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youcouldmakealife · 6 months

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LBTE: Jared (128-129)

The fucking Scouts, man. And we end the Jared on the move arc. Next up: Bryce on the move arc!

If you want to read along, series page is here.

128. Outclassed

Jared drives home half-asleep, finds a very sleepy Bryce on the couch waiting up for him.

“Go to bed,” Jared says, pokes him up to their room and then follows suit.

Bryce wanted to stay up and celebrate with him. In reality he just ended up getting poked into bed in the two minutes before they were both snoozing.

He wakes up at ten-forty five — the latest he’s gotten up since the postseason started — to a kiss to the forehead, a cup of coffee handed to him, the immediate awareness that the Nucks did it, they’ve got at least another round to battle through. As ways to wake up go, it’s pretty fucking great.

Bryce is so good at husbanding, especially now that it’s his offseason: full time husband and covert Canucks fan until training starts.

Bryce isn’t offended by Jared living hockey, and it’s actually helpful as hell to have him right there beside him. Bryce watches the earlier Avs games with him, arm slung over Jared’s shoulder, making smart observations, has advice for Jared before and after every game. It’s like having a game tape coach and a husband all in one, it’s terrific.

Full time husband. Hockey smarts included.

It’s a hard fought, ugly series that takes a few of the Canucks with it, Dmitry unfortunately one of them — Jared guesses the line’s still cursed, though he’s selfishly glad he’s not the latest to fall victim to that — but the Canucks scrape out a win in seven, and they’re going to the Western Conference Finals, which is an incredible fucking feeling.

Yay!

Jared can’t say he’s surprised by who they’re going to be facing.

He can’t say he’s particularly pleased about it either.

Such a quick fall from yay.

“Okay,” Bryce says. “Here’s the lowdown about the Scouts.”

“Fuck the Scouts?” Jared says.

“Fuck the Scouts,” Bryce says. “But seriously.”

I mean, basically.

And then Jared’s getting something that isn’t quite a rant but is basically an insider report on pretty much all of the Scouts, because Bryce is clearly still pissed about that series, and he’s got a MENSA level hockey IQ. He was up against the first line, which Jared isn’t going to be facing much if at all, but he was apparently paying very close attention on the bench as well, and at a certain point Jared starts taking literal notes on his phone, trying to keep up.

When holding grudges comes in handy.

“Hey!” Jared says, torn from strategy. “You talking about my new Premier?”

“Holy fuck,” Stephen says after a moment. “No offence but if you voted for him him I’m kicking you out of our house right now.”

Jared takes no offence. “Obviously I didn’t fucking vote for him,” Jared says. “Dude’s a corrupt megalomaniac with an oil rig where his heart should be.”

We now interrupt your story for political propaganda. But like — from a policy standpoint, every statement here is accurate, up to and including the oil rig heart (Jason Kenney resigned in disgrace only to be replaced by someone worse somehow -- the conservative way -- and is now on the board of directors of an energy company. No one could have possibly foreseen this.)

“Are we talking about Kenney?” Bryce complains. “Politics are boring.”

“Politics are how we were able to get married, B,” Jared says,

Of note that Jason Kenney was virulently homophobic.

(He still is, I'm sure, but now he isn’t making homophobic policy decisions -- that’s the job of his successor!)

“These kids,” Gabe says to Stephen. “Bet they don’t even remember when gay marriage was legalised.”

“I do,” Bryce protests. “Sort of.”

Jared shrugs. “I was a little kid?” he says. “I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Jared once again hurting Stephen with his youth. Gay marriage was legalized in Canada in July 2005. Jared was 6. Bryce 9. Gabe and Stephen 14.

“Get out of my house,” Stephen says, but he says that all the time, and Jared no longer listens to him. Well, he probably genuinely meant it if Jared was a UCP supporter, but obviously Jared isn’t — he was raised by hobgoblins, not actual monsters. “Now let’s do Ford.”

God, let’s not — I’ll be here all fucking week.

“While I enjoy trashing Doug Ford as much as the next Ontarian,” Gabe says.

Not so much that they didn’t vote for more! Not going to lie, I’m still coping pretty hard with the fact the majority of my fellow Ontarians either voted for this guy a second time, or didn’t bother to get off their asses because his opponents weren’t ‘inspiring’. Is that on the Ontario Libs and NDP too? Yep. On ‘Rae Days’ BS and Liberals always talking strategic voting, but only if that means NDP voters vote for them? Sure. But for fuck’s sakes, everyone who didn’t vote essentially cast a ballot for everything Ford has done since, including the multi-billion dollar racketeering he’s being investigated for by the RCMP. But Rae Days.

Okay. Off my soap box.

“Stephen’s a lot,” Bryce says, all blink-y about it. Stephen isn’t even being extra Stephen, he’s just normal level Stephen, but then, Jared probably has a higher tolerance for snide, since he so often is himself.

Inoculation!

Though you’d think Bryce would be used to it too, considering who he’s married to. Maybe he’s just got immunity to Jared’s particular brand of it after enough exposure.

Jared and Stephen are similarly snide but not identically, Bryce only has Jared immunity. He gets very blink-y around Julius too. I’d say he has Erin immunity too but Erin isn’t even a hobgoblin with Bryce unless he dares suggest she and Jared have any similarities whatsoever, in which case she proves his point for him by getting extremely huffy about it just like Jared does.

“I believed you,” Bryce protests. “But he’s so — mean. He told me my hair was stupid.”

The first time Stephen calls Bryce’s hair Disney Prince hair. Bryce hasn’t realised it’s a compliment, as Stephen says it in a mean voice.

“His hair’s stupid,” Bryce mutters. “And he called me a cradle robber! And kept calling me Coach Bryce!”

I mean…

Jared was there for that, but he thought it was more because Bryce was like, coaching them through strategy. In hindsight it is more likely Stephen pointing out that Bryce was, in fact, Jared’s coach when they met, albeit tenuously. Jared really never should have told Stephen that. He’s never going to let it go.

Jared also understands a little better why Bryce scowled at him when Jared joined Stephen in calling him Coach Bryce.

Still fucking dying that Jared accidentally joined Stephen in roasting Bryce.

“You make a very good coach though,” Jared says, putting a soothing hand on Bryce’s arm.

Bryce scowls.

He knows you’re about say something mean, Jared, he’s been inoculated!

“Just don’t sleep with any other prospects, I’d be super—” Jared breaks off to protect himself from a half-tackle from Bryce, laughing as Bryce gets a jab in to his side.

Jared’s true love language: play wrestling.

“No PDA on the Markson-Petersen property,” Stephen says.

Jared opens his mouth, considering Gabe kissed Stephen right in front of them like twenty minutes ago. Bryce went adorably pink about it.

Literally the first time Bryce has personally witnessed two guys kissing (I mean, not involving him, obvs), and it’s people he KNOWS. Low key a big moment for him.

“He’s so mean,” Bryce mumbles. “That wasn’t even PDA, I wrestle with Chaz all the time.”

Jared would raise an eyebrow, but he thinks he’d get tackled again. Plus he also used to wrestle with Chaz all the time. Chaz loves a good wrestling match. Jared’s wrestling matches with Chaz have a distinctly different tenor to them than his grappling with Bryce, particularly when Bryce decides he isn’t going to let Jared win. Stephen was maybe not off about the PDA part.

Chaz’s love language is also play wrestling, but not like that. Bro love. Bruv.

Jared hears a lock click, though he’s not too worried. Gabe will intercede if he has to.

Spoken like someone who has frequently locked doors on his little sister, who had to be let in by Don or Susan. Or been locked out by said sister. Or, you know, the time they were both locked out by their mother so they couldn’t eavesdrop on Bryce asking for their blessing. A family affair.

“I know,” Jared says. It’d be bad walking into a series thinking you didn’t.

“We didn’t,” Bryce says.

Another win for the brain to mouth filter!

The Scouts are a juggernaut, but the Canucks are no slouch either.

The Scouts are better.

Every fucking time. Dynasties, man. (They haven’t even won their first Cup at this point; they’re going to be so much more annoying when they’re winning their third.)

Jared hopes it’s the Caps and Raf scores the game winning goal and does a fly by giving the finger to Williams and Simcoe. That doesn’t sound like a particularly Raf move

Robbie, though…

…but Jared’s not exactly being reasonable right now, all raw scraped nerves and hurt and a fucked up shoulder from a hard hit by Angelopoulos that probably should have sidelined him, but didn’t because it was the playoffs.

The first injury of Jared by a main cast member from a different series. But not the last.

Jared does his stupid painful exercises for the stiffness, gets out of packing anything because, well, shoulder, so it’s Bryce who’s doing it while Jared supervises and occasionally insults his packing decisions just to get that huffy Bryce sigh.

Yet another love language: intentionally bugging Bryce.

Jared’s in his parents’ kitchen with Erin when he hears the whoop from the living room, Bryce and his dad, mom lost under how loud they are, and him and Erin shuffle out to watch the Caps surge over the boards to dogpile their goalie.

Bryce and Don bonding on Team Fuck the Scouts.

Grace is clutch, and the group chat has a number of pictures of the partying the next morning. There’s a picture of Raf and Chapman looking absolutely shitfaced and more than half-asleep that’s particularly good, and Jared makes sure to save it for the purpose of mockery. Another very unflattering one Raf and Kurmazov the Senior, and Jared saves that one to send to Dmitry so he may use it for the purposes of mockery.

Look, Jared’s putting aside his feelings for Dmitry to help him be an annoying little brother, bless. Also that picture of Raf and David is adorable.

the salve of falling asleep in the same bed, of Bryce hitting his alarm immediately and trying to sneak around in the mornings so he doesn’t wake Jared up, Jared pretending he’s still asleep so Bryce doesn’t feel guilty, Bryce probably pretending he actually thinks Jared’s asleep

The softest game of deception devised since peek-a-boo.

129. Sabbatical

Summer’s — summer’s summer.

Very eloquent, Jared. (He doesn’t know how to describe the bone deep relief he feels falling asleep with and waking up beside Bryce, mixed with the grunt work of training, tempered by the fact he’s doing it with some of his favourite people, and they all get to hang out together after(!), Jared has a friend group(!) but also he’s not playing hockey which low key makes everything feel kind of off. So. Summer’s summer.)

Grace has cut her hair really short, and Raf’s done the opposite, letting his grow out, and Ash got a tattoo — her and Bryce bitch about the pain for a bit — but they’re basically all the same as they were a year ago, all feel like home to him even though Calgary only gets to be home in the offseason.

Grace looks great, Raf looks low-key terrible (Cup. Parties. plus the whole road to the Cup in the first place, man is battered.) and Ashley’s tattoo is fire. Not literally, thank fuck; that’d definitely make Chaz getting traded more awkward.

Jared goes up to Edmonton to visit Julius when he pops in for a week for dumb media stuff

I like that it’s completely unclear whether that’s Jared editorializing with ‘dumb media stuff’, or if Julius has been referring to it that way himself.

while Bryce has a ridiculous staycation thing with Erin — that’s code for renting a hotel suite all of a couple blocks from Bryce and Jared’s place for no purpose other than splashing around the pool, and Erin dragging Bryce from store to store and Bryce not even looking at price tags before handing the cashier his credit card, but Bryce was insistent on Erin getting something for her high school graduation, so whatever. Jared and Julius do absolutely nothing while Jared’s there except eat and watch TV and bitch about media and tell each other when they find something funny on the internet. It’s great.

The First Time Erin Makes Twitter Incoming. And Julius and Jared entirely oblivious in Edmonton (this is before Erin and Julius get together, for the record)

It’s honestly such a sweet thing for Bryce to do for Erin’s graduation, and frankly it sucks that it blows up in his face. Bryce did nothing wrong! (For once, says Dave.)

After their anniversary — Bryce buys him too much as usual, Jared does too this year, most currently living in a box in their closet that Bryce goes slightly pink looking at, and he looks often

Jared’s stinginess once again not applying to sex toys, which Bryce appreciates.

— they fly back so Jared can sign the lease and move some stuff out of Elaine’s and and Bryce can visit with Elaine and Gordie and Gail for a bit, do some early birthday stuff with them.

This is the other half of the sex toy sentence, what a fucking segue, Jared. Sex toy reference right before wholesome times with the Marcuses.

Jared’s new apartment is in a good location, not far from Gabe and Stephen’s house, which is pretty much perfectly placed between the practice rink, arena, and airport.

It's in Shaughnessy. Canucks practice at the University of British Columbia (they don’t have their own practice facilities). Triangulation was not by distance, but average commute in traffic and not in traffic (yes, he made the drives, and yes, he bought a real life stop watch and Stephen made fun of him incessantly for this. Does he not have a stop watch on his phone? Come on Gabriel. Gabe would argue, correctly, that he should not be on his phone while driving).

Also he fudged his results and picked somewhere closer to UBC because Stephen was going there at the time, or he would have likely gone for Mt Pleasant or South Main. Stephen is aware. Gabe is aware Stephen is aware. It is not discussed. They like their house, no plans on moving.

Getting a house around there will run you a couple million bucks, because Vancouver, so Jared, known opposite of a big spender, has decided to rent an apartment.

Jared can absolutely see Gabe doing that. Appreciates that Gabe did that. Jared was just google mapping it, Gabe’s test seems like better data.

He FUDGED THE DATA FOR LOVE, JARED. IT IS ALL A LIE.

He likes his place, likes it better when Bryce is in it, helping him put together a dining room table he’ll probably never use,

I am not sure if this dining room table even appears in the story again, it is so underutilized. Generally they eat on the couch (or at the kitchen island, but that's just coffee and breakfast, mostly). If paperwork needs to be done it gets used. That's about it.

“You are literally going to spend the next two days with me,” Jared says when Bryce looks particularly kicked puppy as Jared packs his laptop, which was an anniversary present he did not actually need. At least Erin appreciated getting Jared’s barely even past warranty old one as a university present.

Bold of you to assume that wasn’t Bryce’s plan all along so you aren’t all ‘you can’t buy Erin a laptop, Bryce’, ‘you’ve given Erin more than enough already, Bryce’, ‘stop buying my horrible sister things, Bryce’.

“I can pout whenever I want to, you’re not the boss of me,” Bryce mutters.

“That’s not true,” Jared says. Jared is very much the boss of him and they both know it.

Bryce appreciated his anniversary gifts.

“Nope,” Jared says when Bryce’s hands start creeping under his shirt. “I need to get this done, I don’t want to get halfway to Vancouver before I realise I forgot something important.”

“Flames are going to be in Vancouver in two weeks,” Bryce says.

“No guarantee you’d be playing that game,” Jared says.

“If I’m not I could send it with Chaz,” Bryce says, and before Jared can protest that Chaz might not either, “Canucks are in Calgary right after too.”

Jared doesn’t know if it’s Bryce being stubbornly logical or the fact that Bryce said all of that while unbuttoning and unzipping Jared’s shorts that sways him. Obviously a combination.

‘Keep talking workarounds for possible setbacks, baby, that’s so hot’. But like. Unironically.

After the first leg of the trip they land up in the best hotel you can get in the dead land between Revelstoke and Kamloops, which is not saying much

It’s in Sicamous and it’s a Best Western.

Mere years ago he was lucky if it was a hotel instead of a motel and he was stuck with an asshole roommate who talked in his sleep, and now he’s turning his nose up at a three star hotel.

It’s technically a four star, Jared, you gigantic snob. Also it looks nice enough, honestly, so either it’s been renovated and upped a star since I checked, or I was being lazy in my Revelstoke to Kamloops accommodations due diligence.

“How hard will you judge me if I ask to get back in the car and keep driving?” Bryce asks. “Because Salmon Arm has a decent hotel.”

“How far’s Salmon Arm?” Jared asks.

“Twenty minutes, half an hour?” Bryce says.

Salmon Arm does NOT have a four star hotel. This is a downgrade from that Best Western in Sicamous. As it is now. Possibly not back when I was doing research.

Bryce waits in the car when Jared gets their room, which ends up being a really fucking good call because the front desk clerk is clearly a big Canucks fan, recognises Jared before he even hands her his credit card. Jared texts Bryce a frantic ‘shelter in place’, getting a bunch of question marks in reply, and then he has to go out and sneak him in a side entrance lest he have to explain why he’s sharing a room with one king bed with The Enemy, so that’s great. This is a great trip. Jared’s really enjoying this trip.

THIS is a non chain inn. It’s kind of dated, but like, fine.

“Quit grumbling and tell me what you want from room service,” Bryce yawns.

Jared quits grumbling long enough to order a club sandwich, then resumes grumbling.

I genuinely remember looking at a room service menu for accuracy but now there is no room service. So either I am making this all up or they’ve gone downhill. But then, this was written in 2020, when more places may have had room service for pandemic related reasons. It DOES have an in house restaurant, unlike all other Salmon Arm-y places, so it very possibly did offer room service.

This is bothering me now. I am bothered. Petty grudge against Salmon Arm unlocked.

“Summers gave me a few excuses if things were like, asked,” Bryce says. “Mutual friends with Chaz, met years ago at a camp and still hang out, stuff like that.”

“That’s all true, though,” Jared says.

“Yeah but isn’t like, ‘we’re super in love’,” Bryce says. “Which I think was the part Summers wants to avoid.”

Dave has very low expectations about Bryce’s ability to make up a story, and I think that is extremely fair, to be honest.

“Would you be cool with me coming out to my team?” Jared says. “Not like the level of what Gabe knows or anything, just like, not hiding the fact I married a dude.”

Bryce is quiet. “Can I think about it?” he asks finally.

“Yeah,” Jared says.

“I know you — you can come out to anyone you want to, that’s like, your right,” Bryce says.

“I know,” Jared says.

“I need to think about it,” Bryce says.

This is so much progress! Bryce not reflexively saying no! Bryce acknowledging that Jared has autonomy in how he represents himself to others! Actually thinking about it!

“Yeah but I’m a BC boy now,” Jared says.

“I’m a BC boy,” Bryce mutters.

“Nope,” Jared says. “We swapped.”

“You can’t just be a BC boy,” Bryce says, sounding genuinely agitated. “You have to earn it. And you can’t be a BC boy: you don’t even like sushi.”

I love you and the things that bother you, Bryce Marcus.

“Your teammates,” Bryce says, and Jared looks up from his phone. “If you want to tell them you can. Like. The husband thing not the—”

“Not the you being my husband bit,” Jared assures him.

“Okay,” Bryce says, blows out a breath, then another one.

“You sure?” Jared asks.

Bryce takes a hand off the steering wheel to give Jared a so-so.

PROGRESS!!!

“Can we take this exit?” he asks.

“Uh,” Jared says. “We’re like an hour away.”

Bryce gives him a glance.

“I told you to piss when we got lunch,” Jared mutters.

“And you were right and I was wrong,” Bryce mutters back.

Married. Also — end of yet another arc.

#liveblogging the end

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thesungod · 8 months

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their theme is so inconsistent like at the beginning it feels clear, being who you are and accepting each other’s darkness, but the way its done is 😬 and then it switches up to being literally budget toa saying “well everything can change yk??? don’t stay in the darkness” but in a horrible fashion and they’re acting like this is what they’ve been trying to tell me in the past 400 pages when it ISNT dont LIE to ME

i don’t think EITHER of them was reading the book as they write they were just mashing words together bc im watching a book promo for it rn and rick’s saying that will likes nico bc he likes nicos ““darkness”” and how intrigues him and mark’s saying neither of nico or will wants to change that core part of the other. which explains away him in BOO trying to tell nico that nobody disliked him—being that will was projecting his own feelings about nico onto others—and also relates will to apollo even more with their need to reach out to outcasts and love them. but then they didn’t write that they literally wrote that will doesn’t like it and he wants to fix it. thats my STEP SON and they did that to him.

rick did not want to write this book at all, and mark probably projected their nico stanisms onto the other characters without justifying the stanisms. you can really tell when rick has a passion for writing something and when he could not care less. the subtle toa promo in one of the gorgyra scenes and apollo’s updated glossary—he wants you to read toa so bad he could not gaf about this book. and yet apollo is never mentioned positively like give him back to me.

speaking of mark i think this is just a consistent issue they have when writing. i read reviews of one of their books (anger is a gift) and some were very negative about the way the narrative made the protagonist the most righteous person ever and completely revolved around them. ifl that issue bleeds into this book as well.

i saw people (including the writers) say this book is darker than a lot of rick’s other books and i really need them to shut the fuck up; THO literally had kids tied up in crucifixes to be burned at the stake 😭

ok sorry for the ramble i see the letters tsats together and i go on a rampage

you absolutely ate this up!!

also laughing at you calling it “budget toa” because that’s exactly what i said to a friend about this book once. i felt almost offended over the authors trying to fit the “everyone can change!!” narrative last minute and make Nico the symbol of re-invention after five whole books of ToA. i was very “how dare you stand where he stood” about it which is childish but alas.

i’ve also mentioned several times how will and nico’s conflict in the book was not intriguing to read about because it was inconsistent. not to mention that according to the timeline they’ve been together for a year!!! an entire year!!! and the book still has Will acting #shocked that Nico, idk, likes darkness.

the Mary-Suing of Nico literally the worst thing to ever happen to me. i’m usually all for my faves winning, but that’s after they’ve been through the mortifying ordeal of losing, yk. and i get that Nico has been through a lot but the book was basically a 400-pages-long ass kissing and i couldn’t do it.

i couldn’t even feel particularly moved or vindicated by Bob pledging loyalty to him in the end because it wasn’t cathartic at all. i was like we get it dude lol

same with his “friendship” with Piper tbh. not everyone needs to like Nico😭 i would have totally loved it if the book had shown a friendship progress organically through their grief for Jason or common interests (even if just briefly narrated through a recollection!! i’m not saying we needed chapters of flashbacks or Piper as a third main), but Nico does not mention her once ever. they didn’t even like each other in HoO!! then at the end of the book he calls her and he is all like “of course she wouldn’t be angry at me for not calling after Jason died <3 she understands that grief is complicated <3”

my king Piper isn’t angry at you for not calling because she dgaf about you. why would she. who are you to her

another thing I’ll never get over re: Nico and Will’s relationship is how, per the book, Nico encouraged Will to come out and was the first one of the two to do so, when every. single. thing written about them in the Hidden Oracle suggests the opposite.

why the fuck is Nico so reticent and embarrassed about admitting to be Will’s boyfriend in the first book of ToA if it’s Nico who came out first? IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE CAMP might I add?

because i get that coming out to someone doesn’t necessarily mean being comfortable coming out to everyone, but Nico announced his crush IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE CAMP. and asked Will out. and Will wasn’t out at the time. so whyyyy is their dynamic on THO literally the opposite of this? with Will pushing Nico to be more open about their relationship while Nico plays coy? because Apollo is Will’s father? idk, maybe i guess😭

but it’s pretty obvious the change in the dynamic was established later on and that the impression we were supposed to have while reading THO is that Will was the one more comfortable and in tune with his sexuality. like, come on.

