#tim stop using jon to hold the remote in reach

[janekfan]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28583328

“Thanks for coming, Tim.”

“‘Course, Marto.” Tim looked past him to the man loosely curled up on the couch, propped up on several pillows and looking worse for wear.

“I’m sure he’d be okay, I just--”

“I understand.”

“You know how disoriented he can become with fevers and it’s been so high today.”

“It’s alright.”

“It’s your night off is what it is!” Martin pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” Shaking his head and chuffing a laugh, Tim gripped both his shoulders and squeezed.

“Martin. I promise, it’s okay. We’ll watch bad telly and Jon will sleep and everything will be just fine.” Still conflicted, Martin knelt beside Jon and schooled his expression into a soft smile before pressing a kiss to his hot forehead.

“Hey, love.”

“Martin?” Breathless, Tim remembered Martin saying something about a bad chest cold. “Work, habibi?” He nodded, levering him up when one cough turned into two into three, four, and Jon waved away questioning, fussing hands. “M’alright, darling.” He clearly wasn’t convinced. “The sooner you leave for work, the sooner I’m rid of Tim.”

“You know you love me.”

Jon’s eye roll was near audible and it felt good to tease and be teased back. With all the hurt they’d dealt each other in the past, the rekindling of their friendship had been fraught with setbacks as their wounds healed into scars.

They said their goodbyes, Martin giving instructions even as he was shoved out the door by Tim, who flipped the lock and joined Jon on the couch.

“Budge up.” Grumbling, Jon sat forward and let Tim take the place of all the pillows. “What docs have you been watching?”

“You said they’re boring.” Despite the faux vitriol in his tone, Jon shoved Tim like a particularly lumpy body pillow until he was in the most comfortable position before attaching himself to his side.

“Yeah, but the sooner you’re asleep, the sooner I can watch ATLA reruns.”

“Tiiiim.” Jon whined, body language belying his irritation.

“You love it.” Ruffling his hair, Tim offered him his mug of tea and another tablet, shutting down his whinging. “Gets worse at night. Don’t make me call Martin.”

“You wouldn’t.” But he downed both quickly, exacting revenge by knocking the air out of Tim when he crashed back down. They fell into an effortless silence and, sure enough, Jon was out like a light barely half way through, snoring just the slightest bit and probably drooling all over him; easy to ignore now that he had his own kids. True to his word, Tim switched to something more interesting, trailing firm fingers up and down Jon’s side when he became restless just episodes in, noticing suddenly a pair of dull brown eyes, half lidded and glassed over with fever staring up at him in confusion.

“Hey, bud.” Barely a whisper, trying to gauge where he was at and if he’d drift off again on his own.

“T’Tim?” Filled with awe and damp with tears, Jon’s voice shook. “You, you’re alive.”

Aw, hell.

“That I am.” He tried to will the sleep back into him but Jon’s stubbornness wasn’t having it.

“B’but why. Why are you h’here?” And as soon as the last syllable slipped past his lips static rose in a tide to envelop them. As it crescendoed, Jon’s eyes went round as saucers, welling with the panic seizing up his limbs and causing him to tremble and shake. Tim let it wash over him, giving in without a fight at the same time Jon scrambled to mitigate the damage he was sure he’d done.

“Martin asked me to watch you.”

“I, I, I’m sorry, I--” A too-fast breath caught ragged in his chest and he doubled over, choking on frantic apologies and fear. This had happened before, back when things were still fraught between them. Fever and illness loosened Jon’s grip on the Beholding and Tim knew he hadn’t meant to compel him but he was already somewhere else, too far away for any reassurances to reach.

“Easy, easy, I know. It’s alright.” With one arm Tim pulled him out of his contorted knot, reaching for Jon’s inhaler at the same time, shaking it hard and murmuring encouragement until he was able to draw a tight half lungful of air between chattering teeth. “Okay, I’ve got you, I’m not upset.” He splayed his fingers over Jon’s breastbone, running his thumb back and forth over his sweat damp shirt. “Deep breath and hold.” In a practiced tandem left over from so long ago Tim depressed the button and Jon inhaled and held until it exploded from his chest. “One more time.” And thank god it came easier because Tim did not want to call the station and explain to Jon’s husband how he sent him tailspinning into a panic attack. Later. But not now. For now, he listened to the push/pull of oxygen finally flooding into Jon’s system, felt the overwarm draught ghosting against his throat as he collapsed into him, lax and loose. “Good job, buddy.”

“Tim...are we…?” Jon shifted, sighed, hot forehead resting on his neck.

“Shh, just relax. You’re not well, and in a minute we’re gonna do something about it, but for right now, just rest.”

“Tim?” Martin was kicking off his boots and stripping himself of his uniform before he even made it to the sitting room. “How is he?” Immediately, he began fretting over him, waking him when he went to check his pulse, test his temperature.

“Mmm.” Petulant, Jon turned his face into Tim’s jumper, fingers twisting up in the wool as he tried to escape Martin’s poking and prodding. “M’fine…”

“He’s fine, Martin. Probably more than ready for bed.” Untangling him, he nudged Jon forward so Martin could gather him up, smiling when Jon wrapped spindly arms around his neck. “Had an ‘accident’ during a spike, but he probably won’t remember it.” Fond, Tim ran a hand over his head.

“I can’t thank you enough. Can’t imagine where he would have wandered off to with me at work and Em away.”

“Anytime, Marto. Now, put him to bed, he’s a damned limpet like this. You’ll never get anything done if he doesn’t sleep it off.” Tim let himself out, contemplating his copy of their key before locking the door behind him.

[thekisforkeats]

The Way You Say My Name

Info: The Magnus Archives, JonMartin, rated T for swears. Canon-Compliant. Set immediately post-MAG 22. Martin is trans and Jon is amab non-binary.

CWs: Guilt, self-recrimination, worms (mentioned), arguments, shouting, crying, lying (Martin lying about his CV still), transphobia (mentioned), misgendering (mentioned), child abuse (mention of Martin Blackwood's mother) 

Summary: Just after MAG 22, Jon apologizes for his treatment of Martin over the past few months. Or tries to, anyway. It's hard to apologize to someone when you don't understand exactly what it is you've done to upset them.

(Of course, once Jon's apologized and Martin's relaxing, well... that's when Jon will finally notice he actually likes Martin, isn't it? Not that he's going to admit to that, even to himself.)

Shoutout to the Martin Blackwood Lovers Discord Server, without whom I would not have written this up and posted it. ;) Jon’s dialogue was (mostly) written by @marianfuckinghawke.

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“Recording ends.”

Jon reached out and pressed the stop button on the tape recorder. He sighed and looked at his phone. The message from Jane Prentiss was still glowing on the screen. He ran a hand through his short hair, aware he was mussing the grey-streaked black and deciding he didn’t care.

He had listened to Martin’s account of the encounter with Jane Prentiss with trepidation and worry. Now he could feel his face settling into something more drawn with concern. First, concern for his two assistants who were out of the Archive at the moment. Second, concern for Martin. The man had gotten himself into this mess because of Jon’s words. Due diligence. Was he really such a hardass that he had put one of his subordinates in harm’s way? How had he not realized that it might come to this?

Martin sat fidgeting, shifting in his seat, and Jon could feel the other man’s soft brown eyes on him. He had the look of a frightened, cornered animal and it cut Jon to the quick. He had done this. Jon was responsible for the man’s state, and he had to figure out how to make it better.

There was silence for a solid three minutes. Then Martin opened his mouth to say, “So if I’m going to be--”

Jon started speaking at exactly the same time. “So obviously you’re--” He blinked and said, “I’m sorry--”

“No, no, you go,” Martin said, raising his hands and waving them rapidly.

“No. It’s alright… go ahead,” Jon replied at the exact same time, then frowned.

Martin cleared his throat, then seemed to gather his courage. “Well. I was going to say. If I’m going to be staying here, I’ll need… things. Like, uhh, there’s a cot, but I’ll need, like… a toothbrush? I mean, you don’t have a stash of those sitting around, do you?” He chuckled in a self-deprecating manner.

“No, I do not,” Jon replied. “Nor do you have a proper change of clothing… you can hardly wear the same outfit for however long this will take, and you won’t want to sleep in what you’re wearing.” He had a sudden mental image of Martin sleeping naked, and cleared his throat while he shoved it away. Hardly an appropriate thought about a co-worker, even if it wasn’t remotely sexual. “We will have to go out and get such things for you… perhaps after I brief Tim and Sasha on the situation.”

Martin nodded. “There’s a room that might be, umm… did you know one of the rooms that’s filled with boxes is supposed to be the break room?” He gave that self-deprecating laugh again. “‘Course you know that, stupid, what am I saying…” He glanced aside, cheeks flushing. “Umm. Anyway. Umm. It’s bigger than the room you’ve got the cot in? If… if… I’m going to be staying here… I could clean it out… make it livable, maybe, umm, get some snacks and tea and things in, and there’d be more room for extra cots… in case you need somewhere to stay late or… something…” A pause. “Or not! Or just. You know. I’ll just. Have lots of time, so. I can. Clean. The break room.”

Jon did not, in fact, know that they’d had a break room at all. It had been frustrating to have everyone going up to the Admin break room on the ground floor, and he’d said so more than once. No, wait… had someone told him, and had he just told them off about clearing the room out?

He was suddenly horribly aware of how many times he’d griped at Martin for going up there to make tea that he had then gone ahead and drunk. How had he been such a prick to this man?

When Jon had started as Head Archivist, he’d had all sorts of plans for team morale, bonding exercises, and the like. He’d always hated them personally but they were the sort of thing bosses were supposed to do. The trouble was that all of his “how best to run the Archives as a team” ideas had flown right out of his head once he’d gotten down there and found himself at a desk where a woman had maybe died, struggling to record statements, dealing with doggy messes, and that damned persistent feeling of being watched.

Well, now was as good a time as any to start acting the way he should have all along.

“Martin… we will clean the break room. Together. As a group.” He ran his hand through his hair again. He really was going to look a mess. “It is a communal space, it will be a communal job.” He added quickly, “Yes, I know you’ll be here more than the rest of us, but I want us all involved. We need…” He sighed. Time to apologize. “I have been… less supportive of you than I should. And…” He swallowed, aware of the flush rising on his cheeks. “I feel I must apologize. So… I am sorry. But we should do more together, especially given that circumstances have escalated.”

Martin blinked at him for a moment. “You’re… sorry. For… being less… supportive than you should have been.” There was a hard-to-read undercurrent in his tone.

“For being… rude to you… and for punishing you…” Jon replied. “Unjustly.” He gestured to the recorder. “All of this… happened because of your adherence to my instructions…” He frowned. “So. I’m sorry.”

“Well,” Martin snapped, “at least you’re finally realizing that it was… unjust.” He glared at Jon, who suddenly felt pinned to the spot by eyes that were no longer soft but had gone hard as agates.

Jon blinked at Martin. “Are… are you alright?” He was apologizing! He couldn’t be messing that up this badly, could he?

Martin drew a long breath in through his nose. “Yeah,” he said, in a high-pitched, clipped tone. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He went to stand abruptly, pushing away from the desk, and in that same tone, “Well, you’d better get to… briefing people, then. I’ll just… go see how far my paycheck can stretch in Chelsea.” His tone was dripping with bitterness by the end.

Jon stood up. “Martin!” He was vaguely aware of saying it in the same irritated tone he always used for the man’s name, aware that Martin visibly flinched at the word, and tried to moderate his tone. “What is going on? I am apologizing! Is… am I missing something?” He moved around the desk to try to be sure Martin didn’t just leave without finishing the conversation.

“No,” Martin said, stopping while facing the door, tone still a good two octaves above normal. “No, it’s fine. You’re apologizing, and that’s good.” His whole frame was stiff, though, and his tone practically screamed “lying.”

Jon couldn’t read people all that well, but even he could read the signs Martin was giving off. “While your words are clear, your body language says quite otherwise.” He tried to moderate his tone again, but he couldn’t help sounding mildly irritated. He didn’t like being lied to, especially concerning his own actions, and he wasn’t sure what he had done incorrectly in this situation. “Now will you stop and talk to me?”

