

“Hmm…” Anya leaned her head back as she considered the question on their way to the kitchen. “How about a cucumber!?”

Loid raised an eyebrow as he looked down at her. “You mean you want something more than peanuts?”

She nodded solemnly, climbing up into her seat at the table. “They’re cool!”

That was undeniably correct, but still, to think she wanted it that much. Loid frowned. “Is it really that hot outside tod—?”

“CUCUMBER!” Anya insisted, slamming her hands down on the table, making the few things that were on it shake as she did so.

“Alright!” he conceded. Loid glanced at Yor coming in with the flowers as he started rolling up his sleeves, glad that she hadn’t placed the vase on the table before Anya caused it to shake. He noticed her start to fuss with it a bit before he headed into the kitchen to get the cucumber, knife, and cutting board. “I’ll get it ready for you now.”

He was just wrapping his hands around it when Anya called, “Come back here!”

Loid huffed in annoyance, wondering what it could be now, but peeked his head back into the dining room. “I’m just in the kitchen to work on your snack. What is it?”

She shook her head. “Not now. I want to see you chop it up.”

“Just let me grab the cutting board and a knife, then.”

When he came back into the room, Loid was met with the sight of Yor gingerly touching one of the flowers on the edge, staring intensely at the bouquet, with a gaze nearly deserving of being described murderous. And Anya was staring at her, in some mix between fascination and horror.

Loid may love his family, but there were certainly instances that he didn’t understand them.

He set the cutting board down before getting to work chopping up the cucumber. The clacking of the motion drew both of their attention to him.

“Oh?” Yor asked. “So you’re having a cucumber?”

“Mmhmm!” Anya nodded.

Yor reached out and took one of the slices before eating it.

“Mama! That’s my snack!”

Loid briefly paused his chopping to do the same. Anya’s jaw just dropped.

Feeling a little guilty, he drew another piece out to slide across the table to her. She reached out and took it, and then paused.

“What’s that?”

Loid froze. “What?”

“On your arm,” Anya said, pointing. She gestured to a spot on her own forearm. “Here.”

He looked down at his arm. Yes, Twilight had a lot of scars, but… they were usually covered, and he didn’t have to think about them much. “A scar.”

“What happened?”

Shrapnel. From my time in the army. Like he could tell the truth.

“I scraped it against the jagged corner of a building when I was a teenager,” he answered as close to the truth as he could, before starting to chop again.

Anya’s eyes sparkled at that for some reason. Certainly, it had been a long time since he was six, but what exactly was so interesting about that?

“What about that one?” she asked, pointing to one on his other wrist, somewhat circular.

That was a more recent one, on one of his other missions. It had been a bit of a close call, getting handcuffed, and for long enough that one of his wrists got bloody. This one was a bit more challenging to explain away.

“My… watch chafed too much.”

Apparently Yor had been interested in this topic, too, because she leaned in and asked, “How did that happen?”

“I… was wearing it a notch too tight,” Loid lamely explained. Not his best work, but hopefully it would surpass their scrutiny.

“That! What about that?” Anya asked, somehow even more enthusiastic than before.

“Accident with a fishing hook,” he answered truthfully, looking down at the small crescent moon shape on the back of his hand. Seriously, that had been years ago. How was it still visible?

He was done chopping the cucumber, and passed it over to Anya to eat. “Is that all? Or do you want to interrogate me more about my scars?”

Anya looked decidedly less interested in it than before. Why? She seemed to like interesting things, and a fishing hook story seemed far more interesting than a watch, to him at least.

“Oh, I’d like to hear about just one more,” Yor said.

Loid spread his hands out palm up offering them to her. “Which one?”

She leaned in, hovering over them to examine. She gently took them into her own hands, tracing her fingers along a few scars, turning his hands over, before settling on the faint one on the pad of his thumb, tapping it. “What is the story behind this one?”

Those red eyes staring intently at him suddenly made it seem difficult to speak. “I was a child. I saw a rose, and wanted to pick it for my mother, but the thorn got me instead.”

Yor seemed content with that, and withdrew to steal cucumbers from and tease Anya some more.

Loid stared back down at it, gaze flitting from in between the scar to Yor. Yes, a rose may be beautiful and lovely, but its thorns made it dangerous to pick up. Yes, Yor may be beautiful and lovely and phenomenal in every way, deserving the world and love, but the Thorn Princess was more dangerous than it was worth.