#ask #solangelo book

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iggy5055 · 2 years

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Yandere platonic Batfam x Poor reader part 9

Summary: (Y/N) has help from Damian to get ready for the gala and after treatment she can finally talk again, but the party doesn’t go as planned.Let you dirty minds run free even if its platonic, because I do the same damn thing, there is no shame on this page all are welcome, loved and excepted.

I don’t add anything like weight or hair length/texture, skin color or anything like that so all feel included, I try to make my work as inclusive as possible, if I missed something please contact me if you where offended either way, If I do offend you I am so sorry none of this was meant to be offensive.

TW: This is platonic but that doesn’t mean it’s not suggestive, kidnapping, manipulation, fear, drugging, humiliation. y’all best get ready,

“ = talking

‘ = thinking

I’M BACK BITCHES!!!!!! WHO MISSED ME!?!?!?!

_____________________________________

Another week with them in my mind felt like a life sentence, long hard and boring to no end. But will all the meds they had me take and some kind of gross drink they gave me about three times a day to help the inside of my throat, along with all the time I was forced to spend with them, the week flew by.

I was finally able to talk but not for long or my throat would get sour, But it was a relief to finally be able to talk.

Even though I could never say the things I wanted to around all of the guys I still got the words out. I had gotten a bad habit of talking to myself. Mostly in the mirror. Like giving myself little pep talks or telling myself everything would be ok.

But the days after Bruce had told me I would be going to the winter ball were annoying as hell . After I fell asleep in Bruce’s office I had woken up in Jason’s room, he was cleaning his twin pistols while siting on the couch still in his Red Hood get up with the helmet beside him on the glass coffee table in front of him.

It didn’t scare me like I thought it would but it still made me nervous as hell. Him holding guns was not something that felt like it was safe to be around.

It took Jason a moment to realize I was awake but after he did, he got up and kiss my forehead good morning and got me some breakfast. After I had a much needed shower and changed into some different clothes. instead of Damian’s shirt he gave me one of his with some of my old baggy sweatpants.

I was glad to see that Damian was right and the bruise on my ankle was finally gone and the pain disappearing with it.

In all honesty I was getting used to the routine they had all set for me no matter how much I didn’t want to. And eventually the days just blurred together.

When I woke up this morning I was with Dick. Along with figuring out my daily routine I had also found my likes an dislikes of my new life. Even though I couldn’t do anything about the dislikes I felt it was important to take note of them. To both keep my sanity but also because it felt nice to know if nothing else my thoughts were safe. It was like having my own little world.

With the drugs they gave me I was extremely sluggish and couldn’t tense my muscles at all, but even if I was practically trapped in my own head I didn’t mind.

In the beginning it felt like torture, essentially being trapped inside ones own head. But I was also able to gather my thoughts and get a much better control over my emotions. It felt nice being in control of something again even if it was as small as my own thoughts.

But one of the dislikes I had learned was that Dick was my least favorite person to sleep with.

He was so clingy he had to hold me in some way shape or form and always in a way that his body was completely encasing mine.

I liked to sleep with Damian the most. He gave me my space and never tried to hold me. It was clear he wanted me to come to him but as long as I was being given the choice I was going to relish in the space he had let me have for as long as he would let me have it.

Tim wasn’t horrible to sleep with, he would always sleep facing me and I had always turned my back to him. He never minded. In fact none of them did. As long as I was in the same bed as them only Dick cared if I was in his arms or not. But Tim did like his feet to touch mine. I didn’t mind too much. Winter had hit hard early this year and the boys seemed content only giving me the bare minimum in cold protection so I would be more willing to cuddle.

All of the boys were like living heaters so on cold nights I didn’t mind Tim’s feet touching mine because mine were always cold

Jason was my second least favorite to sleep with. He was kind of like Dick in the sense that he always wanted to be holding me. He always slept on his back and often made me curl up on his side with my head nuzzled into his neck and my hand on his chest while he had his arm wrapped around me resting on my side. But unlike Dick after an hour or so he had no problem if I moved to turn away from him.

I knew he was awake when I turned. All of the boys were extremely light sleepers. Especially Damian, he never touched me in anyway when we would sleep but once I flinched in my sleep. I had dreamed of (F/N) again I woke up lightly flinching. not to much, barely even a twitch. After I had started to shake a little but it wasn’t much but even so, just a light little jump was enough to wake him up.

I had spent the rest of that night curled up with Damian crying.

Every morning was the same, they would give me the pain in the ass drugs and I would eat breakfast and switch to the next ‘brother’ for the day.

But this morning was different. Dick had woken me up. Usually they would wait for me to wake up by myself, but not today. But that wasn’t the only thing that changed.

Dick woke me up by lightly running his fingers through my hair.

“Baby bird~ time to wake up.”

When my eyes started to open he cooed at me while lightly kissing my forehead.

“no~o~o~.”

I whined.

I always tried to sleep as much as possible now. The more I slept the less time I had to spend with each of them. That and I had gotten used to the new routine so sleeping in became my normal most mornings.

“Oh come on, baby bird. Today is the winter ball, you have to get ready.”

I blink a few times tiring to get the sleep out of my eyes.

‘Right, a party.’

I sit up rubbing my eyes a little. I stretch out, falling down on my back again feeling my joints pop satisfyingly.

I sit back up and stare at Dick waiting for my lest favorite part of my morning.

Dick just starts back at me smiling fondly.

Dick was already dressed in a handsome suit. It was a regular black suit that fit him like a glove. He had on a white undershirt on and a nice blue tie.

After a minute I tilt my head to the side a little wondering what he was waiting for. Usually they would give me the drugs when I was still half asleep so that my brain wouldn’t realized that I was being given a needle right away. It was their way of trying to help my trypanophobia.

“Whats wrong, baby bird.”

Dick smile faltered for a moment. He was still smiling a little but he had a slightly worried look on his face. He cupped my cheeks with his warm hands. I could feel how hard they were from years of crime fighting and training but all of them had dialed down quite a bit on both training and going out. They only ever went out if It wasn’t my night with them.

“Needle?"

I figured out recently that he liked it when I talked with short sentences. Just talking enough to get the point across. He made sure to tell me it wasn’t because he didn’t like the sound of my voice, no for from. But he never actually told me why. I figured it was because it made me sound like a child. Someone who is innocent, weak, and unable to take care of themselves.

Dick chucked, not at me, more at himself. Seemingly because he finally realized what my seemingly strange look on my face was all about.

Dick especially wanted me to become accustomed to my new life as fast as possible so that I would give in to their every demand. But in all honesty they never asked much of me. Never told me to do anything unless is was just to be in close proximity to them when and where they wanted.

“No baby bird, not today. We want you to enjoy your time as much as possible. Besides, you have been nothing but good so think of this as a little test.”

He smirk and takes both my hands in his kissing each of my knuckles.

“If your good tonight well see about adjusting your dosage to even maybe stopping having to give you that horrible needle we all know you hate so much, baby girl.”

Times like this is why I was immensely grateful that I was so good at hiding my facial expression, I couldn’t help but cringe on the inside at his words. I know very well my life is in their hands. Not just my life, but also my soul, my heart and unfortunately, even most of my mind.

Because when you act for long enough, soon enough it stops becoming an act and more a desperate attempt for survival

I nodded, despite myself and stood up slowly. I never knew what any of the boy’s next move was so I always made my movements slow. Even with the drugs they gave me my movements were always slower then necessary.

I never wanted to anger or make them suspicious of me for any reason so being slow and seeming even more helpless then I already was seemed like the best option available to me.

Dick smiled again but his eyes held so much. His smile was deceiving. He was so good at hiding his emotions, it put my sad attempts to shame. But to be fair all of them were.

But his eyes let him down, I was with the Wayne family long enough to know the truth behind those deep blue eyes.

They held so much complexity much like the ocean they always seemed to represent so perfectly.

His eyes held something malicious in them. But not the kind that represented the wish to kill or harm. No, something much worse would dwell in those deep blue depths. It was the wish to coven and to keep. An obsession that could never be fulfilled only sated by the holding of the poor subject of that deep obsession.

And unfortunately, that was me.

Dick gently took my hand and led me over to the bathroom. He sat me down on the bathroom counted and took a warm wash cloth and wiped my face all over.

They all did this. They liked to touch me as much as possible, so washing my face was a good way stay close.

Next he brushed my hair but not with a brush like one might think. No, he likes to use his fingers.

But to be fair, it did feel great. His hands worked magic. Never yanking on a knot in my hair or pulling in anyway. Lightly massaging my scalp.

I couldn’t help but close my eyes and lean into him.

Dick chuckled at my reaction and kept rubbing in all the right spots till someone came bursting into his room, effectively interrupting his ministrations. To witch I wasn’t completely disappointed.

There was always a moment here and there when I gave into them a little more then I wanted so the interruption was much appreciated.

Dick was less enthusiastic about the interruption then I was however.

“Damn it, what are you doing!!!”

I flinch, I had almost never heard Dick yell before and with how sudden it was I couldn’t help but jump.

“Calm down, its my time with her and I have her dress so shut up.”

Damian was never one to hold back when it came to Dick. Out of all his ‘brothers’ it seemed he was also his least favorite.

He seemed to connect with most Jason but I think that its because both never had a problem with killing and Tim kept to himself so often that no one had the opportunity to have something against him.

Dick let out what almost sounded like a growl. Low and animistic, it sent shivers down my spine. But not the good kind.

“Fine”

He spit out, venom dripping from his voice like a rabid dog.

Damian smirked at his older brother.

Then his eyes fell on me. He tilted his head a little. It was something he did often, it made him seem more approachable and friendly but just like all the others, his eyes reveled his real intentions.

His deep green eyes looked just like his fathers, aside from the difference of color they looked exactly identical. It was a little chilling.

His dark green eyes like emeralds drilled into me, but not harshly, the look itself was intense but it was intense with affection.

With his head still tilted we raises his hand and uses a ‘come hither motion’ with his pointer finger.

My face reddens a little, embarrassed at the motion. It was like I was a dog.

But I did as ‘said’ and walked over, still moving pretty slowly. To slowly for his liking apparently.

Damian sighed and walked towards me. He grabbed my arm.

It wasn’t harsh but it currently wasn’t as gentle as usual.

He hoisted me up and over his broad shoulder.

I grunted when my gut came in contact with the hard muscle.

“GOD DAMN IT DAMIAN, BE GENTLE WITH HER, SHES FRAGILE!!!”

Dick wasn’t very enthusiastic about Damian taking me but apparently my rough handling was crossing his line.

This time it was Damian’s turn to growl. I could feel it vibrating through my body.

‘What the fuck, are they men or tigers?’

After they stair at each other for a while Damian breaks the unblinking eye contact and walks away with me still perched on his shoulder.

Once we got to to his room he plops me down on the couch by the warm fire.

With all the cold weather every hearth in the manor was always lit. It made me wonder where all this fire wood came from.

Damian had apparently had started staring at me during my solitaire thinking. He had a kind of lop sided smile that would make a girls knees weak.

My knees on the other hand was as still as concrete.

He held out his hand to me.

“Come here beloved, lets see you in this dress."

Behind Damian was a gorgeous long low cut dark green dress.

When I tried it on I didn’t really know what to think.

It was a tight fit until right under my boobs and then it was loose but not puffy. It had a slit going up my leg but because it was so loose you couldn’t see it unless I was leaning on my side. The dress was strapless and had a very low cut showing off my boobs, and I mean a lot of boob. It had built in support so my boobs were nicely lifted.

The color had me wondering how angry the others were that I was in Damian’s color and not theirs, or, if they even knew.

When i came out of the bathroom I turned around when i saw Damian. The back of the dress had a crisscrossing back instead of a zipper so I needed a little help.

Although I didn’t like the thought of getting held from them it was either that or let the strapless dress fall off.

Damian let out a deep yet soft chuckle shaking his head a little with his green eyes shut and walked over to me. He lifted his hands, and with the lightest touch anyone could imagine he laced and tightened the dress just right.

When he was done before I could turn back around he wrapped his arms around my neck

In his hand was a diamond neckless. It was a simple string of dimes held together with sterling silver but dispute its simplicity it was the most beautiful thing i’d ever seen

I gasped a little when it touched my skin. It was cold but not freezing, still not something I was expecting, nor enjoyed.

Damian chuckled at me and nuzzles into my hair.

“My little (Y/N), you really are too cute."

I turned around, Damian was wearing a similar suit as I had seen him wear before but this time instead of a regular green tie it was a black bow tie and a green dress shirt.

His hair was brushed back. He really was handsome but all I could see was a mad man with a look of obsession in his deep green depths. staring into his eyes made you lost. Like you are in a lush green forest, but in every forest is a monster, but in this case it wasn’t just one.

I put my head down, I didn’t know what to say and in all honesty I didn’t want to say anything to him.

Damian brushes his fingers on my bare shoulder lightly going up and down in a comforting moment, but his touch was so ghostly it could barely be felt.

I shiver a little getting goosebumps all over my skin, it made me so uncomfortable.

Damian chuckled at me again.

“Come Beloved, let’s finish getting you ready.”

By the time Damian was done with my my hair was shiny and looked like it was done by a professional. My makeup looked so natural, a little blush, some light eyeshadow and a mat dark lipstick. No eyeliner or other, which I really enjoyed and laid from curling my natural lashes I had no mascara on.

I really liked it.

Whenever I see fancy people in the streets the makeup is on heavy and the fact eyelash’s are horrible. I was worried he would do my face up like that, but it was very light. I thought it would feel like I had concrete on my face but with this makeup I looked amazing with very little.

In my head it made no sense that Damian could do hair and makeup so well, at this point I’m pretty sure that there was nothing this man can’t do.

When he was done he kissed my hair and looked at me through the mirror saying I looked beautiful.

Apparently the winter ball wasn’t just an evening thing. In the evening it was only the VIPs but the afternoon was also a part of the party but that was for most everyone. Note I said most, they say its for everyone but apparently its very secluded from the public.

I stood up. My feet a little shaky in high heels. My old job was fine with me just wearing old rarity sneakers as long as I could make my voice sound official and/or fancy.

As I stumble Damian grabs my arm to keep my up right. Once I find my feet again he holds out his arm my me to wrap my hand around.

As he walks me to the front door my head hangs low in thought. Mostly thinking about how my body was feeling. With the drugs I felt light, despite my lack of available moment I felt like a feather. But without them I feel like a fifty pound weight is weighing on my back. It made my feel dizzy, like my brain was spinning violently in my skull.

I lean on Damian, all be it somewhat unwillingly but it was either that or fall on my face from both dizziness and standing on two uneven thin sticks. However to be fair the unevenness was mostly from my lack of experience in the uncomfortable shoes but if I’m forced to wear them all day I imagine that i’ll get get used to it.

Let’s just hope I won’t have to dance, but let’s be real, my luck it horrible.

As we make it down the cascading marble steps to the large dark wood double doors the click and clack my heals draws my attention from my own depressing thoughts to what lay in wait for me.

Dick, Jason, Tim and Bruce are all waiting for me, staring up at me like I was a goddess from the heavens.

While they looked at me as if I was a gift from the heavens, I looked at them like they were demons waiting for me as one drags my down from my safe haven.

“Little one, you look beautiful.”

Bruce took both my hands, rubbing his thumbs on my knuckles in what was supposed to be a loving manner, as he looks me over with nothing my love and admiration in his eyes. Like looking over your daughter in her wedding dress. But all that look made me feel was uncomfortable. It took all of my power no to recoil from him and hide in a corner crying and begging for freedom.

Bruce kissed my temple after that and made his way outside. After everyone kissed me and complemented my appearance we all made out way out to a limousine.

On the way to the venue Jason wouldn’t stop playing with my hair. I was sitting in-between Dick and Jason. and with Jason occupied himself with my hair dick decided my hand was a better thing to fiddle with.

After a while I got both annoyed and irritated at Jason. Dick I could Manage, with Dick this was nothing new but It was a little odd for Jason so touchy. Of course I couldn’t just swat him away so I retreated into the safety of my own mind when a realization done on me.

“Jason?”

I spoke in a soft voice, once I said his name his hand left my hair and instead found purchase on the nape of my neck, rubbing lightly.

“Whats up, baby girl?"

I fiddle with my hands.

“W-why are y-you here?”

The second I said it I regretted it. The question made it seem like i hated him, and although I did, they didn’t need to know that.

I scrunch up expecting a slap or a harsh grab but instead he runs his knuckle softly on my cheek chuckling deeply.

It made a shiver run up my spine. I was relived he didn’t hit me but the atmosphere made me want to hurl.

Jason leaned into my ear, his lips caressing the shell of it.

“I am not going as Jason, baby girl.”

I turn to him, both out of stock and of a need to get his lips away from such a sensitive area.

“W-what?”

All of the boys chuckled at me this time. My face must have looked funny to them in such a shacked face.

“I am going to go to the winter ball as a Anthony Snow, A close friend of the Wayne family.”

I was frozen in place. I had no idea what to thing so I just sat there and nodded to satisfy them.

The rest of the ride was quiet. the only sound being Jasons hand running through my hair.

when we got to the gala venue I was blinded. Even with the heavily tinted windows of the car the lights still made me curl up on myself.

Damian was behind me and pulled me into his chest, pressing a cool hand to my forehead whispering in my ear.

“Shhhhhh, Beloved, no need to be scared. I have you. None of us will let anything bad happen to you.”

Dick came to my feet holding my hands. The limo really was huge.

“All the flashing lights and cameras can be scary, along with the snooty looks for high end peoples. But we won’t let you out of our sight for a second. One of us will always be close, baby bird."

I good and take a few deep breaths.

Dick moves away when Bruce came close. he kissed my forehead after Damian moved his hand.

“Come, little one. It’s time to make yourself known to the world.”

The car door opens and Damian makes his way out of the car first, followed by Dick then Tim and Jason, Or in this case Anthony.

The snapping of cameras and the yells for reporters was so loud and the lights so much brighter.

Girls were squealing at the sight of the four sexy men.

One even screamed “ Damian let me have your baby!!!!!”

I couldn’t help but snort at that.

Bruce stepped out before me and held out his large strong hand. I take it and hesitate for a moment before walking out.

Bruce removes his hand from mine and presented his arm. As I take it I look up. All of the boys waited for me about five steps away from the red carpet smirking at me. God knows what their thinking about.

But that wasn’t what held my attention. The moment I stepped out of the car everything went silent. Aside from the light sound of music coming for inside. It was like time seemed to stop. Reporters had their mouths wide open. Some had even dropped their cameras.

I assume that their staring was because I was with the most reclusive rich man in all of Gotham City. But I imagine the amount of skin I was showing helped all the intense staring.

I kind of find from all the people. All the eyes on me made me want to cry. The stress of the situation just all too much. After being secluded from the wold and people so much My body just moved on its own. Feeling safer with Bruce As close as possible.

Bruce could clearly see my fear as could the other boys. Bruce held be close giving me a kiss on the forehead and the boys glared at everyone around us.

Some of the reporters looked away and some continuing to take pictures as the reporters started to yell questions at him, But never at me. It made me feel like an object.

“Who is the young lady!?!”

“How old is she!?!”

“Is the young women your Lover!?!”

The last one made me blush like crazy as we made our way to the door of the venue on the lavish red carpet.

Bruce chuckled at my reaction.

“Father”

I whine, I hated the implication. I didn’t want to seem like a whore running after the riches man In Gotham who could be her Dad.

He leans down.

“Don’t worry my little one, no-one will think you are my lover after tonight.”

I turned my head at him in question.

When we enter the gala ball room I was even more over whelmed.

Women, more beautiful then I could ever imagine and men, not more scraping as the boys but still very handsome in their own right.

As we walk around, Bruce nodding at strangers (To me at least) as he spoke.

“I have been seeing a wonderful women for a while now. I intend to introduce both her and you to Gotham City tonight, Little one.”

I nod.

“Her name?”

I ask timidly.

Bruce stops. I freeze for a moment wondering if I did something wrong.

My hadn’t was wrapped around his right arm while his left was on my hand. He removes in and leans down a little and points.

He points an a beautiful women at the bar. With caramel skin, kind of like Damians and beautiful short dark hair with hard but also kind green eyes.

“Her name is Selina.”

My mouth falls open, She was wearing a revealing but very nice black dress. It was tight about her incredibly thin figure. She was gorgeous.

Bruce chuckles at my reaction.

“She is… so beautiful.”

My last words sounded kind of sad. I didn’t mean it to be, but in my eyes she was much more beautiful then I was, Even if such lavish clothes, all the women here looked better then me.

I felt so out of place, so wrong. I could feel tears well in my eyes.

Suddenly Bruce took my face in his hands and kissed my eyes one at a time.

“Little one, You are just as beautiful if not more so than all the women in this room.”

I hadn’t noticed Damian come up behind me and rub my bare shoulders. Form the could winter outside my bare skin was still a little chilled but his wands were warm and oh so comforting I couldn’t help my lean into them.

Damian leaned in, His lips ghosting the flesh behind my right ear.

“Come, Beloved. Let us get you something to drink."

I nod and let him lead me away to the bar.

He ordered a whisky for himself and some water for me.

As he sips on his drink I do the same. Looking around I see Bruce and Selina smiling at each other.

Damian Looks at me and sees what had got my attention.

He leans in once more.

“She is kind, but I don’t want you to speak to her.”

I look up at his puzzled. On the inside I was annoyed but I also knew I couldn’t disobey him if I dared.

“Why?”

My voice was quiet and meter. I needed his to know that I wasn’t challenging or disobeying him, just wondering why I could not.

He understood me luckily and smiled warmly kissing my knuckles.

“She is not as she seems, beloved. It is bad enough you know about us and what we really do you don’t need to be put in any more danger. Keeping you safe if our job as your brothers and I intend to.”

His eyes turn hard.

“Even if you don’t want me too.”

I nod, I look around again, not wanting to look into his eyes any longer. As I look around the room I pay more attention to the men.

All looked handsome but also… dangerous. Most of them seemed to be government officials, but some, here and there, looked like… Gangsters?

I could see weapons in their coats, Mostly guns for shoulder holsters, but also the occasional knife.

I clam up once more. Damian could clearly see something was wrong and picked up on why I was so uncomfortable.

He pulled me into his lap and I gasp. Even though no one was looking at us I was still uncomfortable.

No need to be scared, Beloved, no one here dare do anything. Its a power symbol. nothing more.”

I nod and move off his lap.

I needed a moment to myself, with all the people I needed to breath. I lean into Damian, him meeting me half way.

“Can I go to the bathroom? I need a second.”

He looks into my eyes for a moment. Not hard but still searching. Once he is satisfied he kisses my cheek lightly.

