#they did the whole 'you were dead!' thing off screen after Damian tracked him down

[bluerosefox]

Double Troubles

Another Damian and Danny Twins Au idea but they decide to mess with their families once they get over the whole "I thought you were dead!" And "I wasn't sure if you would ever wanna see me again!" And basicly switch places for a while to see whose family would notice first. (They do set up rules for each other though)

Damian pretending to be Danny and 'explaining' to Danny's friends and Jazz his 'powers' are on the fritz due to something the Fenton's parents did with a new invention and "don't worry, I asked Frostbite and Clockwork, they say it has to wear off on its own.". Does he use Fenton Works weapons to fight ghosts. YES. Does he stare down the Ghosts that are confused why the 'ghost boy' doesn't feel ghostly anymore only to play along with Damian (and Danny, when he explains over the phone) theyre just having some fun (ghosts love causing chaos so they'll play along. For now.) Yep. Damian wearing contacts so his eyes are blue. Damian taking care of Danny's bullying problem in secret? Yes.

Meanwhile Danny is having the time of his life pretending to be his serious brother. He even is letting some of his ghost aura out so his eyes are green, not enough to glow neon but a shade lighter than Damian's though. And then doing things so out of character for Damian to do at odd hours of the night and trying to see if he make the rests of the Bats think they're going nuts (A very sleep deprived Tim caught him floating one night in the hallway, they both stared at each other before Danny says in his best Damian voice "No one will ever believe you." Before phasing into the floor). Things get even better when Dani (who was traveling around and felt him nearby) stops by, gets the info on what's going on, and pretends to be Damian too that's been hit by magic and turned into a girl for a day. (Danny totally was just watching in ghost form above everyone invisible)

All the fun ends when Jason returns from a mission with the Outlaws and can legit sense 'Demon brat' feels more dead than he should be.

"DANG IT JASON! I WAS GONNA WIN. JAZZ WAS TOTALLY GOING TO CONFRONT DAMIAN TODAY TOO!"

(Being silly today, take my silly story idea)

[legends-live-in-memories]

Picture Perfect

AYO! its me back with more content for the second time this week while i ignore my other wips again. this is a lil gift for @queen-o-leen who i promised wholesome content for! I hope you like it!

Timinette/Timari Oneshot 1.9K words (not related to my other timari oneshots)

Summary:

“Tim spends a nice day in a park in Paris and takes a picture of a pretty girl.

He somehow gets an almost date out of it.”

no warnings this time. completely family-friendly. I know i surprise myself with this one too.

without further ado

He would be the last to admit that Jason was right and that time away was what he needed at this point in life but it can’t be ignored that, for the first time in possibly three years, Tim was having a wonderful day. He was having a wonderful week actually. After one too many unsuccessful cold cases and the simmering anxiety of off-world missions, his family, primarily Jason, for some reason, demanded that he take some time off and away from his unusual brand of normal. How that meant being sent across the Atlantic Ocean to Paris of all places, he wasn’t entirely sure. Alfred probably had a hand in that decision given that, as part of his forced vacation, Tim was not allowed to actually plan any of it. Him. Timothy Jackson Drake. The guy who stalked and manoeuvred his way into Batman’s house and team. The guy who tracked and found said man when the universe thought he was dead but was actually drifting through time. Yeah, Tim was not pleased about being led blind on his vacation. 

At least Paris was a nice city. And he brought his camera. He figured he could use this time to get back into old hobbies and what better hobby to start up again in the city of love than photography? He’s taken pictures of every tourist attraction worth visiting by his second day and began to take candid shots of people and animals. Would Damian like the animal pictures? Maybe, if they came from someone who wasn’t Tim. Is he going to try and give them to him anyways? Absolutely not. He liked his liver where it is, thank you very much. They would serve as great bribing material however. But that’s a thought for another day. 

Right now he was working on capturing what could possibly be described as the stereotypical outing with friends. He’s sitting along some bushes near the entrance of a park and staring at a group of teens his own age hanging around. He spots a brunette with thick curls of hair animatedly speaking with a guy in a vibrant cap. She’s waving a camera herself, and he appreciates her taste in equipment. Her eyes spark with fox-like mischief while the cap guy has a peaceful aura about him; like an old turtle. Next he sees a blonde, her hair is in a ridiculously high ponytail and she’s in a deep conversation with a red head off to the side of the whole group; her words are rushing out of her and she’s a buzzing bee with excitement. Another blond is in the area, but he sits in a broad patch of sun possibly napping with an open book on his chest. Very cat-like Tim supposes. He barely pays them more than a second of thought however. No. 

His focus is on the quaint beauty directly in his line of sight. She’s poised up against the giant tree trunk with a sketchbook in her lap and pencils surrounding her. Her hair hangs by her shoulders in twintails and it’s a colour so dark it seems to absorb the shade of the tree. She’s scribbling furiously on the page before her and her tongue is slightly peaking out to the side. Her forehead is creased with stress lines and her shoulders hunch slightly over her frame. She’s the vision of deep concentration and dedication and Tim would be a fool not to capture her. He’s gotten wide shots of her companions but now he wants to focus on her. 

Looking through the lens of his camera he zooms in on her profile. When his camera focuses, he spots a constellation of freckles across her cheeks, barely there, almost blending in with her complexion but Tim is nothing if not hypervigilant. He goes to take another photo when a bug flies into view. It’s a ladybug. It lands precariously on the tip of her nose and it’s just the thing that breaks her out of her work-induced trance. Tim is watching her now, long forgetting to click the shutter. Her eyes cross as she stares intently at the black-spotted creature and its presence seems to amuse her. She’s giggling to herself, as if sharing an inside joke with the bug and reaches a slim finger to swipe the insect gently from her nose. She inspects it and smiles a smile so soft that not even a feather could compare. He feels like an intruder. More so than one who takes pictures of cute strangers in public. 

Coming back to his senses, he takes another picture, the final picture, and lowers the camera from his face. He looks back at his temporary muse and finds that she is already looking at him. Her head tilts in confusion. Apprehension. Possibly a bit of fear. Which is valid given that Tim was pointing a camera at her from across the public park. What should he do though to quell her fears? 

He felt his face lift into a grin; he didn’t need to look at himself to know it was awkward and forced. A shrug of his shoulders and a flimsy wave of the camera in his hand was the only thing he did. Before he could begin to stumble over himself in apology, however, she surprised him. With a cautious hunch, her shoulders brought up to her ears, and an embarrassed smile to match his own, she slowly flips her sketchbook around and he comes face to face with, well, his face. It was a portrait of him. She had drawn a portrait of him. And she was showing him. Feeling embolden, he flips his camera to show her the screen but she’s too far away. He gets up on unsteady legs, cramped from his uncomfortable position, and begins a slow stride towards her. She meets him in the middle.

“Hi.” He barely speaks those words. They’re more like an exhale or a sigh of relief that he hadn’t scared her off. 

“Hi, I hope you don’t mind the drawing.” Her voice is high and light. Like a spring breeze. She’s daintily waving at him and he sees that her fingers are rough, and calloused. Unexpected but he finds it rather charming. Before he could get another word in, she’s off like an engine. “I just saw you there, and you had your camera so I figured you were taking pictures of us and thought that if you were then you wouldn’t mind me sketching you in kind but I should have asked and I’m sorry for breaching your privacy—” 

“Wait, slow down.” He fears that if he hadn’t interrupted her when he did she would run out of oxygen. Did she even breathe during her spiel? A voice in his head, that sounds like Cass, utters a soft ‘pot, kettle’ and okay, he sees a lot of himself in her mile-a-minute style of speaking. 

“No need to apologize. I’m flattered, truly. You were right, I was taking pictures of you. And your friends!” he hastily adds that last part. He turns his camera so the display screen faces her and he feels himself hold his breath in anticipation. 

A blush rises to her cheeks, red like the ladybug that interrupted her. He quite likes that colour on her. His eyes drift to the sketch and he’s further impressed by her skill. She has an eye for detail. He notices a bird in the background. It’s a robin. That piques his interest and lights a flicker of fear within him. 

“May I ask,” he begins slowly, unsure of what that little addition could mean. Did she know? How could she? Was his identity compromised?

“Why did you draw a robin in the background? It’s lovely but I’m curious,” he finishes. He’s going to play dumb until he has more information. She seems taken off guard by the question and raises her shoulders to her ears again in an embarrassed hunch.

“Well,” she starts, but she seems unsure and the words die on her tongue. She tries again.

“I just saw it fly by and then it landed behind you. So I thought ‘why not?’ and drew it. It seemed fitting.” She wasn’t looking him in the eye and now he felt kind of felt like a jerk for baselessly accusing some random girl. Of course it was just a coincidence. This bat-paranoia was going to be the end of him one day. It’s by sheer miracles and luck why it hasn’t already. 

“Oh, no worries. It just surprised me because it’s my favourite bird.” Right. Lie to the pretty French girl. But what else could he do? Tell her the truth?

“Then it’s a cool coincidence, huh?” She seems encouraged by that tidbit of information.

“Yeah, pure luck on your part.”

“What?” She seems more startled at that than Tim thinks she should be but before he can think deeper into it she speaks again and he would be a fool to not give her his undivided attention.

“Why did you take a picture of me with the ladybug? If you don’t mind me asking.” That stumps him because, to be honest, he does not know why himself. It just felt right. So he tells her as such.

“Well that would be another coincidence because ladybugs are my favourite insects.” She gives him a full smile alongside that statement and the brilliance of it almost blinds him. He wants to capture that smile for eternity. 

The thought strikes him. He doesn’t want this moment to end. He knows by the Friday of next week he’ll be flying back to Gotham where it’s business as usual and Red Robin won’t have time for commitments and puppy love. But right now? Right now Tim Drake is on vacation with a week and half left and all the time in the world to entertain the idea of a spring romance. Making the decision, he goes for it and takes the chance.

“I was getting a bit hungry. Do you know anywhere that’s good to eat at?” It’s an offer, open to interpretation. If she just lists some place, he knows where her interests lay. If she offers to escort him somewhere, then she’s taken the bait for exactly what it is, an invitation for more; whatever more is. He hopes she takes the bait. 

“Yes I do actually! My parents own a bakery just outside the park.” Her enthusiasm is uplifting and the offer of a place so personal is a good sign in Tim’s book. “Let me show the way, and I could join you if you would like.”

“Perfect. That’s wonderful. It will be my treat since you’re going out of your way on my account.”

“Nonsense. Like I said, it’s my parents’ bakery. They’ll be more than happy to give some complimentary snacks.” She loops her arm around his and begins to drag him to the park gate. She’s strong and her grip is firm and Tim feels lightheaded at the ease with which she pulls him. He can’t help but be swept up in the tides that is this girl. 

“I’m Tim, by the way. Tim Drake.” He offers his name, something he should have done at the beginning.

She looks back at him over her shoulder and he’s caught up in the oceans of her eyes. They’re alight with joy. 

“Nice to meet you, Tim. I’m Marinette Dupain-Cheng.” 

“Nice to meet you too.”

They’re almost by the bakery now, he can smell the fresh baked goods from here, and he can’t wait to sit down and get to know this girl better. Maybe get her number by the end of their lunch.

Yeah. Tim was having a wonderful day.

[berriusagi]

Stomach Bug Ch10

Doctor’s Visit

Alright I am back with another chapter and with this I bring something special. I want all of you to help me decide what our lovely Mari will be having so place your votes in the poll. 

LINK REMOVED

Thank you to everyone who voted I’ll be using the results gathered and I hope everyone’s happy with what the final tally was.

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“Damian’s not home right?” Tim asked, making his way into the Batcave where all the other bats sans Damian were sitting around the computer.

“No, tomorrow’s pixies first appointment with that new doctor so he decided to stay the night to give her moral support since she’s never been to a gyno before.” Jason said looking up from the files he was reading over, “honestly from what I’ve heard about what happens during those exams I don’t blame her for wanting a little support before going.”

“It’s all routine and can’t be any worse than the baby-making process.” Dick hummed typing away on the computer.

“I think that’s enough talk about that; why did you want to know Tim?” Bruce asked looking over at his second youngest.

“I found more info on Marinette thought I’d share with you all while Damian wasn’t here to stop me or compromise the data,” he explained walking over to the bat computer connecting his laptop to it.

The other men all sat silently around waiting for Tim to begin his presentation as he sorted through different encrypted files before bringing up a few pictures. “To begin her original name was Marinette Dupain-Cheng and her parents were bakers back in France, Tom Dupain and Sabine Cheng,” Tim said pointing them out.

“Marinette told me they essentially kicked her out,” Bruce said crossing his arms, “They believed the words of some liar and threw her out. She lived with a friend her last year in Paris before moving here.”

“Wait, hold on,” Dick said turning to Bruce, “Her parents kicked her out when she was still a minor? Isn’t that illegal?”

“Yes, and they knew that, she mentioned that when she told her grandmother she came and took custody from her parents, who seemed more than happy to hand it over, and let her stay to finish out that school year with a friend then moved here to finish out her schooling.” Bruce nodded.

“Yeah that all tracks to what I found,” Tim nodded, showing them documents next, “I have here the transfer of custody, her transcript for moving here, as well as the adoption papers for Ivy and Harley. I also went ahead and started running some background checks on the people still in her phone.” he added typing away.

“Anyone, we should be worried about?” Jason asked leaning back in his seat content to just watching Tim work, “She told me a bit about one of her friends’ guy seemed a bit sketch when he was a Paris hero though now I think he’s meh but never got a name from her.”

“You said he was one of the heroes?” Tim asked looking over at Jason.

“Yeah, she said he gave up his miraculous after the fight because his dad was the villain and he didn’t think Ladybug would want anything to do with him if she found out who he was so he bit the bullet and gave it up. He left Paris shortly after to live with his aunt.” Jason said looking around at the others.

“If the villain were outed then it’d be easy to find out who his son was,” Tim said, turning back to the computer the clicking of keys filling the Batcave as he searched through multiple French websites. The other three just watched as screen after screen flew by before settling on a trashy tabloid-like website.

“I don’t think this is what could be considered a credible source Timmy,” Dick winced looking over all the clickbait titles and the like to dislike ratio on the articles.

“No, but it does have quite a bit on the Paris heroes,” Tim said scrolling through to articles that had more likes and seemed of better quality, “here we go, Hawkmoth Defeated: How a Recluse Held Paris Hostage.”

The four men all leaned forward reading through the article that detailed the final battle between Hawkmoth and the Paris Heroes with a written description of what happened as well as a video that seemed to have been taken from a mix of sources and spliced together. The article detailed what Hawkmoth had been doing for three years and in the end, revealed him and his accomplice to be Gabriel Agrest and his assistant Nathalie Sancoeur.

“So we know that Gabriel Agrest was the big bad so who was his kid?” Jason asked as Tim typed away.

“Adrien Agrest, teen model for the Agrest Fashion Label. Looks like after his dad got taken down he had to go through months of interrogations and court hearings just to prove his innocence. His mother was found dead in the Agrest Mansion and with no one else it looks like his aunt took him in once he was cleared.” Tim said reading through the files he dug up.

“That would mean he probably gave his miraculous to Pixie right after he was cleared. If he was going to do something sketch he’d just hold onto it.” Jason said.

“He probably was so messed up after the battle he didn’t want any connection to the miraculous I mean his father turned evil because of them.” Dick hummed crossing his arms.

The four fell silent as they took in the information they had received, “Well Tim you got anything on that liar?” Jason asked, tilting his head.

“This whole blog is about that liar.” Tim said motioning to the tabloid, “I’ll email you guys the link and read it at your own pace there is years of garbage on here.”

“Then with that, I think we should all be heading out. We'll go over more of what Tim found later for now we should get to work,” Bruce said, getting to his feet and moving to change into his costume.

The other three nodded as Tim packed up his laptop and stored it away before they all got dressed and took their way out of the cave to begin their nightly rounds.

~.~.~.~

“So what do you think they found?” Marinette asked cuddled up to Damian's side on her bed with the hyenas crowded around them on either side resting their heads over their laps, “Chloe didn’t exactly hold back on mentioning certain names.”

“I would be surprised if Drake didn’t have an entire dossier on all your friends.” Damian said rubbing Marinette’s back, “You know he probably took all your contact info right?”

“Yeah oh well,” she shrugged turning to bury her face into his neck, “They were bound to find out eventually, might as well let some of the greatest detectives around have some fun piecing my life together.”

Damian hummed closing his eyes as he relaxed back into the plush pillows covering Marinette’s bed, “Are you nervous about tomorrow?” he asked.

“A little,” she sighed tightening her grip on his shirt, “Mum told me what to expect and said she’d sit in the room with me if I wanted her to, you can’t exactly join me since we can’t have this whole thing getting out.”

“I’ll be waiting here for you when you get home don’t worry,” he said kissing her forehead, “now try to get some sleep you barely got any at the manor.”

Marinette nodded letting out a deep sigh as she shifted around to get comfortable between Damian and the hyenas. Eventually, she settled down and dozed off into a dreamless sleep with Damian rubbing her back and the familiar weight of Bud’s head on her hip.

Damian stayed up for a bit longer listening to the quiet sounds around and thinking over what to do for the next day. He eventually made his way into a dreamless sleep as well a bit after one AM when he finally managed to shut his mind off.

~.~.~.~

“Marigold are you ready?” Ivy called from the kitchen as she looked through her back to make sure she had everything.

“Almost,” Marinette said, coming out in a comfortable knit sweater and skinny jeans, “I was looking for my purse. I think Lou took it,” she said, looking around in the usual spots for her bag.

“I’ll keep your wallet and Tiki in my bag we have to get going,” Ivy said, grabbing Marinette’s wallet off the counter and stowing it in her bag as Tiki flew over and settled into the bag as well giving Ivy a nod to close the bag once she was comfortable.

Marinette nodded and went back to her room grabbing her phone quickly checking it before putting it away in her pocket and leaned down kissing Damian’s cheek as he groaned slowly blinking his eyes open. “I’m leaving I’ll text you when we’re on our way back.”

“Okay habibti call me if you need me.” he yawned reaching up and pulled her down for a kiss, “good luck with your appointment I’ll see you after.”

Marinette nodded kissing him again as Ivy shouted for Marinette that they were leaving. She gave Damian another quick peck on the lips before pulling back and ran out to meet Ivy at the door. “Had to get my phone.” she smiled stepping out of the apartment and waited as Ivy locked up and ushered down to the cab waiting outside.

“Now remember Marigold just relax and everything will go smoothly, it will be uncomfortable but it won’t hurt okay.” Ivy said, settling into the cab beside Marinette and rubbing her back, “I can sit inside the room with you if need me to.”

“I think I’ll be okay,” Marinette said, taking a few calming breaths as they made their way to the doctor’s office. Once they arrived Marinette was starting to look a little green as they went through the check-in process and filled out their info.

Waiting for her name to be called felt like an eternity and her stomach was twisting into knots as she watched other women come and go through the office. Marinette sat there twisting her fingers in her sweater and took slow deep breaths trying to calm herself when the door opened, “Marinette?” a nurse called.

Marinette shot up her face going from pale to a deep red as she made her way to the nurse. The nurse smiled and ushered her inside and went about getting her blood pressure, “Hmm little elevated but I think it could just be your nerves.” the nurse smiled, and her height and weight.

“Alright girly so here’s your room I’m going to need you to completely strip down underwear and all then put this paper gown on opening to the front and here’s a privacy blanket for your legs.” the nurse said motioning to the items on the bed, “the doctor will be in here shortly.”

Marinette nodded as the nurse closed the door leaving her alone, “It’s just a check-up.” Marinette mumbled undressing and taking her time to carefully fold her clothes and set them on the table in the corner of the room. She put on the provided gown and settled on the table keeping her phone clenched tightly in her hand as she waited for the doctor to arrive.