Martin turned away from the door, faced Jon, jaw set firmly. “What do you want me to say, Jon? Do you want me to… to forgive you? To say ‘oh, sure, you’re sorry, so that makes up for the last six months where you’ve made me want to quit my job every day?’ Am I supposed to… to… just… oh, well, there’s danger, so now you’ve realized I’m an actual person, now you’re going to stop kicking me around, now you’re going to pitch in to help around here as I’m not already the one spending all his time trying to clean up the mess while Tim and Sasha run out to research things so you don’t have to send anyone to double-check my work? Never mind that I’ve been trapped for two weeks, I could’ve been dead and none of you bothered to check on me!”

Martin was all but shouting by the end of the diatribe, every line of him stiff and furious, and Jon was suddenly very aware of the fact that Martin was taller and bigger than he was. He cringed away from Martin, took a step back. “I… I…” He turned away to his desk, grabbed his phone. “Here…” he said, handing it to Martin. “Look!” The phone would solve the problem, if Martin could just see… “There… I… just… please…”

The moment Jon had cringed away Martin had hunched his shoulders, deliberately making himself smaller. Now he was taking long, deep breaths, his expression ashamed. He reached out to take the phone from Jon.

The display was still on the screen of Jon’s message history with Martin. Before the last message from Jane Prentiss was a long list of messages from Jon--numerous messages inquiring about Martin’s health, worried and concerned. He had linked articles about foods to eat when feeling ill, then when he’d realized some of those might be hard for Martin to make alone, found new links that had easier recipes.

There were also, Jon knew, greyed-out deleted messages.

Martin, know that your presence is missed here at the Archives. I am wishing you a quick recovery.

I know it’s sudden, but I find myself missing you. Just thought you should know.

And others, so many others, as Jon had tried to figure out how to pierce the wall built by the texts he’d been getting back from what he now knew was Jane Prentiss, asking to be left alone.

As Jon watched Martin reading the messages he nervously bounced in place, one arm folded over his chest to hold the other. He could feel his skin glowing from embarrassment and he wasn’t even sure why. The blush faded, however, as he watched Martin. Watched the anger fade, and realized what lay underneath. The pain that had been underlying that anger, the way it lifted as Martin read through the message history--it was like a revelation. Martin must have walked in here convinced nobody at his place of employment really cared about him, and Jon realized that that was, indeed, what he must usually think, if something as simple as text messages was making something like hope bloom on his face.

It occurred to Jon, suddenly, that nobody had checked on Martin. For two weeks. No friends, no family. Nobody had even noticed the man was gone.

Jon had to fix this. Somehow. And not by wrapping Martin up in a fierce hug like he very much wanted to; that would not be appreciated from the man’s asshole boss. Even if Martin looked like he really, really needed a hug.

By the time Martin handed the phone back to Jon, his breathing was shaky and unsteady. He dropped back into the chair, like his legs suddenly weren’t working. “S-sorry,” he managed in the barest of whispers. “Sorry.”

“That’s… my line,” Jon said. “I am sorry. I should have said more to make it clear… you are a valued member of this team.” He shook his head, wincing at how… canned that line sounded, but pushed on. “I should have said it at least once. And… I never did. I held you at arm’s length and ostracized you. And… I understand how you felt all that time now…” He sighed. “And… yes, it may have taken this incident to make me realize how terrible a person I’ve been to you since… since you started working here.”

Martin stared down at his hands; Jon could see he was crying, but silently, without sniffling or sobbing. “Why?” he finally managed. He looked up at Jon. “Why? What did I… do? I mean… there was the whole ‘dog’ business at the beginning… what, do you hate dogs that much?” There was a kind of desperation in his tone.”

“No… I mean, sure I’m more of a cat person, but… no… I don’t hate dogs.” Jon frowned. “I… I’ve given that a lot of thought these past two weeks and I think I figured it out.” He sighed. “It wasn’t you I was angry with.” He took a breath. “I was angry at Elias. I like to have a sense of who I work with, to get to know them before I get into anything serious.” Oh, no, wait, that sounded… he hadn’t meant it like… work. He’d meant work! No, he was overthinking that; Martin knew he meant work. He stammered for a moment, though. “It’s… part of who I am… as a person.

Jon took a breath, to steady himself. Focus on the apology. “When Elias… placed you here without telling or consulting me about the selection process, it… felt like a betrayal. I felt that agency over my department had been taken out of my hands. And yes… I know he runs the Institute, but he should have at least consulted me about who is in my department.”

He dropped his head and reached to take a box of tissues from the side of the desk, to slide them towards Martin. An olive branch. “I took out that anger and frustration on you. And that was wrong, I know that now.”

“Not like I wanted to be here either,” Martin mumbled, reaching out for a tissue and wiping at his eyes. It didn’t do much to stop the tears. “I mean, I didn’t even want the damn library job, I j-just…” He stumbled, stammering, “It’s… it’s harder to get a position with a degree in parapsychology than you might think.” He sniffled. “B-but… even on top of that… you and Tim and Sasha, you’re all friends already, you requested them. Even if Tim and Sasha and I get along they don’t really know me, and you… well…” He sighed. “When Elias said I was going to work for Jonathan Sims I just about freaked out. You’ve got a… reputation, you know? I just… I knew it’d be… lonely down here, and it really has been.” There was a furrow between his brows now as he looked at Jon.

Jon frowned. He’d known he had a reputation around the Institute, but he hadn’t thought it was that bad. He took a deep breath; this wasn’t about him right now. “Then let us work on fixing that. Starting now. Like I said, we need to be working together more, improve the… office atmosphere. I… have come to admire your dedication to your work. ‘Due diligence,’ as you put it.”

Martin regarded him quietly for a moment. Then he said, “The thing that really bothers me… I don’t… I don’t think you’d understand.”

Jon frowned. Then, finally, softly, “Try me. You might be surprised.”

Martin swallowed. “I… I’m trans,” he blurted. “Like, I was… I had a girl’s name, when I was younger. Figured out I was a guy when I was a teenager, started hormones, and… well…” He took a deep breath. “My mum’s never approved, you know? She’s always been… difficult, she’s… sometimes she’ll… well, I mean, you know how parents will… say your name, right? Like, when you’ve… disappointed them.”

Jon’s frown deepened. He did not, in fact, know how parents said one’s name, but he could remember his grandmother saying Jonathan in tones of deepest disapproval when he’d come back from wandering off. So he nodded; he understood the feeling, at least.

Martin wiped at his eyes again. “The way she said my name… it made me hate my name. My deadname, I mean. But it… helped me realize I was trans, because when I thought about something else I’d want to be called, I came up with ‘Martin.’ And… and I’m kind of glad sometimes, that she… misgenders me, and refuses to call me Martin, because it means she’ll never, ever say it in that… disappointed tone. I have never regretted that choice, not once, until…”

Martin took in a long, shuddering breath, then straightened himself, looking Jon right in the eye. Like he knew what he was going to say wouldn’t go over well, but he had to say it. “The way you say my name, when you snap at me? It’s exactly like my mother says my deadname. And nobody has ever made me regret that choice. Not… ever.” He swallowed. “Until I met you.”

Jon stared at Martin for a long moment, horrified. He was non-binary himself, and yet he’d never changed his name, never even asked people to call him by different pronouns although he might have preferred it; he’d never had the courage to do so. He’d always been terrified of what people might think of him. Yet here was Martin, strong enough to change himself outwardly despite his mother’s disapproval, strong enough to keep coming in every day to deal with a boss who made him regret the name he’d chosen for himself.

In that moment, Jon felt very much like he did not deserve Martin Blackwood. That the Institute did not deserve Martin Blackwood. They would have to do better, somehow.

Finally he managed, “I’m… I didn’t know. I--” He curled his mouth in disgust. How did one respond to that? Do better? That was only a marginally acceptable platitude. “I will endeavor to change my tone.” He didn’t like that any better, but it was the best he could do.

Jon really, really wanted to offer Martin a hug. The man looked like he needed one. Tim would have offered a hug, workplace hugs could be acceptable… but, no, Jon was Martin’s boss, and Martin had just said how much he hated Jon--because if Jon reminded Martin of the mother who deliberately misgendered him, then he had to hate Jon--and who would want a hug from someone they hated?

There was something he could do to help, though. To pay Martin back, as it were. So he, too, straightened, and said, “Well. You were talking about how far your paycheck will stretch in Chelsea, but I think that will be quite unnecessary. Given that you encountered Jane Prentiss while in the line of duty, as it were, I think we can expense your essentials to the Institute without too much trouble.”

Martin’s eyes widened. “W-wait… won’t that… I mean… won’t Mr. Bouchard be… upset about that?”

Jon actually smirked. “Don’t you worry about Elias; I fully intend to take out my irritation about his habits as a supervisor on him instead of you from here on out.” Not directly, of course, but Elias would be irritated by the entire setup, and some petty part of Jon enjoyed that thought.

Martin was staring at Jon now. “I… I wouldn’t want you to… get in trouble…”

Jon waved a hand. “It’s the least I can do.” He stood. “Let’s get to the shops for toiletries before they close and then we can see about getting some clothing delivered. And, ahh, do you have any… prescriptions you’ll need…?” He was thinking about hormones. “I suppose I could send Tim ‘round to your flat, but I wouldn’t want to put him in danger either…”

Martin stood, hesitating. “I’ll… figure all that out. It’s alright. Really.”

Jon came around the desk to grasp Martin by the arms and look up at him, intently. It was the closest thing to a hug he’d let himself get to. “Martin,” he said, as gently as he could manage, with as much respect as he could manage, “you put yourself in danger because of the way your superiors at this Institute have treated you. Let me at least begin to partly repay that debt. Please.”

Martin was blinking down at him. “Uh… umm… aren’t we having… Mr. Bouchard repay the debt…?”

Jon smiled up at Martin as he dropped his arms. "Ahh, but we’re not going to ask Elias to come help clear out the breakroom. Can you imagine him moving boxes?” He could feel the smile edging into a grin. “His arms would break just from trying to pick one up.”

Martin had started to smile, hesitantly. That was what Jon had been going for; he hadn’t realized how much he actually liked Martin’s smile until he hadn’t been around for two weeks. “I-I mean… you’re not the biggest guy yourself… you might have the same problem.”

“Mmm, fair,” Jon replied, “but I am willing to scrub a floor if I must.”

Martin’s smile widened. “Y-yeah, I can’t imagine… Elias… scrubbing a floor.” He giggled, suddenly. “He probably pays people to do that stuff. He… he’d probably have been hopeless stuck in his flat for two weeks.”

Jon laughed at the mental image of Elias Bouchard stuck in a flat, living off canned meals, a laugh so full he actually threw his head back a bit. “Good lord, Elias, having to live off tinned peaches? Can... you... imagine?”

“H-he’d… probably… start shouting for Rosie.” Martin was giggling so hard he could barely get the words out. He put on a bad posh accent and said, “‘Rosie, why do we have all these tinned peaches? I did not approve this budget!’”

They both dissolved into helpless laughter, both reaching out to the other to hold themselves up. There was a moment, as the laughter waned, that their eyes met, and Jon felt something swoop and flutter in his gut. Martin had such a nice smile, and such a pleasant laugh, and it would be wonderful to have both around more often, and it was making him a little dizzy if he was being honest. When was the last time he’d felt that swoop and flutter? Georgie? Briefly, with Tim?

No, no, that was the laughter and the proximity. That was all. They were bonding over dislike of Elias. That was all.

At least he’d managed to clear the air.

Jon straightened, and kept smiling as he turned toward the door. “Come along, then, Martin,” he said, and again deliberately infused the word with as much respect as he could muster. “Let’s get to the shops.”

Martin nodded. “Thanks for this, Jon,” he said, and oh dear there was another swoop at the way Martin said his name. Had he always said it like that? Had Jon just not noticed? “Really. Thank you.”

Jon turned away to school his expression. This would not do. He was not going to let himself feel any more… swoops for a subordinate. It just wouldn’t do. No matter how nice of a smile he had. He did not have a crush on Martin, because he could not have a crush on Martin, and that was that.

Feeling a little better--it was always a relief, sorting out his emotions--Jon headed out to help Martin get settled into the Archives.