“Of course, Beloved, I will wait here and you will come back to me immediately, yes?

I nod and start to walk away when he gently grabs my hand and lightly pulls me back to him. his legs a lightly spread as I stand in between his my hand still in his, the other cliched close to my bare chest.

He smiles at me, kissing my knuckles.

“You have your beautiful voice back now, beloved. Let me hear it.”

He kisses my hand again.

“Please?”

I shudder lightly. He hand never said please before. none of them had.

It made my heart warm, like I was a real person.

“Ok.”

His smile widens.

“I’ll be here, Beloved.”

As I make my way through the crowd I get some strange looks. People knowing that I did not belong in this world.

As I look around I see some of the boys looking at me, I wave and point in the direction of the bathroom, once they see what I was doing they smile at me and nod.

But just before I enter the bathroom I see a, for a lack of better words, horrifying man.

But while scary he was also striking and handsome. I made a mental note not to go near him. His midnight black eyes stabbing into me.

I shudder again feeling the room drop a few degrees.

I walk into the bathroom. I run some water and rub it on the back of my neck, not wanting to ruin my makeup.

I look in the mirror trying not to cry.

After a few minutes I leave the washroom, having calmed down enough. If I had waited any longer the boys would have thought I did something I wasn’t supposed to.

As I walk back to the bar I can’t see any of the boys. It made me kind of scared. not only was I in a room of powerful and dangerous people but I had no one to keep me safe. And they were probably gone looking for me, It worried me knowing how mad they might be.

As I make my way to the bar I keep my eyes open looking for any more of the boys.

I was a few feet away from the bar but with all the people surrounding I could only see the tall wall of liquor behind the bar counter.

As I move throng the crowd I suddenly feel an arm wrap around me and cover my mouth with a damp sweet smelling cloth.

I couldn’t move, paralyzed with fear. my world going black.

My limbs felt heavy but my heart felt fast. But before all goes black I hear a deep graph unknown voice in my ear.

“You will be such a fun play thing, little girl.”

I was shivering and although I promised myself that I would never do so, I found myself thinking.

“Damian… Dick… Jason… Tim… Bruce, Please, anyone… Help me!!!”

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere dc #yandere batfam x reader #yandere platonic batfamily x reader #yandere bruce wayne #yandere damian wayne #yandere dick grayson #yandere jason todd #yandere tim drake

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jaybird-redhood · 2 years

Text

chapter one ☆ a mutual hatred of sorts

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Jason Todd is a dick, and that’s putting it nicely.

See the thing is it’s impossible not to fall into the Wayne orbit when you’ve gotten as close as you have. They have a way of just pulling you in and not letting go.

In your case a chemistry project, knack for Mario Kart, and apartment perfectly placed in the middle of a certain red and yellow moron’s patrol route led to your spot in the bat’s clan. (And the subsequent need to clear out your closet for the obscene amount of first aid supplies that kept showing up in odd places.)

So, an accidental acquisition of the secret identity of one birdy (which really wasn’t Tim’s fault, sleep deprivation and a worried friend work wonders for uncovering secrets), led to the identities of all the bats, and soon you have the honor of getting fitted with top-of-the-line security in your apartment courtesy of Mr. Batman himself.

However, with the introduction of some of the bats came the introduction of all of them.

Including Jason.

A literal piece of shit.

“You know, he’s actually not that bad when you get to know him,” says Tim, head on the arm of your sofa.

“Yeah, one time I thought he was going to punch me,” Steph chimes in, “but then he like swerved at the last minute and knocked out the dude behind me.”

An almost comical look of contemplation crosses over her face before you can see an even more comical frown.

“He did let me get stabbed by that other dude though,” she says.

“So what, he feels complete indifference? Like that’s really any better?” you ask them. “He’s an asshole to you guys and you let him be because of nostalgia or some shit.”

“He’s actually pretty nice I swear you just have to give him a chance to prove it to you.”

You sit up from where your head was on Steph’s lap to glare at Tim.

“He broke into my apartment last week at like 6 in the morning to steal my last donut that I was saving and flipped me off when I nearly had a heart attack and threw a book at him.”

“His nearest safehouse is like half an hour away and he has 8am classes in the opposite direction on Wednesdays,” Tim tries to justify.

“And to be fair,” Steph throws in, “flipping you off may have been because of the book not because of the throwing.”

“Yeah, if had been like a lamp or something you probably would’ve been in the clear.”

“Ok fine,” you say, “what about the time that you twisted your ankle and he filmed you hobbling back to my apartment in pain instead of helping you.”

Tim rolls his eyes at you.

“It was a twisted ankle! That’s not even that bad I was fine.”

You give him your best glare, though your view is slightly obscured thanks to Steph’s arm on your face.

It seems to pay off though when Tim whines, “Shut up I really was!”

Steph snorts at that comment.

“You texted me saying you were dying.”

“Seriously Timmy? God you’re dramatic,” you chide. “That’s not even the point though, he sent me the video he took of it happening the next day with the caption- and I quote- ‘lol’”

You can hear a chuckle from his end of the couch.

“No! Not funny! He let you suffer and then laughed about it!” you groan, throwing the pillow next to you at him.

“That was the same week that you came to the manor and took the bookmark out of the book he was reading,” Steph points out.

You sit up to face her, blurting, “That was a minor inconvenience at best, and that was revenge for the-”

“And the day after you stole the bookmark you got a hold of his laptop and renamed all his case files to romcom movie titles,” Tim cuts you off.

This time you smack him, and he has the decency to not look offended as he rubs his arm.

“Only because the night before he came into my place and doused my couch in blood!” you shout, arms flailing. “When I woke up I thought someone had been murdered in there! You try cleaning that much blood out of green linen!”

Steph starts stroking your hair, and as patronizing as it is you can’t help but lean slightly into it.

Stupid comforting best friend.

“You know what,” she says, “you’re right. Jason is such an awful person and you’ve been through so much you poor, poor, thing.”

“Shut up with the fucking baby voice I’m too old for this shit,” you moan, slinking down onto the cool floor.

Steph lets out an offended squeal.

“You’re not even that much older than us!”

Tim follows that up with a cough that sounds suspiciously like, “mentally two years younger.”

You take that as your cue, getting up from off the floor to walk to your door and open it.

“All right that’s it out of my apartment jerks,” you say, before being hit with a brutal chorus of ‘we-haven’t-finished-the-movie-yets’.

You’ve learned by now to ignore them, but the way Tim is looking at you like you’ve just murdered his dog is making it hard.

“You’re rich enough that you don’t need to watch it on my Netflix account,” you protest, “go buy the film studio or some shit.”

They stop whining, but with the silence comes a barrage of puppy-dog eyes on Steph’s part.

You sigh, looking up at the ceiling for a considerable moment before pointing at the door. They both begrudgingly stand and pick up their bags, dragging their feet towards the door.

“Highly trained vigilantes my ass,” you say under your breath.

When they are both standing outside your apartment you feel a touch worse about kicking them out.

“You guys know I love hanging out with you,” you say apologetically.

They both frown.

“I have an essay to write that will not get written with the both of you here.”

Then Tim smiles?

He steps back in and says, “What I’m hearing is that one of us can stay! Bye Steph!” and with an unapologetic grin shuts the door in Steph’s face.

You glower at him, opening the door back up again, pushing him out with “Bye Tim”, and closing the door in his face this time.

“I hate you,” comes a muffled shout.

“Hate you more,” you reply.

You stand head against the door until you can no longer hear them clamoring down the stairs.

One last deep breath, you think, before trying to deal with your paper.

When you turn around your eyes widen. You barely have time to register the vaguely familiar figure before your instincts kick in.

And you punch him directly in the face.

Shit.

“Jesus you fuckhead!” Jason yelps, holding his face in one of his hands. “Your first reaction is to nail me in the jaw instead of, I don’t know, screaming or some normal shit!”

A quick once over determines he isn’t injured enough to warrant a scolding from Tim if you’re a little mean. Just a few knife wounds that look pretty shallow.

“Just be glad it was your pretty little jaw,” you smile sweetly. “It’ll be your dick next time you sneaky little bastard.”

He drops his hand from its place on his jaw, pacing scarily close to your couch, and only taking a few steps back towards the kitchen table when you make eye contact.

“You think I’m pretty?” he asks coyly, turning around to face you.

Even a silent reminder to breathe can’t stop you from cursing at him under your breath.

“Of course that’s what you take away from this conversation,” you snark, “not the direct threat.”

“I’m too pretty for threats,” he quips with the worse grin you’ve ever seen.

You scowl at him, picking your laptop off the table and bringing it to the couch to get comfortable.

“The med supplies are where they always are,” you tell him flatly. “Tim brought more by a week ago. Take what you need and leave.”

He flashes you a mock salute and spins around.

“If I see any blood anywhere other than the trashcan,” you shout to him, “I will not hesitate to make that threat reality.”

“I am going to fucking kill you,” he shouts back.

Unfortunately for you armor and several guns strapped to a body readily increases one’s intimidation factor.

You listen for a while at the rustling of fabric and crinkling of sterile bandage wrappers.

It isn’t until you hear his boots clanking and the metallic sound of a grappling hook that you realize he’s on the ledge of your window about to leave.

He’s not wearing his helmet, just a domino, his torso wrapped in white.

Your gaze catches his eyes.

You’re surprised to find them on you.

Tilting your head to the side, you give him a forced smile, and blow a mock kiss at him.

He grimaces immediately, mirrors your fake little smile and catches your kiss, flipping you off in the process.

‘Asshole,’ you think, and watch him swing out your window before opening your file back up.

☆ next chapter ☆

#luce writes #satellite series #jason todd x reader #red hood x reader #jason todd imagine #red hood imagine #jason todd x you #red hood x you #jason todd #red hood #jason todd fanfiction #red hood fanfiction #dc

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drvrslcense · 3 years

Text

devils roll the dice (angels roll their eyes)

Masterlist | Taglist | Wattpad | Instagram | ao3

+ send your requests!

pairing: leo valdez x daughter of athena! reader

summary: you and leo are dared to skinny dip, what happens if your friends run away with your clothes?

warnings: skinny dipping (a bit of nudity), a few curses, mentions of sex (but not really?) - let me know if you see other ones!

notes: request; this takes place years after the events of hoo (toa never happened)

read this fic in ao3!

Leo Valdez is seriously annoying.

The way he smiles as if everything’s okay and his anger is not something you’re feeling like waves hitting you over and over - it’s just annoying. Why can’t he just get it over with and explode in front of you, use his fire powers and all?

With a scoff, you shook your head, averting your gaze from the curly-haired boy to the campfire in front of you.

Truthfully, this event was supposed to be just the seven - Percy, Annabeth, Jason, Piper, Frank, Hazel, and Leo. Percy invited you to enjoy this night with his friends. He found you earlier by this beach, kicking sand, and muttering how much Leo Valdez just pissed you off. And he just had the audacity to invite you to an event, saying Leo won’t be here. But here he is - grinning as he was roasting a marshmallow over the fire.

“So, Leo,” Percy turned to Leo. “Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” he grinned.

You saw Percy look at you, smiling, like a monkey who finally grabbed the banana from the tree. "Go skinny dipping with Y/N."

"What!?" I'm sorry, but were you just dragged into something that doesn't even include you? "No. I'm not skinny dipping, especially not with him."

"Wow," Leo said, standing up. "Way to hurt my feelings, Y/N."

"Like you have one," you rolled your eyes.

"So, are you doing this or not?" Leo questioned you, already raising an arm to remove his shirt.

"No, I'm not," you crossed your arms over your chest.

"Your loss," Leo shrugged, shirtless. Your eyes scanned over his body. Realizing what you were doing, you averted your gaze from him into the campfire. "Like what you were seeing?"

You can just feel him smirking across from you. "It's not even my dare, how do I lose?"

"It's a dare and you're involved so get on with it," Percy waved his hand dismissively, smiling mischievously as he took a sip of his blue coke.

"Do they really have to be naked?" Thank the Gods for your sister, Annabeth.

"Yeah," Jason echoed. "We're all going to be scarred forever when Leo goes buck naked."

"Fine," Percy sighed in defeat. "You can keep your underwear."

They all looked at Leo expectantly, who raised his hands up. "Oh no, I'm not doing it if Y/N won't."

"It's your dare, Valdez."

"Yeah, and?"

"It's not mine."

"But Percy said I have to do it with you."

"Ugh," you huffed, standing up to remove your clothing. "I hate you."

"Well, I don't exactly like you either," Leo quipped, unbuckling his pants.

You turned around, raising your arms over your head as you removed your shirt, revealing your balconette bikini top in Victorian blue. The matching bikini was a gift from Piper on your birthday last September. This is only the first time you wore this, but under a white cropped top and denim jeans, thinking you won't have to swim as it is mid-winter in New York.

Unfortunately, Percy is a pain in the ass and dared Leo to go skinny dipping with you.

Annabeth handed you a beach towel you wrapped yourself in. Despite the camp's borders protecting you from extreme weather, the air was still chilly, and it sent a shiver down your spine as it hit you.

You turned around and saw that Leo had the matching blue and floral printed towel wrapped around his waist. "Let's just get this over with."

You walked over towards the edge where the waves meet the sun, leaving Leo to catch up to you. "So, how are we doing this?"

"You just don't think," is what you answered as you threw your towel somewhere behind you, diving into the open beach and swimming as far as you can.

As soon as the cold catches up to you, you stand up; the water reaching your chin. You saw Leo standing still at the edge, looking stunned. "What are you waiting for, you elf?"

Leo only shook his head and followed you. You waited a few moments, looking around the vast ocean, with chattering teeth and ragged breaths. In mid-December, the water current felt like icicles hitting your body over and over in different places. You couldn’t wait to get back out on the shore and sit by the fire for warmth.

You feel something tug at your ankle, pulling you deeper. As you struggled to stay afloat, you kicked whatever it was, deciding ultimately more on your own survival than the welfare of some random sea creature. But it wasn't a random sea creature. Instead, it was Leo, holding a bloody nose as he surfaced beside.

"Fuck you, Y/N," he held his nose, ducking his head a few times to stop the bleeding.

"That's what you get," you shrugged, waving your arms to keep yourself afloat.

"Ugh," Leo groaned. "CAN WE GO BACK NOW?"

"Geez," you covered your ears. "You didn't have to yell that loud."

"YES," you heard Percy yell back, his voice like waves echoing throughout the ocean.

You looked at the campfire, only that it was like a dot of orange in the distance. Your friends were like moving shadows in the distance, dimly lit by the moonlight.

"Come on," Leo started swimming back towards the shore once his nose had slowed down its bleeding. You followed him, careful not to swim too fast and make your head squeeze tighter than it already was. As you surfaced on the edge, you saw Leo yell and tried to run after Percy, who was holding your clothes. “Hey! Get back here.”

Instead of answering, Percy just laughed and ran away towards the parking lot. Leo chased after him.

You stood up, shivering as the chilly air hit you, grabbing your towel and wrapping yourself with it. Instead of running after Leo, you took a seat in front of the fire, with your arm reached out and dangerously close to the flames. Who could blame you for wanting to feel some warmth?

“You could get burned,” Leo commented, making you look at him in surprise. You thought he was with Percy grabbing his clothes, but there he stood, wearing a towel wrapped around his waist. Your eyes dangerously drift down towards his collarbone, but you shook your head, focusing your gaze on the dancing flames in front of you.

“At least I could be warm,” is what you told him as your fingers still dance dangerously close to the flames.

“Here,” Leo offered you a hand, and you stared as if it was the most disgusting thing you ever saw. To be honest, it wasn’t disgusting. You noticed his fingers were long and slender and smooth - no calluses in sight. It must be a benefit from producing flames.

“What do I do with it?”

“Hold it.”

“No.”

“Your loss,” he shrugged, taking a seat across from you.

“So, where’s Percy?” You asked him.

“Gone,” he sighed, running his fingers through his curls. “They said we should work everything out and they’ll come to fetch us in the morning.”

Unbelievable. Still, what they had done didn't surprise you. It was like them to do something like this, you should have seen it coming. Instead, the temptation for a good time blinded you.

“Go on,” you told him. “Yell at me.”

“What?” Leo said in disbelief. “What do you want me to yell at you?”

“I don’t know,” you told him, shrugging. “What were you saying about me after we met?”

“I wasn’t saying anything about you,” Leo answered defensively.

“You so were,” you rolled your eyes.

“Really?” Leo scoffed, crossing his arms. “What was I saying then?”

“That I was rude,” you answered him, sitting up straight.

“That’s true,” Leo agreed. “You were rude. And you are being rude now.”

“Well, excuse me if I was being rude,” You laughed humorlessly. “I was busy and stressed that day. I was being chased by monsters all day until Grover and Percy found me, and I was tired."

“But that doesn’t excuse you from being such a jerk at camp,” Leo argued.

“Sorry I wasn’t feeling bright and cheery as you,” you retorted. “Gosh, you were annoying.”

“You think I was annoying?” Leo asked, offended.

“You were!” You stood up, clenching the towel that was wrapped around you. “You came in all Mr. Smiley Pants, greeting me with a cheer, and then you introduced yourself and told me your life story when I’m exhausted. Gods, Leo, I just wanted to rest that day.”

“But you didn’t have to be so rude about it,” Leo stood up too, walking to stand in front of you. If he thought he was towering over you, he was not. He was only a few inches above you, not even intimidating you with his height.

“What’s rude about ‘stop, I want to rest’ when you were all there smiling and I was a bleeding mess with monster cuts on my arms?” You fumed. “Not to mention, you were telling me that time you and your beloved Festus had to stop at a gas station.”

“And what’s wrong about that?” Leo raised his arms in frustration. “Festus was hungry, and I was out of Tabasco, so we had to take a quick stop at the nearest gas station for some motor oil.”

“Okay, you were out of Tabasco sauce,” You raised your free hand in surrender. “But is that necessary for a girl to hear when she’s bleeding out?”

“Oh, would you want me to tell you the story of how my parents conceived me?” Leo retorted. “Because I’ll gladly tell you! My mommy and my daddy-.”

“I want you to stop!” You yelled at him, getting so dangerously close to his face. Leo seriously frustrated you to no end. He can’t just keep his mouth shut. “I want you to stop talking for a long time. Maybe then, I could work everything out by myself and leave you here.”

“And what?” Leo taunted. “Face the woods alone? Ooh, too bad, Y/N, you could get killed.”

“I’ll gladly take that chance,” you said through gritted teeth. “Than be here with you.”

“Wow,” Leo feigned hurt, putting a hand above his heart. “Another girl who’d rather be killed than be with me. Only this time, I didn’t ask her out.”

“What, do you want me to ask you out?” The words that rolled out of your mouth surprised you more than they did to Leo, who looked at you with wide eyes. You felt your heart pounding in your chest, unable to think of anything to follow up on your previous statement.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think that you actually like me,” Leo said slowly, a lopsided grin forming on his face as he crossed his arms.

“Please,” you shivered as a strong chilly wind came, knocking you off of your stern demeanor. Leo grinned at this, knowing he had the upper hand in the situation as he didn’t once shiver from the cold. “You don’t know any better than a coked-up 2-year-old.”

“Oh, really?” Leo’s eyebrow shot up as if what you said was a challenge to him. “I know you’re cold right now.”

“Of course, it’s mid-December,” You threw your free hand in the air, turning back around to sit in front of the fire again. All this arguing with Leo has put you away from the campfire and near to the ocean, as you could feel the cold rushing winds more than the warmth of the fire. “It should be cold.”

“Way to point that out, you genius,” Leo followed you as you sat, taking a seat beside you. It was far enough so that your hands wouldn’t reach him in case you wanted to strangle him, but near enough in case you burned your hand and he had to help you.

You were still shivering even as you sat in silence in front of the fire. Leo was probably not helping the case as he kept getting awed by his own breath forming smoke in front of him.

“Could you please stop?” You said through shaky breaths.

“Here, take my hand,” Leo once again offered his hand. “Come on, I won’t bite. Can’t you feel the warmth radiating off of me?”

Out of options for warmth, you hesitantly reached out, your hand hovering above his, trying to feel any sort of warmth. Then you felt it. That rush of slight heat entered your skin and buried itself there. It felt much like holding a warm cup on a chilly day,

You took his hand, gripping it just to feel any warmth. It must have been a pretty uncomfortable position as both of your hands were stretched out, but you didn’t care as you could feel something other than the cold air around you.

You closed your eyes for a moment, trying so hard not to think about the fact that you were mad at him earlier and now you were holding his hand for warmth. You felt him scoot a little closer to you, as he pulled your hand a bit and felt him shift. You opened your eyes and narrowed it at him. “Sorry, my hand’s getting sore.” You sighed and just let him sit closer than the two of you intended.

You didn’t know how, but you didn’t fight the feeling of wanting to feel more warmth as you scooted closer to him - dangerously close, almost shoulder to shoulder. You let out a sigh as the warmth coming from him intensified a bit, as you laid your head above his shoulder. You didn't know why, but he didn’t make a move to push you away, not even a bit as he relaxed and laid his head on top of yours.

“Pipes, quick, grab a camera,” you heard Percy loudly whisper. It must have been morning as you hear birds chirping instead of crickets. The harsh sunlight met your hazel eyes as you opened them, making you immediately squint.

You heard a flash go off, and Piper’s voice rang out. “Oops. Sorry, my bad.”

“Whoever’s there should just get away,” you grumbled, snuggling against what’s beside you. Despite the harsh sunlight, your eyes flung open and quickly stood up, making your head spin, as you realized what - or who, for the matter - you’re snuggling. You stumbled as you clutched your head in dizziness.

“Careful there,” Jason gripped your arm, steadying you.

“What,” Leo groggily said, just waking up. “What happened?”

“We fell asleep, you idiot,” You threw a flip-flop at him. “It’s morning.”

“Oh,” Leo rubbed the spot where you hit him. “Oh, hey, guys.”

“Hey,” Percy greeted him with a smile. “Looks like you had quite a night, huh?”

“More like it,” Leo lazily smiled at you through squinting eyes.

Despite everything in you screaming to deny everything, you smiled at him. “Yeah. It was nice.”

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bigskydreaming · 3 years

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@pippinsquishums Oh no, the idea that Dick wanted to put Tim in Arkham is everywhere. Its actually the basis of a ton of Jason and Tim bonding fics, about them both resenting Dick because of Arkham, when not only did Dick just want Tim to talk to a therapist in Metropolis, he wasn’t responsible for Jason getting arrested, he literally just beat Jason in a fight that Jason started, and the police were already there so what was he going to do, tell them no you can’t arrest this notorious killer? Dick only used his pull to get Jason put into Arkham instead of Blackgate, and it was specifically done to PROTECT Jason from all the enemies the Red Hood had made, that were in Blackgate. Jason was fine in Arkham, because Arkham had to be rebuilt from the ground up after it blew up in Battle for the Cowl, and Dick while shepherding Wayne Enterprises made sure that WE got the contract to rebuild Arkham, and thus had a ton of access to the place and influence in how it was rebuilt and what measures were put into place.