It felt like an eternity when there was a knock at the door and the doctor stepped in, a petite redhead with a smattering of freckles covering her pale face, “Hello Miss Marinette I’m Doctor Amelia.” she smiled coming over to shake Marinette’s hand, “I see you’re here for a wellness exam and you’re expecting.”

“Uh yes,” Marinette coughed her voice, cracking a bit from her nerves, “I uh just found out a few weeks ago.” she blushed, gripping the paper blanket covering her legs.

Doctor Amelia nodded looking over the file, “This is your first-ever wellness exam yes?” she asked, taking a seat.

Marinette nodded keeping her head bowed trying to not let her nerves take over her.

“Okay sweetie we’ll go at your pace so just relax okay.” Doctor Amelia smiled setting the file aside and grabbed her stethoscope.

~.~.~.~

The entire exam didn’t take more than five minutes before the doctor was cleaning up and stepping out to give Marinette some privacy to redress. Marinette wasted no time pulling her clothes back on and sending Damian a text saying, ‘Making this baby was less violating than that.’ before putting her phone in her pocket as there was another knock, “Miss Marinette if you're ready you can go to the front and schedule the next appointment.” Doctor Amelia said through the door.

Marinette walked over opening the door her face still a bit flushed, “Okay uh when should I come back next?” she asked.

“I think in a month should be enough time and we should be able to hear the heartbeat by then.” she smiled, “Your moms waiting for you upfront, and here’s the card to one of my nurses if you have any questions feel free to call her okay.”

“Thank you.” Marinette nodded, taking the card and quickly went to the front to meet back up with Ivy and schedule the next appointment and made their way out to walk back home.

“I think we should pick up some breakfast.” Ivy smiled putting a hand on Marinette’s shoulder as they walked. “There’s a nice little bakery around the corner should we pick up something from there?”

“Yeah, that sounds good.” Marinette nodded following Ivy down to the bakery and got in line looking over the different pastries they had for sale. Between the two of them, they picked out an array of sweet and savory options with Marinette making sure to pick out some vegetarian options for Damian. Soon they were walking out with two large bags and were walking down the street back to their home.

Upon entering both had to hold their bags of treats high out the reach of Bud and Lou trying hard to reach the goodies hidden away. Harley quickly came over pulling them back by their collars so the two could set the bags down in the kitchen.

Damian was settled at the table and got up coming over to help them unpack as Harley got some coffee and tea going as they all settled down to enjoy a bit of a late breakfast. Marinette ate her croissants and fruit danish taking small bites so as not to upset her stomach any further. The small group spoke of anything and everything as they enjoyed their meal. Harley taking the time to pick out the meat from her sandwich to give to the two hyenas and Damian holding a small conversation with Tiki as she munched on the cookies Marinette picked out.

“So when are you going back?” Harley asked looking over at Marinette as she bit into her bagel.

“In a month, the doctor said we should be able to hear the heartbeat by then,” Marinette said, finishing off her danish, “I don’t know if I’m ready.”

“You’ll be fine Marigold we’re here for you every step.” Ivy smiled ruffling her hair, “Now I think you should go lay down, maybe settle your stomach and your nerves. You were looking a bit green and tense after your appointment.”

Marinette nodded, finishing her tea and croissant before heading back to her room to lay down. Damian finished off his breakfast quickly and excused himself before following Marinette leaving the two sirens and the small goddess at the table.

“At least he’s good for our little Mari.” Harley hummed sipping her coffee, “So long as he makes her happy he can stick around I guess but not too sure I forgive him for knocking our baby up.”

“Oh, now you don’t like him?” Ivy chuckled, raising her eyebrow at her.

“Oh, I adore the kid but you know one of us has to give him the shovel talk eventually.” Harley chuckled getting up to clean the dishes and put the leftovers away.

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@myazael @beautiful-disasters-sunshine @moonlightstar64 @moonlitceleste @stainedglassm  @casual-darkness @mochegato @ultimatetornshipper @heemsanddamemes @nathleigh @qualitypeacepainter @raven-frost-21 @maskedpainter @demonicbusiness @dood-space @trippingovermyfeet @emimar7 @indecisive-mess-named-me @changelinggarden @zerotosiki @alysrose-starchild @s-and-n @wolf2118 @athena452 @jjmjjktth @eliza-bich @solangelo252 @icerosecrystal @heinrode @Junarvion

@babylovebug18 @animegirlweeb @corporeal-terrestrial

[peppersonironi]

Duke Thomas VS The "Good Child" Stereotype Chapter 2

Next chapter for my Duke Thomas Big Bang fic is up!

(Once again, a hearty thank you to my betas @queerbutstillhereand @theycallme-ook)

Read On Ao3

It was four am on a Friday morning, a week after Duke had decided he’d had enough of Bruce’s - and the other’s - incorrect opinion of him.

It was so early in the morning, that the main group of bats had been trickling back from patrol over the past hour or so. Stephanie and Cassandra had arrived first, followed by Jason ten minutes later. Then Tim had gotten back from his route with Harper, and Kate and Bette had stopped by for a bit (but eventually left for their own homes). Dick came home next, and Bruce had returned last with Damian.

Everyone was in varying states of winding down, with Stephanie at one end of the spectrum wearing silk pajamas, a fluffy robe which Duke was sixty-seven percent sure was Bruce’s, and bright pink bunny slippers Duke was positive were Dick’s. On the other side, Bruce hadn’t even pulled off his cowl, and was sitting down in front of the Batcomputer to work on a case.

Though Duke thought that Tim deserved his own category, dressed in a strange combination of disco track suit and kevlar body armor, and was hunched over three cans of energy drinks and a quart jug filled with espresso shots.

Duke leaned down to double check that his boots were laced up - one time he hadn’t, and had then proceeded to trip and fall into a garbage pile. Not. Fun.

He looked up, however, when Bruce clicked open a case file. So did everyone else, as if drawn by some invisible force.

They all clearly saw as Bruce hovered his mouse over a link which had been typed in sometime while the big bat had been away. The only hint to what it could be was the note reading “New Evidence.”

Bruce grunted in what for anyone else would be an exclamation of curiosity and went to click the link.

Which clearly went to YouTube.

In unison, all the bats’ eyes widened in realization. You see, in a family such as this one, pranks abounded. So they all had painstakingly memorized that series of letters and numbers.

They all knew what it meant.

Suddenly, the Batcave lit up with the dancing form of one Rick Astley. It was everywhere. On the several large monitors that made up the Batcomputer. The various screens spread across the caves. Everyone’s phones somehow were affected. As well as the X-Ray machine in the med bay, which was showing a skeleton dancing.

Bruce jumped up, rage full on his face. “Who did this? Make it stop!”

No one answered, all too frozen in shock at what had happened.

“Who…” Dick whispered from beside Jason, “Who would be that brave?”

“Yeah,” Jason whispered back, “Rick Rolls were banned at the 2015 family reunion after you played it two hundred and thirteen times in a row.”

Dick grinned, “those were good times.”

The two eldest boys began to bicker, Jason complaining that Rick Rolls were a part of the war crimes banned by the Geneva Convention, and Dick saying he “liked it: so there.”

Meanwhile, the song was reaching the chorus, and the other bats finally began to react. The three girls were dancing on top of exercise equipment, popping bottles of sparkling cider - or was that champagne? For their own sakes, they should hope it’s the former - they had pulled out of what seemed to be thin air.

Damian was in the corner, trying to get Titus to dance to the music - though he glanced around every so often to make sure that no one was noticing his moment of fun.

Tim was still nursing his collection of drinks like an alcoholic nursed a bottle.

Bruce was practically foaming at the mouth by that point.

“This is NOT FUNNY!”

That, of course, made everyone just start laughing harder. In the corner, Steph started to do the macarena completely off-tempo from the music. Cass seemed to be chugging the cider that Harper was pouring into her mouth.

Just then the holographic training simulations lit up, and Rick Astly began making his way across the cave, dancing all the way.

Bruce glared up at the semi transparent form of the singer, as if trying to force him into submission.

“T-pose to assert dominance!” Jason called, cupping his hands around his mouth.

“Yeah, that’ll totally work, B! Trust us!” Dick called as well.

Bruce took a moment to turn his head and glare at the two former Robins, who only smiled like the angels they clearly thought they were.

The image was not aided by the two giant stuffed swordfish just pulled from Jason’s utility belt.

“En guarde!” He cried, and tossed the one in his left hand at Damian, who had been trying to reassure his dog that the giant man wasn’t real.

The thirteen year old screeched, but caught the four foot long fish by its fin.

“This is animal abuse!” He cried.

“It’s not abuse if it’s dead!” Jason countered, and attacked the youngest bat with a passion.

As the duel progressed, Cassandra tried to raise her hand and gurgle out a bet on who would win, but began to choke on the liquid.

Harper cursed as she tossed away the sixth bottle of cider and tried to give Cass the heimlich maneuver.

Dick, meanwhile, pressed a button on one of the many consoles spread around the cave, and several stripper poles came out of hidden storage via hydraulics. He grabbed the nearest one, and began to dance.

“I THOUGHT I DISABLED THOSE?!” Bruce bellowed, as Dick began a twirl.

Stephanie, however, didn’t seem nearly as dismayed at the sight of the poles. She herself smacked a button next to her, and several disco balls dropped down from among the stalactites to join the fun. She then began to morph her macarena into an epic macarena. A few flips here, and a few pantomiming choking your enemies there. And a whole lot of randomly throwing glitter bombs at, well, everywhere.

But especially at the nearest authority figure.

Damian tripped over a bucket during his fight - apparently left over from Alfred’s earlier cleaning spree - and the soapy liquid spilled across the floor.

But, of course, them being the bats, Alfred didn’t use normal soap.

Huge bubbles began to farm from the liquid, the longest almost three feet in diameter, and rise up to the cave’s ceiling. The suds spread around, eagerly began to mingle with Stephanie’s glitter.

A solitary bubble, relatively small, floated over to Bruce’s head, and popped on one of his cowl’s ears. He was not amused.

*****

Five minutes later, everyone was lined up next to the Batcomputer with heads bowed in either shame or disappointment.

Bruce walked up and down the row, the perfect imitation of a drill sergeant. His glare matched as well.

“This is an outrageous breach of protocol,” he was saying, “the Batcomputer is not a toy, nor something to use for your own amusement. It is a serious tool-”

“Then why’s it called the Batcomputer?”

Bruce froze and whirled on Dick, who had chosen that inopportune moment to speak up.

“Because you were nine years old and saying no to you would have gotten me a meltdown.”

“It seems to me, Bossman,” Stephanie began, tenting her fingers in an attempt to act serious (the effect was strange combined with her bathrobe and slippers) “That you are perfectly happy to let Dick get away with things. But in this situation, with women present, you are strangely cold. This shows blatant sexism on your part and in this essay I will-”

“That’s enough, Stephanie.” Bruce cut off as a round of snorts and giggle erupted from the group of bats.

“You do realise that no one here is going to speak, right?” Jason asked, “You did teach us to resist torture. And - pardon my french, Alfred - but you are no fucking way close to the level of torture I’ve gone through. Namely waking up to Batcow sitting on top of me.”

“Are you commenting on her weight?” Damian demanded, glaring daggers at Jason.

“I said no such thing.”

“ Boys .” Bruce demanded, rubbing his temples. “Jason is right - not about Batcow’s weight - but I’m not going to get any of you to talk willingly.” He paused and made eye contact with every single bat present, trying to reach into their souls.

“Therefore,” he continued slowly, “I’m giving you one last chance. Otherwise: No one gets cookies from Alfred for two months. ”

The shock was immediate. Alfred’s cookies, of all kinds, were worth more than gold in the Manor. The ability to not have them? And for two months? Bruce truly was a cruel hearted tyrant if he was willing to go to such lengths.

Duke gulped.

“Fine, then.” Bruce said simply when no one answered. “I guess we’ll just have to check the security footage of the Cave.”

Why didn’t Bruce think of that earlier? He clearly wasn’t trying to give the kids an easy way out.

Bruce stalked over to the computer and began to furiously type at the keys, pulling up the footage for the past few days. The group watched in a tense silence as Bruce rifled through the multiple recordings, searching for the culprit.

“AHA!” Bruce grunted, upon finding a specific time stamp. There was a figure emerging from the shadows. He paused and then slowed down the video so they could all see who it was.

There were several gasps as the figure came into the light, looked around, and made his way to the computer. They had shown their face, not even bothering to hide.

Everyone whirled to Duke, then back to the screen.

“No way,” Harper whispered under her breath.

Because the person on the footage, who was now adding the link to the case file and hooking up bluetooth speakers, was Duke Thomas himself.

Bruce’s eye twitched.

There was a general consensus among the resident vigilantes in the cave at that time: Duke wasn’t going to live to tell the tale.

Duke felt uneasy under their scrutiny, unsure of what to do. This was his plan, after all. To be seen differently. But so far the lack of accusations or uproarious debate was disconcerting.

He looked up at Bruce, awaiting his reaction. Bruce didn’t meet Duke’s eyes.

“Hrn,” he grumbled angrily instead and whirled on Tim. Said teenager was barely standing up straight - well, he was leaning on Steph heavily - and blinked wearily around the cave. He didn’t seem to understand what was going on.

Bruce’s eyes narrowed for a long moment before he whipped around and furiously began to mess with the playback settings on the footage. Everyone stood still, not daring to move while Bruce grumbled under his breath.

Finally Bruce straightened and pointed dramatically toward the screen.

���There,” he grunted out, and everyone subconsciously leaned a little bit forward.

They didn’t see anything different from before, though Bruce’s finger did bring their attention to one of the bats that flew across the upper left hand corner. A few seconds of footage later, and yet another bat flew across in a similar pattern. Not exactly the same, so it wasn’t really out of the ordinary. Lord knows the bats would randomly fly out and into their hair much more than necessary.

“Note how the figure is disturbed when each bat flies across the screen,” Bruce said in the same voice he used when talking about a case - cold, impersonal, and yet like he was giving a college lecture.

No one spoke, not really sure what to say. I mean, what was the correct course of action when your father figure suddenly refuses to accept reality, and is grasping at the most unlikely of straws?

“I know this technique anywhere,” Bruce said more to himself than the line of vigilantes. He turned, completely passing over Duke, and set his sights on Tim.

“Timothy Jackson Drake,” Bruce growled, stalking forward, “What possessed you to doctor this footage?”

Tim didn’t respond, only mumbled incoherently and leaned onto Steph some more.

Bruce was furious, bearing his teeth as he spat out his response: “Now is not the time to use the anti-torture training I’ve given you.”

Tim nodded slowly and draped his arm on top of Stephanie’s head.

“You should know better than this,” Bruce began, “pranks are strictly forbidden in the cave, as you very well know. And in addition, I taught you better at framing than this. You choose a victim that could actually be considered as a suspect. Trying to pin the blame on Duke was your undoing - he would never do something like this.”

Duke cringed slightly, as the rest of the bats glanced Duke’s way. All were a mix of confusion and awe.

This … was not how this was supposed to go. No, screw that. That was an outrageous understatement. Things ‘not going according to plan’ would have been Jason randomly blaming Harper for the mess on no grounds - or maybe Bruce not bothering to check the cameras, opting instead to just ground everyone.

But blatantly ignoring evidence and then lecturing someone completely unrelated? No, this was too much. It couldn’t be real. This was some kind of scare-tactic wasn’t it? Duke was too much of an adrenaline junkie to be bothered by the usual ‘hanging upside down over a busy road’ schtick.

But then Bruce moves on to possible culprits Tim could have chosen instead - did he seriously think that Ra’s Al Ghul would Rick Roll them?! - and Duke lost hope.

“Uhh, Bruce?” Duke asked after the ten minute mark.

The Dark Knight turned and faced Duke.

Duke scratched the back of his neck. “Do you think I could head out for patrol now? It’s getting light out, and since you’ve clearly got this covered… I thought I could scoot out?”

Bruce was nodding before the end of Duke’s request. “Yes, go. I’ll deal with Tim. You don’t need to worry - you won’t be blamed. It clearly wasn’t your fault.”

Duke nodded slowly, and covered his disappointment with a small smirk. “Thanks, B.”

He jogged over to the edge of the platform and dropped down beside his Signal-Cycle. A routine mounting, a quick putting on of his helmet, and he was off.

Duke was scowling as he left, wondering what on earth had gone wrong.

*****

“Did you see that smirk?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Did he blame Tim on purpose?”

“How, though? To make such a tactical move -”

“It would have taken a shit ton of planning.”

“Can we get back on the fact that Bruce was fooled?”

“Or who fooled him?!”

[black-streak]

Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting (but Sundays are meant for rest) - The Beginning

 Part 1

So I came up with this partially fleshed out idea on discord and decided to try writing a prequel of sorts to my HCs? Anyways, Mari is like 20ish and Tim is around 25 here. Pre-relationship.

~---~

 Marinette would forever be grateful that she had memorized the layout of the manor back in her first few visits. Otherwise she would have been absolutely lost by now; her sleep addled mind unwilling to give a single thought as to where she was walking. The only thought she could process was a cry for coffee whispering like a mantra through the back of her mind.

Turning a seemingly random corner, she found herself in the side kitchen standing in front of the coffee maker, already holding a fresh pot of the heavenly smelling life elixir. Okay, that's a bit dramatic, but whatever, it's 3 am and she's entitled to her theatrics.

Pouring a cup into her favorite mug, having had it appear before her despite not recalling retrieving it, she held it close and made way to the sit-in table, slumping down into the closest seat.

 It took about 10 minutes and half her mug down to realise she wasn't alone in the room. Turning her head slightly, she spotted Tim typing away at his laptop, his own mug just to the right of her arm.

   'When the hell did he get there?' She couldn't remember hearing any footsteps or the coffee pot pouring but then… she also didn't remember turning it on…. 'He's been here the whole time, hasn't he?'

  Turning back towards her own, she finished off the cup and got up to retrieve the pot, moving over to fill both of their mugs before returning it to its holder only to drop back into her seat beside him, leaning closer to see what he was working on.

"Thanks."

   Jumping slightly, she just blinked at him for a moment, then gave a slight nod.

"Couldn't sleep?" Tim glanced at her, inquiry quiet and half incoherent in its murmur.

Humming softly she considered before truthfully admitting, "Rarely can."

"Damian asleep then?"

"Probably."

"You're not sure?"

"Didn't want to check his room and bother him if he was. Plus, he'd be cranky if I woke him for no reason."

That seemed to catch Tim's attention for whatever reason, because he turned his eyes off the document to look at her fully now.

"You don't sleep in his room?"

"Nah. I tend to cuddle in my sleep and he can't stand being confined like that. Puts him on edge, I think."

  That only prompted an even more perplexed look from him. Unable to process that with so little sleep, she turned back to looking over his shoulder, trying to read what Tim was working on. Giving up, she looked back up to him.

"Whatcha working on?"

"Eh, just some last minute paperwork for a new deal WE is suppose to be negotiating next week."

"... At 3am?"

"You judging me," he asked, lifting one eyebrow slightly in amusement at the hypocrisy.

"You said the deal is for next week."

"It is. But if I get it done now, it's one less thing to stress over at the last second."

"But if you read it on a sleep deprived mind, you're less likely to recall anything you typed up. Meaning you'll have to reread it…. And depending on how dead tired you are, might have to rewrite it. Who knows what sleepy you thinks makes a good deal?"

"Hey! Sleepy me is perfectly capable of working without my brain's input."

Leaning over the counter to rest on her crossed arms, Mari tilted her head slightly to pout up at him.