[bibliocratic]

jon and sasha

part of a series of archive polycule oneshots

“Blue,” Jon declares triumphantly.

He sets his incomplete circle of pie pieces down harder than necessary in his eagerness. The TV remote nearby gives a plasticky rattle.

Sasha leans forward from where she’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, the space cleared where the bandy-legged coffee table usually sits to accommodate the board. She wobbles like a bowling pin as her fingers strain and scrabble before her long arms reach, and she grasps another card from the box, recovering her balance to rock back to seated.

They don’t get to play this often. Neither Tim nor Martin will play with them; apparently, they’ve been accused of getting too competitive on occasion. But Tim’s out with some uni mates, probably winding down a pub crawl which has ended two bars in because they’re all skint and there’s no point in moving once you’ve snagged good seats somewhere growing crowded. Martin had joined the two of them for a bit earlier when they were channel-hopping between Gogglebox and a Marvel film on Film 4, but he’d gone to bed early, planning on taking an early train to Devon in the morning. Now, here the two of them were, both on five pieces out of six with one more to go, and Sasha refuses to be beaten.

She takes another sip from an overloaded gin and tonic and reads out the trivia question on the card.

“What is the capital of Switzerland?”

“Aha!” Jon’s face is flushed and smug. “Geneva.”

He goes to take a victory swig of the beer that’s surely gone room temperature in the time he’s been nursing it and reaches out to claim his final piece.

“Nope!” Sasha makes certain to pop the ‘p’, knocking his hand away and grinning as she sing-songs. “My go!”

“What, no! It’s Geneva. The capital city of Switzerland.”

“It’s not.”

“Course it is!”

“Better luck next time, Jonny boy!” Sasha crows, and casts the die in her hand. The number’s too high to land on the square she wants, and she curses, but she’s distracted by Jon, who is looking grumpy and argumentative and going for his phone. She grabs it away.

“Look, let me look it up,” he protests, and he’s moving closer, shuffling nearer to her. His jaw set in that way he gets when he’s sure he’s absolutely right.

He tries to take his phone back, but she holds it up high and out of his reach.

“That’s cheating, we said no phones.” Jon lunges again and he almost knocks her back. “You’re a complete cheat! Jon!”

Jon leans in as though to kiss her, but it’s an obvious distraction ploy, and she pushes his mouth away with a giggle, and shoves the phone into her pocket. Jon attempts to retrieve it, and she shrieks and flails back, intensely ticklish which he knows, the arse, and he relents when she kicks at him and says “Would you – stop it! We’ll wake Martin! Shhh, we’ll wake him!”

Jon huffs, but his petulance is short lived as he leans back next to her, angled up by his elbows, the fight drained out of him like water through a sieve. He takes another sour-faced sip.

“What was it then?”

“Huh?”

“Sasha.”

“Bern.”

“What?”

“The capital of Switzerland. It’s Bern, not Geneva.”

“Huh,” Jon says, sounding surprised, and she can almost hear the sound of him filing the fact away in his brain.

Sasha gestures with a lazy hand to the board and pieces she upended with her kicking.

“You want to keep playing?”

“I think we can safely say you won,” Jon replies, though he doesn’t sound like he minds so much any more. He moves himself again, because he’s even more fidgety with a drink in him, and reads out the first card he manages to find.

“What is the largest internal organ of the body?” he asks her.

“Thought we were finished?” she replies, but still, she makes a humming noise. “Liver?”

“Bingo.”

She takes a card from the box offered to her.

“How many noses does a slug have?”

It’s no longer competitive. They trade questions and answers idly, flicking through to find random cards, questions that pique their interest, that they think will stir the slow-moving waters of their late night conversation. Jon leaning at her side, partially against her like a tree gradually bending in the breeze, is a straight line of indolent heat. Sasha gets to the bottom of the glass of paint stripper she’s been suffering through – it was Martin’s, which he didn’t finish before he retired, and he always goes too heavy on the sprits for her taste whenever he makes them.

“Ok. Most dangerous animal in the UK?” she asks.

“Based on what?”

“Fatalities.”

“Hmm. Ok. Um… stags? We don’t have any wild boars anymore, do we, and there’s not exactly any wolves roaming the headlands…. Soooo, yes. Stags.”

“Cows.”

“No.”

Sasha’s grabbed her phone and is checking anyway.

“Apparently so. 2015 survey, seventy odd people over fifteen years.”

Jon raises an eyebrow.

“It’s not exactly the box jellyfish, is it?”

Sasha hums in agreement.

“I think there’s some cursed cow skin in Archive Storage.”

“Oh?”

“Can’t remember what it does exactly.”

“One would hope it doesn’t turn you into a cow.”

“Oh, one would, would one?” Sasha mimics Jon’s accent, giving it a regal snobbery, and he shoves at her shoulder with his.

“Here,” he says, passing over his can. “Help me finish this?”

“Not a fan?”

“It’s one of Tim’s IPAs from the fridge. I’m not convinced.”

Sasha dutifully takes a swig and finds it a marked improvement on what she’s been working her way through.

“You think there’s any drinking songs about IPAs?” she asks.

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, you’ve got… um Mistletoe and Wine, and Red, Red Wine, and they’re about, er….”

“Methylated spirits.”

“Wine, smartarse.”

Jon makes a thoughtful sound.

“Whiskey in the Jar,” he responds after a minute.

“Good one. I’m pretty sure… isn’t there a Kiss song about gin?”

“Cold Gin.”

“That’s the one. Oh! I know!” Sasha’s moving then, her limbs more sluggish than they were before, tugging her headphones out of her pocket and untangling them. “There’s that – er, Finnish band – ah, Christ, what are they called – and they’ve got, like, heaps of songs named after alcohol.”

That rabbit hole of questioning leads down into music for a while, and they sit with their heads touching so they can both use the headphones, listening to snippets of drinking songs.

“Give this one a listen,” Sasha says.

“What is it?”

“Just listen, would you?”

Jon, if anything, gets even more intense when he’s got drink in him, so he listens through the song with a furrowed brow.

“it’s… different.”

“It’s called math rock. Martin put me onto it. It’s all about like time signatures or something.”

Jon snorts and says, “That sounds exactly like something Martin would listen to” (and oh, she thinks with mild but not revelatory surprise at the way Jon has said that like an endearment, and looking at Jon’s face, she wonders if he’s realised it yet himself), before he’s heavy-handedly typing something into the search bar, backspacing repeated to correct the errors made by his imprecise fingers before he presses play.

She winces at the volume as the music starts aggressively loud.

“What is this?”

“Pirate metal.”

“No way.”

“Uh-huh.”

She watches him, his head nodding off-tempo to the raucous beat, and she mimics the motion, feeling him slide down further against her, his head cushioned against her shoulder.

“Neat.”

[beholdme]

All the Many Shades of Gerry - Chapter 6

Chapters: 6/19

Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Gerard Keay/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Gerard Keay, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Gerard Keay/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist

Characters: Martin Blackwood, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Gerard Keay, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Sasha James, Gertrude Robinson, Elias Bouchard

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Library AU, Librarian Jon, Artist Gerry, Trans Male Character, Trans Martin Blackwood, Canon Asexual Character, Asexual Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Ace Subtype - Sex Positive, Polyamory, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Romantic Fluff, Falling In Love, Boys in Skirts, Kissing, Demisexual Gerard Keay, Minor Character Death, Past Character Death, Canon-Typical Child Neglect, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Flirting, Minor Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Tim Stoker, Adventures in Hair Dying, Happy Ending, Banter, Gerry has a lot of sass, Gerard Keay is Morticia Adams, Jon is a very grumpy Librarian, Martin adores them anyway.

Summary: In which Gerry is a kaleidoscope and Jon and Martin can't help falling in love with him.

He happens to love them back.

Find it on Ao3

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

"Do you really hate Keats that much?" Martin asks Jon, sounding faintly betrayed. They're sitting on a pile of cushions in front of Gerry's big window, while the man himself stands painting nearby.

There has been no previous mention of Keats since they arrived several hours ago, nor in the entire course of Gerry knowing them together.

Granted, he had barely been awake when they had arrived, having rolled out of bed just seconds before the knock came, but Gerry thought he had been keeping fairly decent track of the overall conversation.

He had thought Sunday brunch was a great idea when Jon suggested it during the week. Only remembering half-way through his shift the previous night that he was normally dead asleep during that time on a Sunday. But needs must, and after coffee and food, he was feeling downright perky at having two cute boys in his apartment.

Jon and Martin had settled into the pillow pile to occupy themselves while Gerry wandered off to paint, and they had spent several hours each engaged in their own artistic endeavors, simply enjoying the energy of one another's company.

Jon had started out reading but kept getting distracted by the way the light in the studio catches in Gerry's dark red hair, tied up in a chaotic messy bun, and had idly been strumming Gerry's old acoustic guitar for a while instead. Martin had been writing in a notebook, tongue often caught between his teeth in contemplation, glasses pushed up onto the top of his hair.

Jon stops playing abruptly and Gerry winces at the discordant note the guitar lets out in protest.

"I think Keats is pretty cool," offers Gerry cheerfully.

"Thank you, Gerard, very helpful," grouses Jon in return, glaring at him. Gerry blows him a kiss and returns to his canvas.

"I don't hate Keats, Martin." Jon's voice is slow and soft in the way that indicates that he's actually trying to be sensitive, "I just think he's overrated. After spending so much time in uni pouring over his boring symbolism, I'm just sick of him."

Jon's English literature degree, which Gerry remembers with some humour does not qualify him for a job at a library, had been a pain to get, and he doesn't always remember that part of his life with any great fondness.

"I know, but-" Martin cuts off abruptly and there's unexpected silence for a moment.

"Gerry, do you have a cat?" Jon's voice is incredulous and somewhat delighted at the new development.

"Yes," Gerry replies, very casually. He looks around to find that the cat has indeed wandered in and is sitting in a shaft of sunlight, black fur shining. "Jon, Martin, meet Saturn. Saturn, this is Jon and Martin."

Saturn blinks at them, before abruptly standing, showing them his butt, and then walking over to twine between Gerry's legs. Gerry deposits his painting supplies nearby and reaches down to scoop Saturn up, before carrying him over to sit with the others.

"He's not always great with new people, but hopefully he'll warm up to you. He can be a great cuddler when he wants to be." Saturn eyes them all speculatively before sitting on his own cushion and curling up in a fluffy ball.

"So he's like the Jon cat?" Martin asks, sneaking out a finger to scratch Saturn's fluffy little ears. He purrs lightly and Gerry grins to see them getting along.

"Well-" Jon splutters indignantly, face warming beneath his tan.

They both laugh and Gerry leans towards Martin to whisper conspiratorially, "He's not even embarrassed about being bad with new people. He's shy that we know how good of a cuddler he is."

Jon presses his lips together with a long-suffering expression, also reaching out a hand to pet the purring feline. Saturn rolls over towards him and gets a belly rub for his efforts.

"There we go," Gerry mutters happily. "All my favorite boys, getting along so well."

There's more sputtering from both Jon and Martin at that, but Gerry only laughs and leans over to kiss the tops of their heads.

***

Jon sighs and rubs the back of his neck, trying to release the burning tension sitting in all the joints of his spine.

It's 1 A.M. and the library is long, long closed, doors locked and lights turned out. He doesn't know how he gets here sometimes. Elias has certainly never overtly demanded he work overtime, and yet Jon always feels the need to push a little harder, do more than anyone would consider even remotely reasonable.

He accepted a while ago, that his irrational drive for perfection in this job stems from his self-doubt and fear of inadequacy.

And yet, that understanding does nothing to get him home at a reasonable hour, even when he remembers the two men who always seem to be around when he needs them.

It's unfathomable to Jon how he managed to find himself in a relationship with not one but two incredibly understanding and supportive men who love him. He considers it a downright miracle that they also seemed to be finding their way towards loving one another. Although, who wouldn't love Martin and Gerry?

He checks his watch again. Martin is definitely asleep, and even just stumbling in to lie in bed with him would disturb him. He knows the sweet man would say he doesn't mind, but he feels like if he can't get back at a reasonable hour, he doesn't deserve to sleep next to him at all.