Not only were most of the Rogues not even in Arkham while Jason was there, because they’d all escaped before the old one blew up (including Joker, who was nowhere near it), Jason’s biggest complaint about his time in Arkham was that he was bored, and the worst thing that happened to him was mandatory psych evals. He had to take tests. That’s it. There was no drugging, no electroshock therapy, no being tormented by Gotham’s Rogues. When Bruce came back, Jason guilted him into transferring him to Blackgate, over Dick’s protests about Jason’s SAFETY, because once in Blackgate, Jason was able to make use of an escape plan that led to the deaths of 80 random criminals who were poisoned by the food. But rather than complain about the mischaracterization of a Jason who kills indiscriminately rather than just violent offenders, people chose to make it all about Dick throwing Jason into Arkham and callously forgetting about him or what he would be put through there, when in fact Dick actually used his oversight and influence to make SURE Jason didn’t suffer.

And yeah, the New 52 had a different take on Jason’s time in Arkham, but there’s no indication anywhere that Dick had anything to do with Jason being in Arkham THAT time, and the fact that people like to write about Tim and Jason BONDING over Dick and the bullshit about Arkham, like....that centers those fics very firmly in pre-Reboot continuity, because people are directly referencing the post-Battle for the Cowl period at that point, which is paired with....Jason’s time in Arkham, PRE-REBOOT. Where he was there for his SAFETY. And Tim was never actually in danger of being there at all, lol, just a therapist’s office in Metropolis.

The whole thing really does make me wanna cosplay as Linda Blair in the Exorcist, complete with my head spinning a full 360 while I vomit evil pea soup everywhere.

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ao-21 · 3 years

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While I agree that fannon solangelo is awful and down right terrible sometimes. Like the fics are bad and show a very toxic relationship and many of the headcanons are problematic, I don't see the Canon ship the way they write it.

Most of these 'anti solangers' use the justification that will was abolish towards nico in boa when he touched him with out consent ( and while I agree you should totally ask first) how exactly was will supposed to know that nico didn't like to be touched. We may have known as he had said it priveously in the book but how was will supposed to know, he may be a healer but he is not I mind reader and we don't know if this is the first time they meet or if they met before ( I personally don't think they met before this interaction, and if they did it was probably in passing) so how would he know?

Eventually in the tower of nero we see nico receiving therapy with Mr D and not from will, so we don't really see this whole doctor/patient relationship that many anti solangelo shippers claim (it is only seen in fannon headcannons- which I don't agree with) the only time we actually see Will being a 'healer' towards Nico is in boa and tower of nero but only because he was physically injured. (We don't know how may children of Apollo there are still alive other than Kayla and Austin so Will is probably the only actual healer left at camp so they don't have much of a choice about who is going to heal the campers including Nico). We only see this whole will is nicos savior in fics people write - and I find this really problematic- the only time I can think of when will was being 'docterly' towards nico was in tower on nero when will gave him the apple and told him to eat it, but he didn't force him to eat it and he did it because you know wouldn't you want the person your dating to eat something.

I've seen many of the anti shippers, ship nico which Jason,Percy, and Leo- all of whom have been more toxic towards Nico than what they say will has.

Jason was the first person to know that nico was gay and they where friends and the first one to accept him, but he has also just grabbed Nico and flew both of them (before the cupid scene) and while he did after he was told by nico he didn't like it and he backed of, he still did it because he didn't know( how would he they never spoke or were together before then)- just like will would not have know as explained above. Plus Jason had a girlfriend and it's totally fine to ship whoever you want together and headcannon anyone's sexuality that's totally up to you don't bash one guy for doing the same thing the guy you like did.

I really dont understand those who ship Leo with nico, the guy literally was creeped out by nico, they never had a conversation together, and he he was totally for( I think it was his idea, if it wasn't sorry I don't remember) leaving nico behind in the jar and not saving him ( which Jason and Percy where for as well), they literally had to have Hazel talk some sense into them to go and save him. They were barely acquaintances at best but you all ship them.

Percy- now we all know nico had a crush on Percy and most of you argue that 'it was too soon for him to get over him and move on'. Nico has been about kinda over him since after the whole cupid thing he said it himself and he said it again in boa at the end . So it was kinda already in the motion and wasn't a "I met this new guy and forgot the old one" he was already almost over him plus I don't personally think it was a crush and it was more of a hero worship/crush thing and that's how he got over it so fast he wasn't actually in love with Percy he saw him more as a hero and his favorite game character literally came to life so he would obviously idolize Percy. That being said Percy has been kinda toxic towards nico in previous books since the labyrinth ,like he found nico creepy and scarry and in the last Olympian literally chocked and tried to strangle nico and was untruthful towards him because he thought nico sold him out to hades and tricked him. Plus he never actually tried to be nicos friend after the titan wars, he just forgot about him.

(There is nothing wrong with shipping whoever you want with whoever, freedom of speech, your entitled to your own opinions im not trying to attack anyone , you do you, sorry if I offended any one with anything I said)

We have not gotten a lot of will content or anything about his character or personality, hopefully we do get some so we can make a more informed analysis opinion on him.

Fannon solangelo is very problematic, I can go into more detail on that some other time, but we don't know much about Wills character or how him and nico started dating or anything about there relationship because we haven't gotten anything about them except a couple descriptions about them from toa, so until we get more information about them we can't really make educated opinions about there relationship and what it's really like.

In the first toa book the hidden oracle, will was all happy and excited to refer nico as his boyfriend, and nico wasn't that excited, yes , but I think that is because they only just started dating. The book takes place in January so the probably only got together mid or late December so that's a lot of time for them to get to know each other and be friends before they started dating. It was all new to nico so he was just starting to get used to people being okay about him being gay and accepting him so sure he was not fully comfortable with being referd to as boyfriend by a guy so soon.

At the moment I can't think of anything else to say it's like nearly 2 am where I am. Maybe I'll write more later when i think of it.

Anti solangelo shippers, please talk to me I (a solangelo shipper) would like to have a mature, non hostile, safe environment discussion with any of you on your opinions on the subject manner. I would to know more of why you don't like the ship or why you think it is problematic and unhealthy.

I won't be rude or bash you on your opinions and I am frankly disgusted by the way the Fandom has been towards all of you and I sincerely apologize to those you have been bullied for your opinions. I don't condone nor agree with there behavior.

#nico di angelo #solangelo #will solace #anti solangelo #pjo #toa spoilers #jason grace #percy pjo #leo valdez

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chronicbatfictioner · 3 years

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Exchanges and Compromises - Chapter 20

The dinner was just as Jason expected, bland, dull, a lot of formalities in which Bane was visibly struggling with and did not even bother to pretend to know the difference between steak or salad forks. Jason, Dick, and Tim managed to keep the conversation alive and light, somehow without offending the formality of the dinner. Good thing, Jason thought, that The League had taught him of formal dinner etiquette and whatnot, otherwise he would have been slurping the baiwang with the soup spoon instead of the Chinese soup spoon provided by Alfred - like Bane.

Dick, for all of his lack of etiquette education, won in the manners division - regardless of the fact that Tim was helping him by pointing out which cutlery should be used for what. At the very least, he was not beneath asking what he wasn't sure of.

The day after was a little duller. Alfred merely informed them that the police were there along with the District Attorney, Harvey Dent, to arrest Bane on several counts of murder. Bane was arrested nearly without a fight - he had been purged of his venom strength and knew that he had no chance against some of the cops who were ready to taser him.

Jason was... frankly, a little disappointed.

"Would've been nice if there was a brawl or something," Dick voiced Jason's thought out loud just as he walked outside.

"Oh, goodness, I'm just glad this is over," Bruce commented, glaring apprehensively at Dick's back as the latter walked away with Damian. There was a good long silence before he added, "I presume now that Bane is out of this house, Damian will no longer need you two? I mean, he has me now - and his grandparents." he pointed out.

"I have vowed to guard Damian until he is an adult," Jason replied simply. Ignoring Bruce's sudden change of expression. "it is my order."

"Well, Talia... no offense. But Talia won't-- is no longer around to hold you accountable." Bruce argued.

"No, she's not. But Damian is." Jason looked at the child, sitting under one of the Manor's massive trees with a thick sketchbook before him. Dick, Jason knew, was on the tree. Even with Bane arrested, Oracle had warned that as long as he's not fully incarcerated in a maximum-security facility, he could still either get out and hurt the Waynes - including Damian. Therefore Jason asked Dick to remain with them for a little while longer. Thankfully, Dick didn't mind.

"He's a child. Children adapt well with changes of environments," Bruce said. "and if you're afraid that Bane would come back, I can hire some bodyguards for him."

Jason managed to hold back his smirk. People always thought that he was there to protect Damian; not realizing that he was protecting others from Damian's temper. Instead, he smarted, "like you protected your parents by sending them overseas."

"Oh, now, that's not fair." Bruce protested. "It was... we all thought that... at least mother and I..." he didn't finish his sentence as he exhaled exasperatedly. "His DNA check is back," he continued after a few moments of silence.

"Obviously, he hasn't a drop of Wayne blood in him," Jason suggested, a little dryly. "Something anyone with knowledge of the molecular structure of DNA would have known right away. You accepted Damian right away because you saw he has your mother's ears, in spite of his green eyes. Yet you doubted your father's denial in spite of the fact that there is nothing on Bane that resembled any of you - including about all of the portraits of your ancestors.

"And then there's something else I realized. Bane came with nothing; whereas Damian came with the Al Ghul wealth. You were more accepting because Damian would not equal splitting the Wayne wealth..."

"That is not true!" Bruce growled. "I would not have turned Damian away even if he was not Talia's child. He is my child, and I know that he is!"

"Then we're back to my initial point: You were unable to defend your parents because you did not have 100% faith in their virtues. The Al Ghuls are known leaders of the League of Assassins, to which the leadership shall now be Damian's. What will be your argument, when he decides to take over the League fully? 'Oh, I can't be associated with criminals, even if said crimes were just allegation and not a video recording of someone snapping off another person's neck'?" Jason sneered. "Now, Mister Wayne. I also would like to remind you, that I have Damian's legal custody. If you insist I should leave, I shall bring him along."

"You can't do that," Bruce scowled. "He's my biological child..."

"You have studied your country's laws, Mister Wayne. But you forgot the one crucial thing: Damian is not your country's boy by any means other than your claim." Jason mentally realized that he has placed one of his ace cards onto the table. But he honestly prefers this kind of conversation not to be had when Damian is present. And from the looks of it, he has packed his sketching materials and was making his way back indoors. "Do not try to deny Damian's access to me, or the League, Mr Wayne. He is not yours to manipulate," he added softly while Damian was still out of range.

"Hey guys, Damian and I are hungry," Dick announced as they went past the door. "Think Alfred would let us have cookies?"

"He's the one who is hungry, Todd," Damian told Jason. "I shall wait until tea time for the cookies. It is only a mere hour away."

"Why don't you scrub up a little? Tea should be ready by the time you're done." Bruce suggested.

Damian's scowl could have killed a cobra. "While I am planning on refreshing myself, father, it would be kind of you to cease directing me as if I am an imbecile," he stated, and for the second time in less than 10 minutes, Jason bit the inside of his cheek to stop a snicker.

Bruce, however, was not amused at Damian. "Well! That is not what a child should say to his father!" he admonished.

"Todd," Damian glared at Jason. "Did you not inform Mr Wayne here that I merely referred to him as 'father' due to common societal practices?" he asked with air quotes around the word 'father'.

"I have informed him that, Damian," Jason assured him.

"Do remind him on a daily basis that I am not obliged to remain here beyond what is demanded by his country's societal norms." Damian continued.

"I shall, Damian," Jason replied.

"Very well, I shall be in my quarters until tea time. You might consider feeding Grayson here, Todd," Damian said dismissively.

"I actually have some matters to discuss with you, Damian, if you don't mind. I think Grayson can fend for himself just fine," Jason told him.

"I don't mind. Let us, then." Damian said, leading the way back to his room.

Jason nodded politely to Bruce and motioned Dick to join him. "Mr Wayne, Grayson."

As they left Bruce, still standing in confusion - probably - Dick remarked, "ouch," softly.

"Go on and get your own cookies, Grayson," Jason remarked.

"I need to discuss something with you, too. You two, actually, somewhere safe." Dick said. Both Jason and Damian paused their steps. "Yeah, and we might need to call upon a certain bird for backup," Dick added, almost nonchalantly. It was not until then that Jason noticed the tenseness on his shoulders. He remembered that Dick, too, was trained to keep an eye out for danger.

"You go on ahead with Damian, I'll ask Alfred if he may have tea in his quarters." Jason decided. Damian nodded, realizing the urgency in Dick's posture, and stepped a little closer to Dick as Jason turned the other way.

Whatever it is Dick has to say, Jason could be certain now that besides himself, Dick would protect Damian fiercely. And/or protect other, possibly innocent people, from Damian's tempers.

He was just wondering why did it seem that Bruce Wayne was so intent on removing him.

And why Dr and Mrs Wayne would suddenly take a trip to Europe right after they were proverbially and literally freed from Bane.

Alfred, as usual, was in the kitchen preparing for tea time. In spite of being Americans, the Waynes seemed to like the habit of afternoon tea time.

Jason told Alfred of Damian's request, and Alfred nodded slowly. "Is Master Bruce still in the sun-room, then?" he asked.

"Last time I saw him, yeah."

"Ah, then... young Jason, may an old man request something from you and your vast knowledge of herbs?" Alfred's face was as impassive as ever when he said that, just a shade before he returned to his task of preparing some small sandwiches. But Jason was a little confused. Why would Alfred ask him for herbs? As far as Jason could tell, he was as healthy as... well, someone Jason's age, which has got to be at least a third of Alfred's; half at most. Jason didn't think that Alfred was any older than mid- to late-40s.

"Sure, how can I help?" he answered, anyway.

"Oh, I was wondering if there is any method you may suggest to... how do I put it... Chafe off surgical remains within oneself? I have had work done for my nose, you see, on a whim as a young lad; and I do not believe it looks becoming on me as I age. I feel as if it makes me look like another person is inhabiting my body, as Master Bruce was wont to say."

Jason blinked, and partially wished Dick was there to confirm his thoughts. In spite of being the exact same height as Jason, Alfred was bowing his head a little as he spoke; and Jason knew that there was a surveillance camera that would be able to record their conversation in the kitchen. His shoulders were tenser than the task of cutting bread would have required.

"Well, wow... okay. I'll need to actually search my books. You know some of the ladies back then would apply something to their skin for scars or bruises. But I'm not sure if it'll work on surgical stuff. I'll let you know?" Jason replied carefully.

"Thank you, Jason, for considering. While it shames me for being vain, it is... rather crucial." Alfred smiled at him.

"No problem, Alf," Jason patted him on the shoulder and made his way back to Damian's room - where each and every surveillance device has been disabled and/or misdirected by the combination of Tim, Barbara, and Damian's own skills.

Once Jason walked in and closed the doors of Damian's room behind him, he was greeted by both Damian and Dick's voices.

"That man is not my father, Todd! I believe my grandparents may still be in danger!" Damian exclaimed as Dick stormed over and announced 'There was an increase of drone activities outside, that's why I brought Damian in!' - followed by Damian and Dick glaring at each other, and Damian said, "Todd, we might need to acquire some new exit strategy!" at the same time as Dick saying, 'I've sent a text to Tim, but he hasn't answered. I've texted Babs, though!'

Jason cringed at them. "Whoa! Hold up! If this is how you two kids report, nobody would need surveillance equipment to hear you from Gotham Harbor!" he snarled. The two promptly stopped and glared at each other again, as if they both were hoping to have Superman's laser vision or something. "Okay, I've heard you both, and I'm upping the ante. Alfred just asked me practically for a method to dissolve foreign objects inside someone's body and allude that someone in the house is not who they seemed. And said someone might be Bruce."

Damian threw his fist to the air, stating, "I knew it!"

Dick's eyes were wide as saucers. "Okay... I would... I've wanted to say the same thing since we got in. But I was kinda scared I might be wrong. What makes you sure?"

"Alfred referred to Bruce in the past tense when talking to me," Jason said. "You? --wait, no, Damian first."

"He looked and behaved differently than the videos mother had shown me," Damian replied.

"I second Damian on this. Well, dude... we need to communicate better, don't we?" Dick said, telling the last bit toward Damian. "I've only met him once, way back when-- when my parents were... you know. But like I've told you, I remember everything from that day as if it has just happened. I remember Bruce Wayne was there with a blonde girl wearing chinchilla fur, a 50s hairdo, and an actual pearl pin. But when my parents... right after, I saw him directing traffic of people out of the tent calmly. His presence then was literally calming, like, everyone was looking at him for direction. This Bruce... generally, looked too nervous on everything; if that makes sense."

Jason thought a moment. Dick was really good at reading people's body language - even the most stoic Alfred. Before Bane was removed, Dick's assessment of Alfred was that he was uncomfortable with Bane, yet very welcoming of Damian. Thus his immediate trust in Alfred. However, since Bane was arrested and proven to not have been a Wayne; Jason hasn't got the chance to ask Dick to re-assess Alfred.

"Okay, I'll retrieve the video footage of your dad from 10 years ago from the League's servers. We'll cross-check. We'll tell the Birds once we're sure, yeah?" Jason suggested.

"Agreed," Damian nodded slowly.

"I'll have Tim keeping an eye on the Doc and Missus while we're at it, though. I mean, you know, precautions and all." Dick suggested.

"Okay, call Tim. If he doesn't answer, call Babs or his mom. I'd like this whole thing settled quickly before Bruce can do anything to harm Damian." Jason huffed a breath slowly, wondering what the hell is it with the Waynes that seemed to run on endless conspiracy theories, anyway.

#Batless!AU #Jason Todd #Dick Grayson #Bruce Wayne #Damian Wayne #Alfred Pennyworth #JayTim #Red Ghost!jason #Talon!Dick

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miracle-sham · 3 years

Text

Amidst the Howls of Death, Your Divinity Gives Me Breath.

| {Jasonette July 2021, Week 1, Day 2: Protection} |

| Marinette, Jason, Bruce, Dick, Tim, and Damian are all unfortunately familiar with how danger lurks around every corner in places like these. But perhaps their instincts can be ignored for just one evening of rest? |

| Or a Priestess, a Gunslinger, and his family, walk into a creepy inn. |

| Word Count: 2,789. |

| Warnings/Tags: Swearing/Explicit Language, Mild Gothic Horror, Implied/Referenced Background/Minor Character Death, Pretend Character Death, Fantasy & Magic Au, Romantic Fluff, Sharing a Room/Bed, Cuddling & Snuggling, Kissing. |

———

| A/N: Another fic with a playlist, so check it out if you're curious to the songs I listened to when writing this! And have look in the end notes if you want to read a short descrip of what inspired this piece! |

| If you want to be tagged in future oneshots/fics or a specific Au, then feel free to send me a dm and or ask! |

| Also side note, Don’t Like? Don’t Read. Also also, please do not criticise any of my writing. This was written for fun and receiving criticism, even in a compliment/criticism sandwich, is the exact opposite of fun. |

———

As soon as Marinette, Jason, and his family had entered the ramshackle hamlet, they all could tell without a doubt that there was something not quite... right about the place.

Even in the dying light of the day, it was obvious that every window and door were boarded up. A few even had stone or iron bars nailed or soldered across any and all potential points of entry—chimneys included. Some buildings were half-collapsed beneath the weight of their own rotting timbers, others looked unnaturally clean and newly constructed, most however were somewhere between the two extremes. But regardless of how new or decrepit the buildings appeared, each and every single one had at least some form of large scratching or claw marks gouged into the wood and stonework.

The first thing the Wayne family and Marinette had all agreed upon, was acquiring rooms for the night from the only inn in the hamlet. One of the nicer buildings albeit, but just as foreboding in its own sense due to the deeper and more extensive scratch and claw marks along the exterior.

Inside, the innkeeper was undoubtedly strange, eyeing them each with an odd look in his eyes, and an empty grin. Giving him an off-putting appearance that certainly wasn't helped by his slow and methodical cleaning of kitchen knives, from just behind the bar.

Wheezing, the innkeeper tilted his head to one side, staring the family of six down. Voice like gravel, he rasped. “Tread carefully 'round these parts, travellers. There's been tales of your kind vanishing in the dark, followed by the howls.”

“Our kind? What do you mean by our kind?” Dick questioned sharply, narrowing his eyes and subtly curling his hands into fists by his sides—hidden by his deep blue cloak.

“The howls? What howls?” Tim asked curiously, a few seconds after Dick, eyes twinkling with the thrill of a mystery to unravel.

The innkeeper chuckled. “Curious lot, aren't you. I'm afraid that won't do you any good 'ere.”

“Is that a threat?” Bruce rumbled, adjusting his pose ever so slightly to put himself between his four sons plus pseudo-daughter in law, and the innkeeper. So that should anything happen, he would be first in the line of fire instead.

“Not if you pay for rooms tonight, stay quiet, and watch yourselves from straying in the dark.” The innkeeper replied, still grinning emptily as his chuckled subsided.

Tim ducked around Bruce's side to stare at the innkeeper. “You didn't answer our other questions! What do you mean by our kind and why did the previous travellers disappear followed by howls! How did you know that the howls follow disappearances?”

The innkeeper pulled out a whetstone and began sharpening the knives without looking, as his gaze snapped to Tim. “I only answer questions from paying customers, boy.”

“Father! I do not wish to stay somewhere as suspicious as this contemptible establishment.” Damian hissed, keeping his voice low as to avoid the hearing of the innkeeper, and tugged on the edge of Bruce's black cloak.

Jason edged a hand towards the hilt of one of his flintlocks. He leaned closer to Marinette to whisper in her ear. “For once, sweet priestess, I'm with the demon spawn, I don't want to stay here any longer than strictly necessary. This wretched fucking place reeks of ancient necrotic magic.” He wrinkled his nose before adding, “and not your goddess' other half's kind of ancient necrotic magic.”

Marinette frowned, glancing around the inn with ill ease. “I can feel what you mean, my dear knight. Whatever is causing the necrotic magic is definitely not holy by any means. But as far as I can tell, the magic was stronger outside, it's almost muted somewhat in here.”

“Forgive me, sweet priestess, but that doesn't ease my nerves at all.” Jason scoffed.

She rolled her eyes with a quiet snort of laughter, “I wasn't trying to, my dear red hooded knight.” She steeled herself slightly, mirth fading, “though what I am suggesting, is that we purchase rooms for the night. Whatever the source of the magic, we're most likely safer in here than out there. There are no claw marks on the inside after all.”