"Yes but perhaps it'd be best to do so tomorrow and get your brain's input at the same time to save time? Come on, just put on a video or something mindless. I'll keep you company."

  Her logic was sound. There was no argument Tim could give that would actually work in his favor on the matter, but hearing a slight sigh of defeat still gave her an immense sense of victory. Peering over at her, he decided turnaround was fair.

"Alright… but if we're not going to work, you should be trying to sleep. Im cutting you off." He said, pulling her mug out of her reach only to find it empty. Sighing, he moved to set it in the sink only to see her take up his own, carrying it over as well.

"In that case, so should you," she smirked, washing out both mugs and setting them to dry before taking up his laptop, grabbing his wrist, and tugging him towards the living room.

'How did I not see that coming? That was the obvious outcome… when Was the last time I slept,' Tim wondered, not really paying mind to Mari as she situated them both on the couch, turning the screen to face them both from the coffee table, youtube pulled up and a vine compilation being queued up to play.

…..

  Half an hour later, the two were passing jokes back and forth, sleepy giggles and references whispered into the dark room, laptop forgotten and asleep before them, both too out of it to think of moving back to their rooms. Only to be broken up by a mewling yawn, Mari slumping further down, sleep finally pulling at her.

  It didn't quite hit Tim that something about the situation was slightly off till Marinette curled into him from where he slouched into the corner of the couch, head dropping onto his chest. 

Ah, Fuck. Damian was going to kill him.

Nudging her slightly till she hummed to him, he tried to gently wake her back up fully.

"Mari, shouldn't you go back to your room now?"

It had the opposite effect.

  Mari sprung up, eyes wide, blush flushing up her cheeks, seemingly not having realized she had been cuddling up to him till just then.

"I am so sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable! I keep forgetting you guys like warning beforehand. Either way I should have asked if you minded though. That was so invasive of me and the last thing I want is to invade your space when it's not warranted or wanted. I promise it won't happen again Tim, I'm so sorry."

Finally stopping to take a deep breath from her rambling, Tim jumped in, panicking to think he was causing her distress.

"No no, Marinette, it's fine! You're a very tactile person and frankly I don't mind it. I just know Damian wouldn't like finding you cuddling up to me, or anyone for that matter, especially in the middle of the night when he thought you were in your room, that's all."

That seemed to stop her in her tracks. Settling back down, she fixed him with a thrown look. 

"I mean… I know Dami can be protective at times, but I don't think he'd be that upset by it. Maybe a touch put off, but I think he'd tease me more than anything?"

Now he was thrown for a loop. This went against everything he knew about his little brother… that could only mean bad things.

"... Really."

"Yeah, as I said, he knows I'm a cuddly person when I'm tired. Plus, your his brother. At least he knows and trusts you. He'd just make fun of me for being so clingy. Sorry again about that by the way."

Narrowing his eyes, Tim couldn't see a hint that she was lying, but still he had to push to be sure. The last thing he needed was Damian to feel like his position was being threatened. That's what sparked their rivalry the first time after all.

"Hmm... I took Damian to be the possessive type. Especially over someone he was seeing. Trust me, Mari, he's not going to like his girlfriend cuddling anyone. Especially not me." 

"Holy Tikki, what?!"

"Tikki?"

" You think… you think Dami and I are dating?!?!"

"Be quiet, you're going to wake someone up!" He rushed out, trying to cover her mouth, only for her to evade, eyes blown wide with shock but still aware enough to dodge his grip.

"No, hold up. You seriously thought we were together?" She spoke in a startled tone, grabbing at his hands to make him stop reaching at her face and concentrate on her words.

Finally giving up on keeping her quiet, Tim actually started processing her words.

"You're… not?"

"No! Of course not! Did he say we were?"

"Well no but… I just assumed. He doesn't like anyone and yet acts like your his personal sunshine."

  Giggling, she shook her head, settling back into the couch at his side.

"Yeah, that's only in front of others. Says no one needs to know what a chaotic being I am. His words not mine."

"Oh. So you guys really aren't..?"

"Nope," she chuckled, popping the p, slowly curling back into his side.

Stopping abruptly, she pulled back a bit and glanced up to him, blush dusting the top of her freckled cheeks. 

"Is.. Is this okay?"

  Now assured that he wouldn't be promptly attacked just for letting Marinette near him, he couldn't see why not. Plus, she obviously took comfort in it and needed sleep. Who knows if she'll find any alone in her room. Wrapping an arm around her and tugging her slowly down, he nodded.

"I already told you I don't mind. Plus, your warm."

Humming her thanks, she burrowed herself under his chin and promptly passed out, Tim following only moments after.

…..

Tim woke up late in the morning, having slid down the cushion and twisted up his limbs with Marinette's who was still half on top of him. By some stroke of luck, they hadn't been disturbed by anyone thus yet. (Dick had already passed through and took a picture to send to the group chat. Who knew the way to make Tim sleep was to pass out on top of him?)  Feeling her shift, he looked down to see bleary blue eyes blinking back at him from under messy bangs. A small smile lit her lips and she moved up giving a light kiss to the underside of his jaw, before slowly getting up.

"Thanks Tim. Probably the best sleep I've had in a long time. We should nap sometime…. Maybe watch a movie first," she suggested, flushing but sending a coy, eager look his way.

Nodding, he could only think one thing.

'Welp. She's going to be the death of me."

[kimberly-spirits13]

For Wandering Dreamers (Bonus Story & Not Technically Part of the Series Just Same Universe It’ll Make Sense)

Synopsis: You had a chance to watch Spoilers for Justice League Dark Apokolips War and it ended it angst and fluff

Notes: This is taken from the same concept as my For Wandering Dreamers series and is just what would happen if you watched the movie in that set universe since you still have access to your old phone. This is also a bit angsty at the beginning and fluff at the end.

Warnings: Spoilers for Justice League Dark Apokolips War, language

Word Count: 1770

You were sitting on your bed in Wayne Manor, phone in hand, now connected to your computer. It was the release day of the new movie back home where you were from and you were pumped for the movie. The only issue for you was seeing Damian and Raven together on screen what with you dating him and all. It was a bit weird but you weren’t going to let that stop you from watching the movie.

           Damian was going out for patrol and had just left. You didn’t really know how violent this movie would be but there were rumors that it would be pretty hardcore. It was just a movie though, and you were sure to teleport into a universe that wasn’t as... doomed as Flashpoint.

           Damian walked out of the room after one last kiss before you started up the movie and sat back to embark on whatever was supposed to happen. You watched as the movie started getting kind of intense.

           “A bit early dontcha think DC?” You muttered arms crossed.

           The film continued and eventually you stumbled across some of the bloodiest and most violent scenes that you’d ever witnessed. Would it have kind of messed you up watching it without knowing that this stuff was real? Yes. But now, knowing that this thing really happened, it hurts in a new kind of way.

           You watched as your favorite heroes died one by one. It was the most antagonizing thing that you’d ever seen in so long. Babs, eaten alive, Hawkman having his wings ripped off, it was like watching everyone that had raised you as a kid be killed off one by one. It broke you seeing what happened to the heroes as the casualties started sky rocketing. What really made you sick was the Titans dying.

           Star was split in half, her blood everywhere and spine showing through, Conner’s neck was snapped and then you saw it, Dick being stabbed to death. The sound made you feel queasy you felt sick to your stomach and then your heart dropped when the parademon saw Damian. You felt tears well in your eyes on anticipation only breathing when he was just knocked into the water seeing as there was a chance of his survival.

           It was hard going on, but know you were glued to the screen watching in anticipation of what was to happen. Eventually after sticking your nose up to what you knew as the DamiRae parts of the movie in jealousy, you got to one of the last battles. It was Damian vs Bruce and you knew it was not going to be pretty. If there was anything that you would never show him besides this entire movie, it was going to be this part and you knew it. You grimaced at the words that Bruce said. They echoed in your mind, his voice sticking there for a few seconds.                  “Your mother mentally broke me.” He continued, “You’re a burden.”

           “Damn B, I know you’re brainwashed and crap but what happened to Batdad?” You said getting a bit mad at the dialogue.

           After a little while, you watched in absolute horror as Damian jumped in front of Bruce. You were at a loss of words watching him shrivel into what looked like an ancient version of himself. Words clumped into the back of your throat as you started to cry hearing Raven screaming and then the climax of the movie hitting. It was terrible seeing him like that. You didn’t stop crying when he was revived either, you didn’t stop until the end of the movie where finally you went to the bathroom for a second.

           Damian wasn’t due to be home for a bit. It was an amazing movie, but seriously? You thought you’d be sick seeing the outcomes of Dick and everyone else. Yes, Flash would hopefully fix everything running into the Speed Force, but it costed everything. You went to the shelf in your bedroom, grabbing your character guide to flip through it. Tears only really came for those with the worst deaths. You didn’t know what happened to some of the characters but you were sure it either wasn’t good, or they weren’t in the movie at all. It was weird seeing everyone in this light and really didn’t affect you too terribly until you thought of Diana. She was the mother you never had and your childhood hero. Watching her become this cyborg version of herself, losing everything was something you didn’t take well.

           You flipped the page to her four pages and cried looking down at the now broken hero, seeing her in a whole new way of defeat and near death. You didn’t realize how much time had passed when you got a knock on the door and a voice that was certainly Damian’s.

           “Beloved?” He asked before you said he could come in, “Are you alrig-“

           Damian stopped dead in his tracks looking at your tear stained face with much concern and then saw the book open in your hands and the black screen of your laptop, it turning off automatically.

           “What happened?” He asked scooping you into his arms and sitting on your bed.

           “E-everyone d-died.” You choked up, “A-and Diana, she, I just, she was completely broken." “Y-you...” You trailed off not wanting to continue, the look on your face being very evident too Damian that that was the case.

           “Y/N, it doesn’t happen here, you know that. It was you who told me that this kind of thing would have already happened since it just got made into a movie.” Damian said, “Everyone is fine.” “I’m fine, I’m here with you, and you’re fine.”

           You looked up at him and shut the book before deleting the file of the movie, “Do not go watching that Damian.”

           “I won’t beloved, you have my word.” Damian promised tucking you two in and shutting off the lamp, “Remember, I’ll always be right here with you. I love you.”

           “I love you too.” You said not falling asleep as quickly as typical.

           It was a few hours later when a dream came on about the movie. You were there in some kind of clear box watching from afar. Damian was bleeding looking up at Bruce before it forwarded more and you saw the league in ruins once more. Damian was strapped into a machine and you were trying to get to him. There was no use in this however. He looked at you and pleaded for help before suddenly, without a moment’s notice, he shriveled into the grey corpse you had seen him in previously.

           “Y/N! Beloved wake up!” Damian was shaking you awake gently before you shot up, sweat covering your face and tears starting to stream down your face as you latched onto Damian, his arms wrapping around you tightly.

           “You’re okay Y/N, it was just a dream.” Damian said tenderly.

           “Please don’t stop talking.” You whimpered feeling him start to trace patterns ono your back as he started talking again, his hot breath dancing on your shoulder.

           “My love, when we first met I couldn’t believe that you were from a different universe.” Damian chuckled some, “To think you were so accustomed to Gotham and fought that man with such pride, I could have thought you had lived here your entire life. After I- you took me back to the cave, I thought you would have demanded to become a vigilante along with the rest of us.”  “I’m glad that you didn’t, it makes me feel better knowing that you’re safe but can also handle yourself at any given time. I’m so sorry that you had to see what you did in this kind of context.”

           His touch became still on your back before he took a long, drawn out sigh as if he was thinking about what he was going to say, “I love you like I love the stars, they are a small light of mystery and beauty in this world.” He smiled some kissing your shoulder.

           “I love you like the ocean, your thoughts and it infinitely deep and everchanging.” He kissed your other shoulder.

           “I love you like I love stories, complex and an escape from reality.” He kissed your jaw.    

           “You are my sun, the light of my life.” He kissed your other cheek”

           “You’re my rest and comfort” He kissed the tip of your nose, “My first love, not just a meaningless relationship.” He kissed your forehead, “My eyes, seeing the beauty in the world.” He then kissed your eye and smiled as you grinned some, “You are my beauty, something that I adore every day.” He lightly kissed your other eye.

           “But most importantly,” Damian paused as you opened your eyes some, “You are my last love, my beloved, and my entire world.” This time he pulled you in for a real kiss, something that felt like it lasted for days or even centuries.

           “I love you Damian.” You smiled as he fell back onto the pillow, taking you down with him and holding you closely still to his chest as you literally laid on top of him.

           “I love you Y/N.” He smiled running his fingers through your hair and fell asleep quickly after you did.

           You awoke from your sleep, light pouring into the bedroom.

           “Good morning beloved.” You heard Damian mutter, a smile in his voice now with an accent.

           “Good morning Dami.” You replied yawning some.

           “Did you sleep well after everything?” He questioned running his fingers through your hair.

           “I did, thank you.” You laughed, “That is the last time I watch that movie.”

           “I’m glad you’re doing better, it sounded like a terrible thing to see what with now knowing it’s relevancy.” He explained, an arm still wrapped tightly around your waste as he sat up.

           You laid in his lap before sitting up, facing him. You were straddling him, your feet pressing against his hips but only because you had socks on. He kissed you lightly smiling into it. You laid your head on his chest and sighed.

           “Last night felt like a fever dream.” He chuckled at your comment.

           “I assure you beloved, it was not a dream.” Damian said, “The good parts especially weren’t.”

           “I’m glad for that.” You smiled, “Anyways, we should probably get breakfast now.”

           “But what if we stayed in bed?” He asked.

           “What if we quickly ate something and had a relaxing weekend?” You asked.

           “That sounds wonderful.” Damian said as you guys got up to head downstairs and start your weekend.

[damian-dreamz8442]

5x’s Someone Used the Mom-Arm on Damian, +1 time He Did

A bit screwy when it comes to following the canonical timeline but you know what? I do what I want!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some angsty, mostly fluffy, just a bit of batfam fun starring my favorite baby bat! Might be a tad OOC but it’s my first go with all these lovelies and I haven’t gotten the hang of them yet. Give me tiiiiime. 

(Really hecking long. Did not mean for it to be so long. I am so, so sorry.)

i.

Jason worked alone. It wasn’t that he was broody and in denial like a certain someone - not mentioning names - he actually had a reason to work alone. He didn’t go on nightly patrols to keep up appearances. He didn’t drive around in a heated, leather interior, Jason mobile. He didn’t even have a butler who knew first aid. 

Jason’s missions were dangerous, and often times traumatizing. You can imagine why he would be on edge when a freaking ten-year-old with an attitude showed up on the rooftop of one of his stakeouts. 

“Absolutely not.” Jason hissed, grabbing Robin’s shoulder. Damian turned and raised an eyebrow at him. “Tt, please. You have no say in the matter.”

“Like hell I ‘have no say in the matter’. You’re going home right now or, so help me, I’m tying you to that A/C unit. Don’t you have homework? Or normal ten-year-old activities to attend to?”

“This mundane drug-cartel stakeout is an activity fitting for me, my age having nothing to do with my abilities.”

Honestly, would it kill the kid to use some contractions? His full-word responses were giving Jason the impression he was a robot and not his “baby brother”. Speaking of family...

“Where’s Batman? Isn’t he supposed to be looking after you?” Not me? Damian looked away, and it sort-of almost broke the shriveled remainder of Jason’s heart. So Bruce was still a moron. Good to know. 

“Alright kid, stay close.” Jason tried not to notice the way Damian visibly brightened, and then did his best to by hyper-focused. He no longer was suspicious of Damian being a robot. He was just a kid. 

Suddenly, there was movement. There was movement in the warehouse owned by a notoriously dangerous drug-cartel that wasn’t supposed to be making any moves for a few more weeks. Of course they had to move up their schedule. Of course Damian had to fight with Bruce tonight and warrant Jason’s pity. Of course Jason was an idiot, as Damian was already off like a shot. 

Jason sprinted after him, using every curse he knew - he knew enough to keep rambling them until he was close enough to snatch Damian by the scruff of his neck. 

Setting the fighting ball of fury back on the ground, Jason assessed the situation - Dick would be so proud. “Alright, we have to go check it out, but be quiet.” Damian geared up to rush off again before Jason even finished his sentence. Without thinking, Jason’s arm lashed out, it would’ve clothes-lined the kid if they weren’t so close together. As it was it caught Damian in the chest and he let out a whoosh of air, both arms wrapping around Jason’s. He looked up at him, almost-glaring. 

“Quietly, and together.”

ii.

Dick did not like to admit it, but he’d never been the greatest driver. When he donned the cowl, worrying about learning to drive the batmobile hadn’t been his biggest concern. In fact, it wasn’t even on his list of concerns. It wasn’t even on his list of concerns for another time concerns. 

“I’ll drive.” Damian, the adorable little gremlin announced as they put on their costumes. Dick looked up, looked at Alfred’s incredulous expression, and then back at Robin. 

“Absolutely not.” It should’ve gone without saying that Damian was far too young to drive a car, not to mention the batmobile. It had missile launchers while most cars had seat warmers. 

“I can drive.” Was this a serious argument? Damian was making his way to the vehicle and Dick worried that if he didn’t say something soon the little boy would just hop into the driver’s seat. “No. No! Damian, I will be driving.” Dick rushed to put on his other boot, stumbling to catch up. 

Dick was wondering if maybe he should’ve let the kid drive. Damian could barely see over the steering wheel, but he’d probably be a better driver than Dick. 

The batmobile unintentionally drifted another corner, nearly going up onto the sidewalk. A white van of gun-toting penguin goons got further away. Dick was white-knuckling the steering wheel, Damian was seething silently. 

Dick could do this, he could. 

Suddenly, the van lurched to a stop at the edge of the harbor. Dick had been too focused on keeping the car on the road, he hadn’t noticed the asphalt change to wood. He slammed on the brakes, car skidding on damp wood. Why was everything in Gotham always damp? 

Dick’s arm shot out protectively, clamping across Damian’s chest. He knew he was wearing a seatbelt, but couldn’t help the need to make sure he was ok and not flying face-first through the wind screen. 

When the car finally stopped, the brothers shared a look. Damian shoved Grayson’s arm off him with a glare. 

“I think maybe I should drive.”

iii.

Cass looked up from her book only because the noise in the other room had reached a volume where it was impossible to focus on anything else. She didn’t bother hearing the words, just the voices. Ah, Tim had come home. And he was already fighting with everyone’s favorite gremlin, Damian. 

Bruce wasn’t home yet, Alfred was as busy as always, and Duke was probably still at school. Wait, it was a Tuesday. Duke had tutoring today - he’d gotten involved in a mentorship program with younger kids at his school. The other boys would not stop teasing him about following in Bruce’s footsteps, or how they wouldn’t be surprised if he brought home his own Robin. Cass was proud of him. 

That did not change that two of her other brothers were arguing at the top of their lungs and making it impossible for her to read, or reflect on her other family member’s achievements. 

She got up and approached the living room without making a sound, stopping in the doorway. Damian and Tim were yelling, Tim’s arms were in the air, Damian’s cheeks were turning a frustrated shade of pink. She was about to say something diffusing when she saw it. She knew the signs well, was trained to watch out for them. Trained to do them herself. 

Damian squared his posture, leaned on his dominant leg, and slid his left foot out no more than an inch. Tim was still in full swing. Cass shot forward faster than Damian could. She could not bear the thought of hurting her baby brother, but her arm shot out instinctively. 

Damian, who had been in mid-lunge for Tim, was caught square in the diaphragm by Cass’s unmoving appendage. He let out an oomph and fell back onto the carpet. Tim started in surprise, taking in Cass’s sudden appearance. 