Gerry, on the other hand, is mostly nocturnal. A quick check of his phone shows that it's actually Friday, and he is working at the bar for another hour or so.

While Jon has his phone in his hand, he opens up their text chain.

Gerry: Don't work too late. Martin and I want you functional so that we can drag you out to that street market this weekend.

Jon: I won't.

Gerry: Yes, you will. But try to keep it pre-midnight ;)

'He's awake,' Jon tells himself firmly. 'He'll be happy to see you, even if you did work even later than he predicted.'

So Jon packs up his stuff and leaves the library. He considers a cab, but it's only a few blocks and he thinks the fresh air and exercise will unlock the tension in his poor abused spine.

He arrives at the bar just before closing. Gerry is busy charming a few drunk regulars out the door with promises of undying love and that the bar will be back tomorrow afternoon. After they stumble off, he turns to find Jon walking slowly towards him. Gerry is wearing combat boots, dark jeans, and a loose leather tank top, over a lace undershirt. He has his favorite hoop in his nose, and the light glints off the many piercings in his ears.

"Why, Gerry Delano, aren't you a sight for sore eyes." Gerry grins at Jon's teasing tone and echoed words, no sign of recrimination about him.

"I always am." Jon reaches Gerry at that, and they draw together, pressing tired lips against each other gently.

Gerry's hair has faded out a bit from the moody red, and Jon slips his hands into his hair to hold him close for a moment longer. They rock together on the street for a long, frozen moment.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Gerry asks, pulling away and sliding his hands down Jon's arms to connect their fingers.

"I missed you," Jon confesses shakily, emotion spilling out of his voice.

"Good, I missed you too." Gerry drags him into the bar and fills the air with stories from his shift while he and his colleagues clean for the evening, closing up the bar.

They walk home arm in arm, Gerry flirting with him mercilessly. Jon sheds the day's tension as they go, and by the time they arrive at Gerry's loft, he's warm and relaxed.

He supposes he should probably go back to his own flat, but it's not a place he spends the night very often anymore, and he fears the creeping insomnia that will take him without Martin and Gerry around to soothe him into sleep. Besides, Gerry is right here with him, and he seems so pleased to have him around.

"Are you going to paint now?" Jon asks as they shed their work clothes. Jon is sorry to see the lace shirt go, but Gerry makes up for it by simply throwing a kimono over his bare chest. He throws him a T-shirt, so Jon wears that and his boxers as they settle on the couch. Gerry is still wearing his jeans, but both their feet are bare as they tangle on the coffee table.

"I'm not sure, do you want to?" Gerry asks as he lights a cigarette and offers Jon one.

"What? Do I want to paint?" Jon's voice is taken aback. He takes the cigarette and lights it.

Gerry shrugs as if it's obvious. "Sure, you used to draw with me when we were younger."

"Yes, but…"

"But what, Jonathon? You're too old to paint now? Too proper and straight-laced to get charcoal under your nails? No more piercings, no more creativity?" Gerry sways into his shoulder, drawing smoke into his lungs and letting it out as he speaks.

"No, it's not that." Jon grouses back. Gerry hums derisively in return. "I just don't see the point of wasting your drawing paper when you can do that." Jon gestures wildly towards Gerry's most recently completed painting.

Gerry eyes it critically. It's the commission that he's been slogging over petulantly. It's large and impressively done, he can accept that, but he doesn't like it very much. He hates the subject and composition Peter Lukas has demanded and compensated by pouring all his best technique into it. It makes him sad and sullen to look at, and Gerry will be relieved when it's finally gone.

"For every painting like that I've ever done, Jon," Gerry spills all his affection into the name, and Jon can feel it, "I've done a thousand ridiculous sketches and colour studies. Art is time, and diligence and joy as much as it ever is masterpieces. You don't sit down one day and magically just know how to be a maestro."

Jon looks over and up at him with big green eyes. Gerry can't help but lean over and slide his hand into Jon's hair, pressing their lips together for a moment. "So Mr. Sims. Can I tempt you to make some art with me?"

***

What they create in those soft early morning hours can only generously be called art, even Gerry's efforts. But they laugh and kiss and somehow get covered in charcoal and acrylic paint. Gerry even allows Jon to choose the Spotify playlist. Slow piano music with nature sounds play softly in the background of their impromptu art party, reminding Gerry of nothing so much as Jon himself.

The dawn is just breaking through Gerry's massive bank of windows when he allows Jon to drag him off to bed, and they collapse together in the soft morning light.

***

Late the next morning, Martin lets himself into the flat and bounces down onto the bed between them, sending Saturn flying off in a huff.

"So, I heard there was a slumber party. I brought breakfast."

"Fuck off," Gerry slurs, but rather undermines his own point when he pulls Martin down and tucks himself around him. Jon does the same from the other side, and Martin finds himself in the middle of a very sleepy man sandwich.

Gerry seems to instantly fall back asleep, but Jon eventually drags himself to consciousness, even buried in Martin's neck. "What's time?"

"Almost ten," he responds, very cheerfully.

"WHAT-" Jon flies out of bed in a blind panic, desperately looking for his phone, which is dead when he finds it anyway. "I'm already so fucking late!"

Gerry groans.

"Relax Jon." Martin tries to soothe him but is hindered by the fact that Gerry is still clinging to him in a very enjoyable way. "Gerry, love, let me go. Jon is having a meltdown."

"How unusual," Gerry mutters very unsupportively, Jon manages to notice. He flops over onto his other side and attempts to bury himself in pillows instead of Martin.

"Jon, breathe." Swinging up to sit on the edge of the bed, Martin uses his best man-disaster steadying tone. Gerry has come to realize what that tone is, but he doesn't mention it to anyone. "It's Saturday."

Jon slumps and drops the pants he was desperately trying to wrangle himself into.

"It's Saturday?" He asks.

"It's Saturday," Gerry confirms from the pillow fort.

Jon glares at Martin in a very put upon way. Martin smiles at him brightly.

He turns and wanders off to the bathroom in an effort to collect himself. Martin resumes his spot in the middle of the bed, and drags Gerry towards him, tucking himself into his back.

"Hmmm. So much noise on a weekend." The goth mutters as he attempts to resettle himself in Martin's arms.

"I'll make it up to you later," Martin promises, pressing a kiss behind his ear.

"You let that happen on purpose, didn't you." It's not a question. "Just to see that look on his face."

"Yes," Martin says, chuckling into Gerry's pillow.

"Very good, sir."

[kalgalen]

Day 6: cloak, temple, curse & Day 7: dawn, desert, legend

They are separated there as quiet women with faraway looks come and take Martin away. Peter notices Jon's clenched teeth, and smiles indulgently.

"Relax, they are simply going to dress him properly. Can't be showing up at his own wedding in everyday clothes, can he?"

"How can you do that to him? You're his father," Jon says, scowling. "This is - revolting."

The King gives a little laugh. "Well, I am his father. I only want what's best for him - and for my domain. He isn't happy here; perhaps the Darkness will be a better fit for him, hmm? Come now. You can be his witness."

Reluctantly, Jon follows Peter down the stairs, through guard-lined corridors, and out of the castle. From the front entrance, he can see the path that leads up an underwater hill devoid of any buildings - except for one: what looks like a sunken church. Its twin steeples rise higher than even Martin's tower, but still doesn’t come close to breaching the surface far above. As they come closer from it - Peter still chatting away, uncaring whether Jon answers or not - broken shards of moonlight reflect off the tinted glass set into thick walls of granite. Jon squints to take a better look at them, curious despite the block of icy despair that has replaced his heart. He can see monstrous marine animals, twisted bodies, broken ships; it's a temple to the drowned and the drowning and to those who wait for them under the waves. They pass the high gates of the church, and for the first time since he's woken up here, Jon can feel the water in his lungs burn, urging him to save himself.

But there's no way out anymore, is there? His only hope was Martin, and they are both getting their most dreaded ending tonight.

There's a silhouette standing before the altar. It is tall, and long, and austere, dressed all in black fabrics that float in the currents. Peter leaves Jon on the front row bench with a friendly pat on the shoulder which doesn't make him forget the two guards standing on either side of him, and walks up to the dark wraith. The person turns toward him, and Jon freezes when he catches a glimpse of their face. The skin is bone-white and paper thin, stretched over high cheekbones and a prominent brow; if not for the sickly, sticky feeling he's getting from him, Jon would almost call him noble. But his eyes - his eyes are blank, wide and blind the way deep sea creatures' are, and at one of Peter's words his unseeing gaze points right at Jon - and then his other eyes open, slashing into his face, into the one hand that's visible, even into the shadows at his feet.

At the sight, Jon can't help but whimper. The monster doesn't smile, but his posture radiates satisfaction as he readjusts the cloak wrapped around his shoulders.

Jon screws his eyes shut, and forces himself to breathe even though his chest is still burning faintly, the promise of suffocation now at an arm's reach.

When he opens his eyes again, Peter has vanished - and the man, that Lord of Many Eyes, has thankfully turned away. Jon lets out a relieved breath, and stills again when the doors of the temple swing open once more.

Organ music, eerily deformed by the water, starts to play; Jon doesn't want to turn around, but the curiosity is too strong, and he does. He sees Martin walk down the alley the way a condemned man would walk the plank, gripping his father's arm with white-knuckled panic; he's dressed in light satin and laces now, but even the veil floating around his face can't mask his terror.

It's at this point that Jon understands he can't give up, no matter how dreadful things might seem.

Martin gives Jon a quick glance when he passes him, a plea for help Jon receives loud and clear. He looks around - for an escape plan, for an ally, anything. His eyes fall on the Lord again, on the cape around his shoulders. It seems out of place on the creature's frame, like it doesn't belong to him. Hope sparks into Jon's heart, and he sees it mirrored in Martin's expression when he takes in his fiancé's outfit. What is Peter playing at? Is this some kind of taunt, giving Martin's object of salvation to his future jailer?

The Lord of Many Eyes offers his arm to Martin, who catches it as if it's the only thing keeping him up. Peter places himself in front of them and declares:

"Let the ceremony...begin."

Several things happen at the same time:

Jon acts and lunges forward, aiming for the cloak. The two guards at his sides spear in his direction, and he's almost sure that if he hadn't decided to move, he would have been ran through. The doors of the temple fly open, and a crowd of pale-eyed people floods the building, armed with pitchforks, wooden pikes, anything that can even remotely be considered a weapon and used against the guards.

Sasha and Tim are at the front.

"Martin! Go!" Sasha shouts, burying her improvised spear in the shoulder of the nearest guard.

Tim parries a blow that was meant for his head, and yells out: "This is your moment, don't blow it!"

The mob fills every bit of the church, quickly overwhelming the guards. They aren't trained, however; it's only a matter of time before the King's forces recover from the surprise attack.

In the confusion, Jon snatches the cape from the Lord's shoulders. The Lord snarls, staring into Jon - and he feels seen, he feels observed, dissected, known in a way that makes him want to crumble to the floor and hide - but he's dealt with bullies before, he's learned to keep his head high, and this is no different. He dodges a clawed hand headed for his face and jumps back, toward the space he's seen Martin standing in a couple of seconds before. He's still here, flanked by Tim and Sasha who give Jon a nod before tackling Peter. The King, who'd been trying to grab Martin, gives out an enraged scream. It's obvious he's stronger than Tim and Sasha combined and that he will overpower them soon. Jon doesn't waste any time; as soon as he reaches Martin, he wraps the cloak around him, and yells to be heard above the ruckus:

"Get us out of there!"

Martin looks distressed. "But Sasha, and Tim, and everyone…"

"They're doing this for you! Don't let their sacrifice be for nothing!"

They stare at each other, the chaos around them forgotten for a moment. Then Martin sighs.

"Right. Right, of course. Let's get out."

Jon follows Martin as they dash toward a narrow staircase that Jon can only assume leads up one of the steeples; Martin looks back one last time, eyes filled with sorrow and regret, at the chaos behind them; but then he's ascending the stairs, Jon right on his heels.

They reach the top of the tower after what feels like an eternity, no noise of pursuit following them. There's a large window cut at the top of the tower, and Martin stops in front of it. He turns towards Jon.

"Do you still trust me?" he asks urgently.

Jon nods. "Of course. With my life."