“For the record, I hate when you're right about these things, my holiness.” He growled, glancing around to confirm her statement.

“You say that as if I hate it any less than you.” Marinette countered, “now let's go intervene before another impending scuffle gets us kicked out of what is possibly our only safe shelter for the eve.”

“And miss out on free entertainment? I cannot believe you.” Jason snickered.

She shoved him good-naturedly before striding past Bruce and up to the counter, imposing in her own right even in comparison to the rest of the family. She cleared her throat to draw attention to herself and stared down the innkeeper with all the sharpness of a storming sea upon rocks. “You will answer all our questions if we purchase rooms, correct?”

The innkeeper squinted at Marinette. “Aye, girl.”

She pursed her lips then nodded. “How much for lodgings then?”

“We've got a room with a double bed, three with a single, and two twin rooms.” The innkeeper responded, empty grin curling into something more twisted, “The singles are a gold each per night, the rest are two gold each per night.”

“That pricing is outrageous!” Damian scowled.

Narrowing her eyes, she ignored Damian and hummed. “I see,” she glanced back at Jason and raised an eyebrow.

He nodded in return.

“Then I will purchase the room with the double bed.” She stated, plucking two gold coins from her purse and placing them upon the bar counter.

The innkeeper nodded, sliding two keys over to her. “Excellent choice, my lady, your room is on the left at the very end of the corridor upstairs.”

Jason prickled at the addressing title given to her, gripping the hilt of the gun he had reached for with whitening knuckles.

Marinette picked up the keys and stared coolly at the innkeeper before taking a few deliberate steps back until she was once more beside Jason. There, she handed him one of the keys.

Silence permeated the room for a minute as the rest of the family communicated through glances and facial movements alone.

Bruce sighed, breaking the stalemate, and placed four gold coins on the counter as well. “We'll take two singles and a twin as well.”

The innkeeper chuckled, passing four more keys over. “Wise decisions, Traveller. The twin room is the last door on the right along the corridor upstairs, and the two singles are the first two doors on both sides.”

“Now answer our questions,” Dick demanded.

The innkeeper glowered at Dick. “What I meant by your kind, was that you're the kind of folk who trouble follows. The travellers that poke their noses where they don't belong. And as for the howls, I wouldn't know. I've never seen what makes it because I stay inside where it is safe. Those who don't stay inside... well their screams, remaining bloody streaks, and disappearances are evidence enough for me.”

Marinette grimaced. “I am going to retire to the room now.”

Jason startled at her words and stared at her concern. “I'll, uh, join you. If you don't mind.”

“You don't have to for my sake.” She responded.

“It would ease my conscience if you weren't to go up alone.” He grit out.

She bowed her head for a second, “then your company would be most appreciated.” She began to make her way towards the stairs up to the rooms.

Before she reached the first step, the innkeeper called out. “My apologies, my holy lady, I did not intend to discuss such gruesome conversations before you that would offend your delicate holy constitution.”

“I appreciate your concern, however, I think you will find it was not my delicate holy constitution that was offended, as much as it was the wish for some privacy after a long and tedious journey. Thank you very much.” She spat in response, voice as acetic as an alchemist's corrosive acid.

The innkeeper raised his hands in a placating manner. “My sincerest apologies then, my lady.”

Marinette took that as a cue to continue upstairs, with Jason on her heels.

Once they reached the door, Jason snarled. “How dare that fucking bastard call you his lady, I'm going to put a bullet through his fucking skull.”

She sighed and went up onto her tiptoes so that she could place a kiss on his lips. “Perhaps wait until after we sort out the cause of the ancient necrotic magic plaguing this place. Though I'd like to rip his tongue out his mouth before you get to have your fun.”

Jason unwound marginally beneath the kiss, his fury was still palpable, however. “Hmm, I would like to watch you do that, my love.”

“Of course you would. Now, let's enjoy some much-needed privacy together. As much as I adore your family, there is only so much time spent travelling I can spend with them without wanting some peace and quiet to cherish you, my knight.” She remarked, opening the door with the key in the meantime.

———

Lounging upon the double bed, Marinette hummed as she gently carded her fingers through Jason's hair—his head resting on her lap and a soft smile gracing his face as he gazed up at her.

She paused her humming, face creases in mild displeasure, as a loose lock of her hair fell across her face. After a few half-hearted attempts to blow it out of the way, she closed her eyes and sighed—fingers twitching to a stop.

Jason raised an eyebrow and reached a hand up to her face, cupping her cheek for a few moments before tucking the loose lock of her hair back behind her ear. “Something on your mind, sweet priestess?”

“Ah. No, not really, no. I was just…” She sighs, lips twisting with faint distress, her earlier mask of determination faltering in the privacy of their room. “I'm worried about you. About this place. It's not safe and I'm worried if we fight anything here, whether it be the cause of the howls, a godforsaken Akuma, or even those creepy fanatics again, you're not going to make it—survive another close call.” She inhaled sharply. “I dread to think that should it come to it, the resurrection rituals won't work for you any longer.” Tears springing to her eyes as she voiced her doubts.

Jason frowned, “Oh,” He fumbled for words, shifting himself up into a sitting position so he could properly cup both sides of her face, and pull her into a gentle kiss on the lips. Pulling back, he took a deep breath, “oh, my holiness. Oh, my love. As long as I've been by your side, you've never let me fall, and your goddess and her pantheon don't seem like they'll let me die anytime before you. Not after the deal we struck, and I promise you, my priestess, that I don't intend on ever breaking that deal.”

“I know my knight, I know.” Marinette mumbled, tugging Jason into a tight hug as soon as he pulled away from the kiss, “but will there be a choice? Have you not forgotten your revival sickness we've yet to find or create a cure for? And not to mention the rumours about what has happened to the others who were also brought back by that awful Lich!”

Grimacing, he idly rubbed the back of his neck. “How could I fucking forget, I've hurt everyone I care about, especially you, thanks to that…”

She hummed once more. “And yet, none of us blame you for that, my love.”

“You should.” He argued weakly.

“I will never!” She retorted.

Their conversation lulled as they relished in the other's embrace.

Minutes passed before Marinette pulled away from the hug. She huffed, fingers twitching and nose scrunching up. “Jason, my red hooded knight, and love of my life.”

Jason squinted at her, “Yes…?”

“Wou— Can— What if I—.” She frowned, searching for her words, before settling on words she knew by ritual. “It would ease my mind if you were to be bestowed with some form of protection magic. Would you accept such a blessing from me?”

He remained silent for a few moments. “Of course I would, sweet priestess. I trust you, and I trust your goddess and her pantheon.” He closed his eyes and glanced away. “But shouldn't you save that magic for yourself, or when we're out in the fucking fray.”

“My powers will replenish come dawn, and the protection will last until then. I'd rather be certain in knowing you'll be safe whilst we sleep here.” Marinette answered, leaning forwards to cup his face in her hands.

Jason opened his eyes and looked back over at Marinette. “Alright,” he reluctantly conceded, “but only if it can also be applied to you.”

She stared at him then rolled her eyes, the corners of her lips twitching upwards in amusement. “I shouldn't have expected any answer but that from you. Luckily I've still got enough divine power to cast those two protection wards on the both of us.”

“Good!” He grinned cheekily.

Rolling her shoulders, Marinette mentally went over the incantations that would be used in this specific warding. She locked eyes with Jason and tilted her head to the side, “you first my knight.”

Squinting at her suspiciously for a few seconds, he eventually relented and shrugged. “As long as you've got enough divinity to protect yourself after, my holiness.”

“I will, trust me.” She responded, closing her eyes for a brief second before muttering the ancient celestial words of the language of the guardians. Her eyes filled with holy light, glowing like two sparkling suns. Whilst her hair began to shimmer and float as though underwater in sun-dappled waves. Swiftly she made an elegant hand gesture as continued to murmur the incantations. The shimmer in her hair and glow of her eyes flared for a split second as her words and hand gestures crescendoed, before flickering out like a snuffed candle.

As the golden radiance faded from Marinette, a similar golden glow began to settle around Jason. That too faded but a split second after appearing.

“Your powers never cease to amaze me, my holiness,” Jason murmured, staring at where the soft golden glow had radiated around him. Carefully he moved to hold her hands in his own so that he could press gentle kisses to them.

She giggled, blushing profusely. Although a smirk formed on her lips at his words. “Oh? Then where was this adoration of yours, my knight, when I magically mended those noble finery clothes of yours that were so unfortunately ripped just the night before we were to attend a masquerade, hmm?”

“Hey! Fucking–! Argh!” Jason sputtered for a second and then twisted around to grab a pillow from the bed, throwing it at Marinette. “Just cast the fucking protection ward on yourself!”

Marinette cackled as she fell back against the bedding from the impact of the pillow. She dramatically threw an arm over her face and cried out in mock distress, “oh no, oh dear! It would seem I have been most verily betrayed by mine own knight who was sworn to protect me, and yet! Here I lay, bloodied and betrayed! The world is fading from my grasp, I see the light of my goddess and her pantheon beckoning! Oh, whatever shall I do?”

“It would seem my last assassination attempt failed, sweetest priestess. Fear not! I shan't fail you again.” He declared equally as theatrically, grabbing the other pillow and throwing it at her as well.

“Ah! I have perished. What a shame, I am unable to cast that protection ward on myself now. Oh no!” Marinette continued, flopping onto her side and sticking out her tongue in mock death.

Jason snorted, “My assassination may have succeeded, but I cannot live with myself in this world without my love any longer. With this knife,” He stole back one of the pillows, “I shall perish besides the light of my life! Bleh.”

He flopped against the bedding beside her, a few seconds passed before the two of them burst into more laughter.

A few more moments passed before he elbowed her lightly. “Come on, your turn!”

Marinette wheezed and waved a hand, muttering the incantations between breaths. The radiance glowed around her, eyes and hair glimmering as they did before. Then as she reached the end of the incantations once more, it all faded away again. “Happy?”

“Indubitably, my love.” He responded.

She pressed a quick kiss to his lips. “Good!”

———

| Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this little fic! Comments, likes, and reblogs are much appreciated! |

| Fun fact: this was supposed to be longer but I wasn't happy with how the last part was going and so I cut it. So if people enjoy this one, well I'll just have to finish the follow-up piece to this fic, won't I. Ironically the part that was cut got more into the gothic horror and the main reason behind the title but I decided to focus on the romantic fluff as the end point instead. Flowed a little bit better. |

| This piece was inspired by a d&d campaign i joined for a few sessions. It was set in a creepy little hamlet with an incredibly creepy innkeeper who forced our party into signing a contract before we could spend outrageous amounts on gold just for a single night's stay. And uh turned out the dude was a demon we just sold our souls to, and then all but one of the party ended up leaving the inn to try our chances against the horrifying plague-like monsters outside, aka the whole reason we brought rooms in the first place! |

| Also feel free to send me any asks or comments with any questions you have regarding this fic, I’ll be more than happy to answer! |

| @jasonette-july-event |

#Maribat #MLB x DC #DC x MLB #Jasonette #Jasonette July #Jasonette July 2021 #JasMari #MariJay #Marinette x Jason #Jason x Marinette #Jasonette July Week 1 #Jasonette July Day 2 #Jasonette July Protection #Amidst the Howls of Death Your Divinity Gives Me Breath #AtHoDYDGMB #Sham's Posts #Sham's Writing #Sham's Fics

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mochegato · 4 years

Text

I Don’t Even Know My Last Name

Written for the Jasonette July prompt Honeymoon.

Y’all know how this is going to go already. This was supposed to be a short, cute interlude while I had writer’s block on another story and it turned in to this behemoth. In which they are idiots about identities and we are all Roy.

As Marinette slowly entered back into consciousness her brain started trying to make sense of the world around her. Why was her head throbbing? Why was she waking up before her alarm? And how bad had the fight been last night to warrant her feeling like this today? They had been fighting someone, right? Maybe? Thinking really hurt right now. Everything hurt. Except whatever she was laying on. That felt really, really nice. Everything but the cloud she was on hurt. The cloud could stay, everything else had to go, including thinking. Thinking could wait until later. There was absolutely nothing she needed to know right now that was urgent enough to warrant making her head hurt more.

She groaned as she tentatively opened her eyes. It wasn’t a cloud, it was a bed. A really fluffy, white bed. She greatly approved of this bed. Whoever’s bed this was, because this was not her bed… and this was not her room, which made sense since it wasn’t her bed. She congratulated herself on successfully following that logic process without causing a migraine.

How had she ended up in this amazing bed that didn’t belong to her? She didn’t remember going home with anyone. Actually, she didn’t remember anything from last night… what happened in that fight? If there was a fight. Was there one? You know what, still not urgent enough to warrant the pain of thinking.

She groaned and closed her eyes again. She was just starting to ease back to sleep when she felt arms wrap around her from behind. She whisper squealed and fell out of the bed as she fumbled to get away from the offending arms.

This! This was more important than the pain. This warranted thinking, remembering. Recalling what happened last night, who she had gone home with, and why.

Marinette waited a few seconds huddled against the bed, getting into a position to fight, should she need to. She waited to see what the person in the bed would do next… which was apparently to let out a quiet snore? She needed to take stock of the situation and come up with a plan. She might be… oh God, naked. She was naked. She squeezed her eyes shut in frustration and let out a steadying breath. She might be naked, but she was still Ladybug, damn it. She slowly raised her head just high enough over the edge of the bed to observe the person still asleep in it.

The first thing she noticed was he was a very large man. He seemed like he would be tall, maybe even as tall as her dad. His broad, exposed chest and arms were solid, toned muscle. He had a number of scars marking up his chest indicating violent past. Despite the violence on his body, his face looked completely at peace. He had beautifully defined features with high cheekbones and a squared jaw. His tousled, black hair fell over his eyes. He was an extremely handsome man… who she did not remotely recognize. She had gone home with a total stranger. This was a disaster! She needed to figure out what happened RIGHT NOW.

“Tikki?” she called out quietly. “Tikki where are you?” She whisper shouted a little louder this time, trying to keep quiet enough not to wake the stranger. It must have still been a little too loud because just then the man let out a sleepy grunt surprising the already on edge Marinette. She eeped in response, grabbing the comforter off the bed as she fell backwards. She quickly wrapped the comforter around herself to try and protect some kind of modesty in her decidedly immodest state.

The movement of the comforter managed to finally wake the man. He started groaning quietly before opening his eyes to look around the room, taking in the surroundings for himself. His eyes settled on her and he squeezed his eyes shut with a grunt.

Jason had been having a really good dream. He couldn’t remember what he had been dreaming about exactly, but there were a lot of flashes of dark hair, captivating blue eyes, soft yielding lips, bare skin, and beautifully enticing moans. The eyes and hair were very familiar features to him. He knew who he had been dreaming about. It wasn’t the first time he had dreamed about her. The woman in front of him was not her.

“Fuck” he said as he ran his hand over his face in an attempt to force more awareness into his mind. What the fuck had he done? He was definitely in love with someone else. He had been dreaming about her last night. How did he end up in a hotel room… hotel room? Yeah, probably. This was too pristine to be someone’s actual bedroom… in a hotel room with not her?

“No offense sweetheart, but who the fuck are you?” the man grumbled out sitting up.

Instead of upsetting her, his blunt manner calmed Marinette slightly. It was good to know she wasn’t the only one who had no idea what was going on. “Nice. If I could remember anything about last night myself, I might be offended,” she responded wryly. “I’m Marinette. And you?”

“Jason”

“Nice to meet you Jason.”

“Yeah, you too.”

He looked at the woman, Marinette, who he had spent the night with… black hair, blue eyes, very soft looking lips, definitely bare skin under that comforter… Had he been dreaming about her? Or, did he go to bed with her because she looked a little like Ladybug? Oh shit. Did he sleep with her because she reminded him of Ladybug? Classy, Jason, real fucking classy.

Marinette backed up against the far wall trying to make sense of the situation. How had it happened? She was in love with Red Hood. They had been getting closer to actually dating, or she thought they were. Did something happen between them last night? Is that why she went home with someone else? She looked at the man, Jason, again. His head was in his hands, gently rubbing his head like he was trying to rub away a hangover. Folded over like that with his face covered, he looked like Hood. He had the same body frame. Oh God. What if she went home with him because she had a fight with Hood and Jason reminded her of him?

Looking for anything to cling to so the situation wasn’t as bad as she thought, she looked up at him with pleading eyes and asked, “You don’t suppose there is any chance that we didn’t actually… you know.”

He stared at her incredulously for a few seconds. She could not be serious could she? Yep, that look of panicked desperation definitely indicated she was. “Sure, we can go with that if you really want,” he swung his legs over the side of the bed being careful not to jostle his throbbing head too much. He scanned the floor for his clothes. Underwear, pants, anything. It was a large room, they must have decided to spring for something really nice. That was unusual for him. But, with a room this large, there were lots of places the clothes could have been thrown.

His first scan didn’t reveal any clothes, his or hers. Seriously, there must be clothes somewhere, they couldn’t have walked in naked. Maybe in their drunken haze they decided to throw their clothes away? He checked the trash can next to the night stand and sighed at the sight. Well, there goes the hope for chastity. “But, that used… fuck, those used condoms say otherwise.”

Marinette groaned and hit her head on the wall sliding down it. What had she done? Even if she wasn’t dating Hood, it felt like she had betrayed him. She needed to figure out what happened last night. She needed to know how badly she had screwed up before she faced Hood again. “What do you remember from last night? Anything?”

“No, nothing. But if I can get my phone, I might be able to get some clues. Any ideas where our clothes are?” he asked wrapping a sheet around his waist and standing tentatively.

“Oooo, that’s a good idea. No, no idea. Honestly, I haven’t made it that far yet this morning.” She furrowed her brow, rubbing her forehead when suddenly her head shot up, immediately letting out a loud groan. That was a mistake. She dropped her head back down quickly and started rubbing it again to ease the ache she just caused. “But I have an idea.” She walked over to the hotel phone and punched a series of buttons. A few seconds later he heard ringing in the other room. “…We have two rooms. Probably should have figured that out already. Stupid, damn hangover.”

They pulled their makeshift covers tighter around themselves and opened the door to the living room. Marinette gasped and Jason exhaled heavily at the sight. It was a mess. Things were knocked over throughout the room and there was a trail of clothing starting with her ripped underwear hanging on the doorknob and his now buttonless shirt strewn over a pair of overnight bags and purse that had been dropped by the front door.

“We came prepared.” They must have met, hit it off, decided to come here, gone home and packed a bag, then met at the hotel to get a room. And clearly had enjoyed it if her ripped dress laying at her feet was indication.

“It wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. We thought this through. We planned. What the hell kind of drug does that?” He grabbed his phone out of his pants pocket and started scanning through his phone. “Check your texts. If we planned this, we might have texted someone about it.”

“Oh, that’s brilliant!” She grabbed her phone out of her purse and looked through her calls and texts. There were a few calls from her business partner but only one text since yesterday, from Spoiler… She didn’t have Spoiler’s phone number on her personal phone. At least she didn’t used to. Apparently that changed last night. ‘Hey, I know you said to watch the earrings and don’t try them on. Is that a hard rule? Is there wiggle room in there? Also, how long am I supposed to sit on these? When are you getting back?’ She immediately reached up to her ears and noticed her earrings were not there. She gasped loudly.

WHAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT!!?? Now she knew why Tikki didn’t respond earlier. She wasn’t just hiding, Marinette had given her to Spoiler to hold for her. Why had she done that? She was never separated from Tikki. What had she been thinking! Clearly she hadn’t been thinking, that was the entire problem with last night. Tikki must have been acting as the voice of reason, warning her against doing all the things she was doing and Marinette decided she didn’t want to hear her anymore. Excellent. Terrible friend. Terrible guardian. Terrible romancer.

“What did you find?”

“Uh, nothing. Just a… uh… friend asking how long I’m planning on being gone.” She answered absentmindedly. “Huh, I wonder what she meant ‘gone’. Did she think I was leaving?”

Marinette looked at the text quizzically for a few seconds before her eyes widened. “Oh my God! You don’t think…”

Jason jumped up and ran to the curtains in front of the balcony doors, ripping them open. “Fucking fuck,” he sighed heavily opening up the drapes so she could see the view beyond. A very distinctive view. A huge fountain and a street lined with casinos. “Because we did. We’re in Vegas”

“How did… How did we get here?” She asked coming to stand next to him in a daze, staring at the Vegas Strip in terrified wonder.

“No idea,” he said in a defeated voice. “This is so much more complicated than I thought. We should see what we can piece together. Maybe over food. I’m starving.”

“Yeah, me too. I think I want to take a shower first if you don’t mind.”

“No, go ahead. I think I’ll do the same after you do,” Marinette gave him a small nod and picked up her bag before heading into the bedroom.

As soon as Marinette walked out of the living room, Jason called Tim. He picked up on the fifth ring, annoying Jason more than he was already. “What the fuck happened last night?” Jason demanded before Tim could even say Hi.

“Well Good Morning to you, too. What do you mean what happened? Don’t you remember?” Tim asked.

“Would I be asking you if I remembered, Replacement?” he growled back.

“Damn, you must have been hit with the toxin too,” Tim mused.

“What toxin?” Jason asked, apprehension edging into his voice.

“You didn’t seem to be affected, just a cut on your leg you were going to go home and patch up. We thought your mask protected you.” Jason moved the sheet around his waist to look at his leg, only now noticing the patched up thigh. “You didn’t do anything stupid last night, did you?”

“How stupid are you looking for? What was the toxin?”

Before Tim could answer Jason heard Marinette give out a loud gasp followed by a strangled noise. Jason ran into the bedroom, almost forgetting to keep ahold of his sheet in his rush to check on Marinette. Marinette looked stark white and was having a hard time breathing. “Hey, are there any after effects of that drug?”

“No, not that we’ve noticed. Why?”

“Nothing, I’ll talk to you later.” He hung up and threw the phone down, rushing over to her. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Marinette didn’t respond. She couldn’t respond. The spacious room suddenly felt very small, confining, pressing in on her. She felt like she couldn’t move. Breathing was difficult. Where had all the air in the room gone? There wasn’t enough air. She couldn’t get enough air. Her sight was blurring. The only thing she could see was her hand, more specifically the ring on her hand. She was brought back to focus by Jason’s frantic voice.

“Marinette? Marinette, you’re starting to scare me here. What is going on? Marinette please. You have to use your words.”

She hesitantly looked up at him still looking dazed. “That’s… that’s… that’s not my ring,” she stuttered out quietly.

Jason looked down at her hand and saw the band on her hand. The distinctly wedding looking band on her ring finger. Oh fuck. Oh fuck fuck fuck fuck. He looked at his own hand and found a distinctly wedding looking tungsten band on his ring finger. Fuuuuuuuck. There weren’t units large enough to accurately measure how monumentally he had fucked up. Alfred was going to be so disappointed. And Ladybug did not seem like the kind of woman who would be cool with him fucking marrying, not to mention actually fucking, someone else while he was flirting with her, of him using some innocent, sweet woman in her place.