“Wow, thanks Cass!” He said, but Cassandra had no use for words. She took in Tim’s casual body language and relieved expression. Then she looked at Damian. He was still on the floor, it had already been five seconds - his average stand-up time. His whole body was tense, controlled, not coiled. He was looking at the floor, his face was still red. 

Oh. Oh no. 

Cassandra’s stance fell and she crouched in front of Damian. He eyes were welling with tears. Maybe she should’ve listened to what Tim said in that argument. 

Tim noticed Cass crouching, staring. “Uh, Cass...?” Too late, she’d already bundled the boy in her arms and stood. Tim took a step back, arms coming up to shield himself from the inevitable next move. He waited for Damian to attempt to break away from Cass, to lash out kicking and screaming, maybe even biting. 

To everyone’s surprise - except Cass, she was never surprised - Damian curled into his sister’s shoulder. She nodded at Tim before moving to leave. 

“No more fighting.”

iv.

Bruce was finally settling back into normal. Well, nothing in Gotham was normal, especially if you were secretly the most well-known vigilante in the city. But, normal to him. 

He was no longer ‘dead’, Dick was no longer ‘dead’ and visitng Gotham regularly, Tim and Duke had settled in to living together with their littlest brother and, oh yeah, he’d gotten Damian back. After months of work and tireless efforts, he could finally hold his baby boy in his arms again. He could ruffle his hair in passing, compare school photos to his own as the boy got older, and bundle him up in a hug when he had nightmares of him being dead. 

And Damian was here, with him. He wasn’t going to be another Jason, another loss of a beautiful soul. He was sitting right next to Bruce on the couch, pencil skittering across a page of his sketchbook. 

Still, it hadn’t been long enough for Bruce’s fears to dissipate. In fact, he doubted they ever would. He would be over-protective of Damian for the rest of his life - even if the young man didn’t want it.  

Breaking the silence, there was a bang at the window. Damian started before setting aside his sketchbook to go check what it was. It was probably Alfred - the cat. Still, images of horrible things went through Bruce’s mind. 

Talia, there to steal Damian away permanently. 

Assassins, back to finish the job. 

Even just a robber taking advantage of a large house smelling like money, who had the element of surprise and a gun. 

Bruce was up before his brain knew what his legs were doing. His arm lurched away from his body, stopping Damian in his tracks. The poor boy walked right into it, rubbing his ribcage with a puzzled expression. 

“I’ll check.” Bruce offered as explanation for the offending appendage, leaving Damian by the couch and pulling back the curtain. Bruce finally let out the breath he was holding at the sight of the fluffy cat on the windowsill. 

v.

“Slow down, don’t rush into things!” Tim hissed, firing his grapple after Damian. He could see the yellow underside of Robin’s cape land on a building ahead of him. 

Tim was more experienced at Gotham thugs, he didn’t blame Damian for not noticing it. Damian was young, and probably trying to prove something to Tim. He was obsessed with proving his worth. He didn’t take the time to smell the air. 

The standard Gotham smog was thick with the smell of burning gasoline. There were promising tendrils of smoke from the building diagonal to Damian. The building he preparing to grapple too. Oh geez. 

Tim ran, he was just fast enough to stick out an arm and block Damian from running forwards and leaping off the edge of the building. 

Damian ran right into his arm. Tim had been expecting him to barrel through it for some reason, maybe because he was so good at fighting or had such bravado. Instead, he reacted the way all eleven-year-olds did. He was knocked back with a grunt, nearly falling over. 

Tim blinked at the strange display of childish behavior as Damian stuck his arms out to regain his balance. He hadn’t even exerted any force on Tim’s arm. His glare after that display lacked any heat, and it was kind of adorable. 

“Damian, pay attention.” Tim gestured at the on-fire building. Suddenly, there were sharp popping and cracking sounds from the smoky warehouse. Tim’s full attention was on it now, and he pulled up the specs of the address. 

It was an old office building but had been abandoned after one of Joker’s attacks damaged the structural integrity. There were signs and bars on every doorway marking it for demolition. He looked over and saw Damian was already doing a read for heat signatures. 

He was, for once, proud of his brother. 

Then Tim noticed something on the specs. The building had an old built-in heating system, attached to a gas-powered generator on the third floor. Hoo boy, it was going to blow. 

After a rather loud bang, Tim acted. For once he didn’t plan out every bad thing this next action could cause. He lunged, using the arm that had still been hanging in the air slightly in front of Damian to grab his little brother and pull him against his chest. He then ducked and pulled his cape around them. Before Damian could recover from the surprise, the building exploded. 

Tim could feel debris bounce off him, though not much. Heat bit at his ankles. Nothing broke through his cape barrier. One hand braced on Damian’s head, he tucked the boy suffocatingly close. Damian didn’t move until the blast had dissipated. 

When it had, Damian shoved hard on his brother’s chest and made a display of brushing himself off. Tim didn’t miss how Damian’s attention was actually on him, quickly assessing him for any injuries. He had none. 

Tim was proud of his brother, for a second time. 

+ (vi.)

Damian did not get along well with most of his siblings, so when the opportunity arose to spend time with one he had actually grown to respect, he took advantage of it. Alfred’s suggestion had made him excited in a way that Mother would’ve thought shameful. Damian did his best not to think that. 

He was nearly bouncing in the backseat of the buick, looking out the window without actually seeing. 

Duke and Damian did not get along when they first met. However, Duke made it clear he was not Robin, nor trying to replace Damian. He was useful in a unique way. He fit in at the manor. He respected Bruce, he even seemed to respect Damian. 

Damian wasn’t so sure he was liked by Duke, but respect was enough. At least, it used to be. 

If respect were enough, would he be listening to Alfred’s show tunes on his way to pick Duke up from school? 

They pulled up to Gotham Academy to see Duke walking out, the bell having just gone. Damian nodded at Alfred’s timing. One of his favorite things about the man was how he always managed to have perfect timing. 

Damian found himself getting out of the car, dangerously close to waving at Duke. Duke saw him and... was that a smile? Damian let out a breath of relief - he’d momentarily been afraid Duke would not be happy to see him. 

When Duke reached him, they were interrupted by a group of teenage boys yelling at them. It took Damian a moment to realize they were yelling at him. 

“Duke, I thought you had too much self-respect to get in a car with some spoiled little rich kid!” Yelled one. Rich? Yes. Spoiled? Well, only recently. 

“The brat’s probably illiterate since he’s too much of a coward to go to school!” Damian knew several languages and was already 3 grades ahead. Couldn’t they think of any better insults?

“Little arabian bastard, did they actually do a DNA test on this one?” Ok, that one stung a bit. Damian was preparing to get back in the car and bristle, perhaps vent to Grayson later. He was not prepared for a low growl to come from Duke. 

“How. Dare. You.” Thomas hissed. Damian turned back to look at him, he was positively seething, fists clenched at his sides. 

“Come on Duke, why hang out with the petty little brat?” 

Duke lurched forwards and Damian’s eyes widened in surprise. Was he actually preparing to defend him? Damian copied a move he’d learned from the rest of his family to diffuse a situation. 

He stuck out his arm, though it only caught Duke in his middle, he looked down. Successfully diffused. Damian was impressed with the immediate effect. 

“They are not worth it, Thomas.” 

Duke nodded and followed Damian into the car. Then he grinned. 

“Back there... you... did you just mom-arm me?”

“What-arm you?!”

Alfred restrained laughter the rest of the way home at Damian’s facial expression while Duke explained the reasoning and use behind the ‘mom-arm’.

[quillsareswords]

Robin, Meet Robin.

Damian Wayne

Requested (anonymous [4]; @annielimajackson ; @crissy1603)

Prompt List // Masterlist (both in bio)

"My name's Robin," you answered politely.

The first time he had heard your name, he hadn't thought too much of it, beside the automatic twitch at hearing his moniker.

It was admittedly a bit difficult for the first few months when you had first started attending Gotham Academy. You were in quite a few of his classes, and for the first few weeks, it took an exhausting amount of awareness and control not to react every time someone addressed you.

When you ended up becoming friends? That was far more difficult. Especially given your similarities in personality. You were often just as bitter and biting as he was, which, coincidentally, is how you bonded: you hated all the same people.

Calling you by your first name always bother him. Not only was it strange addressing someone with the name he thought of ad his own, but to add the fact that it was an entirely secret name made it all the more uncomfortable. This is why he often refers to you by your last name.

[L/N] didn't make it sound as if he was talking about himself in third person.

When he realized he had somehow, accidentally, uncontrollably fallen for you? Oh, it was ironic and painful.

He didn't plan on telling you. He never planned on telling you anything about the mask or his feelings. Maybe it wasn't fair to you. You'd subtly expressed interest before, when you were younger, but now you both stood evenly at seventeen, and you'd gone on dates with other men.

In any case, he refused to tell you anything. He had a plan. A plan that meant you stayed friends until you were utterly sick of him, and you'd never know a thing.

And yet, it all came crashing down in a blazing ball of fire one stormy night in May.

You had been in the sitting room of Wayne Manor with him. Papers and projects scattered around the floor you sat on and the couch beside you, carnage of the joint effort of trying to finish as many papers and projects as you could before the school year was up. You'd been here since noon, and now it was nearing eleven. You had decided hours ago to take up the guest room adjacent to his balcony tonight.

Presently, you were sitting beside him on the couch, papers shoved to the side for the time being, eyes glued to the plasma flat screen mounted to the wall.

The wreckage of the Joker's latest attack was displayed on the news channel, the reported speaking rapidly as words of warning scrolled across the screen, all screaming to stay out of the mile surrounding the harbor.

You were still on the phone with your mother, making sure she made it out of the bowling alley safely.

"Okay. Tell Dad I said goodnight," he hears you say. "Love you too. Bye."

You withdraw the device from your ear, a low breath parting your lips. You click the big red button on your screen, leaning your head on Damian's shoulder.

It's an action that sets his skin on fire, makes his heart beat just a little harder. Oh, how badly he wishes to comfort you properly, with an arm around you and a kiss on your forehead.

"Mom made it home," you report quietly, eyes jumping back up to the television, phone dropping in to your lap. "She said the streets are as empty as she's ever seen them." Your tone is grave.

"Good. People should be staying inside."

You don't reply. For a few long moments, you sat in silence together.

Then, the double doors to the kitchen burst open, and Tim races into the room. "Robin!" You both whip around to face him.

"What?"

"What?"

He realizes his mistake a beat too late. He can feel the confusion in your stare, but Tim continues with an apologetic expression and a hard tone. "Bruce wants us downstairs A.S.A.P."

"Tell him I'm on my way."

You look between the two of them as they move, Tim bolting back through the kitchen, and Damian standing from the couch.

He's aiming to get out of the room before you can put it together, but he should have known better than to think it would take you that long.

You reach out, catching him but the hem of his tee shirt. "Damian?"

He turns to face you, green-blue eyes locking with yours. He finds confusion and a hint of fear. It's understandable: you are sitting in a seemingly easy target during a ruthless Joke attack, and he's leaving you here alone.

He moves closer, dropping to his knee in front of you. He trades your grip on his shirt for a grip on his hand. "I will be back. I'll explain then, alright?"

"But Damian-"

"Please," he beg, "trust me."

You hesitate. Eyes dart toward the television. The wreckage is ready beyond measure, and the body count is only going to get higher. Your eyes move back to meet his. You nod twice. "Okay."

You could say that plan of his was a phoenix. Sure, it burnt up in flames, but, a sunrise later, it was revised incredibly.

For starters, no longer were you clueless. Now you knew damn near everything.

For another, you were no longer just friends. The moment a confession of love rolled off his tongue, you'd had half a mind to slap him silly. You the went on to explain that, yes, you'd gone on dates, and you had called one or two of them a boyfriend for a short amount of time, but you'd only been trying to move on from him.

It was a moment he had wanted to simultaneously sing with joy and scream with frustration.

Months passed comfortably now, without the strife of secrets and names tripping off tongues.

He had taken to calling you any bird name he could think of, besides Robin. You'd heard too many to remember; bluejay, parrot, mockingbird, cardinal, finch, sparrow -- if you'd seen it, you'd heard it. Though finally, he did settle on one he seemed to like the best.

"Hummingbird," he groans, "please turn that dreadful nonsense off."

You crossed your arms, leaning back against his headboard. "Nonsense?" You freign offence. "The Marvolus Misadventures of Flapjack is art, you uncultured acorn."

He turns to look at you over his shoulder, combined the glow of two computer monitors alluminating his features unevenly. "What did you call me?"

To any sane person, his tone was an obvious threat. A warning, if you will. To you, it was a challenge of power. A question of weather or not you had the balls to call him anything other than royalty.

"An uncultured acorn," you repeat.

He sighs heavily, turning back to face the left screen, skimming the panel of images, stills from security cameras. "I've been to more countries than you could name," he reminds. "Most women in this city would kill to sit in your place."

You uncross your arms, repositioning yourself so you lay on your stomach, your head propped up on your hands at the foot of his kind size bed. "Sure, but you can't wash my sink out of your sheets, so you haven't got a choice, do you, Feathers?"

You can hear him chuckle adoringly, followed by the low, loving mutter of, "No, but I can burn them."

With the nicknames practically set in stone, the two of you were set apart easily. However, it wasn't quite as simple for most of his family.

Alfred, ever formal and polite, addresses you as he always has: Miss [L/N].

Bruce calls you by your first name, though there isn't any confusion as to who he's talking to, as he uses a much firmer tone when addressing Damian with is moniker.

Dick doesn't find any difficulty in keeping g your original nickname. Birdy, he calls you. He says it reminds him of a younger you (likely because that's when he first gave you the title, much to a 10 year old Damian's dismay).

Jason, however, struggles greatly. You weren't introduced before you and Damian we're dating (he was officially dead, and because you didn't know about the masks, you couldn't know about him), so he didn't feel he had any place to give you a nickname. He also calls Damian by his hero name fairly often, using the same tone as he does for you. It was months before he finally gave up, forever referring to you as "the demon's sidekick" or "she-bird". Including when he speaks directly to you.

Tim nearly never calls Damian by his mantle, so he doesn't particularly see any reason to call you anything other than your name, despite Damian twitching every single time. It was only recently he's started calling you by your middle name instead, after figuring out that Damian was slowly becoming desensitized to anyone calling for him on patrol.

His sisters, though you don't see them quite as often, have cycled through too many nicknames and random words that you gave up keeping track.

Outside of his family, Jon is one of the only one you see on a regular basis. He's always thought the whole thing is hilarious. He's taken to calling you "moroon", an inside joke the three of you share that relates to an ever present memory involving an eggplant, a purple shirt, and an entire pack of Crayola colored markers.

Had he known what he knows now, this would have been a much different story. Had he known just how much the name of a common bird would ever hope to impact his life, maybe -- just maybe -- he would have paid a little more mind when he first heard you say it so long ago.

[meangirlsx]

So I saw Mean Girls last night and I have some things I wanted to share with you all:

Everyone is hotter in person

Literally everyone

It shouldn’t be possible and yet it is

We know Barrett is a belting queen but HOLY SHIT

She make it looks like it’s easy and she sounds even more amazing live

She’s adorable and hilarious and intimidating all at the same time

Everything about Erika just screams Disney princess

Her voice, her smile, her mannerisms, her personality, everything

Grey accidentally spit in her face at the beginning of the show and she reacted in character like she didn’t want to make him feel bad but she couldn’t not wipe it off

All of the dancing is INCREDIBLE

Every single member of the ensemble puts their whole heart and soul in it

I want their wig master to do my hair every day

Seriously there were so many gorgeous hairstyles and specifically a lot of impressive braids

I wouldn’t mind the costumer dressing me every day, too

Devon was on for Gretchen and she was actual human sunshine

She was so adorable and SO outstanding

Jonalyn is also actual human sunshine

And lowkey she has amazing abs

Becca was on in the ensemble and she is SUCH an incredible dancer

Ixchel was also on and she is totally hilarious

We know Taylor is also a belting queen but HOLY SHIT 2.0

She just wails on her notes and makes it look effortless

And god she embodies Regina so well with the strut and the stage presence and you don’t want to look away

When the Plastics do their slow-mo walk in the mall, Kate pretends to roll her ankle very dramatically and then signals to the audience that she’s fine, all totally still in slow-mo

The cast has said they can see everyone in the audience because the set has so many LED screens

We were in the front row and I can confirm they really do look at you

Kate and I stared at each other for a few moments when she was laying upside down on the floor of Regina’s bedroom and truly I have been blessed

She is lethally funny but also gives Karen a really grounded, authentic feel

The ensemble talks about how their characters have story arcs throughout the show that can change, like one week two characters will be dating and the next week you could see them break up

You can definitely follow these if you’re looking for them

Like Riza’s character, Sophie, had a huge crush on Aaron at the beginning of the show

And I think it was Jonalyn and Brendon who kissed in the school hallway like halfway through the show

They might have tracks on the floor to help guide the desks and other smaller set pieces that roll on and off but the aim is just so impressive

Like someone will just push a couch off toward someone in the wings ready to grab it and they never miss

They also throw so many different props to each other and I know that takes a lot of practice and they will drop them at some point but it’s so coordinated it’s insane

Nothing can prepare you for seeing Sexy Abraham Lincoln and Sexy Corn in person

Or for seeing Sexy Eleanor Roosevelt smack her own ass tbh

Erika and Barrett had a fight with either imaginary swords or light sabers during Revenge Party (at least I think that’s when it was)

Erika puts so much humor and emotion into her little sung narration moments

After the Mathletes try to rap at the talent show and Principal Duvall shuts them down and they’re goofing around for a few more seconds, Nikhil looked at me and quietly said, “Call me” and then did the same to another girl a few seats over

When they’re displaying photos of the disaster ending of “Rockin’ Around the Pole,” it looked like they just photoshopped Devon’s face onto Ashley’s body, but I could be wrong about that

We never really see Regina being friendly and appreciative with Gretchen, but after Cady’s taken over and Gretchen has her reprise of “What’s Wrong With Me?” outside of the school, Cady comes back on and asks if she’s coming with her, and Erika has this sweet smile and fondness in her voice that’s a nice distinction from Regina’s reign

“Whose House Is This?” really is that lit and wild

Kyle’s part in “More Is Better” sounded exactly like it does on the album except for one note at the very end

Kyle gives off such a strong awkward-but-genuinely-sweet sort of Disney prince vibe as Aaron

I want to know how Taylor manages to throw the papers so perfectly in “World Burn” so that they cascade back down because it’s magical

After Regina’s hit by the bus and Janis and Damian are talking to the audience, when they bring up that Regina was technically dead for 15 seconds, Barrett just keeps making faces and gestures as if to say, “That’s what I’ve been saying!”

Also other than those asides to the audience, there’s almost no time that Barrett and Grey have onstage where they’re not touching each other in some way

And it’s almost always really cuddly, like hanging over each other’s shoulders and hugging

Their comedic timing together is truly unparalleled 

Grey really just gives it his all and puts his entire goddamn heart on that stage

And oh my god he really is That Funny

And afterwards, at the stage door, he was just so nice to everyone

You can tell he really loves the fanbase

Kyle was also really nice

Let’s be honest everyone who came out was really nice

After my dad took a picture of me with Kyle and we thanked him, Kyle put on this adorable goofy grin and said, “Thanks, Dad!”

Nikhil asked the name of every single person who wanted to interact with him and he would repeat it back, usually with some nice comment about the name like he just wants everyone to know he appreciates them

Jonalyn was so sweet and she gives off such a Disney princess vibe, too, and you can tell she has so much love to share with everyone

People always scream when a cast member comes out to stage door, but when Devon walked out, it was like twice as loud

Devon’s immediate response was to give this huge smile and wave to everyone and really excitedly shout, “Hi, guys!”