Twilight closed his fist. As much as he might want to play house here with Yor and Anya, it was too dangerous. This was a mission, it would end. Maybe, if things went well enough, those two could somehow have a nice, happy normal life when this was all over, but he would have no place in it, he was now realizing after he had gotten attached to them already.

The cucumbers were a plot device to make Loid roll up his sleeves so that they could have that conversation about scars. Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it! Please leave a comment! I love hearing what people think about my work (even if I'm not the best about replying)! First | Previous | Next

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hailsatanacab · 6 months

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Family Dinners - dpxdc

"Holy shit, you're Bruce Wayne!" Danny gaped, jabbing a finger at the man sitting at the head of the table.

The bustling dining room goes silent as everyone turns to look at him.

"Danny, who did you think was going to be here?" Tim asks, disbelief plain in his voice and Danny feels his face flush red.

"Sorry, I, uh, I guess I just never put it together. Tim Drake-Wayne. Wayne Manor. It, uh, makes sense now." He laughs sheepishly and scrubs at his neck before slumping back down into his chair.

"Well," Tim says with an indulgent sigh, "at least I know you're not just friends with me for my connections."

"Yeah, I'm really sorry, I just never thought about it, I guess."

Danny sinks lower as everyone around him laughs. Come to dinner, he said, the food is the best, he said, ignore the family, he said. Danny really wishes he'd listened to Tim and just ignored them—almost as much as he's regretting accepting the offer in the first place—but... he's having dinner with Batman.

Ancients, that's so weird!

The last time he saw Batman was in the future and, suffice it to say, it was not going well. There hadn't really been time for family dinners there.

Wait. Family dinners?

He peers around the table, openly gawking at everyone as it all clicks into place.

"Everything alright, Danny? Now realising who everyone else is?" Tim asks with a roll of his eyes.

"Uh... something like that..." Danny mumbles as everyone laughs again.

From further down the table, the smallest Wayne scoffs and clicks his tongue.

"I thought you said he was smart, Drake?"

"So, you all do it, too, then?" he asks, ignoring the jibe. Danny's only a little bit jealous as he thinks of how much easier they must have it, how much easier it'd be if his family had been on his side, too. "You all work together?"

"Nah," Dick says from across the table with a brilliant grin. "Tim's the only one that works with Bruce, we all have different jobs. I'm a police officer in Bludhaven."

"Disgusting." Danny blurts out without thinking—because seriously, what kind of self-respecting vigilante would also be a police officer?—before clapping a hand over his mouth. "Sorry."

The whole table laughs again, the loudest being the blonde girl a few spaces down from Dick. Look, Danny wasn't really paying attention to names when they were all paraded in front of him. Dick only gets remembered because his name is a joke.

Come on, Danny, recover!

"That's, uh, not what I meant, though."

"Oh?" Dick asks, cocking his head slightly to the side. Is it Danny's imagination or does his smile tense slightly?

"Yeah, I mean like, you know, in costume. It must make it so much easier to have everyone together like this."

"Costume? What do you mean?"

Yeah, Danny's not imagining it, everyone tenses up at that. It's really only now that he's realising that this probably isn't how he should bring up that he knows about their... night time activities. In fact, he probably shouldn't be bringing it up at all.

"Uuhhh..." Danny looks wildly around the table as he continues making his stupid noise. Think, think, think! There must be a way out of this!

"Danny?" Tim asks, looking concerned.

"Oh, Ancients, this isn't how I wanted it to go at all," he mutters, slipping even further into his chair. He's almost on the floor now and he so, so wishes it could just swallow him up.

His real first meeting with Batman was meant to be cool! He had planned to be Phantom, maybe save them from a tight spot, prove his worth as a mysterious and powerful ally as thanks for the help Batman gave him in the future.

"Danny, what are you talking about?" Tim starts tugging on his sleeve in an attempt to pull him back up from his pit of despair.

Eventually, Danny relents and sits up straighter, hiding his face in his hands and whining all the while.

"I'm sorry, I just didn't expect him to be here and it threw me off so now I look stupid and it's so embarrassing!" he wails, flailing his arms wide. "Why wouldn't you warn me that Batman was your adopted dad, Tim? Couldn't you have let me know?"

"I'm sorry, what? Danny are you alright? There's no way Bruce can be Batman, look at him!"

"Yeah," the blonde girl laughs from the bottom of the table, "look at him! That's a wet noodle of a man! Batman can actually do things, B is incapable of pretty much everything."

"Thank you, Stephanie," Bruce sighs, massaging his forehead.