Martin smiles without humour. "Good. That's exactly what I need."

Then he swoops Jon into a hug, whispers into his ear: "Don't let go", and throws them both out of the window.

***

Jon coughs and gasps as he wakes up in the sand. He's cold, soaked to the bone, and it takes him a moment to remember what happened. Right. The fall in the water, Martin, the wedding, the escape -

Martin!

He looks to the side, and here's the former prince of the sea, wrapped up in his cloak. There's the slightest breeze, and the garment turns to dust - and with it disappears Martin's gils, as he takes his first breath with human lungs.

Martin shivers, and opens his eyes. He gasps when he sees Jon above him, and sits up.

"Jon! Are you okay? Where are we? Oh -" he gasps again, as his gaze runs wildly around, taking in his surroundings in a way that's not without reminding Jon of his own discovery of the underwater world. "Are we... Are we out?"

He sounds so incredulous that Jon laughs, sitting beside him.

"Yes. I'm sorry, that's it. Very underwhelming, I know-"

"No," Martin interrupts, staring at the line where the sky meets the sea. "No, it's beautiful."

Jon follows his gaze; he has to admit he's right. The sky is pink in a way that announces more rain later, but for now the morning is crisp and clean like a new beginning.

"Yes," Jon murmurs. "Yes, it is."

They sit in silence for a bit, watching the light of dawn spread across the horizon. The beach around them is deserted; it won't be for much longer, as people come out for a run or to walk their dogs, but for now it's theirs to enjoy.

At last, Jon gets up. He feels every bruise in his body, and his mouth tastes like salt - will for a long time, he's willing to bet. He holds out a hand to Martin.

"Let's go."

Martin looks up at him with surprise. "Jon?"

"You don't look very inconspicuous right now, you know? We should get you new clothes." Then, when Martin keeps staring at him: "What?"

"Oh," Martin says. "I just didn't think - you still want to help me?"

"Of course," Jon says. "After all, I-" He stops himself right before admitting "I love you", and coughs. "Do you know how I ended up under the sea in the first place?” Martin shakes his head silently. "Well, there's this statue on the beach - here, you can see it over there," he points out the other side of the beach and the dark shape that stands there. "And there's this legend that says that if you light a flame inside its lantern, you can make a wish. I wished - I wished not to be alone anymore. And I think you're it."

"It?"

"Yes. My…friend, I suppose?" Jon says, feeling awkward. "That is, only if you want to…"

Martin finally takes the hand that's offered to him, and hauls himself up to his feet. He doesn't let go once he's standing.

"I would like that," he says timidly. "This is a weird new world. I could use a friend."

"Great," Jon smiles. "Let's get you home, then."

[bluejayblueskies]

hypothesis

Part 16 of Whumptober 2020

Fandom: The Magnus Archives Characters: Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood, Tim Stoker, Georgie Barker, Annabelle Cane Tags: Whump, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Body Horror, Unreality

Read on Ao3

It was probably foolish, Jon thinks belatedly. To assume that the second time he looked toward their next destination and saw nothing but nothing, it would be another utopia. A place to rest. Peace, even if he wouldn’t remember it.

 This place is none of those things. Jon doesn’t know if this thing of spiraling webs and fractured realities has ever truly known peace. It might have once been Hilltop Road, if something as simple as a name could ever be assigned to a place that isn’t a place. Now, it’s less a where and more a when. And when is now, and then, and will be.

 It’s everything that has never been, and Jon does not deal in hypotheticals.

 The threshold steps over him, and he begins to fracture.

.

“Here you go.”

 Soft hands pass Jon a steaming mug of black tea—stronger than he usually takes it, but with enough milk and sugar to compensate. The steam fogs his glasses, and in the moment it takes them to clear, he remembers cold beaches, and figures dissolved into mist, and the last cries of a man who only wished to die alone. Then, his vision clears, and it’s gone. And Martin’s there, his skin a vibrant mix of pinks and peaches that wash away the greyscale still lingering at the edges of Jon’s vision. “Thank you,” Jon says, and he marvels at the way a simple set of words coaxes a wider smile onto Martin’s face.

 “So,” Martin says, settling next to Jon on the soft green couch they’d picked out a few weeks prior as an ‘early Christmas present for themselves’. “How was your day?”

 Jon takes a long sip of his tea. “Oh, you know. Grading papers and trying to pretend like I don’t supernaturally know the answer to every question I’m asked.”

 “So, the usual?”

 “Yeah, pretty much.” Jon curls tighter into Martin’s side, unable to hold back a soft sigh of contentment as Martin’s lips press gently against the crown of his head. “You?”

 “Bread is still bread, and when you own a bakery, bread is pretty much all there is,” Martin says, which draws a soft chuckle from Jon. “Oh, I almost forgot!”

 He reaches behind him and pulls out a small, tightly-wrapped package. He presses it into Jon’s hands with a delighted anticipation. “I got you something.”

 “I can see that,” Jon says, amused. He turns it over in his hands; it has an unusual weight to it, and it yields slightly under his touch. “What is it?”

 “If I told you it would ruin the surprise!” Martin chides. “Just open it!”

 Jon smiles, and tears away the paper.

 And freezes.

 “Martin,” he says slowly, nausea rising from within him. “What… what is this?”

 Martin grins, and he has too many teeth. “It’s my heart!” he says pleasantly.

 The heart pulses in Jon’s hands, and he drops it on instinct. It hits the ground with a wet splat.

 Martin looks at him, with a face slanted just a bit to the left, and says, “Why? Why did you do that, Jon? Do you not want it?”

 The heart continues to beat, and Martin begins to laugh, and Jon begins to scream.

.

Jon’s convulsing on the ground, and Martin doesn’t know what to do.

 “Jon, Jon, Jon!” Martin says, placing as firm of hands as he thinks is safe on Jon’s shoulders and squeezing tightly, if only to keep him from knocking his head against the wall. “Oh, fuck, please wake up Jon. I- I don’t know what to do.”

 He hesitates, then places a hand on Jon’s face, trying to get him to- well, to what, Martin doesn’t exactly know. But he has to do something.

 Jon’s eyes snap open in a brilliant flash of green and silver, and when they meet Martin’s, Martin can see everything.

 No. Not everything. Everything that’s not. The spaces between what’s known, what’s real. The stories never written, never known, never archived. It’s a spiraling, metaphysical blind spot, and it’s tearing Jon apart.

 Martin tries to blink, but he can’t look away.

.

“Hey, boss!”

 Jon sighs, setting his mug aside. “I really wish you would stop calling me that, Tim.”

 Tim grins and leans against Jon’s desk, his hand casually brushing Jon’s as he sets it lightly on the desk beside him. “Well, you know what they say about old habits. Besides, it’s only been—what, a week since you fired me? I believe I’m entitled to a bit of a grace period.”

 “Tim,” Jon says, in the voice of someone long-suffering. “I did not fire you. I had you and Sasha and Martin transferred from the Archives.”

 “Potato, potahto,” Tim says with a pout. This time, the brush of his hand is less than casual as he takes Jon’s hand deftly in his own and presses a chaste kiss to Jon’s knuckles. “You just didn’t want to deal with those pesky office romance guidelines. I know you saw last month’s email about them.”

 Jon snatches his hand back, trying very hard to ignore the hot flush rising to his cheeks. “I- I did- that was not a part of my considerations!”

 “Just a very fun coincidence, then,” Tim says with a wink and a shrug. “Either way, as pleased as I am that we can all stop dancing around each other at work—because I know it was starting to stress Martin out; that man is not as subtle as he thinks he is, particularly when he starts leaving half-finished cups of tea all over the flat, because we both know his nervous tick is making tea—I do have to wonder whether you intend to organize the entire Archives by yourself now. Even you, a chronic workaholic, have to acknowledge that that’s just a bit unreasonable.”

 Jon sighs and runs a tired hand down his face. “Yes, I- I know. I just—well, you heard the tape. I… I’m stuck here. According to Gertrude—"

 “If she’s even remotely telling the truth, and not just incredibly senile.”

 “—I’m in danger now, and I will be until… until I die. Until something kills me.” Jon feels the terror rising within him again, the kind that had given him many sleepless nights shaking with panicked sobs, with two pairs of arms trying to wring from him the fear that now sits nestled so snugly within him. “But you—all of you—you don’t have to be. This- this place, it’s not safe for any of us, but if it’s just me down here, I… I think you’ll be safe.”

 Tim hums, as if in thought. Then: “Well, that’s just bullshit.”

 Jon sighs, because he knows what Tim’s going to say, because they’ve had this conversation so, so many times since Jon had uncovered the tape, covered in dust and cobwebs and tucked neatly under a loose floorboard. “Tim, I am not having this argument again, you know that I’ve done the research and what Gertrude said checks out—”

 “No, that’s not it,” Tim says, and when Jon looks up, he sees that Tim is smiling, ever so slightly. “You think we’re safe? That locking yourself down here, scared and alone, is safe? I’m still going to die, Jon.”

 Jon recoils slightly. “Wh… what?”

 Tim’s smile grows wider, and his skin begins to peel away from his face. “I’m still going to be stripped, slowly, of everything that makes me me, and I’m going to die alone, and scared, and it’s going to be all your fault.”

 Jon scrambles back, away from his desk, and hits something warm and yielding behind him. Its breath hits his neck, hot and sticky, and he doesn’t dare turn around. “No, no it’s- it’s going to be okay, because I know now! I know, so- so I can fix this!”

 Tim laughs, then, and it bursts every blood vessel in Jon’s ears. “That’s always been your problem, Jon.” He closes the gap between them and places a hand slick with blood beneath Jon’s chin, tilting his head so their eyes meet. Or, at least, where Tim’s eyes used to be. What used to be eyes. “Knowing.”

 He presses a harsh, bitter kiss to Jon’s lips, and it swallows him whole.

.

Jon’s lying on the dirt and broken sod outside the shifting place that had once been Hilltop Road, and he isn’t breathing. But his eyes are wide—so, so wide, staring up at nothing, glazed over with a dull silver that reminds Martin, unsettlingly, of a blind man, trying desperately to remember what it felt like to see.

 “Jon, please wake up,” Martin begs, holding Jon’s face between his hands and trying to cut through whatever fog has overtaken Jon’s sight, continuing to consume him from the inside out. “We’re out—you’re here now, you’re safe. Please, just- just wake up. The Eye can see you here, it- it should be able to help. Why isn’t it helping?”

 “Because what he’s seen cannot be unseen,” a mild voice says, and the face that Martin sees when he turns abruptly to face the speaker is all too familiar. “I’m afraid,” Annabelle Cane continues, “that this is a bell that cannot be unrung. No matter how much you may wish it so.”

 Harshly, Martin says, “This is your fault.”

 Annabelle looks amused. “Hardly. That place belongs to no one now. Not to the Mother, and certainly not to the Eye. It is… perhaps the only truly free thing that still exists in this world.”

 “How,” Martin says, his voice tight, “do I bring him back?”

 “You can’t.” Annabelle stares at them with something that might be pity, if it weren’t masked by the barest hint of a smile. “Not without sacrificing something in return.”

 Martin doesn’t hesitate. “Show me.”

 Annabelle’s teeth flash white as her smile emerges in full. “As you wish.”

.

“I just think it’s a bit… unrealistic, that’s all.”

 Georgie snorts, nudging Jon’s side with a bony elbow. “Oh, sure, because when I decided to make a podcast about supernatural phenomena, realistic was my first priority.”

 “I just- ghosts?” Jon lets out a small laugh of disbelief. “I didn’t think you believed in ghosts.”

 “Ghosts? Eh. Maybe, maybe not. The supernatural? Definitely.”

 Jon hums, idly scratching underneath the Admiral’s chin where he sits curled on Jon’s lap. He earns a soft noise of content for his efforts. “I don’t suppose you have any evidence of—”

 “Yes, yes, because god forbid we believe in anything without evidence.” Georgie rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling when she continues, “You could still help, you know. Could be interesting to have the whole skeptic angle going on. People would eat that shit up.”

 “Plus, someone has to be there to reign in your frankly excessive use of sound effects.”

 Georgie’s elbow meets Jon’s side again, more firmly this time. “Okay, rude.”