She asked everyone she talked to how they were doing and genuinely wanted to know the answer

Collins and Riza also came out and were really friendly with everyone

That’s everyone who came out to stage door

Seriously the show was phenomenal

Every cast member was stunning and every technical aspect of the show was kind of mind-blowing

I swear I’ve never felt more bi than watching this entire cast

If anyone needs a friend to talk to about this show at any point, I’m officially more obsessed than I already was and am literally always happy to talk about it

[pinkrae]

Can’t fake love || Chapter 9

The fight for the soul

--- Previous

The room was mostly dark, with candles scattered all around, lighting the room just enough to see one another. They were all sat in a circle, in the middle of which a symbol was drawn on the floor. None of them quite knew what to expect. Some were skeptic about this even working, some were worried that this plan would fail just like all the other ones they had tried so far. But everyone was dead quiet. At this point, they were willing to try anything at all.

A spell was cast and the symbol lit up. For a while, the room was still incredibly silent with the exception of the silent otherworldly murmuring of Zatanna as she continued the spell. It felt like everyone was holding their breath as they waited for something to happen. The air was so dense you could cut it with an axe. It was the fourth… fifth? Time that they were doing this already. 

Jaime argued that if the spell didn’t work the first time around, it wouldn’t work for the next three either. But Damian insisted to try again. And again. And again. He wasn’t going to give up this easily when this was probably their best shot at finding her. And at saving her. There was no way he was giving up on this plan just yet.

“Damian…” Kory whispered, leaning closer to the boy, “I think it’s--”

“Not yet, Kory,” he was quick to interrupt her, his green eyes never leaving the changing rays of light in front of him as he desperately tried to find something that wasn’t there before.

The Tamaranean sighed softly and sat up straight again, though her face expressed concern. For Damian. For Raven. For this whole thing. It felt like they had been at it for hours and with little to no results. Whenever they thought they found something, it disappeared almost immediately and their hopes were shattered over and over again. But he didn’t want to give up. He couldn’t. 

“Just a little longer,” a quiet voice grabbed Kory’s attention and she looked over to Gar who gave her a small smile as a silent request to give it a bit more time. Even in this dimly lit room she could still see that there was hope in his eyes too. They all wanted to find her. And despite how baffling the idea sounded at the time, she was certain Zatanna knew what she was doing, so if there was anyone who could help them, it had to be her. 

“Zatanna, is that… it?” Donna’s voice suddenly made everyone jerk up and look at where the girl was pointing. Everyone released a quiet gasp when they saw a levitating orb amidst ever changing the rays of light.

“It is,” Zatanna nodded and frowned a little bit, readjusting her focus, “now we have to hope we don’t lose it this time before I determine where exactly she is.” 

The orb seemed to be constantly changing shape and disappearing, like a beeping dot on a radar screen, but Zatanna did her best to keep track of it.

“Why does it keep doing that?” Kory asked the magician.

“I think… She’s trying to stay on this plane.” She responded. 

“What do you mean this plane?” Gar asked, slightly confused by the phrasing.

“Her aura disappearing and reappearing like that means that she’s trapped between two planes of existence. Dimensions, if you will,” Zatanna explained as an idea crossed her mind.

“Stand aside.” She instructed the Titans, who got up immediately and stepped back, as she cast a spell that made a holographic-looking map appear right above Zatanna’s symbol on the floor. But it didn’t look like any map any of them had ever seen before. Now, every time the orb disappeared from the light rays, it appeared in the map below it, making her release a hum in confirmation of her suspicion. All the while, the team just exchanged worried and confused look among one another, waiting for an explanation. 

“She’s stuck between Earth and… purgatory,” Zatanna stated, seeing the confusion in the room. “Since she’s neither alive nor dead, she can’t go to heaven. Or hell. But she’s forcing herself to stay here. That’s why she’s falling in and out of existence.”

“Great, we have that settled, can you find her now?” Damian was glad they finally got a stable connection, so to speak, but he was getting impatient and just wanted this to be done and over with. Zatanna nodded and tried to pinpoint where on Earth Raven was currently at. And a tense silence settled in once again until the others noticed a frown forming on her face.

“Is there a reason why she would be in the Middle East?” Zatanna asked suddenly and Damian frowned.

“Probably for the same reason I’ve been keeping an eye on that place.” He replied and saw it in her face that she expected him to elaborate, but, honestly, he didn’t feel like it was the best idea right now. “Explanations can wait, we need to get there.”

“Is there a way we can contain a soul somewhere?” Donna asked and looked at Zatanna.

“There can be a way, yeah.” The woman nodded after a moment of thinking.

“Nrut eht pam otni a ssapmoc!” Zatanna cast a spell and the holographic map shrunk down to the size of a compass, levitating right above her right palm. 

“Maybe we should get some backup before going there,” Kory suggested.

“Yeah, if Raven shows up… God knows what could happen,” Jaime finally spoke up after being quiet this whole time. Of course, no one wanted to admit that they were scared of the possibility to face their friend, but the reality was what it was right now. Anything could happen and they weren’t sure they were ready for it yet.

“We’ll do it when we get there,” Damian responded dryly before shifting his gaze to the magician again. “We have no time to lose. Any chance you can help us with getting to where she is?”

Zatanna smiled a little with a nod and cast another spell: “Deal su ot s’nevaR luos!” And with that a portal opened right next to her and everyone walked through, stepping onto a very familiar place to most of them once they were on the other side of it. This place brought back memories. And it was weird to be here again.

“It’s straight ahead of us,” Zatanna said once she came out of the portal as well, oblivious to the inner tensions among the team members. Quickly pulling themselves together again, they followed the marker on their magical compass. But the further they walked, the more it seemed like something was off.

“Guys, do you remember this place looking like this?” Jaime asked somewhat unsurely.

“I mean, it looks the same, but… It feels different,” Korry added with a frown on her face as she looked around.

“It’s giving me the heebie jeebies,” Gar shook a little as he felt a shiver down his spine.

The team exchanged words about how creepy the place felt and something about dark forces surrounding it, while Damian was deep in thought about how he could’ve missed all this. Nothing in any of the surveillance cameras ever changed. Checking it even now, everything seemed to be in order. God damn it! How could he have been so stupid? Of course she’d hide her tracks! It seemed like full demon mode Raven had quite a few tricks up her sleeve. And he didn’t like it. This meant she was even more unpredictable than he had anticipated. But then… 

A sudden stop.

A collective gasp.

“Well, I was wondering when you’d all show up,” Seeing the group in the distance, a mocking laugh came from a certain red-skinned girl, currently sitting on a chair on top of the hill, making it look almost like a throne. But it wasn’t the most shocking thing about it. The more frightening fact was that she was surrounded by hundreds of demons at the bottom of the hill with a portal opened behind her where more demons kept coming from.

“She’d been raising an army this whole time,” Kory gasped, looking at the horde.

“How did we miss this?!” Jaime exclaimed. “Robin, how did we miss this?”

“This place is surrounded by magic,” Zatanna was quick to explain. “Can’t be detected by normal cameras.”

Jaime cursed under his nose, while Kory tried to reach Dick to call for backup because at this point it was crystal clear that they would need it, but to no avail. “Comms don’t seem to work either.”

“Great,” Damian gritted his teeth and looked directly at Raven who easily caught his stare as well. Even hidden behind his mask, she could feel the hurt and rage in his eyes. 

“That’s why the soul’s roaming around too,” Zatanna then mused with a hint of sadness in her voice, looking up at a small glow in the foggy sky. “It’s too weak to pass through the barrier.”

“Then we have to break it,” Damian said, looking up as well.

“The only way to do that might have to be--”

“I know,” he frowned at her and spoke with determination, facing forwards again. “We will break it.” 

If there really was no other way this could go, the least they could do was to save her soul. He made a promise and he intended to keep it. But he wasn’t going to abandon the hope to save her till his very last breath.

--- Next chapter already available here

[violetsmoak]

Philtatos [7/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20101543/chapters/47630773

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: #fate #fatal flaw #oracle #reincarnation #secrets #undying love

First Chapter

Author's Note(s): Sorry for the delay guys. Between trying to find a place to live, and dealing with a family member with Alzheimers, the past day or so has kind of sucked. But I did finally get some time to myself to finish this chapter, so I hope you enjoy! 

Much of the dialog and imagery of Jason’s flashback is based on actual lines from The Iliad and Madeline Miller's novel The Song of Achilles. If you're looking to cry, read the latter to the end.

________________________________________________________________

Tim stares at the screen of his tablet, reading the information but none of it registering. He’s been at this too long.

Crime scene photos from the GCPD’s system and coroners reports from half a dozen murder-suicides that took place throughout the city in the past week, each one more brutal than the last. One guy took a meat pounder to his girlfriend’s head; another a fire poker to his husband’s face.

I wish I could get out there and investigate the scenes myself.

He’s been effectively benched and it’s starting to give him cabin fever, even though he knows it’s important to stay with Jason right now.

Bruce took off to Amsterdam about an hour again; like Tim, he prefers to retrace crimes from their origin. It’s how they find clues the cops miss. Dick’s doing the same right now in Gotham, revisiting all the crime scenes with Duke by his side in case his retrocognition can help them any. He has no idea where Steph is tonight, but if Barbara’s radio silence is any indicator, they’re probably working something big together.

Jason’s been sitting beside him on the couch in the study, three separate books open on his lap and a notepad where he’s jotting down various comparisons of the information.

(Because “I’m not defacing a first edition version of Les Métamorphoses, especially not one with etchings by Picasso, Tim. It’s just not done.”)

The first hour he managed to keep absorbed in his task, but Tim’s noticed him stopping more often between annotations, rubbing at a spot on his neck or over the spot in his shoulder where he was shot.

Whenever he notices Tim looking, they both immediately look away and go back to work; but after another period of research—getting shorter and shorter after each pause—Jason’s back to twitching and looking guilty.

He’s going to have his neck rubbed raw in another hour.

Despite the fact the whole thing was Tim’s idea, it’s harder to remain unaffected about the need for physical contact than he thought. And Jason notices pretty fast that Tim isn’t as at ease with the ‘treatment’ plan as he’s been insinuating.

He thought Jason putting his arm around his shoulders earlier was mostly to bother Dick, whose attempts at protectiveness had just made the situation more awkward. But when Jason does it again later, unthinkingly draping himself around Tim’s shoulder, Tim can’t help going stiff as a board.

Jason pulls away immediately, as if he’s been burned. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s…fine.”

“Stop lying, obviously you’re not,” Jason answers, shifting to the other edge of the couch to put at least three feet between them. “You don’t have to force yourself to do this. I can get through it without you.”

Tim sets aside his tablet. “Because that worked out so well the first time you tried it.”

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter. I’m more than capable of figuring out how to get through this without using your skin as a security blanket.” He pauses. “That came out so much disturbing than I intended.”

“How was it ever not going to sound disturbing?” Tim wonders, and then sighs. “Look, I don’t mind. The longer you stay in a healthy headspace, the more time we have to find a cure.”

“Yeah, but if you’re so friggen uncomfortable with it—”

“I’m not!”

“Bullshit.”

“No, really, it’s fine. It’s my choice.”

“Yeah, say that without flinching and maybe I’ll believe you,” Jason mutters, shoulders slumping. “If you’re going to freeze up every time I go near your personal bubble, screw it. Like I don’t feel like enough of a creep…”

Tim can see how much he hates this, the fact that he’s making Tim uncomfortable—the fact that making Tim uncomfortable upsets him at all. He’s never cared before; it’s always been a kind of unofficial hobby.

But now that his brain and hormones are becoming compromised, it’s more important to him than ever not to cross boundaries. Or at least what he perceives as boundaries.

Tim bows his head.

He’s been managing his feelings about all this by remaining clinical, dividing him from the particulars of the situation the way he’s always done. It’s the sort of thing that works on hard cases, the kind involving little kids or serial murders. He forgot that it doesn’t work so well when dealing with people.

Communication, he remembers Steph chiding him during one argument. Honesty.

Nodding to himself, Tim forces himself to appear relaxed.

“It’s not like that. I just—I’ve never been really good at all the…” He waves his hand, searching for the words, “…physical intimacy stuff.”

Jason blinks, not having expected that. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Tim shifts. “I know it’s hard to tell when I’m next to Dick or Steph or someone who…”

“Who has personal space issues?”

“Yeah. But with them I’ve gotten used to it. But with you, you’ve never exactly…”

“Put hands on you except to lay you out flat on the floor?” Jason suggests, and then turns red. “I mean beating the crap out of you! Not the other thing that…! Fuck, he wasn’t kidding about the innuendo thing, was he?”

“Oh, I don’t know. If not for everything going on, I’m pretty sure you’d still be making jokes to make everyone uncomfortable,” Tim muses, his own ears warm at the accidental image Jason’s words provided.

Jason tilts his head to one side, and then nods. “Fair.”

They smirk at each other for a moment. Then something thoughtful passes across Jason’s face.

“What?”

“When you say physical intimacy,” Jason starts slowly, “d’you mean just occupying someone else’s personal space, or…?”

He trails off, and it takes a few seconds before Tim interprets the meaning. His cheeks may actually be on fire right now. “Uh…”

“You’re kidding.”

“Well, the first one’s always kind of an issue,” Tim mumbles, looking away, “so I don’t really—like I said, I’m not used to anyone wanting to get close to me, let alone actually trying it. Which always made everything kind of awkward.”

“And the second thing?”

“…that made it awkward, too.”

“So, you haven’t—? Like, not even with Blondie?”

There’s incredulity there, but no judgment, which is somewhat of a relief; he’s too used to other guys looking like he should have his man card revoked for not pouncing on a gorgeous girl like Steph.

As if anyone would ever get away with pouncing without getting a brick to the face.

But Jason seems genuinely curious, which makes Tim want to try to answer.

“No?” Tim winces at the uncertainty in the word and glances up to make sure there’s still no judgment on Jason’s face. “Not because—not because I didn’t—or she wasn’t—we fooled around, but never—she’d already done the whole unwanted pregnancy thing. We wanted to be careful and wait until we were both sure we wanted to. And then she died, then came back because she wasn’t really dead, and we broke up. But it was a long time ago, and then we never got another opportunity because—well, there was Bruce dying and not dying, and other people dying, and then losing Robin, and just…” He lets his words trail as he realizes he’s been babbling. “Sorry. Babbling.”

Jason makes a dismissive gesture. “Nah, it’s cute.”

There’s a moment where they both process his words, and then Jason’s rubbing at his neck and Tim’s coughing because he thinks he might have choked on his tongue.

“I’m going to…” Jason stands, starts rummaging through his pockets, and then jerks his head toward the balcony, “Smoke break.”

“Right,” Tim answers, carefully neutral.

Tim doesn’t complain about the smoking, even though he hates it. Jason’s under enough stress right now, if the nicotine helps calm him even a little a bit, Tim can put up with it for the short-term.

Not like he’s going to be around once we fix all this.

He lets Jason make his escape and for the first time since the conversation began, takes a full breath.

It’s just Eros’ blood. He doesn’t actually think that.

The truth doesn’t make his heart stop fluttering.

“Fuck,” he mutters, letting his face fall into his hand; he rubs at his face in frustration.

“Wallowing in your failure as usual, Drake?”

He jumps and then shoots a glare across the room at the pint-sized bane of his existence.

“Why aren’t you out terrorizing the streets of Gotham?”

“I’m here to ensure the present status quo endures and neither you nor Todd end up compromised,” Damian retorts. Then Tim blinks, the kid smirks at him. “I’m babysitting you two morons.”

“Well my life just hit another low…”

“I have also been doing research of my own to pass the time, since my talents are being ignored in favor of mundane surveillance tasks,” the boy continues. “I was intrigued at Todd’s apparent symptoms of xenoglossia and decided to peruse the security footage to see what might have precipitated it.”

“…And?”

“It wasn’t until you arrived that it started. He called you philtatos. It means ‘most beloved’.”

Tim tries not to choke. “How do you know that?”

“Anyone who has read the Iliad in the original Greek could tell you that,” Damian drawls.

“Well, excuse me, I had an education meant for this millennium.” Tim tries not to croak, running his hands through his hair in frustrations. The strands are stringy today and he tries to remember when he washed it last was; probably before Jason was brought to the manor.

“Odd that he’d call you that, though,” Damian continues. “He has that habit of assigning the most absurd monikers to anyone within a ten-foot radius. It’s not exactly the type of thing he would say. And to you of all people.”

Tim frowns, ignoring the insult. “You think it’s a symptom of the infection?”

“Perhaps. The term itself, or the tongue in question. In case you were curious, which I doubt since unless it involves a computer your interest becomes depressingly cursory, the language Todd was mumbling in while drooling on your shoulder was Archaia Makedonike.”

“English, brat.”

“Ancient Macedonian, you classless twit. The language itself was prevalent in the Hellenistic period before giving way to its superior successor, Koine, when it was brought by the military forces of Alexander the Great.”

“Conqueror of the known world at the time—why am I not surprised you’re so well-versed.”

“Tt. Of course I am. As a child, Mother brought me on a journey to follow in his footsteps along what was once his Empire.”

You’re still a child, Tim doesn’t say, because he just doesn’t have the energy for the inevitable resulting fight. “Sounds like quality family bonding time.”

“It was meant to show me all that could be achieved in a short lifetime,” Damian sniffs. “And what could be lost just as easily.”

“Because he died young?”

“Not only that, but because of his rather questionable decisions. Like pouring a considerable amount of his treasury into a funeral monument for one of his generals. He was so besotted with the man he died less than a year later. It’s disgraceful.”

“Right, because caring about someone is a bad thing.”

“It is possible to care without being ruled by one’s emotions.”

“Yeah, you’re such an excellent example of that,” Tim deadpans. At Damian’s glare, he makes a defensive gesture with his hand. “What do you want me to say? People do weird stuff for the people they care about.”

Damian narrows his eyes. “Evidently.”

He continues to watch Tim in a way he’s not entirely sure he likes. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“It sounds like you’ve got something to say.”

Jason chooses that moment to return, although he halts in the door when he notices the way Tim and Damian are glaring at one another. “Am I walking in on something here?”

“I was simply demonstrating Drake’s continued ignorance in several arenas,” Damian replies, and pushes past Jason. “I’ve wasted enough of my day pandering to your nonsense. Shout if you need help.” His gaze lingers on Jason with disgust. “Or possibly a firehose.”

“Was that demon-speak for ‘make good choices’?” Tim calls after him and noticing Jason’s bemused expression offers a half shrug. “He will do great things.”

“See, I knew all that getting on his case was just your way of showing you like him,” Jason teases and settles back on the couch. Much closer to Tim this time, body angled toward him; he can smell leather and the acrid smell of cigarettes.

He forces a grin, “Tell no one.”

“Lips are sealed,” Jason replies, abruptly stretching out and tucking a stray strand of hair behind his ear.

The gesture would normally make Tim want to melt, to bend closer to Jason as well; at first it does, but the reason for it remains starkly in his mind, and instead his skin crawls.

The study suddenly seems too small, too close, magnified by Jason’s focus on him.

Need a distraction.

“There’s a lot of CCTV footage to go through,” he says, clearing his throat and standing quickly. He ambles over to the desk to grab Bruce’s laptop, holding up to Jason. “Feel like going through half?”

“Not particularly, but only because that’s the most boring job ever.”

“And reading scholarly articles dissecting the exact syntax of some ancient play isn’t?”

“Don’t act like if it was Klingon or something you wouldn’t have a field day.”