“We got married,” she whispered.

He nodded absentmindedly. “That explains coming to Vegas…” He looked around “…and the room. We must have sprung for a honeymoon suite.”

Marinette squeaked in response to that. Tears started to run down her cheeks. Oh God, now he made her cry. Excellent. He was acing this whole thing. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. It’ll be okay,” he said not quite sure if he was reassuring her or himself. “This is Vegas. There has to be a quick and easy way to annul this, yeah? We’ll do that, okay? It will be like this never happened. We never need to see each other after this.”

She wasn’t responding to him. It was like his words didn’t register with her. Her breathing was coming faster again. He recognized the signs of an anxiety attack. Hell, if he hadn’t been trying to comfort her, he might be spiraling into one too. He moved closer to her to comfort her. He reached out to grab her shoulders but paused just short of touching her. A stranger touching her might make it all worse. Instead he lowered his hands and held them out in a placating gesture and lowered his head, trying to capture her gaze. When he finally spoke it was in a soft, gentle voice, “Hey, it’s okay, Marinette. It’s not our fault, okay? My brother said we were hit with some kind of toxin last night. It must be one that messes with your impulses and memory.” He waited for her eyes to focus again and look at him. He smiled gently, “Not. Our. Fault. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she smiled weakly at him. He was trying very hard and he was very kind. But no matter how kind he was, he wasn’t Red Hood… was he?

“This might sound strange but I don’t suppose you’re Red Hood?” said with a small, strained smile.

Jason’s chest tightened. He stopped breathing. How had she known that? He hadn’t told anyone and neither of them remembered last night, so how could she know? She couldn’t. No, it was a wild guess. It had to be. Maybe she was a fan? Of, fucking fuckity fuck. Please don’t let him have slept with a groupie. He gave her a smile that he hoped looked roguish and said, “Do I look like Red Hood?”

“A little bit, yeah,” she responded quietly.

Fair enough. “No, I’m not. Why?”

“It would just answer a few things,” she responded softly, looking away from him. Not Red Hood, just some random guy she had hooked up with. Probably because he looked a bit like him. Some nice guy she was using as a proxy since she couldn’t get the real thing. Awesome. She’s just a stellar example of a human, isn’t she, she thought bitterly.

She took a deep, calming breath and nodded to herself. She wiped away her tears and focused back on him. “Do you know a lawyer we can talk to? Where do you think the marriage certificate is? We’re going to need that if we want to get it annulled.” She said more firmly.

“Yeah, I know someone who can be discrete. You go take that shower and I’ll call her and look for the license,” he responded, glad to hear her sounding more in control.

“Sounds good. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” he watched her turn and walk into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. As soon as she was out of sight he sat down and took a deep breath. He had gotten married. He had married a complete stranger. Why would he do that? Why would he sabotage himself like that? He chuckled darkly to himself. That was probably the answer. To sabotage himself. And he decided to drag that innocent, sweet woman into this mess with him. He hung his head in his hands again. Disappointment rolled off of him in waves.

The only thing he could do for her now was to get the marriage annulled as quickly as possible. He needed to find the marriage certificate. After a few minutes he finally found it on the desk in the living room surrounded by a few empty bottles of champagne. He looked at the certificate. It certified that Jason Peter Todd married Marinette Xiang Dupain-Cheng in Vegas last night.

After getting cleaned up and dressed, they made their way to the main floor of the casino. They wandered around until they found what looked like the least pretentious restaurant in the hotel so they could eat and talk in private.

The host asked them for the name to put the reservation under. Marinette opened her mouth to give a name but immediately snapped it shut twirling around, looking at Jason with wide eyes. “Oh my God… I don’t know my last name. Wait, did I take your last name? No. Never mind. That’s stupid. There is a whole separate process. But still, I don’t know your last name.”

Jason smiled at her. “Yeah, we kind of missed that step. Todd,” he looked at the host. “Put it under Todd for two.”

The host nodded and looked back down to his reservation list. “Right this way, please,” he motioned for them to follow him.

They started walking but paused when they heard yelling. “Yo! Jason! Mari!” They looked over to see a red headed man running toward them with a big smile. “There you guys are! I was wondering when you would wake up and if you would bother to leave your room today at all.”

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” Marinette asked her brow furrowed confused. Man didn’t seem familiar to her but he was acting like he knew them.

The man gave her a baffled look at her for a second. “Seriously? How drunk did you guys get last night after I left?”

Jason stepped in “Marinette, this is my best friend, Roy. He must have come with us.”

Roy stared at him waiting for the punchline. But they didn’t laugh. Their faces were completely serious. “Yeah, we met yesterday. Remember?” he asked slowly.

“Not really no. Neither of us do. We remember being in Gotham at the beginning of the night but everything after that is gone.” Marinette supplied seriously.

Roy burst out laughing. “Oh my god! Seriously? I’m going to need popcorn for this. You don’t remember yesterday at all?”

“This isn’t funny, Roy.” Jason warned him.

“Oh no, it is. It really, really is.” Roy said, giving him a huge grin and vibrating with excitement. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! This is going to be so good.”

“What is going to be good?” Jason eyed him suspiciously. “What do you know?”

“I know what happened last night and I’m not going to tell you,” he sing songed. “I will say this though. We got here on Oliver’s jet, a wedding present he doesn’t know about yet, so is the room actually, I’ll tell him about it later,” he said conspiratorially before continuing, “also, nobody coerced anyone into anything, and you,” he pointed at Marinette, “know me a lot better than you think you do.”

She stared at him hard. What did that mean? How could she know him if she didn’t remember him? “Oh my God!” she squeaked out. “Oh God. Oh my God!” She started hyperventilating, panicking over the only reason she could think of, “how drugged up was I last night? Tell me we didn’t…”

“Oh God, NO. And thanks for the look of utter disgust, by the way. I’m a mother fucking catch, thank you very much. But agreed,” he said pointing between the two of them, “ew. Plus I don’t have a death wish. No, not in the Biblical sense. In the platonic, trust you with my life, but not my croissant way.”

The host cleared his throat reminding them he was still waiting to take them to a table. They looked at Roy questioningly but he backed out immediately. “You guys go ahead. I’ve already eaten.”

Roy watched them be led into the restaurant. As soon as they were out of ear shot he leaned over to the host and said, “Please tell me there’s a seat at the bar close to where they’re sitting. Maybe one close enough to hear what they’re saying but not one they can see?” he held up a hundred dollar bill. “I don’t want to miss this.”

The host nodded and grabbed the bill, “Right this way, sir”

“Sorry about my friend. He can be like that sometimes.” Jason apologized taking a bite of his food.

“He seems nice. My friends would get along well with him. If you don’t want him, can I keep him in the divorce?”

“I’m going to give that a lot of consideration.” He chuckled lightly. “But it looks like he isn’t going to be any help in piecing last night together. So, what is the last thing you remember before this morning?”

“I remember getting dressed for the night.”

“To do what?”

“Ha… hang out with friends. Honestly, I don’t even remember where we went, just a vague recollection of leaving my apartment. How about you? What do you remember?”

“About the same. Getting ready to go out with my family. I remember meeting up with them. I have a fuzzy memory of messing around with them, but nothing concrete. I don’t even have flashes of anything.” He reviewed what he knew about the night before, which was really just what Tim had told him. “You know, my brother was surprised I couldn’t remember last night. I must have been acting normally while I was with him. So the toxin must not make you act too wildly out of character.”

“I don’t know, getting married to a stranger is pretty wildly out of character for me,” she gave him a wry smile before turning thoughtful. “Your friend seemed surprised that we didn’t remember and he was with us all night. He doesn’t know me enough to know if I’m acting strangely, but he should know you well enough to pick up on whether you were. Are we sure it was the toxin? Because either it wasn’t the toxin, the toxin had a delayed reaction, or the effect was not easily observed.” She leaned back in consideration, “Could we have gotten that drunk, like blackout drunk?”

“That’s awfully drunk. And how drunk did we have to be before even leaving Gotham to decide we were going to get married to strangers? But those are really good points.”

“I mean, I’m pretty hard to resist. You might not have needed much convincing,” she smiled cheekily at him.

“I have absolutely no doubt about that, princess,” he smiled back at her. He could see how someone could fall for her. She was beautiful. Her hair fell gently around her face, framing it to bring focus to her mesmerizing eyes. Her dress brought attention to her shape without showing much skin. She had already shown she was a quick thinker, funny, and kind. He could definitely see how he could have ended up with her. But he didn’t love her. He loved someone else. Someone he wanted to get back to and see what she thought of it, see if she would forgive him.

He sighed and ran his hand over his face again. They didn’t have many clues and none of them seemed to fit together. None of this made any sense. He looked over to his temporary wife. Her eyes were pointed toward the flowers on the table but her focus seemed to go beyond. Her brow was furrowed in thought.

“Come on,” he said downing the last of his drink, “let’s get out of here.”

They just made it out of the restaurant when Roy came up behind them and tossed his arms over their shoulders. “Soooo, since you guys have decided to leave your little love nest and have replenished your energy, how about we hit the craps tables? I’m sure you can spot a winner when you see one, Mari. You are the expert on getting lucky after all.” He said with a wink.

Jason hit his chest, “Don’t be so crass, jackass.”

Marinette’s eyes widened. He knows who she is. How would he know who she is? Did she reveal herself to him last night? Why would she do that? She wouldn’t, right? Even with lowered inhibitions. Not unless he was a hero too. Who does he look like? She stared at him, head cocked to the side, really looking at him. Roughly her age and red hair. So not Batman or one of the batboys. She’d never seen Hood without his helmet but Roy’s build didn’t match Hood’s. Who has red hair? Arsenal. Her head shot up and she straightened up. Red hair, her age, same build… He’s Arsenal!

But no, that’s not right. If he’s Arsenal… she looked back at Jason. Jason said he was Arsenal’s best friend. Hood is Arsenal’s best friend. Jason is Red Hood. That’s why his body shape looked like Hood’s. She knew her designer eye for measurements wouldn’t let her down like that. She had been right! He was Hood. She married Red Hood. Oh my God!! She married Red Hood! That’s why they got married. She didn’t just marry some random stranger!! Thank God. Wait…

“What do you think? Want to hit the casino before we go back?” Jason asked, completely oblivious to Marinette’s discovery. When she didn’t respond, he turned back toward her only to find her staring at him astonished. “What’s up, Marinette? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

That brought her out of her stupor and her expression quickly morphed into anger. “You!”

“Me…”

“Him” Roy grinned from the side.

“You… you… you absolute ASS. Do you know how guilty I felt? How disappointed in myself I was? All morning! All morning I’ve felt terrible about myself. I felt like I’d betrayed you! And none of it would have happened if you just would have told me the truth! You unbelievably asinine asshole,” she yelled before she stormed off.

Jason stared after her. “What was that about?”

Roy was jumping up and down still grinning like a kid at Christmas, well none of the kids Jason knew, but middle class kids at Christmas. “This is what I’ve been waiting for. Honestly, I’m a little disappointed. It took far less time than I was hoping. My hints were too good. She picked up on them too quickly. I always knew she was smarter than you.” He patted Jason on the back. “Well, go after her. You know you want to.”

Jason looked at him with furrowed brow. “We’re going to discuss this when we get home,” he growled at him. “That woman doesn’t deserve this. You’re playing games and she is the one that’s going to get hurt. Why would you let us get married? Why didn’t you stop me? You know how I feel about Ladybug. Why would you let me marry some stranger?”

“You know, I do know how you feel and yet I let you elope with Marinette. What does that tell you?” Roy responded with a smug smile.

“It tells me you’re a sadistic fucking asshole and we are done. When we get back to Gotham, I don’t want to see your face again.” He shoved Roy back and ran after Marinette.

He found her in the hotel’s botanic garden pacing back and forth, talking to herself quietly with animated gestures. Watching her caused an annoyingly familiar niggling sensation in the back of his mind, like it was trying to push something to the forefront but getting derailed along the way. He approached her slowly, trying not to upset her more than he already had somehow. “Hey Marinette. You okay? What happened back there?”

She froze for a few seconds before taking a deep breath and turning toward him. She took another few seconds and a deep breath before she continued. Her eyes flicked up to his then turned away focusing on the display of flowers next to them. “I’m trying to decide how upset with you I am.”

Well, that was better than calling him an asshole again. “Okay… Let’s hear the argument either way.”

She looked back at him, staring at him with those beautiful, somehow familiar blue eyes. “Well, on one hand I’ve been feeling absolutely horrible about myself. I was raised not to just end up in bed with someone when I didn’t even know their name. Not even your first name. I’ve never had and never wanted to have a one night stand and here I made it worse by turning a one night stand into a drunken marriage.”

“Sorry,” he said guiltily, shuffling his feet.

“You don’t even know what you are apologizing for yet.” She responded exasperated.

“There’s more?”

“There’s more. And it all could have been avoided if you would have just told me the truth.”

“What did I lie about? I’ve tried to be completely truthful with you.”

“Really?” She looked around again to make sure nobody could overhear them “You want to try that one again, Hood?” despite knowing nobody was around she still lowered her voice with the last word.

“Excuse me?” He looked around too “I don’t know why you keep saying that….” He looked at her and stopped. Her deadpan expression let him know that she knew. She knew and nothing he said would convince her otherwise. He moved closer to her and lowered his voice, “You really need to be careful about what you say. If the wrong person hears my identity it could get me or one of the other vigilantes killed. And someone who isn’t the wrong person now could become the wrong person with the right pressure. It is safest for everyone if nobody else knows.”

“I was careful. The only one close enough to hear is Roy.” She said indicating the other side of the hedges they were standing next to.

His head whipped around toward the hedge and he glared looking for his friend. Finally spotting his red shirt through some leaves he yelled “What the fuck, Roy?”

“What!? I told you I’ve been waiting for this. And finally! Finally it’s happening. I’m not going to miss it. Now pay attention or you’re going to miss the best part.”

“Best part?” he asked confused, turning to Marinette.

She sighed “God, it’s a miracle you idiots are still alive,” she said shaking her head. “That’s the other side. I understand the importance of a secret identity and I can’t honestly say I would have responded any differently if you had asked me if I was Ladybug.” She looked up at him softly.

“So… which side won? Are you still upset with me?” he asked.

She stared at him incredulously. He couldn’t be serious, could he? Red Hood was smarter than this. Maybe she had gotten it wrong because Hood was impulsive but he wasn’t stupid. But Roy’s response confirmed her original suspicion, “Seriously? What did I say about her being smarter? You’re supposed to be a great detective. I’m taking away that title. You’re never allowed to claim anything like it again. And, I’m telling Dick about this when we get home so he can remind you when I’m not around.”

Jason looked between the two of them, replaying what she said. He had clearly missed something. She had said something important. What did she say? She said she would have done the same. So she isn’t upset, right? No, that isn’t it. There was something more to deserve the way they were both looking at him. She would have done the same if he had asked if she was… “Ladybug! You’re Ladybug!”

“What were you just saying about secret identities? Maybe try not to let all of Vegas know.”

He smiled down at her almost reverently. He reached out to touch her face hesitantly and ran his other hand through her hair, just to confirm to himself that it was her. She was real and she was right there in front of him. She was Ladybug. Marinette was Ladybug. And she was here with him. “Hey, Pixie.”

She smiled sweetly back at him and leaned into his hand on her face. “Hey, Red.”

His smile grew wider, “Marinette…” he said gently as if testing to see how the name felt on his tongue. “Your name is Marinette.”

She returned the smile “And yours is Jason. It’s nice to finally be able to see your face,” she said caressing his face and moving his bangs off of his face.

“Soooo, are we still done?” Roy interrupted smugly.

Jason huffed in response, annoyed at the interruption of their moment. “No, I forgive you. Now, fuck off, Roy.” He returned his attention back to Marinette. “Think you’ll be able to focus on our missions knowing this,” indicating his face, “is under that helmet?”

She rolled her eyes “You think there is anything more distracting than that helmet? If I can block that out, I can block anything out.” She smirked up at him.

“Rude.” He responded in mock offense. He smiled down at her, “Because I don’t know if I’ll be able to.” She looked at him in confusion “I don’t think I’ll be able to focus now that I know who’s under the mask.” He brushed her bangs out of her eyes and ran his thumb over her cheek.

His eyes looked down to her lips and he leaned down. He flicked his eyes back up to hers as if asking permission. She smiled in response and rose up on her toes to get closer. “Hey!” they jumped apart and turned to Roy. A casino security guard had grabbed him and was pulling him away. “I wasn’t peeping. They are in public. It isn’t illegal to watch two people in public and they are my friends. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this? Do you know how long I’ve had to put up with them?”

The large security guard turned to the couple and asked, “Do you know this man?”

“No officer, I can’t say we do.” Jason grabbed Marinette’s hand and pulled her behind him, “Come on, let’s talk back in the room. Where we can get a little privacy,” he said aside to her but loudly enough for the guard to hear as he pulled her out of the garden and back toward their room.

“Not fucking funny, Jason. Jason? Jason!” Roy yelled after their retreating figures as they ran away.

“Come on, son. Let’s have a little talk about respecting other people’s boundaries.”

“Do you know what a slow-burn is, sir?” the guard looked at him through narrowed eyes but bobbed his head slightly to indicate that he was familiar with the concept. “I’ve been living through a real life 200,000 word slow burn story with those two and I’m finally, finally seeing the payoff. Please, sir. I’ve earned this.”

They stood next to each other during the elevator ride up to their floor, still holding hands and shooting each other soft looks and shy grins. He smiled down at her as he opened their room door. As soon as the door closed, Marinette’s phone rang. “Damn it. I have to answer this. Sorry,” she said looking apologetically up at him. “Excuse me just a second.” She walked into the bedroom as she started talking.

Jason watched her walk away with a smile. Ladybug. He’d married Ladybug. Ladybug was his wife! Jason couldn’t believe it. No matter how many times he repeated it, it didn’t seem real. He smiled as he looked out over Vegas. His bliss was cut short by his phone ringing this time. He checked and saw it was the Wayne Enterprises lawyer he had contacted earlier in the day. “This is Jason,” he answered. “Uh huh. Yeah. Got it. We might want to put that on hold for now. Yeah, I’ll let you know. Thanks.” He hung up and looked toward the bedroom door. Everything was different now that they knew each others’ identities. At least it was for him. He wasn’t sure if it was for her. They hadn’t had that conversation yet. They needed to talk about what they both wanted to do.

Jason cracked the bedroom door slightly, poking his head in to see if Marinette was still on the phone. He found her standing against the windows looking out over Vegas as she spoke on the phone. He frowned noting her frustrated expression. “No, I'll be back as soon as I can. Yeah I know. It was a mistake. I wasn’t thinking. Yeah, yeah, I know that.” She paused listening to the person on the other end of the phone. “I know! I’m sorry. I'm going to fix it as soon as I can, okay. It’ll be like it never happened. Yeah, I’ll talk to you tomorrow after it’s done, okay?” She hung up the phone.

He backed out of the room and quietly closed the door. His heart clenched. He couldn’t breathe. She thought their marriage was a mistake and she was looking forward to getting out of it as soon as possible. He had read the whole thing wrong. He was so stupid. She hadn’t been interested in him. Of course she wasn’t. They were just flirting, having fun. It didn’t mean anything to her.

His head popped up as the bedroom door opened and she came out looking at him sheepishly. “Sorry about that.”

“No, it’s okay,” he said gathering himself and trying to even out his voice. She didn’t need to know how devastated he was. They could go back to the way they were. They’d get the marriage annulled and they’d just go back to… what? Friends? Flirting? He didn’t know. “I just got a call from the lawyer. She says she can see us tomorrow to start the annulment proceedings.”

“Oh… right.” Her smile faltered but she quickly recovered and plastered on a fake smile. “We should probably head back to Gotham soon then so we don’t miss it then.”

“Right,” he agreed. He stared at the floor for a few awkward moments without moving. “I’ll… I’ll go talk to Roy about getting the jet ready to head back.”

“Thanks Jason.” She offered him a strained smile. “I guess I’ll start picking up our things in here to get ready.”

Jason just nodded in response and left to find Roy’s room.

Jason paced the hallway trying to calm his racing heart down. He was fighting the need to punch something. He whipped his head around when he heard the sound of the elevator arriving on the floor. Roy walked out and spotted him immediately. “Not cool, man.” He scolded Jason before he saw his expression. “Hey, what happened?”

“How soon can you get the jet prepped to leave?” Jason demanded coldly.

“I can have it ready by tomorrow morning. Why? Are you seriously going to head back so soon? Don't you want to extend the honeymoon more than one day?” he waggled his eyebrows at Jason.

“It’s not a honeymoon. You don’t get a honeymoon for marriages that aren’t real,” Jason let out bitterly.

“Not real? Seriously? It looked pretty real to me.” Jason glared at him. He had missed something. Something had to have happened in the 15 minutes between when he last saw them and now. They had been doing that sappy, in love thing couples did before. “You could make it one.” Roy suggested hesitantly.

“She isn’t interested. She made that very clear.” Jason growled back.

“When?” Roy asked in shock.

“All fucking day, Roy. She’s mentioned the annulment constantly and I just walked in on her telling someone about what a huge mistake this has been.”

“Are those the words she used? ‘Getting married to Jason was a mistake.’” Roy asked slowly.

“Not those exact words…”

“So you don’t know if she was talking about the marriage or something else?” Roy interrupted before Jason could finish.

“Come on, what else could it have meant?” Jason asked exasperated.

“Anything,” Roy was close to yelling from frustration. He had worked too hard for them to throw this away now. “Maybe she was talking about not telling her parents before the wedding and now she feels guilty for springing it on them. Maybe it was leaving without warning Bruce. Maybe it was missing a day of work. Maybe it was wearing that dress today. You don’t know.”

“She’s been pushing annulment all day. And there’s nothing wrong with that dress on her at all.” Jason answered quickly.

“Agreed but, she was pushing for the annulment before she knew you were Red Hood, when she thought she had married some random guy who looked vaguely like Red Hood because the real Hood wasn’t interested.” Roy took a deep breath. He knew them. He knew how they really felt about each other. Anyone who had spent any time around the two of them knew. But he couldn’t force them to stay in the relationship. Brute force would just result in both of their stubborn asses digging their heels in and fighting harder.