 Jon opens his mouth, perhaps to make another remark about Georgie’s tendency to ‘overuse slang to the point of incomprehensibility,’ when a motion just behind Georgie’s shoulder stops him cold.

 Georgie frowns at him. “Jon, what—?”

 The figure moves again, materializing out of the shadows—or perhaps out of the wall entirely, it’s hard to be sure—and Jon hisses, “Georgie, behind you.”

 Georgie turns, and freezes. For a moment, Jon thinks that she’s just scared—paralyzed with fright, that someone’s broken into their flat, and she’s trying very hard not to make herself a target.

 Then, he sees the pale white hands, wrapped around her wrists and arms and throat, and he’s sure they hadn’t been there before, but now they’re squeezing, and Georgie is slowly choking, her face draining of color to match the hands in pallor, and the Admiral’s vanished, and—

 And the figure is standing next to him now, looking at him with something he can only describe as desperation. “Jon, wake up. This isn’t real. This isn’t you.”

 Jon can’t stop staring at Georgie as she finally, horrifyingly, goes limp, and the hands slide away in slick satisfaction. He reaches out, like he’s going to touch her, like he’s going to do something to fix this, but his hand stalls halfway there, and he just lets out a strangled sob.

 “Jon. Jon, look at me.” There’s a hand, turning his face toward the figure, toward icy blue eyes and soft cheekbones and ginger curls that Jon somehow knows are soft to the touch. “Look at me, and tell me what you see.”

 Jon stares into eyes that are entirely unfamiliar, and at a face that he is sure he does not know, and feels a hand that has never touched his squeeze it tightly. “I… I don’t…”

 The hand cupping his face strokes a thumb over his cheekbone, so gently. “Jon. Look at me.”

 Jon Looks. And everything else falls away.

.

Jon doesn’t need to know, Martin thinks, as they flee from the when that had never been Hilltop Road. About Annabelle, and about what had happened in that place that’s already slipping like water on wax from Jon’s memory, and about what Martin had to do to get him back.

 About what Martin had to leave behind.

 And as they walk further from that place that the Eye is blind to, and Martin feels the first of his memories begin to fade away, he remembers the way that Jon had blinked up at him, as if awaking from a trance, and said, “Martin,” and he knows that it was worth it.

[unavenged-robin]

Day 5 - Training

The first time he puts Damian on a sparring ring the boy does his very best to try and kill him, and Dick has to use too much violence to overpower him. He ends up hurting the kid bad enough to need Alfred’s medical intervention, with a subsequent look of blatant disappointment in regard of Dick’s ability to handle the new addition to the family. Damian, on his part, looks insulted by the defeat, but doesn’t seem to mind the injuries at all. Dick knows that a secret part of the kid actually approves of his violence: if Dick hadn’t been able to beat him in a fight, Damian wouldn’t have deemed him worthy of the honor of being his mentor.

Doing what was necessary doesn’t help Dick feel better when he has to scrub Damian’s blood from his hands. Even without considering the family ties bonding them together, assassin or not, Damian is a ten years old and Dick’s responsable for him. As he washes away the last traces of the fight, Dick decides he can't do this again, that their next training needs to be different. The idea that this is what Damian expects from him makes him sick in the stomach, but he can’t tell that to anyone, except maybe Alfred ― who’s not going to offer him much sympathy, that’s for sure.

The next time they fight and Damian goes for his head in what could very well be a fatal blow, Dick grabs both of his arms, twists them just enough to hurt and forces the kid to his knees.

“No”, he says simply.

Damian looks up at him in anger, but also in surprise.

“No what?”, the boy asks, and Dick understands right away that he’s not mocking him: Damian genuinely doesn’t understand what he’s doing wrong. He releases the kid’s wrists and sits down on the mat in front of him.

“No lethal force”, he explains.

“You were supposed to stop it!”, Damian retorts indignantly, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand . “If you don’t think you’re up to me, then I suggest-”

“You were trying to kill me”, Dick interrupts him.

Damian’s eyes go wide and he makes like he wants to reply, but he stops just in time, and for a moment he just stares at him open-mouthed, in an expression that would be almost comical on him, were it not followed by a flash of shame that flushes up the boy's face even more than it already is.

“This is how I was taught to fight”, Damian answers, biting his bottom lip, and he tries to sound arrogant, to make like he’s the one in the right here, but his body’s already betrayed him, and Dick knows this is a lesson already learnt without him repeating what Batman and Robin stand for, why they don’t kill.

He feels a pang of compassion for the kid, but he’s smart enough to keep it hidden behind a solemn expression, the kind Bruce would’ve made in a situation like this one, Dick figures.

“It was a good move”, he says in all honesty. “We just need to work on it to make it effective without the risk of becoming fatal. Okay?”

Damian nods, then looks away, shame and anger still reddening his cheeks.

Dick stands up and offers the boy his hand to do the same. Damian pulls at his last strands of pride and promptly refuses, and Dick gives him a quick fickle on the nose as punishment.

*

Watching Damian fight becomes, for Dick, something that only Bruce would understand.

It’s not easy for the kid: Dick can see the struggle every time they train, every time they go out at night. He knows Damian feels the pressure to prove himself in front of him, and that’s a good thing, but it still worries him.

Every night he waits for Damian to make a mistake, to recoil instead of attacking, to soften a blow too much and pay the price for it, to risk his own life just because Batman’s watching and he wants to make him proud.

Dick remembers how it was like for him as a kid, so eager to show Bruce how good he was at combining his previous skills with the new ones, to impress him with his moves and his talent and his dedication to the cause. And of course Damian’s nothing like him, but about this Dick feels pretty secure in assuming they’re the same. In hindsight, Bruce’s role was a lot more difficult than Dick had imagined at the time.

And still, there’s this feeling in his chest, something new and soft. He had felt something like that with Tim, when they used to practice on moving trains, but it was a different feeling then, duller than this thing that warms him every time he watched Damian fighting next to him.

Because he can see it in the way the kid moves, in how he bends and how he leans when he attacks: he can see how Damian’s first instinct is always, always, a lethal one, and he sees how Damian keeps it under control without losing his footing, not allowing it to distract him even for a moment. Damian fights himself and his enemy at the same time and he always returns victorious, if only a bit ruffled.

Dick is impressed. And, just like Bruce used to do back in the day, he makes sure the kid knows it.

One night, after a particularly brilliant patrol, he puts an hand on Damian’s shoulder and says something Bruce’s never told him ― probably because he already knew it would not have been received well by him.

But Damian is Damian, and not Dick, so he smiles and ruffles the kid hair as he says: “One day you’ll be a great Batman, kiddo.”

He’s rewarded with the first real, happy smile he’s ever seen on the kid’s face, and just for that Dick feels almost like it will be all worth it.

*

Persuading Damian to skip their training turns out to be easier than Dick expected, considering that's the sole reason the child came from Gotham, abandoning his father to a solitary watch in the freezing winter rain. Damian himself doesn’t look much bothered by that treason, as he snuggles his feet under Dick’s thighs to keep them warm.

They made some popcorn with too little butter (in Dick’s opinion) and too much salt (in Damian’s opinion). After throwing several handfuls of it at each other, they settled down on the couch with a new horror movie that Damian had insisted on watching only because it was forbidden to Jon, since it was rated PG-14.

Dick had tried to object that Damian wasn’t fourteen either, but it had been a lost battle from the moment Damian had reminded him he was an assassin born and raised, thank you very much. Dick should probably have insisted more about his point, but the truth is that he was inclined to agree with Damian on the subject. The coup de grace, however, had been Damian saying to him: "Todd would let me watch it”. Jason would’ve been so proud to be used like this against him, Dick had thought.

He doesn't regret his decision ― partly because the movie has turned out to be short on real horrific scenes ― as he dozes off on the couch with the warm pressure of Damian’s body against him and a background music that should be creepy and instead seems perfect to lull him to sleep.

He’s almost asleep when Damian kicks him lightly in the side to attract his attention.

“Richard?”

Dick groans and refuses to open his eyes.

“No, I won’t make you more popcorn, you little brat. Especially since you’re so critical of it. Also I’m already sleeping, this is me talking in my sleep.”

He can feel Damian rolls his eyes even if he can’t actually see him.

“Richard!”, the boy protests. “This is serious!”

And to emphasize the seriousness of his intentions, Damian gives him another not so gentle kick on the shoulder.

“Ow, okay!”, Dick gives in, grabbing the wandering little feet and holding it in his hand to prevent any more kicking. “What is it, buddy?”

Damian takes a deep breath, but for a long moment he doesn’t speak, opting to keep his eyes still firmly planted on the movie still playing on the screen in front of them. A child screams with terror when a clown disguised as a leper walks towards him, and Damian finally finds the courage to open his mouth.

“What if I… what if I don’t want to become Batman?”, he asks, and his voice is soft and almost ashamed, and Dick doesn’t know what has brought this on right now, but he starts to think that maybe training was the kid’s last preoccupation tonight. “Do you think Father would be angry at me?”

Dick lets another long scream come and go between them.

“No”, he answers then, easily and in total honesty. “No, Damian. The only thing your father wants you to be is happy. And if being Batman doesn’t make you happy, then you shouldn't be Batman. It’s that simple.”

“It is a great legacy”, Damian comments.

Dick sighs.

“It is.”

No point in denying it when he’s been the first to uphold it when the circumstances had required it. Damian takes another deep breath, but this time he reaches for the remote and pauses the movie before turning to look at Dick with serious eyes.

“What about you?”, he asks. “Would you be angry?”

The question should maybe surprise him, but he doesn’t. Not at all. He lets go of Damian’s feet to wrap an arm around his shoulders and draw him closer to himself.

“No.”

Damian observes him for a good second before deciding to trust him. But he still doesn’t turn back on the movie, just keeps playing with the remote for a moment or two.

“And what if I became the next Nightwing?”, he asks eventually.

This too should be unexpected. This too is not. Dick would be a liar if he said he’d never thought of Damian wearing his costume, taking up his legacy. It’s a warm thought, even if it shouldn’t be: all his life Dick did all he could to try and escape this kind of thing. And it’s still kind of weird to hear the idea coming from Damian’s mouth because that means the kid has been thinking about it too and, like Dick, must have kept that thought to himself until this very moment.

An heartbeat go by and Dick feels overwhelmed by this whole thing, and to gain some time the only reaction he can think of is throwing his head back and laugh.

“Do you want to put me off business already?”, he jokes. “Do I have to sleep with a knife under my pillow?”

Damian hits him again, serious as ever.

“You should always sleep with a knife under your pillow”, he scolds him. “And you didn’t answer me.”

Dick lets the laugh fade into a fond smile, and finally he feels ready to say what he’s always wanted to say.

“I would be so very proud of you.”

Damian examines him carefully again, and whatever he's looking for on Dick's face, he finally seems to find it. He nods to himself, then he sets his mouth in a hard line and looks up at him again.

“And what if I didn’t became the next Nightwing either?”, he asks again. “Would you be disappointed then?”

And Dick knows this is a test, not very different from all the challenges to which both he and Bruce have subjected Damian during their continuous training.

“Never”, he answers with the same smile, and he knows he’s passed with flying color when Damian smiles back at him.

“Good”, the kid decides, then he presses play and goes back to watch his movie.

He doesn’t tell Dick if he’s really thinking of becoming or not the next Batman or the next Nightwing, doesn’t explain to him his plans for the future, and Dick’s proud of that too. He likes the idea of Damian considering his options, he likes the idea of Damian coming to the conclusion that he has, indeed, options.

It’s a big step forward for the kid he used to be.

“You know what?”, Dick says cheerfully. “I think I’ll make some more popcorn anyway. This time I’ll take care of the butter and you’ll decide how much salt to put on it. Deal?”

[bluboothalassophile]

Welcome to Chaos

@chromium7sky, again a HUGE thanks to her for allowing me to use the Batlings for this story!

Spoilers for Hopes for a Bastard!

Disney and Disasters!

Raven walked in holding a bowl of popcorn with Helena on her hip.

“And you’re sure you can handle the four hellions?” Jason asked again.

“No, no I’m not sure that I, the Queen of Hell, can handle for kids under the age of three.” She sighed as she gave her best friend a baleful stare.