But Jason accepts the computer, putting his books and notes to one side. Tim exhales a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

They sit in silence again for a while, one that’s somehow more tense than earlier. Tim’s stomach keeps leaping, waiting for the next time Jason needs to reach out to him, simultaneously craving and dreading it.

So it’s no surprise that he physically jolts when Jason suddenly announces, “I think I’ve got something.”

“What?” he asks quickly, hoping his reaction wasn’t that noticeable. He moves to peek over Jason’s shoulder, considering a timestamped video of an Upper East Side apartment. There’s a crowd gathered outside as paramedics load two covered stretchers into an ambulance.

“Right there.” Jason points at a grainy image in the upper left corner, almost obscured by the lighting. “See this woman?”

Tim studies the image of the woman in a leather jacket and skin-tight pants. “Yeah?”

“That’s Carrie Cutter.”

“Carrie…” Tim consults his mental rolodex. “Carrie Cutter as in Cupid?”

“Yep.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. I’m pretty familiar with anyone Roy might have had beef with down in his corner of the world. You know, just in case.”

Which is a smart thing to do, really, considering old enemies always have a tendency to return when they’re least expected.

And just…great. Because Carrie Cutter, along with being crazy to the point of earning honorary Arkham status, also happens to be a genetically enhanced special-ops soldier that knows how not to be found. If she’s got her hands on divine weapons somehow, it’s going to make apprehending her much more of a challenge.

Especially those weapons. If any of us get tagged with those, we’re done. I’ve been around when the Family gets turned against each other, and it’s never pretty.

The memory of Joker’s macabre dinner party still makes him gag reflexively.

Tim leans forward, balancing his weight on the desk with his palms, and studies the image again. “Could be a coincidence.”

“Has anything about all this felt coincidental to you?”

“Touché.” Tim shakes his head. “Damn. So, Cupid stole Cupid’s bow and arrows?”

What even is my life anymore?

“And the MO makes sense now, if you think about it,” Jason points out; he absently starts to rub the back of Tim’s hand with his thumb. Tim swallows and fights the conflicting urge to jerk his hand away or lean further into Jason’s space. “She has that whole crazed ‘if-I-can’t-be-happy-no-one-can’ thing going on. If she’s got Eros’ diviners, she could accomplish whatever she wants pretty easily.”

“Does she still have that obsession with Green Arrow?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Maybe we should let Oliver know she’s heading his way.”

“Or not.”

“Jason!”

“No, seriously, hear me out, this isn’t me hating on Queen.”

“Sure…”

“Look at the pattern of robberies and deaths—if she’s headed out west, she’s taking the long way and at a slow stroll. There are tons of direct flights from Amsterdam to Star City. She could be there in like a day if that’s her goal, but she’s moving so slowly—based on the places she’s hit, and how long it takes her to get there, I’d say she’s driving.” He traces a line from Europe to the East Coast. “And possibly taking a boat. Not the Carnival way, either. I know people like to go incognito sometimes, but even that’s Bruce levels of paranoid.”

“And he once rode a goat truck across the border of Qurac…”

“Also, there are more direct routes from here to the West Coast.”

“So why come to Gotham at all,” Tim says, and steeples his fingers. “Either she’s taking her time for a reason, or she was never heading for Star City.”

“Then what does she want?”

“And how has she dropped so completely off the radar since she got here?”

Jason shrugs and leans back, stretching his arms and yawning; his arm brushes against Tim’s shoulder on its way down.

“When’s the last time you slept?” Tim asks quickly, wishing his voice didn’t sound like it was squeaking.

“Like sleep or power naps? Because I’ve had a lot of those.”

Tim rolls his eyes. “If you don’t get some rest we’ll have more to worry about than accidental innuendos. You should get some sleep.”

“The irony of you telling anyone that…”

“I’ve never had to fight off an Olympian bloodborne disease.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not exactly comfortable falling asleep right now. I keep seeing weird shit.”

“Like what?”

“I…can’t even remember. The whole thing just gives me a bad feeling.”

“You want to stay in my room?” This time it’s Jason who jumps and shoots Tim a panicked look. “Not like that! I just figured; it’s got all my stuff there. People sometimes take comfort in objects, and I just figured maybe being surrounded by my stuff would help. And I somehow don’t see you as the teddy bear type.”

Jason barks out a surprised laugh. “Hey, leave Paddington out of this!”

“You didn’t actually have a stuffed toy named Paddington!”

“Not just a stuffed toy, I’ll have you know, it was actually a Paddington Bear,” Jason retorts. “My mother used to read the stories to me, and she found him in a second-hand shop the Christmas before she…” Jason trails off, the levity in his face smoothing into careful blankness. “Anyway. I pretended like I was too old for stuff like that, but I was just happy she was lucid enough to even do Christmas that year.”

Tim can’t help the way his eyes soften at the story. He’s never heard Jason say anything about his life before Bruce, at least nothing personal.

Jason seems to notice the scrutiny, because he looks away. “Anyway. Not important. But we can try that whole…staying in your room thing. It would be nice to catch some Zs.”

They pack up their things and head down the hall to Tim’s room; all the while, Tim is trying to figure out what possessed him to suggest this. It’s true, comfort objects are a thing, but he could just as easily have brought a whole bunch of his stuff to Jason’s room for the same effect.

Except Jason doesn’t go near his room unless he’s unconscious and Bruce puts him there to recover.

He flicks on the light as Jason brushes past. “I haven’t been here in a while, so Alfred’s probably changed the sheets and everything. Good to go if you want to sleep.”

“And, uh…you’ll stay, right?”

“Yeah,” Tim replies softly. “At least until you fall asleep, then I have to take care of a few things. Alfred will probably nag me to eat and shower and changes clothes or something.”

And I need to make a trip home to have a conversation with my unwanted houseguest.

“Oh, the horror,” Jason says neutrally, though he starts rubbing at the back of his neck again, irritating the already red skin there.

Tim reaches over automatically and moves his hand away. A week ago, doing that would have probably gotten him punched; now Jason simply lets him, his body unconsciously leaning toward him.

“Listen, if you wake up and I’m not in here, don’t freak out. I’m probably in the kitchen being force-fed grits or something. And if I’m not, just call me and I’ll find you. We can even FaceTime while you wait.”

“Whatever,” Jason says, trying to sound nonchalant. He plops himself down on Tim’s bed, then frowns down at the bedsheet. “Holy shit this is soft.”

“It should be, it’s got a thread count of a thousand.”

“Spoiled ass rich boy,” Jason mutters, lying back on the bed. A surprised and pleased expression appears on his face. “Okay you know what? Forget obsessing over you, I want your bedroom set.”

This time it’s Tim who gives a surprised laugh.

⁂

“I will not be humiliated before my army.”

The lord marshal’s face resembles a misshapen beat, fury twisting his features; the skin beneath his nose is raw from the scented oils he’s been using to block the acrid scent of the funeral pyres. Jason has mostly become familiar with the odor by now—smoke and burning flesh and blood.

“What humiliation is there in appeasing the gods?” he counters and is surprised his voice remains so calm and measured; Tim is a reassuring presence at his back.

“Returning Chryses’ daughter is tantamount to the theft of my rightly taken trophy,” the king of men snarls. “Find me a replacement and I may consider it, but I will not be the only man among us without a prize.”

The quiet among the men is pointed, saturated with disagreement; even the obstinate man’s brother does not stand with him on the dais where kings and their liegemen have gathered. But Jason knows no one will step forward to say anything.

Only me, as usual.

“Son of Atreus, you know as well as anyone that we take our prizes from lawful combat. There’s ample opportunity to replace the girl, or even her worth in gold, three and four times over. All of us who stand here are kings and the vassals of kings, and we don’t owe you compensation when it was you who angered the gods in the first place.”

By taking the girl whose life I was trying to save just to screw me over, I would add.

A few of the men nod at his words; in the background, the moaning cries of the dying fill the air, a cacophony that has haunted the shore for ten days since the plague hit.

“Show your men that you’re as humble in nature as you are proficient in battle, and make amends.” He doubts the pig will notice the insult there. “End this plague before more die.”

Fury contracts the other man’s pupils to fine dots. “You will learn your place, boy. Just because divine blood runs through your veins and your mother raised you to believe you are special does not mean you might speak to me as an equal.” Jason bristles but is immediately cut off again. “Silence! I have no interest in whatever clever words your puppet master would have you speak.”

The blunt insult instead of flowery political doublespeak is surprising enough to still the words on his lips. He senses when Tim stiffens; they both know that last was directed at him.

“If I hear further suggestions that I give up my property without receiving something of like value in exchange, then I will sacrifice the man who suggests it, along with Chryses’ bitch daughter to appease the gods. Perhaps you might volunteer, Peliades,” the lord marshal concludes.

“I’m not afraid of speaking up when it’s needed,” Jason growls, “and we all know you can’t afford to sacrifice me.”

“Listen to the arrogance! It is the same you have displayed from the moment you arrived here. I believe it to be high time you face consequence for your heedless words.”

“Consequence,” Jason echoes, calm; Tim shifts closer, knowing that his outward composure is a sign of danger. The men around them shift as well, some of them whispering; more than one man’s fingers twitch toward their sword. “It’s you who should think of consequence.”

“Careful,” Tim cautions in his ear, breath hot across his neck as he comes to step beside him. He has to keep from rubbing at the area with his thumb.

“Is that a threat?” the king of men demands.

“An observation. How much longer do you think these men will last, without me to lead them into battle? How many times have I been the one who turned the tides of defeat to victory, while you remained in the back ranks?”

Now the whispering is louder, angrier; voices of dissent and outrage.

“I am High King!” the older lord roars. “Every man here knelt before me when we came to these shores or swore oaths to the gods to follow my command. Even your beloved Menoitiades whom you shield as if he is your wife.” Tim clenches his fists but carefully doesn’t meet Jason’s eyes; acknowledgement of one another now will only prove the argument. “You are the only one that always considered yourself above such things.”

Jason is furious. Green like the cold sea edges around his vision, and it would be so easy to leap across the three-foot gap and snap the bastard’s neck. He could do it before anyone else might react, and he’s fast enough to get away before anyone retaliates.

But Tim isn’t.

Tim who remains tense, shoulders set and whose fingers make a minute twitching motion against his side, silently beseeching Jason to keep his calm.

It doesn’t work.

“I have nothing to prove to you, or any who swore oaths to you,” Jason snarls through gritted teeth. “The horse-tamers have never threatened my home, have never stolen our stock or torched our fields. I chose to be here, to sail to this wretched city and help your half-wit brother regain a woman who likely doesn’t wish to be reclaimed.”

More murmuring; it’s a sentiment no one has wanted to voice.

“Have a care with your words, boy; not all gods who listen are favorable to you.”

“And what would you know of the gods? I’m closer to their ilk than you ever will be, without the scandal that troubles your bloodline. If anyone should have these men’s fealty, it’s not you. Perhaps you should be the one who bends knee in appeasement.”

The crowd is outright clamoring now, supporters and enemies alike shouting over one another. The older man’s eyes widen in triumph. “You think yourself better than me? Or than the men I command?”

“No, they are my equals. You’re the dog-faced son of a bitch that isn’t fit to clean the boots of the men you profess to lead into battle.”

Exclamations of disbelief.

“That’s enough!” Tim hisses, jabbing him with an elbow.

“Yes, listen to your keeper, Peliades. He seeks to save you from being named a traitor to this army, and suffering punishment for it. Though I think we are beyond the point of playing this off as country bumpkin ignorance to custom. Your war prizes are forfeit; I will take them under tutorship until you come to your senses and offer submission to me.”

Jason’s muscles pull taut in incandescent anger. “You have no right to do that!”

“I have every right, especially since you are so keen to take mine. In fact, I demand the first woman you took as spoil at Ilion—fetch me Briseis’ daughter. She will replace the woman the gods wish me to return.”

“If you touch her, you forgo your victory in this war. I will take my ships and return to my land.”

“Flee, then, if your heart urges you! I have no fear of you—of all the kings the son of Kronos nurtures, you are the one I hate the most. Go with your ships, run with your tail between your legs. But I will have the woman before you go.”

Jason’s hand goes to his sword, but Tim’s hand is on his then.

“Leave it,” he whispers, frantic. “There are greater punishments than death. Let’s regroup and find a solution to this away from prying eyes.”

Jason knows he’s right. The men around them are filled with shock and disapproval, but none of the cowards will support him if he strikes down the king of men.

And so instead of slicing the ignorant prick’s kneecaps out from under him, Jason simply spits at his feet.

“You’re a coward with the face of a dog but the heart of a deer. You’ve never had the courage to arm for battle along with the men you boast to lead because you fear death. You’re faithless, taking the property of those who speak contrary to you, preferring to rule over a kingdom of nobodies. Your words today doom you and your men to disgraceful ends.” He glares at all the men gathered there simply watching. “I won’t fight alongside this army any longer, and without me, you’ll all fall, ground beneath the feet of the man-killing prince. The day will come when you send your toadies to me to beg, and you’ll kneel before me crying for forgiveness, but I’ll give you nothing but laughter as you bleed in the dust before me. You will all die in ignominy for what the son of Atreus does today.”

And with that, he turns on his heel and stalks away.

Tim follows, as do the rest of the men sworn to him.

“I’ll kill him,” Jason fumes under his breath when they are far enough away not to be heard. “I would have if you hadn’t stopped me.”

“I know. And then you would have been struck down, which I couldn’t allow,” Tim soothes. “Be patient. I’ll think of a plan, you know I always do.”

“And in the meantime, that sack of pig shit will take Hippodamea and vent his frustrations toward me on her,” Jason growls.

“If he rapes her, he violates the life of one who is under your gods given protection. His men and the gods will turn on him if he does. After that display, he’s not going to court anymore of their disapproval. She will be safe until you bend knee to him.”

“Which won’t happen.”

“There are more important things than your pride,” Tim reminds him, a bit of reprimand in his tone. “Don’t lower yourself to his level, to the level of men, when you are as a god.”

Jason blinks, and turns to Tim. “That’s it.”

“What?”

“I’ll go to my mother.”

Tim’s face pales. “No!”

“Why not? And it better not be because you think she hates you.”

“She does hate me, but that’s besides the point. I just…have a bad feeling. The silver-footed are like the sea—unmerciful and uncaring who they harm in their storm. That path leads to death, I think.”

“Yes. His.”

Tim is silent and continues to look worried.

“I don’t need your permission to do this,” Jason tells him, a little sour that he doesn’t have his support on this matter.

Something like hurt flickers across his face, but then Tim’s expression goes carefully blank. “I would never presume to tell you what to do.”

“That’s not what everyone on this gods forsaken beach thinks!”

“Since when have you ever cared what people think?”

“You can’t stop me doing this,” Jason snaps.

Tim looks sad now. “I know.”

He turns to leave.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to prepare Hippodamea for what’s to come. Somehow I doubt you will be able to feign sympathy long enough to shoulder that burden,” he replies coldly, and stalks away.

Jason watches him go, his righteous anger continuing to simmer, until it occurs to him that Tim is actually quite angry with him. Some of the bite goes out of his rage, and worry creeps through his body.

“No, wait,” he starts, hurrying after him. “Don’t go—”

“—Tim!”

Jason sits upright in bed, arm outstretched as if to make a grab for a hand or arm, only to grasp air.

A maelstrom of different emotions cloud his mind, blocking his awareness of the room around him for several long seconds while he fights for his bearings. Anger and hurt and guilt and fear, all tied up with longing, playing on repeat in his head.

He has the strangest compulsion to make amends for something and he doesn’t remember what.

“Fuck,” he murmurs, pulling his hand back close to his body, elbow to chest, hand pressing against his shoulder. The skin radiates heat through the cotton of his t-shirt, warmer than his normal body temperature; probably from the wound.

He is alone, surrounded by pillows and a comforter that should smell like Tim but don’t (because Alfred washed them, so they’re new), in a room that feels somehow too big (which it shouldn’t, it’s the same size as the other rooms, as his room that he never goes into if he can help it. It’s bigger than the holding cell was).

A glance at the digital clock reads two in the morning. Prime patrol time, and more importantly, four hours since he put his head down. He’s pretty sure that’s the most sleep he’s had in a week, even if it was cut short by another of those maddening dream sequences that vanish from his memory in direct relation to how awake he becomes.

Where’s Tim?

He swings his feet over the edge of the bed, ready to go looking for him in the house, before remembering what he said before he fell asleep.

Don’t freak out.

Right. No problem. Tim’s just off somewhere having a human moment, which is just as well. He probably needs a break from Jason. Jason knows he needs a break from Tim—from everyone really. He can’t remember the last time he was in someone’s constant presence.

This is a good thing, he tells himself as he glances around the room, absently picking at the dry skin on the side of his thumb. He didn’t really look around when he first walked in. His brain was still trying to process the concept of Tim being the one to suggest his room as being the best place for Jason to relax.

And the surprise that he was actually right.

Tim is everywhere in these walls—video game posters and obscure pop culture refences—and furniture. There are candid photographs of him and his friends—Jason scowls at one of him and the Super Clone standing way too close together—and half-finished projects of wire and circuit. Clothes and books are strewn across the floor and—

“Christ, kid, you’re a goddamned slob.”

He never really took note of that quirk of Tim’s before, probably because they never really hung out. His knowledge of the kid’s lifestyle was limited to his own notions of what spoiled rich boys were like, and the general observation that his replacement ran on coffee and energy drinks.

His thumb is bleeding now from his continued picking, and he wipes it angrily on his pants, standing up. He needs a distraction. Otherwise, he’s going to go looking for Tim, or blow up his phone with calls until he picks up. He needs to prove to himself that he still has some control—test how long he can manage on his own, or at least test how long it takes between Tim leaving him alone and the anxious thoughts to set in.

He’s coming back. He wanted me to be here, or he wouldn’t have suggested it.

Jason just has to be patient.

Which…yeah, that was an issue even before this fixation crap.

“Screw this, I’m not just sitting here,” he grumbles, and starts wandering around the room, sorting clothes and tools and whatever other detritus has gathered on the floor. Cleaning is both mindless and immersive, something to do with his hands instead of scratch bloody welts into his skin.

And yet, he still drops everything when his phone vibrates.

“Tim?” he asks in the same breath that he unlocks the phone.

“Sorry.” Barbara actually sounds apologetic. “Just me.”

Disappointment hits him like a punch to the face. “No, yeah, it’s fine.”

“How are you holding up?”

Of course she knows what’s going on, too.

“Spectacular,” he says dryly, running a hand through his hair. “Can we maybe can the sympathy? I’m getting enough of that over here as it is. And you never call just to check in.”

There’s a beat, and then Barbara speaks again, still in her own voice, but more businesslike. “I may have found something.”

He likes that about her. She doesn’t get upset when called out on something, nor does she spend time on bullshit.

How the hell she dated Dick so long will forever be a mystery.

“What?” he asks, studying a strip of picture booth photos of Steph and Tim; the typical assortment of funny faces, pressed close together. Jason frowns, tugging absently at his hair.

“I’m not sure it’s anything, yet,” Barbara cautions, “but it’s almost certainly related to your situation.”

“And how’s that?”

“Because it involves Carrie Cutter.”

Jason straightens up. “What?”

“As soon as you and Tim established that Cupid was involved—both Cupids, I guess—I set up a search algorithm to track her whereabouts for the past month or so.” Of course she’s been monitoring everything from her little command center; this goddamn family and their surveillance… “It’s a bit too neat, someone with her modus operandi just bumping into the real Cupid.”

“And we don’t do coincidence.”

“Exactly.”

“So, she had to be sent there by someone or something. Specifically, to steal from Eros.”

“Yeah. Still working on who, though,” Barbara agrees. “That’s not the most interesting part, though.”