How would Alfred deal with this? Alfred would be gentle, delicate, a guiding light. He looked around trying to find the words. Delicate wasn’t his forte. He needed Jason to come to this conclusion on his own. “Look Jay, you guys got gassed, lost all your inhibitions, and the first thing you guys decided to do wasn’t to have sex, which absolutely would have been my first move, it wasn’t even to make out, though you did do that, a lot, later, in front of everyone. But your first instinct was to reveal yourselves to each other and get married.” He paused for a moment to let that sink in. “Your most basic, primal instinct, was to make a commitment to each other. That has to mean something, right? That doesn’t sound fake to me.” He looked Jason in the eyes, “Just talk to her, okay? Don’t do something you’re going to regret because you’re stubborn and afraid.”

“I’m not…” Jason looked down and nodded. He couldn’t even deny that what was driving him. “I’ll talk to her, but you should probably get the jet ready. And you might want to make room for me on the couch.”

He took a deep, calming breath before he opened the room door. He saw her immediately. She was leaning on the balcony railing and looking at the ring on her finger with a sad smile. The wind was gently blowing her hair around her face and making her dress flutter around her legs. The sun was shining on her face making her look ethereal. He lost his breath. She was gorgeous. He didn’t deserve her, he knew that. She was smart and brave, bold and kind, creative and beautiful... and his wife. However he'd managed it, they were married and he'd be an idiot to throw that away. And no matter what Damian thought, he was no idiot.

He approached her quietly, leaning against the railing next to her. “Whatcha thinking about, Pix?”

She startled slightly and stuttered out “Oh… um… No… nothing… just never thought this is how I would end up married. I never thought I’d come to Vegas at all, let alone get married here.”

“Me either,” he smiled gently at her.

“Oh no, I totally thought that’s the way you’d get married,” she laughed.

“Oi!” he squawked in fake offense, making her laugh even harder. He quickly joined in her laughter. The laughter settled after a few moments. He stared at the fountain in front of the hotel in contemplation before deciding to take Roy’s advice and ask the question he needed to ask, well, the first of a few. God he hoped this turned out better than how things usually turned out when he listened to Roy.

“What was the call you took earlier?” he asked hesitantly.

“What call? The call when we got in the room?” she asked confused. Why was that important now? He nodded his heart beating wildly. “It was my business manager. I was supposed to put through a rush order to a fabric manufacturer this morning so we could get the fabric we need in time for a commission. He was really upset with me,” she grimaced. “But Adrien is kind of a drama queen so he’ll be fine as soon as I fix it. I promised I would take care of it as soon as I could and try to fix it so we don’t lose the commission.”

He let out a relieved breath. It was work. She had been talking about work, not their marriage. She didn’t regret their marriage. Or, maybe she did. He needed to find out. “Does that mean you never pictured yourself getting married to me?”

She sputtered out in response. “What?”

“You said you didn’t picture yourself getting married in Vegas, but you did picture me doing it. Does that mean you never pictured yourself marrying me?”

“Did you picture yourself marrying me?” She deflected hoping he wouldn’t notice the heavy blush on her cheeks.

He looked her in the eyes, sincerity shining through as he looked at her softly. “Yes.”

Looked at him in surprise “What?”

“This isn’t how I pictured it, but I absolutely pictured myself marrying you one day. I’d marry you anyway you let me, Marinette. I love you.”

Tears started running down her cheeks. She felt Jason gently wipe them from her cheeks. “We can still get this annulled if you want, if you aren’t ready. But know that I want to be married to you. If you aren’t ready now, I can wait. We can get the annulment and see what happens from there. If you aren’t interested at all, and God I hope that isn’t the case, then never. And we stay friends, if you want. You control this.”

She looked at him in wonder. “You want to stay married?” She asked hesitantly, seeking confirmation. This couldn’t be real. This was too perfect. This was everything she was hoping for, being married to Jason. He nodded, smiling softly at her. She smiled back at him, “I… I want to stay married.”

“Yeah?” His gave her a blinding smile.

“Yeah.” She beamed at him and cupped his face. “I love you, Jason, so much. You’re amazing. I don’t think you really realize how amazing you are. You have such a huge heart. You’re funny and brave. You make me feel understood, loved. I don’t know that I deserve you, but I hope I can make you feel like you make me feel.”

“You deserve so much more than me, so much better than me,” he said quietly, looking at her lovingly and playing with her hair gently. “I’m going to try to make you understand how incredible you truly are every single day.” He leaned down to kiss her. Her eyes closed in anticipation.

She could feel his breath on her lips when Jason’s phone rang. She giggled when he grunted at it before hitting the end call button. He gave her an apologetic smile and brushed her bangs out of her face before leaning down again. Before their lips could touch his phone rang again. He groaned in frustration and hit end call again. He started leaning down again when both his and her phones rang. She giggled “I think you better answer that. It’s probably Batman. We don’t want him to send a rescue team.”

Jason grunted and aggressively hit the button to answer the call “Yeah, B I’m fine. Yeah, she’s fine too. No, I’m not coming home tonight. Neither is Ladybug. We’re on our honeymoon.” He turned his phone off and threw it into the room. Marinette smiled giddily at him. He crashed his lips to hers before anything else could interrupt. He pulled her closer and angled his head to deepen the kiss and add even more passion. She wound her arms around his neck and pulled his hair to bring him closer to her. He moaned into her lips and ran his hands along her sides until he reached her thighs and grabbed them to pick her up so she could wrap her legs around his waist. They broke the kiss to take deep breaths, grinning happily before diving in for a searing kiss laced with all the want and pent up lust they’d been feeling for each other for the last year. He stood up and walked her back into the bedroom, both of them removing clothing along the way and throwing it haphazardly, making the room look very much like it had the night before.

Tags:

@fsketchart @jasonette-july-2k20

#maribat #jasonette #jasonette july 2k20

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lazydoodlesandfanfic · 4 years

Text

Shut Up! (Jason Todd X Fem!Reader)

Characters: Jason Todd X Fem!Reader

Universe: DC, Batman

Warnings: Mention of attacks, mention of brain injury, guns

Request: can I have a jason todd x reader; reader has abilities that no one - not even she - knows about. shes going through a really tough time, is under a lot of stress, is anxious 24/7, honestly feels just sad and a little lost. she knows about all of the secret batfam stuff - bruce is going on yet another rant about jason revealing while shes right there. she gets overwhelmed and screams at him to shut up and every glass surface around her shatters. batfam think shes a threat but jason protects her

Jason always reminded you that he loved you, that he’d do anything for you. He’d tell you it again and again until you found a way to shut him up- usually by kissing him or flicking him in the forehead, and this happened nearly every day. Sure it got annoying at times, but you understood why he was so persistent.

His family didn’t exactly approve of your relationship with Jason, and one of the main reasons relates to the fact that Jason told you very, very early on in your relationship about him being Red Hood, and about who his family were. He told you he did it because he knew he’d found his soul mate, but Bruce called him brash and an idiot. The family saw you as a threat, like if you two ever broke up or argued you’d tell everyone. You’d tried countless times to assure them you wouldn’t do that, and while Jason knew you wouldn’t, his family weren’t as confident in you.

His siblings weren’t too bad- they just tended to ignore you. Damian was mean as hell to you though, and you thought of it like Damian was his father’s thoughts that he didn’t voice aloud. Bruce seemed to despise your presence, especially when Jason took you to the cave, even if it was for your own safety. Another thing that made the family hate you was that you stood by Jason’s morals when it came to criminals. You’d lost your own friends and family to repeat offenders and the law had failed you repeatedly, so why wouldn’t you agree with Jason? They seemed to think it was you sort of bringing him to a dark side.

You always tried to keep this calm. You kept out of the way, only interfering if absolutely necessary, and when Damian threw insults at you, you’d just take it, and hope he’d warm up to you eventually, or maybe one of his brothers other than Jason would tell him off for it. Jason hated it. He could tell you wanted them to like you and that it was hurting you that they treated you like an actual criminal despite not having any sort of record. It was why he felt like he had to persistently remind you that you were loved by him, and that he’d protect you from anything- including his own family.

He really proved that promise.

You were in the cave again, and you had to get involved when you were walking home and heard Tim in a fight down an alleyway. No one else around was willing to help and acted like it wasn’t happening, so you did the only thing you could think of, grabbing a brick and hitting the guy in the head to get him off of Tim, who was been choked. The man had had to go to the hospital, but he was alive, and instead of being thankful for saving his life, the entire family had come together to berate you. What was worse was that Jason got there after it had already started, and he saw you stood there, sobbing and trying to defend yourself from their berating, and that infuriated Jason.

He came barreling, pushing Bruce away from you by the collar, and when Dick tried to pull him off, then Dick got the shove as well. “What the hell is wrong with you!? She saved Tim’s life!”

“She could have killed him!” Bruce yelled. Your head lowered, ashamed and feeling nothing but guilt, feeling like you were tearing this family apart purely just by trying to do good.

“So what? Some criminal’s life is more important than Tim’s? Kind of like how the Joker’s life is more important than mine?”

“Don’t bring that back up, Jason! This is different!” Bruce screamed at Jason, and with a glance up you saw them nose to nose, looking about ready to kill each other. You had to stop this.

“Please stop!” You begged, no one seeming to hear you between their arguing.

“It’s not different in anyway! You’re too soft- I checked that man’s criminal record and he’s tried to suffocate a bunch of people in the past- he made some of them go braindead!” Jason pointed out.

“That doesn’t mean he deserved to possibly also be brain dead from her hitting him over the head with a brick!”

“If he died I would be fucking proud of her for protecting my brother and taking a stand!”

“SHUT UP!” You screamed, the last second of your beg turning into an actual screech. Not a normal screech. It was literally ear piercing. Everyone flinched, holding their ears and ducking as glass around the cave broke and the bats went bezerk on the ceiling of the cave. You scared yourself, covering your own ears and taking a few steps back. Your eyes were wide as you started to realise… that was you. How long have you been able to do that? How the hell was that possible? Were you like the flash? A Meta-human? How?

“Y/N!” Jason called your name, forgetting about his father and rushing to you, checking you over. “Hey, look at me, are you okay? Y/n.” Jason tried to snap you out of your own mind.

“Did… did I do that?” Your voice was a whisper, almost scared you’d do whatever you did again. Jason put his hands on your cheeks and ran his thumb up and down to try and sooth you, and was about to assure you it was okay.

“What the hell?” Tim asked. “What the hell was that?”

“Did you know about this?” Dick asked Jason, who turned, looking at his family in shock. You looked up alarmed.

“You could have hurt us! Done permanent damage!” Damian now spoke up with his usual anger and hostility towards you.

“It was an accident.” You managed to get out, still in a whisper.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jason asked, and you looked where he was looking, seeing Bruce grabbing his handcuffs. Your heart stopped, and the urge to run entered your body.

“Jason, she’s a danger. I’ll have someone come and get her, we don’t have the proper facilities to contain her here.” Bruce said monotone, take two steps forward before the sound of the safety been took off a gun entered the air, and your eyes widened when you saw Jason had his gun pointed at his adoptive father. Everyone seemed stunned by his actions. Jason reached behind him, pulling you to his side.

“You’re not taking her anywhere. She is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and all she has ever done is try to be kind to you all and help you, and you’ve been nothing but monsters to her.” Jason growled. “Y/n, get on the bike.”

“Jason you can’t-”

“Shut! Up! I made a promise to her that I’d keep her safe, even if it was from you a lot. And I’m going to do that.” Jason said, remaining still with his gun. He let you go and you sheepishly got on the back of his bike. Jason slowly stepped backwards, getting on his bike. “Don’t even think about coming near her, and don’t contact me. I want nothing to do with you. Not until you apologise.” Jason decided, turning his bike on, you wrapped your arms around him, and he finally putting his gun away and he left the batcave. You didn’t know what was ahead now. You didn’t know if this made you fugitives, or if the entire Justice League would come looking for you… but you felt safe. Because you knew Jason would protect you.

Hope you like it! If you have any questions, please send them in!

*Not my gif

TAGS: @courtneychicken @graysonmalfoy @bellero @originalpottervengerlock @supernatural-pan @esoltis280 @lena-stan-xavier @lady-of-lies @sebstanismylife @macbetheliza @mandywholock1980 @cdwmtjb8 @caswinchester2000 @determinedpines

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rosesgonerogue · 4 years

Text

I didn’t so much fall in love- It kicked me in the face Chapter Three

The Wayne Manor was exactly what Marinette had come to expect after years of knowing famous people. It was expertly decorated, but it had an almost somber feel to it - it matched Gotham’s general aesthetic.

Also meeting expectations was the Wayne family itself. Marinette had done her homework, taking hours to research each member long before setting foot in Gotham. It was clear that they had been warned to behave, but chaos still bubbled beneath their calm facades, she could see it in their eyes.

“Miss Dupain-Cheng, allow me to introduce you to Masters Bruce, Richard, Jason, Timothy, and Damian.”

Marinette nodded to each in turn, her hand unconsciously tightening on Leo’s. She took a steadying breath. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I am Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and this is my son Leo. If you’re interested, I made some macarons for you, as I do for most meetings with my clients.” She set the box on the coffee table. “I would recommend eating them in the next day or so.”

Tim looked like he was going to faint, and it was then that Marinette noticed the harsh bruise on his jaw - almost like he’d gotten kicked. Surely it had to be a coincidence, there was no way…

Damian huffed, and the entire family seemed to stiffen. When he spoke, his words were sharp, acidic. “You’re meant to be a seamstress, not a baker. Besides, what kind of professional brings a child to a business meeting? Is his father too worthless to watch him?”

Everyone in the room froze, and Marinette could feel the warmth drain out of her. She felt eerily similar to when Tikki used ice powers, in fact. There was no way for her to know, but when she spoke, Marinette’s words carried the weight of an avalanche.

“You yourself are legally a child sitting in on a business meeting, Monsieur Wayne, and I did not object to it because I trust your father to parent you how he sees fit. I could explain to you that other than myself, my only options for Leo’s care are my parents, who are busy preparing for my mother’s surgery while running the most successful bakery in Paris, or my friends, who are all dealing with professional lives of their own. I could explain that, but I shouldn’t have to, because he is my son, and I will raise him as I see fit. And I’m a fashion designer, not a seamstress. This isn’t the seventeenth century.” She paused, staring the offender down. “Do you have any further objections, Monsieur Wayne?”

A small part of her glowed in satisfaction when Damian ducked his head. “Do as you must.” She missed the way that Tim blinked owlishly, exchanging surprised looks with Dick.

Instead she straightened her jacket, murmuring a few comforting words to Leo before finally letting his hand go. “I prefer getting to know my clients before I actually begin, it helps me make the perfect piece. Does some-”

“I’ll be first,” Jason said, shoving Dick out of the way.

“Perfect. If you’ll come this way, Monsieur Todd, we can sit…”

*************

The satisfied look on Jason’s face was more than a little disconcerting to Tim. He didn’t really feel like hearing the woman who’d occupied his mind for the past day, so he turned his attention elsewhere. He still needed to come to terms with the fact that she had gone head to head with Damian and come out on top after all.

Leo was scrutinizing one of the paintings on the wall, a tiny version of MDC herself. He had the same dark hair, light freckles on pale skin, and wide blue eyes…

No. Please no. Tim glanced subtly at Bruce. Surely he wouldn’t try to adopt either parts. Marinette was an adult with two living parents, and Leo had Marinette, so they were safe, right?

Regardless, that would be an issue for another time. Tim found himself crouching next to Leo. “That painting is of Monsieur Bruce’s parents,” he said in French.

The child switched his soulful eyes to Tim’s face, his expression serious. “You know French.”

“Yes, I really like languages, so I learned as many as I could,” Tim said, resisting the urge to ruffle the boy’s hair. “Your name is Leo, right?”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

“You can call me Tim. Are you enjoying Gotham so far?”

Leo thought hard for a moment. “Maman and I had a lot of fun today, but yesterday was a little scary, the way it sometimes gets in Paris.”

He desperately wanted to ask Leo more about the scary things in Paris, but it wasn’t fair to ask a child. Instead, Tim let the boy pull him around the parlor, asking questions about anything he found even remotely interesting.

“And that is the trophy Dick, my oldest brother, got for gymnastics in seventh grade,” Tim explained, hefting the boy higher up so he could see the object in question more clearly. “That’s the ribbon Jason got for a creative writing contest, and Damian’s martial arts trophy. A couple of these belong to Bruce…”

Leo stared at the glass case like it would afford him the answers to the universe before looking up to Tim’s face. “Where are your trophies?”

“What?”

“Everyone else has trophies. Where are yours?”

“That’s… I mean, I have some, I just didn’t think they were very important,” Tim said with a shrug.

“But families should be together,” Leo said with wide, unblinking eyes. “That’s why I wanted to come with Maman, even though it made your brother be mean to her.”

Tim smiled, pushing down the barrage of emotions fighting within him. “You’re right, you’re absolutely right. Your Maman is a very smart lady.”

“Maman is the smartest,” Leo said solemnly.

“You must be right again,” Tim said conspiratorially. “She’s also the best at making clothes.”

The boy’s face didn’t change in the least, there wasn’t a trace of a smile, but he slowly patted Tim’s cheek. “I like you.”

“That’s high praise.”

TIm golted, his cheeks flooding with color when he found himself next to Marinettte. She was smiling kindly when she said, “Thank you for watching Leo, that really wasn’t necessary. But I didn’t know you spoke French. That’s very impressive, Mr. Drake.”

“Call me Tim, please. And you’ve caught me, I have a deep love of languages. It’s helped in this position, though,” he said with a smile. “Business transactions are a lot easier when you don’t need a translator.”

“I’ve also found that to be true,” Marinette said, lips quirked. “It’s finally your turn for your consultation. We can do it with or without Leo, whatever you would prefer.”

“Leo and I are friends now, of course I would need his opinion!” Tim said, just barely noticing that he was still holding the child. “After all, I need his help making sure that I have the best suit at the entire Wayne Gala.”

That actually coaxed a smile out of the boy, and the resemblance between him and his mother had never been stronger. Marinette looked surprised, but her eyes were warm. “A lot of designers despair over men’s fashion, you know. People lash out whenever you stray too far from the traditional designs, and no one can really reinvent the suit. While it doesn’t let us exercise as much creativity and freedom as women’s fashion, I actually love things like this. Men’s suits are all about attention to detail - how I can work to show your personality in an appropriate but memorable manner. Do you have any specific requests?”

Against his will, Tim felt his face heat up, doubtlessly turning as red as his vigilante suit. “I fully admit that I was the one who originally commissioned you. I even had to fight Damian. And yet, I haven’t thought about the specifics of what I might want until now.”

Thankfully, Marinette laughed. “You’d be surprised at how often that happens. That’s perfectly fine. I just didn’t want to leave out anything you desperately wanted. Do you have a specific color for your suit in mind?”

“Black?” Tim asked helplessly. “I’ve followed your career for a long time, Mademoiselle, but that doesn’t mean that I know anything about fashion. I just know that your fashion seems… magical.”

Marinette’s lips quirked upwards, a knowing sparkle in her eyes. “That’s an interesting comment. I have a proposal for you, Timothy Drake. If you have any pressing requests I will include them, but I want to keep yours a surprise.”

Tim swallowed, completely unprepared to deal with the sparkle in her eyes. “I trust you.”

“The exterior is going to be a neutral color because you’re a business man who needs to keep up appearances. That means the most fun we’ll get to have is with the lining. Any opinions?” Marinette asked. “I only bring it up because it’s the most flexible part.”

“I don’t know, I think all of my suit linings are black or gray,” Tim said, slightly distressed.

Leo stared him down with serious eyes before saying, “Maman, the inside needs to be red. Ladybug red.”

“Ladybug? You want me to look like a beetle?” Tim asked.

Marinette smiled slightly at his comment, but her eyes were fixed on her son. “Are you sure, mon cher? Ladybug red?”

“That’s what he needs,” Leo confirmed.

Thinking about his brothers’ laughter if he showed up in a polka-dot suit, Tim asked again, “Ladybugs? Are you sure, Leo?”

“Oh, not the bug,” the fashion designer assured him, finally breaking eye contact with her son. “She tries to keep her existence quiet, but Ladybug is one of Paris’s heroes.”

“She’s the best hero,” Leo said solemnly. “But you’re nice like she is. You need to have red like she does.”

There was a strange look in Marinette’s eye that Tim couldn’t quite decipher, but she smiled nonetheless. “You should feel honored. Once someone back in Paris asked me to make something in Ladybug red, and Leo hid the fabric so I had to make it in a slightly different shade. He must really like you.”

He wanted to say something, anything. Tim had never felt so… he didn’t even know how to describe it. He had spent his life building it into what he had wanted it to be, propping himself up with his accomplishments. He stood alone in his skyscraper, trying to catch up to Bruce and his brothers, but Marinette and Leo had violently dragged him down to the ground, standing outside with everyone. Maybe his family had never been as distant as he thought.

Or maybe the caffeine withdrawal was finally getting to him.

Taglist:

@ii-fox-demon @queen-in-a-flower-crown @novaloptr @saphiraazure2708 @iamabrownfox @smolplantmum @redhoodedtoad @loysydark @slytheringinger300 @finallyaniguana @brokenwordsarehard2 @abrx2002 @mystery-5-5 @zalladane @moonlightstar64 @marinettepotterandplagg @black-streak @purplesundaze @maribat-is-lifeblood

Note:

Damian’s going to be a jerk in this. Beware.

#maribat #timinette #marinette x tim

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aceofshitposts · 3 years

Note

I saw that you like CATS the musical. What are your thoughts on the movie?

AAAAH AHHAHA oh man oh boy y'all should BUCKLE IN cuz it's a ride

my simple thoughts? it's entertaining if only because it butchered the stage show so badly in an attempt to idk modernize it? Well, modernization is one part of it I think. The other part I'll go into below lol. I don't necessarily hate some of the more modern renditions of the songs (mostly the ensemble sets like Jellicle Song for Jellicle Cats) but then others are just... so poorly done it's insulting.

I've said this at the end of this whole rant too but I'm gonna put it up here in case people don't (justifiably) wanna see me go on and on about it:

The movie wasn't made for fans of the musical. It was made to make money and I believe they choose, at least partially, to do that through making it the weirdest and worst possible adaptation they could so that people would want to go see the train wreck. Which, really, worked! It was all people could talk about for a good while so like... Goal achieved, I guess.

A MUCH MORE COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS UNDER THE CUT cuz i don't wanna. flood your dash with... this

ALRIGHT SO. Most of my friends know I'm actually a huge fan of new adaptations of things. I love remakes (provided the people making it are coming at it with some form of heart and not just... cash grabbing which is more often the case) I love seeing other peoples interpretations of characters, or changing settings. It's one of the reasons I like American comics so much, getting to see different writers takes is fascinating.

I think musical movies can be wonderful ways to introduce people to a stage show that might have been unavailable to them otherwise! Chicago, for example, is one of the BEST musical to movie adaptations in my opinion. It kept the heart of the show, it's funny and the song numbers are done really well.