It's... Those are the first words Danny's heard Batman say since everything went down and it's enough to knock him out of his embarrassment.

It's really good to hear his voice again. Especially now, when it's strong and healthy and full of personality—even if that personality is little more than a tired father right now—far better than how it had been, at the end.

Danny sits up, back straight, and grins. He's got this. He remembers it perfectly. Some people count sheep to fall asleep, Danny repeats his mantra to be certain that he'll never forget it.

"Gamma alpha upsilon tau iota mu epsilon, 42, 63, 28, 1 colon 65 dash 9."

Once again, the whole table falls into silence.

"Holy shit..." breathes the other D name (Duke? Danny's pretty sure he's Signal) from opposite Stephanie. "Isn't that...?"

"The time travelling code." The littlest Wayne says stiffly. "We have met in the future?"

"That's not just the time travelling code, Dami." Dick says, looking between Danny and Bruce. "That's the family time travelling code."

Danny's grin freezes in place.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"1 colon 65 dash 9." Dick explains, still flicking between him and Bruce. "It means you've been adopted into the family and we should all treat you as such, no questions asked."

"Tell you what, I'm about to ask a question." Danny says, dumbstruck. "You just told me it was a code to identify time travellers, not anything about being adopted! What the hell, B?"

Bruce looks about as shellshocked as Danny feels.

"We must have been close," he says finally, after opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water a few times.

"No! Not that close!" Danny reels back, taking a deep breath ready to refute it all, but... "Well, I mean, you found me when I first got stuck, and you helped me get better despite being... And then we fought together against the, uh, bad guy, before he, um, he... before you couldn't."

An uncomfortable beat passes while they all pick up on what Danny tried so hard not to say.

"So, you're not from the future, then, you travelled there and came back?" Tim asks, breaking the tension and leaning forward with a glint in his eye.

"Yeah, it was a whole end of the world thing, but don't worry about it," Danny says with a hand wave, "It's all kosher now, won't ever happen."

"What did happen?"

"Seriously, don't worry about it, we cool."

"How long in the future was it?"

"About ten years? You were pretty spry for an old man, B," Danny laughs, wishing they'd get off the topic of what happened and get back to the adoption bit.

Everyone shares degrees of a cautious smile as they relax out of the shock, and Dick—whose grin is the biggest—says, "No wonder you got the family code, you're already riffing on him like one of us. How long were you there for?"

"A week, before I managed to get back to my present and stop him then."

"A week? Jeez, B, that has to set some kind of record, seriously."

"Oh!" Danny says, sitting bolt upright and blinking in surprise before pointing at Dick and bouncing in his seat. "You're Nightwing!"

"What?"

"That's exactly what Nightwing said when Batman told me the code! Makes so much more sense now."

Dick laughs and claps his hands, delighted.

"You were not formally adopted?" The grumpy small one—Dami?—asks, his face pinched.

"I didn't even know I was informally adopted."

"And your parents? Are they alive or dead?"

"Damian, stop—"

"They were dead in the future, but they're alive now." Danny says, looking down. He fiddles with the tablecloth, twisting the fabric around his fingers as he fights down the pang of sadness that he always feels when he thinks of them now. He forces a bright smile on his face and hopes it doesn’t look too strained. "I just, uh, can't talk to them much, anymore."

"Damian," Dick warns, "1 colon 65 dash 9. Treat them as family, no questions asked."

"This is Damian treating him as family, the little turd has no manners." Tim scoffs, rolling his eyes, but he gently bumps shoulders with Danny to knock him out of his funk. Danny can't help but send him a watery smile.

"I have the most exemplary manners, Drake, unlike some people." Damian spits, crossing his arms with a pout. "I was merely ascertaining his status to see how he could possibly fit into the family."

"I know this is all a bit sudden, Danny," Bruce smiles, ignoring Damian and reaching out to lay a warm hand on his arm, "for all of us. But if I felt strongly enough to give you that code after spending a week with you in the future, then you are more than welcome in this family, if you so choose it. I think I can speak for all of us when I say we'd like to get to know you a bit more."

"I know a threat when I hear it, Bruce." Danny snorts. "But, yeah, I get it. I'm sorry this is all so weird, it really wasn't how I wanted to find you again, but... I'm glad I did."

"So are we, Danny." Dick says, with a warm smile. "And formally or not, 1 colon 65 dash 9 means you're family. Welcome to the fun house! No take backs or refunds, sorry. You're stuck with us."