Jason’s scalp is beginning to burn from the distracted tugging, but he doesn’t stop. The pain is punishing, keeps him focussed on Barbara’s voice, and not the urge to hang up on her to call Tim. “Lay it on me.”

“I’ve got newspaper reports from the village of Delphi in Greece with a woman of her description killed a blind twelve-year-old two weeks ago. Sliced her throat with one of her arrowheads and walked away, took out anyone that tried to stop her.”

“Fuck.” Jason almost bites his tongue.

Carrie Cutter’s always been a murderer, but from what he knows of her from Roy, she never hurt a kid. His fingers itch with the need to punch something; he yanks his fingers out of his hair, several strands coming away with it, and slams his fist down on Tim’s desk. It creaks at the force.

“You okay?”

“Better than she’s going to be,” he replies tightly. “What else?”

“You heard me say Delphi, right?”

There’s a pause, like she’s letting him process, which he’s glad for; he did miss that the first time. Jason thinks the news over again, remembering bits and pieces memorized from National Geographic when he was a kid.

“Delphi,” he repeats. “Like the Oracle of Delphi Delphi?”

“Exactly.”

His back goes even more rigid. “Isn’t it common in a lot of myths that people who can see the future tend to be blind?”

“Good memory.”

“So we’re thinking the kid was a seer.”

“I’m thinking the kid was the actual Oracle of Delphi.”

Jason whistles. “But there hasn’t been one of those in hundreds of years, right?”

“Not since Theodosius I closed the temple when the Pythia gave him some bad news. Five years later, he was dead, and the Visigoths had captured Rome, and after that it wasn’t safe to be an oracle. But secret societies have been started over less.”

“Still, how would someone like Carrie Cutter know or even be interested in looking up some secret oracle? Even for Queen, she’s small-time.”

“Still working on that part.”

“And if she did talk to the oracle beforehand, what did the kid tell her that made her kill her?”

“Unfortunately, there was no tech anywhere around to pick up on that. Not even tourists taking cellphone videos.”

“Fuck.”

“But lucky for us, we have someone that can sort of see ghosts.”

Jason’s eyes widen. “Duke.”

“Exactly,” Barbara says, and sounds smug, like she’s just managed a checkmate against fate or circumstance or something. “As soon as he’s done with Dick, I’m sending him on quick trip to Greece. He’ll get a kick out of the plane, I think.”

Jason winces.

It won’t be easy for the newest member of the family to watch a kid being murdered, all for Jason. Worse is the fact he’s a hundred percent sure Duke’s seen worse.

Instead of voicing that thought, however, he says, “Keep me updated.”

“Will do.”

There’s a heavy silence.

“Do you want me to stay on the line?” Barbara asks after a moment. “Until Tim gets back.”

Jason’s first instinct is a snappish retort, a denial that he needs her pity.

But his hand has found its way back into his hair, tearing at the strands as he anxiously waits for the younger man to return and for all he knows, it could be anywhere from ten minutes to ten hours before he sees him again.

He shivers at the thought.

That…would be bad.

And so he clears his throat and tells Barbara in a gruff voice, “Yeah. Okay."

⁂⁂⁂

Next Chapter

[bat-losers-inc]

Kintsugi: Chapter 1

Warnings: drug use, panic attacks

Summary: Final Crisis/Red Robin AU. Dick admits Tim to a psychiatric facility after Bruce is lost in time. Jason finds him suffering at the hands of a Scarecrow-copycat and breaks him out. While safe in Jason’s apartment, Tim still struggles with panic attacks and drug withdrawal. At a loss for what to do, Jason calls Roy Harper.

Pairings:  Jason Todd & Tim Drake, Tim Drake & Roy Harper, Roy Harper & Jason Todd.

It had been a little more than a week since Jason had been locked out of Tim’s criminal database when he decided to stop waiting around for Tim to grant him access again. Screw being patient and playing nice. A week’s worth of increasingly less polite voicemails on Tim’s phone was evidence to how well that tactic had worked for Jason.

So, Jason decided to fall back on the more tried and true tactic of breaking and entering. If he couldn’t get Tim to return his calls, Jason would just have to corner him into a conversation. This was how Jason found himself prying open the window to Tim’s apartment in the early evening hours and slipping inside.

He straightened up as his boots made contact with the wood floor of Tim’s living room and glared around in confusion when neither fists nor any audible alarms greeted his arrival. Strange.

“Hey, Tim. You here?” But a quick check of all of the rooms in Tim’s apartment told Jason he wasn’t.

Jason contemplated leaving and searching the streets, though he hadn’t heard Red Robin over the comms for a few days. He stared longingly at Tim’s desk where his laptop rested open, the screen turned matte by a thin layer of dust. He really couldn’t afford to wait around on Tim with his street cred going down the toilet.

“Ah, screw it.” He sat in Tim’s desk chair and got to work on cracking the password. Four tries later saw Jason rummaging around in Tim’s desk drawers hoping he’d left some password clue so that Jason wouldn’t getting locked out for another incorrect attempt. It was a waste of time since Jason knew Tim was too smart to ever write down a password.

A reminder scribbled on a sticky note to do laundry before he ran out of clean underwear?

Sure.

But a password to help his dear older brother?

Of course not.

“Jeez, all of this because the kid doesn’t have a sense of humor. You set your brother up as the fall guy for one of your murders. Just once. Just as a joke! And then he kicks you out of his network and you’re left with your excel spreadsheet of crime syndicates that hasn’t been updated in months. And then you go shake some answers out of Penguin’s number two guy, only to find out that that guy got locked up by GCPD two months ago. And then you have to settle for getting answers from Penguin’s shit-for-brains cousin, Larry.” Jason slammed the final drawer closed, “Fucking Larry.”

Jason spun around in Tim’s desk chair, going over his options once again. He’d sooner break into the Batcave and risk running into Dick and Damian than subject himself to updating his own old-school records. Jason’s eyes landed on the Star Trek poster mounted on the wall across from him. He halted his spinning as realization struck him. “Oh, you beautiful, beautiful, nerd.”

He pulled the framed poster off the wall and flipped it around, searching for the clips that locked it in place. A small piece of paper the size of a business card dropped onto Jason’s boot as he freed the backing from its frame. He snatched it up and logged into Tim’s laptop.

Jason was in the process of closing out of Tim’s records, having already sent a copy to himself, when a notification in the corner caught his eye. He clicked into it and was surprised to see it was a message Tim had sent to himself. Or was it?

Jason read over the message again.

Find my iphone.

User: T.drake007@gmail.com

Pass: Batcow

He had a tracking device built into his suit if he needed someone to find his location. But if he was in his civvies…

Jason pulled his own phone free of his jacket pocket and signed into Tim’s account. As the map narrowed in on Tim’s last location, Jason was already out the window and climbing up the fire escape.“Whatever this wild goose chase is, kid, I really hope I don’t find your dead body at the end of it.”

Jason checked the pinned location on his phone once more and then stared across at the glowing letters on the Breckenridge Psychiatric Hospital sign again. Of all of the places Jason expected Tim to be hiding out in while in his civvies, a mental hospital in Bludhaven didn’t even make the list. It filled Jason with an uneasy feeling.

He decided to play it safe to start off with and removed his domino mask, slipping it into the pocket of his leather jacket which he zipped up tight to cover his body armor hidden underneath. He made his way to the front doors, wrestling with his anxiety the entire way there. After all... things had been more than a little crazy with Bruce dying, Damian replacing Tim as Robin, and Tim moving on to his new identity as Red Robin. It wasn’t impossible that Tim had checked himself in for a bit, though there was a nasty notion floating around the back of Jason’s head that this whole situation reeked of Dick’s smothering sort of concern.  

Jason asked for Alvin Draper at the receptionist desk, Tim’s go-to undercover identity.

The nurse behind the reception station replied in a tone that suggested she was reading off doctor’s notes from her computer. “Mr. Draper was recently moved to the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit after exhibiting violent behavior against the hospital staff. His visitation privileges have been temporarily suspended until his psychologist believes he is no longer a harm to himself or others.”

Jason blinked hard at that one. “Violent behavior against the staff? I think there’s got to be a mistake here. What medical reason did T—uh, Alvin give when he checked himself into the facility.”

“Mr. Draper didn’t check himself in. A family member petitioned for it to prevent further destructive behaviors to his person and the public.”

The public, Jason mentally rolled his eyes. He’s 130 lbs dripping wet. What’s the worst he could do?

Still, if Tim was here against his will, this didn’t bode well for the situation within the family and Tim’s emotional state at the moment. Jason slumped against the receptionist’s station, not believing what he was hearing and wanting nothing more than to bang his forehead against the table top. “Wait… so you’re telling me he’s here on involuntary psych hold?”

“Okay. Okay,” Jason couldn’t figure out when Tim’s well-being had become such a serious issue for Jason, but suddenly here he was acting like the kid’s lawyer. “Well, when did he get committed? Psych holds are usually only for a few days and then the issue has to be brought up against a judge, right?”

“Shouldn’t you know all this already, hon? I thought you said you were a friend of the family. Do you want me to call the person of contact and see if they can come down and explain the situation?”

Jason could sense the motherly concern in her voice. He was trying to fly under the radar on this and having the nurse take an interest in him was not the way to do that. He’d draw too much attention to himself and to ‘Alvin Draper’ and that was the last thing Jason needed, but it wasn’t entirely useless.

“No, no. That’s okay,” Jason waved off the question. “Look… If I can’t talk to him, could you at least pass on a gift to him from me?”

The nurse opened her mouth, an objection clearly in the making. Jason beat her to the punch as he pulled a paperback book free of his backpack. “It’s just a book. No lewd images or anything like that. I promise.”

He watched the woman sigh and fiddle with the pen she held. As he figured, that motherly concern was still lingering in the air. She’d feel too heartless to deny him entirely. “Fine. Take a seat and I’ll let you know if it passes the security check.”

Jason flashed her his best smile and perched on the edge of a waiting room chair. Thank God I was expecting a stakeout and brought something to read.

“What’s your name, hon?” She wiggled the book held in her hand. “For your friend.”

“Tell him it’s from John D. He’ll know who I am.” He replied as the woman made ready to stand up.

As the nurse left for the security desk, Jason skimmed his eyes across the signs for the PICU wing and walked out the main doors. It looked like John Doe would have to return Alvin Draper’s favor and stage a prison break of his own.

Jason walked around the entire hospital two times, once in a tight perimeter to check for  possible points of entry on the grounds and parking garage level, and once more in a wider circle to evaluate the upper floors. He stopped back at his apartment to refill his backpack with supplies, shed his hoodie and don his helmet. Then he was out the door.

Jason scaled a drainpipe up to the floor where the Psych ICU was located and slide in through a cracked window in the staff break room. It wasn’t exactly easy to walk around a hospital in body armor and a red helmet unnoticed, even on the night shift when most of the nurses were getting a head start on  their paperwork. So Jason had timed his break-in at the same time as a new admittee, whose arrival came with a police and paramedic escort. All he had to do was wait as a huddle of nurses rushed passed his hiding spot for the elevator before he could walk freely into the PICU, using the ID card he’d swiped off a sleeping attendant while waiting.

The unit was sparsely populated in comparison to the general psych unit, with all of the patients closed off from each other behind locked doors in their own private rooms. Jason glanced through the window of each door until he found a patient who actually returned his stare. The kid, probably a boy all of fifteen, startled back at the sight of him, but seemed to recover when he realized the Red Hood wasn’t after him.

“Hey, you know which room Alvin Draper is in?”

The kid slid off his bed and walked up to the door. He scratched at the patchy beginnings of facial hair that covered his chin and neck. “Draper?”

“Yeah,” Jason held a hand up to his chin. “Around this high, seventeen, brown hair. Speaks with a know-it-all kind of voice that makes you want to punch him in the face.”

The boy’s face lit up with recognition. “Oh yeah, the misdiagnosed guy.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, when he first arrived he told me his name was Alvin. Seemed pretty normal for a paranoid guy. Then a few days after he starts seeing his psychiatrist, he has a panic attack in the common room and makes me promise to call him Tim. Says he’s not really Alvin Draper. Don’t know how the doctors missed such an obvious case of dissociative identity disorder.”

Oh shit. Jason just hoped that was the only thing Tim told this kid. If he had let his real identity slip under all the meds in here, the least of their problems would be dealing with reporters asking what made Tim Drake crack.

“So, where can I find him?”

“Basement level, down in the old wing of the hospital. Nobody’s used it for years— fire code violations or some shit— but Dr. Keselman uses it for the clinical sleep trial he’s working on.”

“Thanks.”

Jason turned to walk away.

“Hey! Wait, wait!” The kid tapped urgently on the door’s surface to get his attention.

Jason turned back, raising an eyebrow under his mask even though he knew the younger boy couldn’t see it. “Yeah?”

“Do you think you could get a letter to someone for me?”

“No ‘cause I’m not a fucking mailman.”

“No, just hear me out for a sec—”

Jason sighed. “Sure. I’ve only broken into a psych ward. Not like I’m on a time crunch.”

“It’s to my kid sister, man. They don’t let us keep our phones in here and my mom won’t answer any of my letters or bring her to visit me.”

Jason groaned. “Alright, hurry up. Slide it under the door.”

The kid flashed a smile and did as told. “I always thought you were cool. Scary… but cool.”

He was in the process of picking the letter off the ground when he noticed another girl waving a piece of paper at him in the window.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Jason glanced back through the windows that looked into the general ward, checking that the halls were still clear for the moment. He took the risk and raised his voice to be heard down to the end of the line of rooms.

“Alright, everyone with a letter slide it under the door.”

He hurried back and forth across the hall and gathered the letters into one gloved hand. Then jabbed a finger at a few of the kids closest to him. “I’m making no promises about these, but I’ll try. Also, stay out of trouble and only do the drugs you’re prescribed.”

He slipped the stack of letters into his jacket pocket and hurried down the stairs towards the basement. “Yeah, I’m a real terror on the streets of Gotham. If I get any more like B I think I might just barf.”

He really couldn’t find Tim soon enough.

[sassycassie-s-writing]

Best Friends

By: SassyShoulderAngel319

Fandom/Character(s): DC/BatFam - Tim Drake/Red Robin

Rating: PG

Original Idea: I told @batboys-and-other-messes that I’d write a Tim Drake one-shot for her due to her love of Tim Drake. So... here it is.

Notes: (Masterlist)(By Character)(About Me) I really didn’t want to write anything to do with a “stereotypical-Tim” (endless coffee and no sleep) so I made this. And it was fun but I’m not as familiar with his character as I am with Jason and Dick so... I hope this is okay.

^^^^^

"You are so DEAD, Red!" you shout, slamming your entire hand on the joystick.

Through your headset, you hear your best friend laugh. His kart on the screen pulls ahead of yours. "Mwahahaha! I've been biding my time for two laps to pull that off!" he exclaims.

You growl into your microphone and tilt the joystick forward as far as possible while pressing the accelerator as hard as you can to give chase. "I hate you, Drake," you snap. You both know that's a blatant lie---which is why Tim just laughs.

Then stops abruptly.

"Wait. Hang on a sec," he says. The game pauses.

"What's up?" you ask.

There's a clattering noise through your headset-like Tim has put his down. Faintly, you hear him answer a ringing phone. "N'yello?"

A pause.

"Uh-huh."

Another.

"Okay.

And another. This one drags for a while.

"Uh… what's that got to do with me?"

There's a very brief moment of silence before---

"WHAT?!"

You pulled your headset away from your ear a little to maintain the integrity of your hearing.

You hear Tim grumbling. "Ugh. Fine. Bye."

There's clattering and Tim's voice is closer now. He's put his headset back on. He unpauses the game. "So what was that about?" you ask curiously.

There's a moment of silence as you both take a sharp corner, your digital kart tires screeching. "There's a stupid party coming up. And I have to go to it. But after what happened last time, I'm not allowed to go alone," he said.

"Which time was last time again? There have been so many party incident stories that I can't remember their order."

Tim grunts. "I threw an M&M at Damian so he threw a shuriken at me and I dodged of course because I guessed he'd manage to have something like that on him even though Bruce literally waved a metal detector over everyone before they left for the party. But since I dodged it got lodged in the wall---after slicing the single shoulder strap of a woman's dress clean off and making it… well… fall down."

"Oh that time," you deadpan.

"Yeah. So Bruce won't let me go alone."

"You won't be alone though, will you? I mean, your family will be---SHOOT!" Your shout makes Tim yelp-as he crosses the finish line ahead of you by a single kart-length. "I hate you, Drake!" You both know it's a lie but it makes you feel better about losing.

"Well that certainly puts a damper on my plan to ask if you'll go to the party with me," Tim says.

You drop your controller. "… What?"

Tim sighs. "You. Me. Party. Sort of a date situation. Or not. Whichever. But yeah, the whole family is going to the party but I have to have a date so that I can't get into too much trouble. And we both know that you're the more talented at self-control between the two of us."

He was right, but that didn't always mean you had self-control. He just had… less. Remarkably.

Not as bad as his brothers---Jason was ridiculously impulsive despite how calculating he was and Dick tended to leap first, look for a net second---but still. Having you around tended to result in fewer stupid decisions.

"Besides," Tim carries on. "Apparently Damian is too young to go to the party. So, score for me. But that also means you'll have less to worry about. If you agree to go. If you don't hate me."

"I don't, Timbo," you say with an affectionate chuckle. "But it seems rather rude to put the responsibility of keeping you in line on my shoulders."

"No, no!" Tim exclaims. "It's not… it's not your responsibility. I should have clarified. Sorry. It's more of a…" He clears his throat awkwardly. "Where do you want to race next?"

"Timothy. You're changing the subject," you accuse.

"Seriously, though? Where?"

You selected a track. "Back to it not being my responsibility to keep you in line," you say.

"Yeah. I just… I mean, Bruce said…" He swore under his breath. "I want to impress you so I wouldn't act like an idiot at a party like that."

You pause the race before it even starts. "Huh?" you ask, rather eloquently.

"I, uh… I like you. In a more-than-a-friend way," he admitted.

You glance down at your controller. The sleek plastic slightly sticky from years of sweaty hands during stressful moments in video games. The tooth-marks on the joystick from the time it got jammed and you bit and yanked to fix it. The worn-down buttons that don't click as sharp as they used to when they were new. You and Tim played many games this way. Connected over headsets, chatting as though you were in the same room. Sharing deep thoughts and profound observations---or memes, depended on the day---even though several miles separated you.

"Our rooftop. Twenty minutes," you say, setting your controller down.

"Yes boss," he replies jokingly---and perhaps a little anxious---before you take your headset off.

^^^^^

The rooftop was the top of some fancy business building. You and Tim had found out it was the best place to hang and be alone together in the entire city. The rest of Tim's family rarely touched down on it so you two had time to hang out.

You reach the rooftop first. It's got an observation deck. You sit on one of the benches overlooking the city. Searchlights sweep back and forth, circles of light passing over the clouds with beams visible in the pollution. Your mind dwells on several things as a cold wind blows the storm in over the city.

The first is all the nights you and Tim have spent up here. The cold wind blowing. It's always cold the higher up you get. So many nights up here. Sitting side-by-side. Tim ranting about some case he's working on. Sometimes pacing up-and-down. Sometimes you brought fresh eyes to his cases and gave him ideas that would make him freeze in his tracks, stare at you, and, once, literally exclaim, "EUREKA!"

Dork.

The other thing your mind couldn't stop thinking about was Tim's confession. More than a friend. Really?

"Hey," a familiar voice greets.

Tim vaults up and over the edge of the skyscraper, staff in hand, and lands smoothly on the roof behind you. He trots over and sits next to you with a spin of his staff.