“Hey, I’m being responsible and asking!”

“Go, you and Dami will be back by three, we’ll be sleeping, if you’re running late, text me, and we’re having a Disney and Pixar marathon,” Raven stated as she set the popcorn down. Ace thumped his tail as he cuddled Lian on the couch. Alfred the cat was stretched out on the back of the couch and Titus sat in front of the Batcave entrance faithfully because Damian was going to go there, the dog would try to deter that. Terry giggled and held onto a floating Mar'i who was sucking her pacifier innocently as her solid green eyes stared down at them.

“Rae…”

“Go Jason, I babysit your hellion all the time.” she shoved at Jason’s shoulder towards the clock.

“Lian’s not mine,” Jason grumbled.

“And I’m your lover, get going Jason, Damian will be down soon,” she shoved him at the door.

“Seriously Rae, if anything happens…” Jason started.

“Jason Peter Todd If You Do Not Go Down That Clock I Will Send You To Hell! Go!” she snapped and pointed at the clock.

“Fine, if you need me call!” he called over his shoulder.

“Helena, your big brother is an idiot,” Raven smiled at the baby girl. Helena smiled.

“I’m not her brother!”

“Technically you are! Cat adopted you! Now Go Jay!” she shouted after him before shutting the clock behind him and flopping onto the couch. She used her powers to catch Terry who squealed in delight as at being caught by telekinesis then she set him on the couch. Mar'i flew onto Raven’s shoulder.

“Hello darling,” Raven smiled at her goddaughter. The baby sucked her pacifier as her riot of flaming black curls pinkened at the tips.

“Raven,” Damian's commanding tone had her looking up at the kid. He was about twelve.

“If you ask if I can handle this I would like to point out I am legal to drink on the solstice and can vote, have magic, telekinesis, shadows, and many other powers, which is more than you, so get your ass down to that cave and go!” she snapped. The tween huffed as he stalked to the cave then and Raven smiled.

“Incredibles 2!” she said, Lian and Terry squealed for joy at her words, Helena laughed, Mar'i tugged on her hair. Raven used the shadows to set it up, having the babies fascination as it started the movie then.

Raven summoned her math book for studying as she had that atrocious math final on Monday, then a wedding to attend on Saturday. Plus the week of prepping this was going to take, and the three day celebration for Dick and Kori’s wedding… it was going to be a long week.

~~~*~*~*~~~

Damian roused when he heard voice then bolted upright noticing the weight on his chest was missing, he was up and silently making his way through the house and came to the family entertainment room.

He stopped in shock as he stared at Ingo sitting there, holding the remote, sucking on a book; Huckleberry Finn, staring with wide eyes at the television. Damian just blinked several times to make sure he was seeing this right, when the lavender head turned on him and brilliant emerald eyes stared at him as Ingo sucked harder on the book. For being a year and about a half old, Ingo was a quiet baby who didn’t talk all that much.

“Mama,” Ingo suddenly blurted out, the book clattered onto the floor and his son looked bewildered and disappointed.

“Mama is resting,” he assured his child sitting down on the couch with Ingo and picking the kid up.

“Mama!” the boy pointed at the television and Damian stared at the video of his and Raven’s wedding. Raven was smiling, her lavender hair was pulled up and twisted into an intricate bun, her wine colored eyes were shining brightly and beautifully as a pink blush dusted her pale cheeks. She stood there before him in a beautiful feathery like dress, it looked like something of a dream. He hugged Ingo and stared at his wedding.

Jon had been his best man. Dick was with Kori and holding baby Mar'i, Tim and Stephanie were there, Jason was ginning mischievously, Maya, Mother, Selina, Father, they were all there, and he could only remember having eyes for Raven. It was something magical.

“Mama,” Ingo whined and reached for her.

“Mama is not here, she is resting.”

Tears formed in Ingo’s eyes and Damian stroked his son’s head.

“It is alright son, she will be back.”

“Mama,” Ingo whined.

Damian wanted his wife too, and he kind of wished he was there with her now. But that was not possible right now, she was at a spa resort in Vermont, and she’d be resting, pampered, cared for, everything he needed.

“Mama NOW!” Ingo screamed.

“No!” Damian snapped as he stood.

The room trembled, books rattled on their shelves and things started flying and Ingo screamed at the top of his lungs then.

“MAMA NOW!” Ingo screamed.

“No!” Damian repeated wincing at the pitch. There was a scream then there was darkness and Damian yelped as he was sucked into a void like one of Raven’s portals before he came stumbling out the other side in his family entertainment room and fell over the back of the couch, curling around Ingo to protect the baby.

“OW!” He landed on someone, there was a startled yelp before shadows warped and everything went flying. With a thud he slammed into a table, there were barks and low growls and screams, but pain burst forward when he smashed his elbow.

“Mama!” Ingo shouted then.

“What the Hell!?” a feminine voice gasped.

~~~*~*~*~~~

Jason was in his armor, on his bike when the demon spawn joined him.

“Raven is pushy.”

“She doesn’t like hovering,” Jason shrugged. He got it, he was hovering, but seriously, the four kids, under the age of four, together, they were trouble, and a handful, and he’d been duped into watching the four of them together often enough to hesitate. He also knew if Raven was in over her head she’d call her moms, right? Harley and Ivy were surprisingly good with Helena and Lian, he’d bet they could handle Terry and Mar'i. Oh, he needed to stop thinking and go get into trouble now. Something had to be happening tonight on patrol. Anything! It was Gotham!

“You are still insisting with Artemis as your date?” Damian sneered at the thought.

“And what’s wrong with Arty?” Jason demanded as he revved his engine, and kicked the stand up before they blasted out.

“She’s not right for you.”

“Jesus kid, it’s a date for a wedding, not an engagement for life!” Jason snapped. He had asked Artemis because Dick had gotten on his nerves, and apparently, Jason couldn’t go with Roy or Raven as Raven was the Maid of Honor and paired with the Bestman, Wally, and Roy was with Donna as they were both bridesmaid and groomsmen. Honestly, not his wedding, not his set up, not his worry, but he was going to the damn wedding as a peace offering for Dick. Dick had insisted he have a date, so Jason had asked the biggest lesbian on the planet to go with him; Artemis of Bana-Mighdall.

“It better not be,” Damian sneered.

“You do realize Arty is a lesbian, right?” Jason asked blandly.

Damian gave him a dumb look and Jason snickered then as he leapt onto the highway, they merged into traffic before speeding then, as they raced into Gotham.

Bat Brat was going to drive him nuts! Nearly two years later and the demon brat hadn’t stopped this ridiculous idea that Jason should be dating Raven, and that simply was not going to happen because she was his best friend with Roy. And Jason was not fucking up his best relationship to appease the bat brat.

There was an alert going off at WE labs, which had him and Damian turning hard down the exit as the Bat signal flickered to light then was solid as it loomed over Gotham.

Just another night in paradise!

For a mad minute everything was going to be hell and a handbasket and he was kind of looking forward to it as he raced Damian towards the precinct then for the WE problem.

-Be Safe

The text illuminated on his bike.

“How much you bet Cat forced B to text that rather than leaving to come here for the night?” Jason asked Robin.

“Father does as he pleases and does not submit to a woman’s whims!” Damian snapped.