"Hi," you reply.

"Did I freak you out? I didn't… I didn't mean to tell you that… that way," he said.

You smile slightly. "No not really. Honestly, I don't think anything could freak me out anymore. But… thanks for telling me. And, uh… I'd love to go as your date to the special party."

If it weren't so dark you'd be able to see Tim blushing under his cowl. As it is, you know him so well that his shoulders lifting to his ears and his head turning away from you meant he was trying to hide his blush.

There's a moment of shuffling and he removes his cowl completely. "Thank you," he says, patting his hand on top of yours. "For agreeing to go with me. And… I'll understand if you… don't want to… make things awkward afterward. Like I did."

You grin and sneak a peek at him from the corner of your eyes. "Tim. For being a genius, you're such an idiot!" you say.

He blinks. "Huh? What do you mean?"

You take his hand---the one he'd rested on top of yours. "Tim. Come on. You're my best friend. And I couldn't think of anyone better to date than my best friend," you say.

A spotlight sweeps over the roof from way down below on the streets on its random setting. The light that passes over you and Tim illuminates that he's blushing bright red---and frankly, you're fairly certain you are too.

He looks embarrassed---and a little sheepish. "I… uh… okay. Thank you, I guess? I don't know what to say."

You smile and squeeze his hand. "It's okay. I don't either. So let's not say anything."

Tim's eyes flick to your lips. You glance at his.

You lean forward together at the same time.

You wish the kiss was like it would be in the movies---fireworks, perfect synchronization, closed eyes and soft touches.

It's not.

It's a mess.

Your faces bump together a little stronger than either of you intended---bouncing you off each other like someone had thrown two bouncy balls together with alarming precision.

Your eyes open again and you stare at each other, a little amused and a little embarrassed.

Resolved to fix the issue, you two pull each other close again.

This one goes much better.

So many unspoken things between the two of you are resolved in these moments. The occasional awkward flirtatious comment that made you two blush and look away---sometimes not speaking for a week afterward. The passive jabs at you two liking each other that Jason always made. The tension that you two sometimes felt when alone in a room---especially after one of Jason's jabs or Dick's fawning.

They all go away by coming true.

When you finally pull away from each other, lips detaching with a sucking sound, Tim smiles. "This is going to be the best party ever," he says.

You can't help but laugh and agree.

[psyched2b]

Drenched Cuddles (Dick Grayson X Reader)

Warnings: There is a whole line of swearing in the beginning.

MASTERLIST

The rain was pouring down on me and I felt like screaming. Of course, the one night all my friends go out of town, my car decides to break down in the middle of nowhere and my phone is dead. Not only that, but my keys are conveniently locked in the car, taunting me from the passenger seat where I had accidentally left them. Things couldn’t possibly be worse. And then there was a flash of lightning that brightened the sky and the thunder that followed shook the ground. 

“Fuck, dammit! Damnity damn fuck shit damn!” I yelled in exasperation, cursing whatever greater power out there clearly had it out for me. I despised thunderstorms, and that was when I was safely tucked away in my house with a million blankets and four walls protecting me. Now I was left in the dark woods, at least twenty miles away from anything. In my anger, I kicked the side of my car, immediately regretting it as my foot began to throb. I guess it’s time to admit I need to work on my anger management, I thought bitterly to myself. Looking around helplessly, I debated what my options were. I could try to walk home, but again, it was pitch black, storming and miles away. Not to mention that the outskirts of Gotham weren’t the safest (as if any part of Gotham was). That plan wasn’t reasonable as I remember that my house key was attached to my car key, safely tucked away into my car and thanks to my overprotective boyfriend, it was impossible to break into my house like I used to be able to. The other option was just to wait by my car and pray that a kind Samaritan would drive by and take pity on me. Wasn’t likely, but there wasn’t any other option. If I could just get my hands on a phone, I could call Dick… I pulled my sweatshirt close to my body, praying for warmth that wasn’t going to be provided. The thin jacket was already soaked through and wasn’t doing any good protecting me from the sting of the harsh rain. At this point in my life, I was debating crawling underneath my car, that’s how miserable I was. Suddenly, I noticed headlights coming towards my car and I cried aloud in relief. Either way, this person would be my savior, whether they helped me or killed me. Excited, I ran out into the middle of the street and began to wave my arms frantically over my head, trying to flag them down. “Please stop,” I chanted quietly to myself, trying to telepathically send my message to the driver. “Please, please, please!” Sure enough, the car pulled up next to me and it took me a moment to realize that I actually recognized the sleek, modern built car. “Dick?” I questioned as my boyfriend jumped out of the car as soon as it was in park. He bounded over to me and scooped me up into his tight embrace and I was enveloped in his warmth. I was still in disbelief that he had managed to find me in this weather. “Dick, what are you doing here?” That was a stupid question, but my mind wasn’t functioning right due to being a human popsicle. My boyfriend ripped off his own jacket and pulled it over my shivering form and dragged me to the passenger side of the car. “I got nervous when you were late for dinner, especially since you’re always early.” He buckled me into the seat and then ran to his side of the car and climbed in. “I had Tim try to track your phone, but that didn’t work,” he continued, cranking up the heat and simultaneously reached into his back seat and grabbed an old blanket that we used whenever we went out for picnics and wrapped that around me. “That’s when Damian had admitted that he planted a tracker in your car once he realized your phone was dead more than half the time and your car had a habit of breaking down in the worst of places.” I snorted at that. It was true. I’ve had the car for seven years and at least once a month, it broke down on me for one reason or another. One of my favorites was when the breaks went out while on the highway…. “Good to know your family likes me,” I teased, relieved when I realized that I started gaining feeling back into my toes and fingers. Dick glared at me before focusing on the road before us. “Of course they like you, Y/N. They all know you are way too good for me, that’s for sure. I would even bet that they like you better than me!” That caused me to laugh out loud. Dick was the most likable person in the world and I couldn’t imagine anyone thinking I was better than him, but I didn’t bother to comment at this, knowing he would argue and try to imprint it into my mind that what he said was true. He could be more stubborn than Bruce sometimes. “What happened anyway?” my love questioned me, glancing at me with sparkling blue eyes for a second before focusing on the road once again. “My stupid transmission went out and when I went out to check it, my car did that thing when it automatically locks itself because it’s possessed by Satan himself,” I grumbled, leaning into Dicks warmth over the armrest and laid my head on his arm. “Then it started to rain, followed by lighting and thunder.” “Oh, babe,” Dick cooed at me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders as much as he could. “I’m sorry. I know how much you hate storms.” “Mmmm, not your fault that some greater power out there has it in for me.” Dick looked at me with sad eyes. “That’s not true, babe. You just have the worst luck. But, at least you have me!” We both chuckled at that and I couldn’t agree more.

—————————————

As soon as we got home, Dick ushered me into our bedroom. “Let me go start a bath for you, so you can warm up.” “Will you be joining me?” I asked coyly as he disappeared into the master bath. I could hear him fumble with the faucet for a second before there was a rush of water spurting out. Dick peaked his head out the door, winking at me, “Only to help you get warmer faster!” I stripped out of my wet clothes, tossing them into the clothes hamper next to the closet. “Think I could steal some of your clothes too?” I teased, going to our shared dresser, picking out a pair of sweatpants for myself and an old t-shirt of his that had the Bat Logo on it. He had an obsession with collecting anything related to his nighttime job. “Only if you behave!”

—————————————

Just over an hour later, we climbed out of the tub and got dressed. While I was addressing the mop of hair on my head, Dick headed downstairs to start the fire going. On his way out, he stopped at the bed and grabbed the fifty million blackness we had on there and continued down the stairs. After my hair was taken care of, I went and joined my love downstairs and was none too surprised to find him on the phone with presumably one of his brothers. “Yes, she’s fine. Just was a little cold, but that’s all taken care of now,” he said into the phone, not having heard me come down the stairs. “No, you don’t need to come over to make sure she’s still alive. I promise to have her call you tomorrow. Right now-“ I had snuck up to the back of the couch and launched myself over the back of it, landing right on top of the unsuspecting vigilante. “Whoa there!” he yelled, immediately dropping the phone and wrapping his arms around me to stop me from rolling onto the floor. I grinned up at him from his arms and he scowled at me. “That was rude,” he teased. I gave a shrug in response before grabbing his phone from the ground. Damian’s name flashed on the screen and I raised an eyebrow at Dick before putting the phone to my ear. “Hey, Damian. It’s Y/N. I promise that I am alive and well. Thank you for putting a tracker on my car. I promise to thank you by taking you out to lunch sometime soon. Now, I’m going to hang up so that I can cuddle with my boyfriend. Much love, babybat!” and with that, I hung up the phone before setting it down on the end table next to the couch. Dick was grinning at me and then placed a kiss on my forehead. “You handled that like a pro, babe,” he complimented. Snorting, I rolled my eyes. “Knowing your brothers, they will still show up later tonight to make sure things are alright.” He shrugged, “Probably, but that’s what happens when you have people that care for you.” We sat there in silence for a moment. “So, you want to cuddle or what?” I finally asked, snuggling into his muscular chest. Dick groaned appreciatively, shifting so that we were sprawled out on the couch. Then he reached over me to grab the pile of blankets that laid at our feet and pulled them over us. “You are so perfect. I love you.”

[dylan-hague]

Chapter 28

Wayne Manor, Gotham City. March 29th, 2018. 11:15 PM.

Nothing.

Nearly four weeks Bruce had been scanning the entire globe for any sign of Damian’s presence–his tracking signal, his body signature, even his voice pattern–but nothing. It was like they pulled him right off the face of the earth. Like he’d been written out of existence. It drove Bruce up the wall… Bruce had struggled harder for longer to find a missing person before, and he’d been able to keep a level head. But this was different, more personal. This was Damian… his son was missing.

Of course, having disciplined himself to handle his behavior over the years, Bruce proved to be able to rein in his emotions considerably well for someone in his situation… which, unfortunately, he couldn’t say for Raven. Raven was a complete wreck; when she first returned to the Cave, the girl was burning with a determination he hadn’t seen since he displayed it himself when Damian had died. But as time went on and days turned into weeks, the undeniable lack of progress began to take its toll on her, and the stone-cold facade she had arrived with began to erode, revealing the broken, vulnerable girl underneath. She and Damian were more devoted to their relationship than Bruce gave them credit for, and it showed in how poorly she was faring given the not knowing. For this, Bruce blamed himself; he told her she was a part of his family. He promised to take care of her, and right now she was suffering. He had to find Damian soon… not just for himself, not even just for Damian, but for her.

Raven herself had slipped into the library after the first two weeks of nothing. She hadn’t come back out since… she didn’t want Bruce to see her break. She knew Bruce could see it getting to her, but she didn’t want him to actually see her crumble. Presently, she found herself curled up against the wall, hugging her knees to her chest in silence. She tried to feel him, reach out over the farthest distance she could reach to connect to his mind… but she found nothing.

She hadn’t felt so alone in a very long time.

How did this happen so fast? She had just gotten off of the greatest eleven days of her life; she and Damian had just made it across the entire country together. They opened up to one another like they never had before, learned things about one another they never would have guessed. She… she wanted him to ask. She wanted him to give her the ring, she wanted to be able to wear it everyday, to look down at it on her finger and feel him beating in her heart… she wanted forever. She needed forever. She needed him. She knew they were just kids, she knew how foolish they must have looked to everyone else, but she didn’t care. She’d forgotten what it felt like to be loved long ago, but Damian showed her. She learned to love again because he loved her, when she thought no one could, and now… She extended her reach as far as she could, sat day and night by the Batcomputer waiting for a response, begged and pleaded to Azar for something, anything, to let her know that her Damian was okay. But her search yielded no results. The Batcomputer found no trace of him. And her prayers went unanswered.

“Miss Raven, may I sit with you for awhile?”

Raven looked up to see Alfred standing nearby, his hands folded behind his back. He looked down at her with concern in his tired eyes.

“Y… yeah… sure, Mr. Pennyworth…” Raven’s eyes slowly turned back to the floor. The old caretaker slowly brought himself down to the floor beside her. They sat in silence for sometime.

“Miss Raven…” he began. “… I know I should say that Master Damian will be alright. That he always turns out fine…”

“Mr. Pennyworth, it’s okay. I know he died once before… I just…”

“You know that we’re doing everything we can. But… but let me assure you of something else.”

Raven turned and looked at the old man. Even without her powers of empathy, the direction of the lines on his face showed his sorrow plain as day.

“If… if Master Damian does not return…” The butler spoke in a low, drawn-out tone. “… if he really is gone… we’ve made preparations for you. Master Bruce has reached out to your Aunt Alice, and…” he looked into her eyes. “… and if you’ll have it… Master Bruce would like to move forward with adoption proceedings.”

Raven stared back at the elder gentleman, taking her time to think. Slowly, Raven began to nod. “… thank you, Mr. Pennyworth… I’d love that. But…” Her tired, sore eyes began to well up with tears that she didn’t know she had left to shed. “… he… I… I was gonna marry him, Alfred… we were… we were supposed to grow old together… I can’t let go of that. I can’t…” The half-demon turned his face back to the floor, squinting her eyes and hiding her quivering lips behind her knees. “… I can’t let him go…”

Alfred nodded knowingly. “We aren’t going to do anything until we all three deem it appropriate… until we all believe that Master Damian has…” He paused, turning away for a moment. “… that Master Damian has died.”

Raven broke. She sputtered out a breath, then drew in a deep breath and slowly exhaled, her breath shaking violently as her whole body trembled. Her hands clenched into fists, and she pounded against her knees as she began to whimper, her voice growing louder as she pounded harder and harder until she threw herself into Alfred’s arms, her ragged voice echoing throughout the library. She knew her lack of composure was shameful, that she was above such outbursts, but she couldn’t control herself. The whole Manor grew dark as her shadow stretched out to each and every room, and her wails rang out into the halls of the empty old house. Alfred pulled her close in his arms, his own tears streaming down her face into the girl’s hair. She clung to his suit for dear life, her lungs burning from the pain of her cries.

As the Batcave grew darker, Bruce turned away from the computer screen as he heard the echoes of the child’s voice make its way into the cavern. He rose immediately, and ran up the stairs into the house, making his way through the darkness into his father’s library. There he found his butler with their new charge in his arms, their bodies quaking against the wall. He dropped to his knees beside them, and put his arms around them both. Silently, a single tear rolled down his cheek. He had to stay strong, he had to keep himself together. He had to…

Undisclosed location. March 29th, 2018. 11:45 PM.

Damian hung from the chains holding him to the wall, his eyes locked on the dusty brick floor beneath him. He hadn’t said a single word since the moment Lawton told him that Raven was dead. He ate when the assassin brought him food, he drank when he brought him water, and he slept whenever he let the chains out enough for him to lie on the floor. But other than that, he made no movements. His face made no expression, and his eyes stayed on the ground. After all, there was no reason to anymore… without Raven, Damian couldn’t find a reason to do anything.

As the sound of footsteps echoed down the corridor, Damian could hear Lawton approaching again. In all likelihood, he was coming to let out his chains again, allow Damian to get some rest. But the sound of keys jangling in his hand suggested otherwise. Lawton opened the cell door, and knelt down to look at Damian.

“My client is here to take you…” Deadshot sighed. “Again, I’m sorry for all this happening to you. You seem like an okay kid., but… I need the money.”

Damian slowly lifted his eyes to meet Lawton’s. There was no emotion in the boy’s face, no feeling in his eyes.

“None of this is your fault, Lawton…” Damian’s voice was raspy as he finally spoke, his throat dry and swollen. “You were just doing what you had to do… for your daughter. I understand that…” Red X let his arms fall to his sides as Deadshot unlocked his restraints.

“Go on up the stairs,” the hitman murmured. “He’s waiting… good luck.”

Damian slowly picked himself up off the cold ground and shuffled down the corridor towards the stairway. He turned back to say something, but Lawton was already gone. Damian let out a sigh and looked down to his belt. For some reason, Lawton had left the boy wearing his full uniform… he even sewed up the hole where the bullet had entered his chest. He pressed a button on his belt buckle, activating his homing signal, and proceeded up the stairway into the next room.

What awaited Damian in the next room took him by surprise. It was a large chamber, apparently some form of bathing chamber. Tracing the green glow to the large tub to his right, Damian immediately recognized the shimmering waters of a Lazarus pit. Damian was certain that the League had located them all, but apparently they were wrong… not that that surprised him. The League proved wrong about a great many things.

“What’s the matter, boy? Does the sight of the pit bring back foul memories?”

Damian found himself immediately on edge, his eyes widening as he recognized the voice. He looked up across the room to see one eye staring back at him from behind the familiar metal sheath.

Damian remained silent as Slade Wilson walked slowly towards him.

“I’m sure I’m the last person you wanted to see right now, Damian,” Deathstroke hissed, his voice carrying all the way across the room. “But I’m here to settle the score between us once and for all.”

Damian began to walk forward himself, still saying nothing. Slade pulled a single katana from his back, tossing it to the boy, who caught it by the sheath. His eyes never looked away as Wilson pulled the second katana off of his back, taking it in both hands as he shifted into stance.

“You and I are going to duel. Right here, right now. If you don’t kill me, then I’ll kill you. I’ll put this blade through your heart, throw you into that pit, then pull you out and put the blade right back in. I’ll watch you suffer, as I’ve suffered every single day since you were born.” Slade glared at the boy with a fearsome rage in his eye. “I only hope you can put aside your father’s pathetic mantra of ‘justice, not vengeance’ long enough to give me a decent fight.” Without another word, Slade bolted forward, swinging out at the boy with all his might…

The piercing sound of steel clashing against steel reverberated throughout the chamber as Damian lifted his sword, blocking Slade’s deadly stroke with ease.

“Slade…” The Son of Batman growled through clenched teeth. “You killed my Raven.” His glare burned into Wilson’s eye. “This… this is justice.”

Before Slade could react, Damian forced the soldier’s sword down, reaching up and jerking away the mask from his face. Damian’s head whipped forward, smashing right into Wilson’s nose and shattering it into pieces. The old warrior stumbled back, and Red X let out an ungodly, primal roar as he launched forward, coming down like a vengeful wraith on his captor…

The Batcave, Gotham City. March 29th, 2018. 11:57 PM.

“What the… Raven. Raven, get over here! We found him!!”

Raven’s eyes darted to the Batcomputer, where Bruce had jolted up to a standing position, knocking his chair down as he called out to her. She appeared beside him in a blink, her heart racing as the two of the, looked up at the screen in front of them, which displayed a map of the entire planet, with a single pulsing red dot on a small island nation off the American east coast. Damian’s homing beacon had turned on.

“Azar’s mercy…” Raven whispered excitedly. “It’s him! It’s really him, isn’t it!?”

“Corto Maltese…? Why is he in Corto Maltese?” Bruce stared grimly up at the screen. Raven jerked his shoulder, pulling his attention back to her.

“That doesn’t matter right now!” The Titan urged. “What matters is that we get to him now before something happens!”

Bruce nodded, pulling his cowl on over his eyes. “Get to the Batwing, we’ll be there in ten minutes.” He turned to Robin, who was waiting nearby to head out on patrol. “Carrie, send word to Dick, Jason, and Tim. Let them know what’s going on.”

“You got it, Boss!” The girl hopped on her bike and sped off out of the Cave. Bruce quickly turned to Alfred.

“Alfred, keep an eye on his signal. Once we get in the area, I’ll need you to keep us honed in on Damian’s signal.”

“Of course, Master Bruce… good luck.” The butler nodded, picking up the chair and sitting down at the Batcomputer as Batman and Raven rushed to the Batwing. “… and please bring him home safe…”