Jason barked a laugh as they raced to the meet.

~~~*~*~*~~~

Raven had been dozing on the couch, with Mar'i, Helena, Lian and Terry, Ace on her feet, and Titus right below her, with Alfred the Cat on her shoulder. She didn’t remember falling asleep but she had woken to the glowing black screen, something had been tickling her empathy, and it was bothering her, then there’d been a burst of blackness, a body landing on her, which she had tossed off as she threw herself and the babies into the air, and floated ready to strike whoever it was down.

Then there’d been a scream for mama and now there was a baby with bright green eyes and purple hair flying at her.

“What the Hell!?” she gasped. Mar'i cried loudly now and there was a burst of star bolts at the baby, Raven wrapped all shadows around everyone and slammed them into a dining room as she sealed the babies in high chairs, and the stranger in a chair. The man was familiar and every flavor of his emotions a nuance she knew which had her forming a shadow blade as she approached him slowly.

“Ow,” he groaned out, then brilliant green eyes opened to stare at her. They weren’t the right eyes, but the face was right.

“Raven!?” he sputtered. “What are you doing here!? I gave you the weekend off!” he sputtered.

“Funny, no one can make me do anything, who are you?” she demanded as she lifted her shadow blade beneath his chin, tilting his head back a bit.

“Don’t be ridiculous Raven, you know exactly who I am,” the man snapped irritably.

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m your husband, Damian,” he growled.

“Okay, now I just think your nuts!” She decided. “What insane version of me, would ever marry a version of Damian Wayne, other than one that clearly fell for jailbait.”

“Jailbait!? Don’t be so crass, you sound like that imbecile Todd.”

“I see, so you are from a different dimension, the Damian from here would kill for me to end up with his idiot brother.” Raven sighed and released the shadows before she grabbed the man’s head to inspect where he had hit it. It was a habit, one she wasn’t out of as she dragged her fingers through his hair and found the knot before healing that little goose egg.

“Different dimension?” Damian sputtered.

“Yes, I had thought you were from demented future, but you are most certainly from a different dimension, which means, I’m Raven, but I’m not your wife,” Raven stated releasing him.

“Ingo,” he growled as he stood for the baby. The baby squealed and Raven gasped as she was tackled on her waist by a baby who smiled brightly up at her.

“Mama!”

“Oh dear Azar,” she sighed.

“Can you get us back?”

“I don’t even know where you’re from!” Raven snapped trying to pry the clingy baby off her to hand it back to it’s father.

[autumnhobbit]

Gen Tim and Damian huh? Hm. Dick is hurt on his beat as a cop, Bruce is out of country on business, Jason is also out of town, Alfred is with Bruce, and the girls are taking care of vigilanti business. So Tim and Damian are waiting for news at the hospital by themselves. Tim accepted this possibility when Dick first started, Damian was only prepared as far as their nightwork. Tim comforts Damian and helps him come to terms, and Damian puts a hand on Tim's shoulder when Damian finds him crying

Tim shoved through the door to the OR’s waiting room violently, only capable of sparing a vague hope that no one was on the other side. He half-ran down the hallway and into the waiting room, wondering if he should try to page Dr. Thompkins first, or call someone, anyone; maybe the commissioner or someone on the force. But he skidded to a stop once he reached the waiting room, because a very familiar eleven-year-old was sitting all alone in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs, sneakered feet dangling. In fact, he was entirely in civvies; lightly mud-splattered jeans and a slightly-too-large t-shirt. His black hair was mussed and windswept, and his expression was vacant and lost.

“Damian!?” Tim asked breathlessly, mind racing. Because he knew for a fact that Bruce was in Tehran, because he’d been texting him about his case there for the whole week. And he knew for a fact that Alfred was with him, because he’d gotten on the phone real quick at one point to tell Tim hello and to remind him to drink water rather than coffee once in a while. Jason was off with his latest set of Outlaws somewhere, Steph and Cass were with Bruce. So who the hell was watching Damian?

“How did you get here?” Tim asked, still huffing from exertion, and more than a little panic.

“Kent flew me,” Damian said, too quiet, his gaze not moving an inch from the door to the OR. Of course, Tim realized. It made sense for Damian to stay with the Kents; Jon was his friend, and he’d be relatively safe from unaccompanied Robin work in Kansas.

“Did Clark stay?” Tim asked, suddenly hoping that the man was somewhere in the hospital. Having Clark along, with his polite and kind-hearted manner paired with his ability to get people to talk and cooperate, would make dealing with this undoubted mess so much easier.

Damian numbly shook his head. “League. He had to go.”

Tim felt as if all the imaginary wind had drained from his sails, and he dropped into the chair beside Damian, head in his hands. “Did you find out anything?” He eventually asked, voice hoarser than he would have liked.

“The Commissioner said it was a double-agent,” Damian said, bereft of tone. “One of their men.”

“Fuck,” Tim said, running his hand over his eyes. Damian said nothing, but seemed inclined to agree. “Did…” Tim spoke up when Damian wasn’t forthcoming with any new information, swallowing hard. “Did he say how bad it was?”

“Bad.” Damian said blankly. “They got him here in fifteen minutes and they said it’ll be at least another four hours in surgery.”

Tim closed his eyes tightly, burying his face in his hands. Oh, this was not good. He’d always kind of dreaded a situation like this, ever since Dick took a job with the police force, but he’d hoped and prayed it would never happen. After all, their nightlife was already dangerous, and he’d survived that, hadn’t he? But of course their damned luck couldn’t hold out. But Tim had prepared himself already for something like this to happen. After Kon, and Bart, and Cassie, and Steph, and Bruce, and his dad, and Jason, and everyone…expecting the worst was kind of his default position.

He straightened slightly, wondering if he should call Bruce. He hoped it wasn’t bad enough to warrant it, because it would be a long flight to get back, but…Bruce would never forgive himself if one of them died and he wasn’t there with them, especially not after Jason. He dug his phone out of his pocket, started to type at least five different variations of the text, and erased every one. He stared at his scratched-up phone screen and the flashing cursor for a moment, and finally typed out, Dick was shot. Today on shift. Waiting in OR. Probly critical; haven’t heard anything.

The door opened with a loud click, and Tim’s head snapped up. He could sense Damian doing the same with a faint gasp, but it was just a couple of off-duty doctors going to clock in. The door swung closed behind them, and the tense silence settled back over the room.

Tim heaved a sigh, trying to calm his heart down a bit after the startle. Then he realized that a noise had joined the echoey ticking of the clock; a small, breathless sound. He glanced over at Damian, and started at how pale he’d gone in the last few seconds, and how he was making odd little noises as he hyperventilated, still staring at the door.

“Damian,” Tim said, voice rising a bit as he stood up quickly, crouching in front of the boy and grabbing him by the shoulders. Damian kept gulping, and he was growing even paler, if it was possible. “Damian, you need to calm down.” He tried not to shake the boy, but he was beginning to panic himself. Damian’s breaths were so fast that they were blending in with each other, and Tim wracked his brain for some way to make him calm down. He finally pulled Damian into his arms clumsily, pressing him close and rubbing his back. “Damian, breathe, buddy. Come on.” He guided Damian’s face into his neck, feeling the faint puffs of air from his hysterical breaths. He cupped the back of Damian’s head and stroked his hair. “Come on, kid. Breathe with me. In. Out. Come on.”

Damian kept gulping, but his hand tensed in between him and Tim, pulling into a fist. He took a stuttering, short breath.

“Good. Keep going. In,” Tim said quietly, trying to project calm, and Damian tried again. This breath was still short, but only stuttered a bit near the beginning. Tim half-rocked the kid and kept talking to him, and finally Damian’s breaths were somewhat closer to being steady and deep, and Tim breathed his own sigh of relief. He tried to lean back so he could get a better look at Damian, to see if his color had improved, but Damian clung to his shirt and his breathing started speeding up again, so Tim gave up and re-tightened his grip, resting his chin on top of Damian’s head.

The two of them sat alone in the silence for a few minutes.

“He…he was Batman,” Damian said out of nowhere, in a hushed, pained, small voice. “He still is. He can’t…he can’t—this can’t happen.”

Tim sighed, closed his eyes and buried his face in Damian’s hair. “I know.”

Except it could. It could, and it was, and Dick was back there somewhere, all alone on a cold metal table, most likely bleeding out. Maybe he was already dead, already gone forever out of reach, and Tim wasn’t even sure what day it was when he last saw him, or what he said to him then, and he wasn’t even aware he was crying until his shoulders heaved with a sudden, violent sob. All the air in his lungs went out and back into him quickly, and Damian’s hand was patting his face frantically.

“Drake!?” He said, and Tim cursed viciously in his head. He was scaring Damian. The kid was scared enough already, and now Tim was breaking down and he didn’t know what to do with it. It was probably making it harder for him to hold it together. Tim understood this perfectly, but that didn’t remotely mean he was capable of stopping. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d cried, let alone this hard, but he sat there and clung to Damian and wept. And, to Tim’s vague surprise, Damian threw his little arms around him–they weren’t quite long enough to encircle Tim all the way–and pressed in. “Shhh, Drake. Do not cry. It’ll be alright. Please do not cry,” Damian sounded like he might cry himself if this kept up, so Tim took a shaky breath and tried to stifle his sobs. It didn’t work so well at first, but eventually he calmed down, and he freed one arm and reached up to scrub his sleeve across his eyes and nose, sniffling.

“Sorry,” he croaked. “I don’t know why I did that, I don’t–”

“It’s okay,” Damian said quickly, still clinging to the back of Tim’s shirt. Tim heaved a sigh and wrapped an arm around Damian’s back, leaning in and tucking his chin on top of Damian’s head again.

“I’m just…so tired of this,” Tim whispered.

Damian gulped shakily. “I…I always expected that one day he’d…he’d…” The boy’s voice broke. “But…but as Batman! Or even Nightwing. Not…not like this. Not in a silly civilian job. Not betrayed, with none of us nearby to protect him. He–he deserves better than that!”

Tim closed his eyes. “Being a cop is dangerous, Dames. Probably equally dangerous to our stuff, if not more. They don’t have secret identities to keep their home lives safe. But you’re right,” Tim sighed. “He’s tougher than any of them know, been through more.”

There was a pause. “I–I was in a hurry,” Damian gulped, hushed, like he was confessing some sort of sin. “And headed to the Kents, and I…I ran off without giving him a hug. He offered one, but I ran past and called ‘bye’ behind me.” Damian pressed his face into the front of Tim’s shirt.

Tim sighed. “Dames, it’s not your fault.”

“I know that! But…I shouldn’t have skipped it. Ever. I should know better than that.” He gulped. “I’ve died, I should know better–”

“Sshhh, Dames,” Tim clenched his eyes shut and pulled the smaller boy close. The reminder made him sick, even more so since Damian was so small and curled up in his lap, fitting perfectly there.

“I…” Damian gulped. “One of—the only things I was thinking about when I was…” Damian broke off with a choke, “…was when I’d last hugged Grayson, or what the last thing Father said to me was, or what I said to him.” He blinked up at Tim, his lashes wet, eyes painfully large and sad. “I wondered what the last thing I said to you was.”

Tim blinked burning eyes. He’d wondered what he’d last said to Damian, too. He never could wind up remembering, no matter how many nights the thought kept him awake, or woke him in dread, or occurred to him as he sat and tried to work. It haunted him to think that it might have been an insult. Probably was.

“It turned out okay,” he finally said lamely. “You’re back. That’s all that matters.”

Damian glanced up, very vulnerable-looking. He blinked his large, dark eyes. “You mean that?” He asked, hushed.

“Of course.” Tim said, surprised at how much he meant it. “But…” he bit his lip. “I owe you an apology.”

Damian blinked. “For what?”

“For…everything, basically.” Tim groaned. How could he even begin to explain this? “I…hell, Damian. Look. You hurt me. Badly. I was going through the years from hell and you showed up with an obnoxious attitude and murderous tendencies and took over my life. I had no say in anything. Dick gave Robin to you without even asking me–” Tin tried hard to stifle the burning resentment that was still present towards his oldest brother over that; which felt all kinds of wrong considering he was possibly dying. “You constantly beat me down to assert yourself, and I hated you. But–” his voice half-rose in panic when he saw Damian immediately duck his head to hide how his eyes were filling again. “But I was older. I never made an effort to understand where you were coming from or why you acted the way you did. And your mistakes didn’t justify mine. I could have tried to be better if I’d wanted to, but I didn’t want to. I let my anger control me instead of the other way around, and that was wrong. And…” Tim gulped. “And when you…when you were gone, I would have given anything to have you back, so I could try again. I’m…I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” Damian mumbled, pressed in again, sounding sleepy but sincere. Tim glanced up at the clock. It was 2:36 in the morning. He glanced back down, opening his mouth to say something else, but trailed off when he saw Damian was half-asleep, his eyelids slowly drifting closed. Sighing, Tim shifted slightly in the stupid chair, and settled in to wait.

The door opening woke him up an uncertain amount of time later, and he raised his head, blinking painfully and trying to force his vision to focus on the clock. It was 3:19, and he belatedly realized there was a man in scrubs standing and looking at him.

“Hi,” Tim mumbled, freeing a hand from beneath Damian and rubbing his eyes.

“Hello,” the man said. “Are you related to Richard Grayson?”

“Yes,” Tim said, swallowing hard and steeling himself. “How is he?”

“He’s out of surgery and in recovery in the ICU. He was shot in the right lung, which tore open the chest wall. The bullet was lodged against his aorta, which was why surgery took so long. We have him sedated on a ventilator, and on antibiotics for the next few days at minimum, but he seems to have pulled through the surgery, and his vitals have stabilized fairly well, considering the circumstances. I can’t guarantee anything, of course, but his chances of recovery are good, especially if he makes it through the next few days without lingering complications.”

Tim exhaled raggedly. “Thank God. And thank you for letting me know.”

The man nodded. “Of course.” He gave the still-sleeping Damian a sympathetic look. “Do you boys need a ride home?”

“I…” Tim paused, unsure of what the best thing to do was. “I don’t know.” He glanced down at Damian. “I’d feel bad to go home and leave Dick here alone.”

The man frowned thoughtfully. “Well…” he said. “It is fairly early, and at the moment it’s not too crowded…I think you two could probably come in and sit with him, so long as you’re not hindering the staff from doing their job in any way. But by the looks of you,” he said wryly, “I assume you’ll probably be sleeping, anyway.”

Tim managed a smile. “That would be great. Thank you so much.”

“My pleasure,” the man said, opening the door and holding it. Tim got up out of the chair a bit clumsily, sore from the chair and the cramped position he’d been in, hefting Damian up and carrying him inside. He followed the man down the halls, empty and quiet except for a few hushed conversations and the occasional nurse or doctor walking by. The man turned a corner, and Tim did likewise, surprised to see the commissioner standing outside one of the rooms, looking at least ten years older than usual. He looked surprised and regretful when he saw Tim.

“Tim,” he said apologetically, pushing up off the wall. “I’m so sorry, if I’d known you were here I would have had them bring you in sooner…”

“It’s alright, Commissioner.” Tim said. “We managed.”

Jim shook his head, guilt written on his face. “I’ve got more to apologize for than just that. I’m just so sorry this happened. If I’d been keeping a better eye on my subordinates…”

“Jim. Really. It’s alright.” Tim insisted. “It’s not your fault, and I’ll bet Dick’ll tell you so when he wakes up, too.”

“I hope so,” Jim said, shaking his head. “He’s a good kid. Does Damian need a ride home?”

“Nah,” Tim said. “Bruce is out of the country and on his way back. I’m all he’s got at the moment.”

“Alright,” Jim said tiredly. He patted Tim’s shoulder, and Damian’s head. “I’d better try and find somewhere to get some sleep, myself. Got my work cut out for me in the morning. Give your dad my regards.”

Tim nodded. “I will.”

The commissioner walked off, and the nurse, who had waited patiently through the whole conversation, opened the door to Dick’s room and stepped back, allowing Tim to go first.

Tim stepped in and moved a bit to the side to make room for the nurse, swallowing hard at the sight of his older brother. He was still and slack in the bed, his fingers curled slightly on the sheet, his eyelids closed and darkened. His bare chest had a prominent bandage fixed over the wound, and a chest tube stuck out from between his ribs. His usually ruddy complexion was drained to grayish, his lips white. His thick black hair was rumpled and messy.

The nurse quickly checked the monitors and adjusted the IV line to make sure it had enough slack, then walked over to a closet and pulled out a collapsible gurney, setting it up. “There’s a vending machine down the hall past this room and to the right. A nurse will be by every hour to check on him.”

Tim nodded, stepping over and sitting down on the bed, carefully setting Damian down on his side. “Thank you again.”

The nurse nodded politely, and with a final glance at the monitors, left the room. Tim slowly slid down on his side next to Damian, feeling bone-weary, inside and out. He didn’t think he would be able to fall asleep at first, but he curled around Damian and fixed his eyes on Dick’s still but breathing form in the bed next to them, and was asleep in only a few minutes.

(Ao3 link here.)