There are of course other famous examples, such as Grease or Bye Bye Birdie. Hairspray was also a wonderful take. These are simply off the top of my head, there are of course more.

CATS in particular has a history. If you go through my CATS tag you may see a few posts from @catsnonreplica which posts photos from non broadway productions of CATS! It's a fascinating read and I love, love, love looking at the other interpretations of the characters! CATS is a musical full of fun and wonderful characters if you take the time to see past the ridiculousness haha and the Korean and Japanese runs of CATS especially have some of my favourites.

How does this relate to the movie, I hear you say well. As you might has noticed the movie's interpretations of the characters is........ lackluster at best and downright uncanny valley at best.

CATS is, at its core, a ridiculous thing. I will fully admit that! But it's fun, it's entertaining and if you pay a little attention you can actually get the plot. (Honestly I don't understand when people complain it has no plot but that's a whole other rant for another day)

The movie was... obsessed with this idea of like... semi realism? Like obviously, as a fan, I think they should have leaned into the over the top character designs but instead we got...w ell:

Bombalurina:

Demeter left and Bomba right. Demeter was actually cut! From the movie which is. upsetting lmao.

Macavity is one of the worst offenders for me:

Macavity was... I wish I could know what the hell they were thinking there cuz it's even in his song? Ginger cat??? THAT IS NOT... A GINGER CAT...... but I digress. I would show more examples but I think you get the point.

So. We've butchered the characters appearances. Okay that's fine but what about their personalities?

ALSO BUTCHERED.

There's... there's a lot to unpack here. Just for context: the Jellicle Ball happens once a year and the Jellicle leader chooses a single cat to be reborn into a new life. In the stage play all the cats who are nominated for this honour are on the older side (Jenny-Any-Dots, Bustopher Jones, Skimbleshanks, Gus The Theatre Cat, and eventually Grizzabella) AND are always nominated by another cat. Not themself, unlike the movie where they all seem to nominate themselves.

Jenny-Any-Dots went from a doting grandmother figure who's celebrated for her selfless volunteering and tireless work into a conceited, vain younger cat who is obsessed with fame.

It's an incredibly strange dichotomy. I don't doubt some of it isn't the result of the uh people playing the characters honestly. I do think some of them did the best they could! I don't really blame Jason Derulo, for example, for Tugger. And honestly, Tugger was probably closest to his stage version (while being a trouble maker, he's shown to show Deuteronomy an immense amount of respect)

Speaking of Tugger! This will bring us to one of the biggest grievances with the movie and that is how they handled Mr Mistoffelees.

So... Ugh. So. We have Victoria as the pov character, which imo is like whatever in the grand scheme of things, and then we have Misto who they have decided will be get live interest cuz... Of course. Misto is shown throughout the musical to be awkward, unsure of himself and well. Really, kinda incompetent. Which is Wild cuz in the stage show he might be aloof but he's fairly confident in his powers.

So, Old Deuts gets kidnapped. In the stage show Tugger is the one to bring Misto forward! It's really quite sweet, imo, and I'm showing myself as a Tuggoffelees shipper here, but again Tugger is previously shown to be pretty conceited but then here he is boosting and hyping up Misto to bring Deuteronomy back. My friends and I have lovingly dubbed this the boyfriend hype song.

SOMEHOW. The movie manages to make this, easily, the MOST BORING number in the whole thing. Which, again, WILD. Misto awkwardly stumbles through his whole song, which again is... Boasting of his supreme magical powers which movie Misto clearly. Does not have or believe to have. The song, to me, feels super awkward and unnecessarily drawn out in the movie which sucks cuz it's one of my favourites in the show.

The declawing (heh) of Mr Mistoffelees actually reminds me strongly of how they changed Gaston in the live action Beauty and the Beast movie. He's gone from a beloved figure in the animated movie to someone so disliked in the town that Le Fou has to pay people off to say nice things about him. It's just. Wild character choices were made!!

Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat is probably my favourite in movie non ensemble number. It feels the most... Genuine? Compared to the other nomination songs.

Other problems include but are not limited to:

The inconsistent size scale of the CATS which throws me off constantly.

The weirdly overt sexual overtones added to MANY of the songs (Jenny and Bustopher being the worst)

This is just a personal gripe and opinion but I don't like that they used the UK version of Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer. The American version is both better known and tbh way more fun. Teazer's giggle? Adds ten years to my life every time.

Victoria's added solo song, Beautiful Ghosts, while I like the song as a song it doesn't fit the style of message of the musical. In the movie she's singing directly to Grizzabella who's being an outcast for years that she should be grateful she even has memories of being part of the tribe?? What?? But I know they had to add an original song to be able to be nominated for awards in like the Grammys n shit (which is why all musical movies will have an original song, fun fact!!) kinda funny they went to the effort though considering........... I don't think anyone could have genuinely believed CATS 2019 was gonna win anything but golden rhaspberries.

Movie Mr Mistoffelees has made repeated appearances as my sleep paralysis demon

The various cut characters, shout outs to Jemima, Demeter and Jellylorum especially

Bombalurina being a henchman to Macavity rubs me the wrong way

God I've written... So much. You probably get it by now haha. Like I said at the beginning, I try to go into any adaptation with an open mind but... Let's be honest, this movie wasn't marketed to people who are fans of the musical.

It was marketed, and made, to make money. And they choose to do that through, I think, intentionally making the worst possible version ever. Bad press is still press and the more outrageous people said the movie was the more people wanted to go see exactly what kind of train wreck it was.

Which is a disservice to the stage show, honestly, and all the people who've worked on it over the years.

But what can we do, right?

And besides all that, I do... Still own the movie version and I do still rewatch it on occasion. It is entertaining even if it's in a train wreck kind of way. I usually end up watching the 1998 version, then 2019 and then various tour runs that are on YouTube. (I highly recommend the 2016 tour, it's very good)

So in conclusion. It's fun (?) to watch. I enjoy picking things apart and doing analysis (if you couldn't tell!) so like... I don't hate it?

It did what it set out to do, I guess, and I can't fault it for that but. It's not a fair metre with which to judge the stage show imo. But I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, haha.

Jazz hands. I'm more than happy to elaborate or just chat about CATS if anyone wants! I grew up listening to the Broadway CD since I was a toddler so it's been! A very long standing obsession haha. Probably the only other thing on par with CATS is my obsession with Jurassic Park which I've also been a fan of since I was 3 (but that's a whole story in and of itself)

#astrix thoughts #cats the musical #Thanks for the opportunity to talk about one of my hyperfixations anon!#And to anyone who reads this whole mess lmao

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batsandbugs · 3 years

Text

Bats Bugs and Boomerangs Chapter 1

A/N: Hey everyone, coming at you with another series! This is actually for a late secret santa gift exchange! My recipient was @m3owww! Her fandoms were Maribat and Avatar the Last Airbender, so I thought: Why not both? She already had a Maribat characters in the show type fic, so I created a fic where they watched the show. It slowly spiraled out of control though, so this is Chapter 1. I’ll eventually have the batfam (and Marinette) react to the whole series, so comment here and on ao3 what you want to see. So Phi, this is kinda like the gift that will keep on giving? Maybe? I hope you like it anyway. Enjoy!

Our story begins on a frosty winter evening, outside Gotham at Wayne Manor. Marinette sat in the library working on an assignment for her History of Fashion class. She was alone, because Damian, Dick, Tim, and Bruce were out on patrol, with Barbara on comms. Tikki, unless eating or involved with a transformation, spent her time sleeping due to the freezing weather. While the other Kwami either resided in the box or roamed the grounds, and generally stayed out of the human's way.

Marinette gazed out the window, snow falling softly through the air, covering the ground and the tree branches. A crackling fire warmed the room. She shifted, and a painful ache shot through her leg. Marinette glared at the offending appendage, which was the reason she wasn’t out with the team tonight.

Her Miraculous could cure any injury sustained on the battlefield, it didn’t help her one bit when it came to her own natural clumsiness. She hadn’t paid attention as she’d walked out of class one evening. The dim lighting hid a black ice patch and she slipped and fell. Thankfully, her ankle was only sprained and not broken, but she would be out of commission for at least two weeks. Probably more if Alfred got his way.

Speaking of the elderly butler, he strode into the room carrying a tray of tea and cookies.

“Good evening Miss. Marinette. Need another refreshment?”

She sighed at the cold coffee dregs in her mug. “That would be nice, thank you, Alfred.”

He hummed, grabbing a teacup, and pouring her a serving. “How does your leg feel today? I notice you were leaning heavily on Master Damian after supper.” He handed the cup to her and the warmth was a welcome sensation for her chilled hands.

“Yeah, he’s been nice helping me around.” Nice was a misnomer, more like extremely overprotective. He point-blank refused for her to stay at her own apartment, mostly due to its location on the fourth floor with no elevator access. He all but forced her to watch him pack her essentials to bring to the manor while she recovered. Since then, his attentiveness in ensuring she had what she needed within reach and helping her to class had grown. It was a tad smothering considering his usual aloofness, but she enjoyed his actions for the affection it implied.

“It’s throbbing and hot and feels worse than it did three days ago.” She took a tiny sip of the tea and relaxed into its spiced aroma. Alfred made the best tea.

He nodded. “It will feel uncomfortable for a while until it starts to mend. Just continue to rest and remain off it and you will be back to carousing around the city like the rest of them in no time.” He poured his own tea and seated himself in the plush armchair across from her spot on the couch.

“Oh, Alfred you say that as if you would not be right there along with us if age allowed,” said Marinette with a grin. The stories Dusu could recount about the elderly miraculous holder were nothing short of entertaining, and she knew damn well Alfred had the same need for action as the rest of the Waynes and their assorted allies.

“I’d do nothing of the sort,” he said primly, taking a sip of his tea to hide the tiny smirk on his face. Marinette couldn’t help but laugh.

The rest of the evening was spent in pleasant silence. Despite the pain in her leg Marinette pushed through it and finished her assignment, while Alfred read until it neared time when patrol ended. He bustled up the remains of the tea and promise her a fresh cup when he finished seeing everyone arrive safely.

Later, although she could not say how long, she was buried deep in a book and didn’t notice when Damian entered the room until he sat next to her on the couch.

“Good evening angel.” His hair flopped in his eyes, loose and damp from the shower. In his hands, he held a tray with two cups of steaming tea.

“Thanks.” She took the proffered cup of tea with a smile. “How was patrol?”

“Boring,” he sighed. “You certainly are not missing anything.” If he wouldn’t have taken offense to it, Marinette would have described the look on his face as a pout.

“What about the drug seller Tim tracked to the lower docks?”

Damian shrugged. “Gone silent after we busted the last shipment. Seventeen years in and maybe the criminals finally figured out committing crimes in the same city as a relentless vigilante team is a bad idea,” he said with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. Marinette couldn’t stop herself from giggling. It was a common joke among the family that Gotham’s criminals never learned.

“I think it means we’re doing our job right,” said Tim walking in with a steaming mug. Marinette opened her mouth, but he cut her off. “Don’t worry, it’s decaf.”

“Like Pennyworth would let him drink anything else this time of night,” scoffed Damian, while taking a sip of his tea.

“I’m perfectly capable of monitoring my own caffeine intake, thanks,” Tim said in offense, seating himself across from the couch in the reading chair previously abandoned by Alfred.

“No, you’re not,” called a voice from the hallway. Dick walked in with a large mug of what was undoubtedly hot chocolate. “The last time he didn’t check your drink after patrol, you used coffee instead of water to brew another pot, and then added four whole bottles of five-hour energy. You didn’t sleep for three days.”

“I also solved five crimes, figured out where the Penguin was hiding, and streamlined the dropbox submission system for Wayne Industries. Life requires tradeoffs.”

“No that’s just you, ignoring basic human necessities. Anyway, besides Tim’s caffeine addiction, what are we talking about?” asked Dick.

“The reason for the lack of crime,” offered Marinette.

Dick shrugged, “Happens every year because of the weather. Even criminals get cold. They’ll return to their usual transgressions once the weather warms.” He took a sip of his hot chocolate.

“Tt. Weak,” muttered Damian.

Tim rolled his eyes. “Not everyone receives extreme weather training under threat of dismemberment, demon brat. We should take the opportunity to enjoy the break.”

“Tim, your version of a “break” involves paperwork,” chided Dick.

“It’s not my fault the rest of you people don’t have lives. I’m a remarkably busy person. And what is this, the-criticize-Tim-hour?”

“Oh, only an hour?” smirked Damian. “I thought it was a continuous event, one could choose to participate in whenever the mood struck. I will have to file all my complaints immediately.”

Tim pouted. “Marinette,” he whined. “Can’t you control him?”

She shrugged, “What do you expect me to do? I’m his girlfriend, not his minder. Besides, they criticize because they care.” She laughed when all three boys snarled their noses at the prospect of feelings.

“Marinette, angel, please; never say that again. I criticize because I am right, and they should know it. Not because of any high-minded ideals such as genuine affection.”

“Okay, okay, enough,” said Dick. “If we have a bit of a break, we should do something! Together, as a family. I think Cass and Steph come back in two days.”

“Grayson, just because your girlfriend is off-world visiting family and you have nothing to do does not mean it holds true for the rest of us.”

“Exactly!” exclaimed Tim, “Except not quite, because I don’t have a girlfriend, but I just said I’m busy. R&D is rolling out a new prototype next week, and I have two board meetings scheduled and-”

“Not to mention,” Marinette cut Tim off. He could talk about his schedule forever because he just had that many events. “I can’t move around, what would we even do? Play games?”

Tim rolled his eyes. “The list of games officially banned in our family includes, but is not limited to; Monopoly, Uno, Checkers, Risk, Risk: Legacy, Twister, Jenga, Clue, Guess Who, Poker, Chess, and Go Fish.”

“Oh…” muttered Marinette.

“And that doesn’t even include videogames.”

“After the Wii Bowling incident of 2013, the media room wall was never the same,” Dick said, shaking his head in despair.

“I actually apologized for that, okay?” exclaimed Damian. “Why do you always have to bring it up?”

Marinette fully intended to ask about the incident later. “Okay, so games are out.”

“Ooh,” Dick’s eyes lit up, “How about we call a Family T.V. Event?”

Tim groaned, “The last time we did that we blew up the shed, and got the police called.”

“Well, we won’t watch a crime show.” Dick turned to Marinette. “Jason picked; we watched Breaking Bad.”

“I can see how that would spiral out of control.”

“The time before that, we set fire to the media room and started a familial feud,” Damian pointed out. “Game of Thrones,” he added when Marinette looked to him for clarification.

“Even worse.”

“Okay, fine, so we don’t have the best track record picking shows. But I swear I have a good one this time.” He paused for dramatic effect. “Avatar: The Last Airbender.”

Tim snorted. “What? Like the kid’s show?”

Damian rolled his eyes. “Really Grayson, a cartoon? I know you are developmentally stuck at five, but not all of us are.”

“I’ve never watched it, but I’ve heard good things about it,” said Marinette. She knew there was a French translation of the show, but she preferred to watch media in its original language. Before moving to America, before dating Damian, her English had not been strong enough to confidently watch a show and understand all of it.

“Perfect!” exclaimed Dick. “I know you three and Cass haven’t seen it, and neither has Bruce or Alfred. I would bet Jason’s seen some of it, but I’ll have to check. Barbara and I have, but that’s fine, she loves the show. We’ll have to see about Steph too, but I’m sure she’ll enjoy it regardless. There are awesome characters, battles, suspense, comedy, and it’s not likely going to inspire us to blow up the shed or tear each other to pieces!”

“I have in no way agreed to this Grayson. Drake back me up.”

Tim paused for a moment, stuck between his need to disagree with Damian and the need to get out of Dick’s crazy plan. Unfortunately for Damian, the former won out. “Actually, you know what, a show could be fun. The episodes are what, thirty minutes? Shorter than Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones.”

Damian groaned while Dick responded happily, ignoring his brother’s distress, “Around twenty minutes actually. We could have the whole show finished in about a week or so.”

Damian turned to her, eyes wide and hopeful. “Marinette, please tell me you are on my side?”

She patted her boyfriend’s arm, “Sorry, mon amour, I’m stuck either way. Might as well watch a show.”

Damian flopped against the couch with a pout. “Betrayed. I have been grievously betrayed by my own brothers and girlfriend. What is this world coming to?”

“Woo!” exclaimed Dick, a wide grin splitting his face. “This is going to be great.”

“This is going to be awful,” moaned Damian.

-0-0-

It took a bit of convincing on the part of Dick to get Bruce and Alfred to agree to the venture. Marinette, after learning the full details of the last two Family T.V. Events, was wholly unsurprised. She also did not know the full extent of what Dick did to get Jason to agree (apparently, he and Bruce were fighting, again, so this was expected.) although it probably involved a bribe. But by the week’s end, the entire family was together, all under strict orders (and puppy-dog eyes from Dick) to be on their best behavior.

Which, without a doubt, not a single one of them knew what that entailed.

The arguing started with seating placement, then about who controlled the remote, then over the distribution of snacks, drinks, blankets, and pillows. At one point Jason pulled a knife, which prompted Damian to pull his knife, suddenly Cass had two shurikens visible (where she even kept them while wearing a tank top and shorts, no one could say), and then everyone was yelling with sharp pointy objects in hand.

Once the argument was firmly under control, Alfred collected the weapons and placed them in a wicker basket, along with all the mobile devices, until the episodes for the night were finished. The only one allowed to have a phone was Barbara who was in charge of checking police scanners for any major trouble while the family took the evening off.

Marinette seated herself curled up against Damian on the edge of the couch. She set her foot propped up on an ottoman so it wouldn’t get jostled, and she could continue to ice it throughout the evening. Damian secured their own bowl of popcorn, so they didn’t have to share it with the others.

“Alright, here’s how we’re breaking this down,” announced Dick, who won the battle for the remote, and therefore the episode schedule. “The episodes are short, at least, much shorter than the last show we watched.” He directed a pointed look at Jason.

“I make no apologies.”

“We’ll watch half a season a day, ten episodes apiece. The closed captions will be on but try to keep the chatter to a minimum.” Marinette held back a laugh. Damian explained no one kept quiet during these nights. Watching the show wasn’t the point of these events; if that were the case then they would just watch it all on their own time. The point was the time spent together. This is why even Bruce, emotionally constipated and single-minded in his pursuits as he was, put away the suit for a few days to watch T.V. with the rest of his collected family. Talking was expected.

“We will, if you will,” called Stephanie.

“I take offense to that.”

“Aw just sit Dickie, let’s watch the show,” exclaimed Jason.

“Yes, Grayson you already wrapped us into this pointless venture; we might as well get it over with,” Damian grumbled. Marinette found his hand in the folds of their shared blanket and laced her fingers with his. He squeezed her hand, and, when he was sure no one else was looking gave her a small smile. Marinette smiled back, he pretended to be such a grouch, but deep down he was a giant softy at heart.

Dick frowned, saying “Fine, fine, you don’t have to be spoilsports about it.” And pointed the remote at the T.V. starting the first episode.

-0-0-

It didn’t take ten seconds before the commentary began.

“Four elements?” exclaimed Tim. “Are you serious? I could name at least a dozen off the top of my head. How are there only four nations? 0/10 completely unrealistic. Political infighting alone-”

“Ah, shut up, replacement.”

“Ruthless fire nation?” said Stephanie. “Methinks a little propaganda might be occurring here.”

“A hundred years!? What, has no one competent been born the entire time?”

Marinette shrugged. “The disadvantages of finite magic systems, Dami. It's learned indifference.”

“Honey, after a hundred years that’s not hoping, that’s naivety,” said Stephanie in response to Katara’s impassioned speech.

“She’s right!” exclaimed Dick.

“We know that, but she doesn’t.”

The show moved on to Katara and Sokka in a boat. Sokka held a spear above the water.

“Is he hunting that fish?” growled Damian.

“Ah yeah, I forgot you may hate the entirety of Sokka’s character,” said Dick with a grimace. “Whoops.”

“She’s not very good at the water moving, is she?” asked Marinette

“Waterbending,” Dick and Barbara said in unison.

Sokka chided Katara about her weird water magic. “Oh, he’s not going to be a dick for the whole show, is he?” asked Steph.

“He gets better.”

“They grew up here right?” asked Damian, as Katara and Sokka become caught in a rapid. “How did they not anticipate an event like this.”

“I knew I should have left you at home. Leave it to a girl to screw things up!”

“HEY!” shouted all the women in the room.

They watched as Katara’s fury built and broke the iceberg behind her.

“Good. Use anger, anger is alright,” Cass commented for the first time.

“Okay, you’ve gone from weird, to freakish.”

“This punk is just asking for a beating isn’t he,” growled Jason.

The beam of energy shot into the air after Katara and Sokka broke open the ice. “That’s not going to cause any trouble,” said Tim, rolling his eyes. “Nope, not suspicious or completely conspicuous at all.”

The scene switches to a metal ship.

“Finally! Uncle, do you realize what this means?”

“Oh, look, the bad guys,” deadpanned Tim. “I was right.”

Jason grabbed a handful of popcorn and shoved it into his mouth “What happened to his fucked-up fa-”

“YOU’LL FIND OUT!”

The scene switched back to Katara and Sokka. The figure is revealed to be a hyperactive little kid.

Damian frowned“Oh, I won’t like him either, will I Grayson?”

Dick tilted his head, “Eh.”

Then Appa is introduced.

“Father, could we-”

“No, Damian.”

They watched the children depart, and the scene moved back to the Fire Nation ship.

“Even if you're right, and the Avatar is alive, you won't find him. Your father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all tried and failed.”

“Well considering the Airbender child has been in an iceberg, it’s not surprising they failed.”

“Because their honor didn't hinge on the Avatar's capture. Mine does. This coward's hundred years in hiding are over.”

“Is it just me or does this angry, emo prince remind anyone of demon spawn?”

“Todd, shut your mouth before I remove your tongue.”

Marinette leaned in close, “Maybe just a little like you.” Damian looked at her with a betrayed pout.

The scene switched and they watched Aang lie to Katara about the Avatar.

“The air child is guilty. Will cause problems later.”

“Narrative Cass, it’s narrative.”

Damian scoffed. “Miscommunication is plot convenience, and it’s a sloppy one at that.”

They watched Aang’s dream of how he ended up in the iceberg, him waking up to Katara and his introduction to the village.

“Well, no one has seen an Airbender in a hundred years. We thought they were extinct until my granddaughter and grandson found you.”

“Extinct?”

“He went into the ice and woke up to find the world different. Anyone getting serious Captain America vibes here?” said Jason, tone-deaf to the clear horror on Aang's face.

“Jason, he just found out his people potentially went extinct!” chided Marinette.

“It's not for stabbing! It's for air bending.”

“Please tell me the main character is not a pacifist,” begged Damian.

“Well, he is a monk,” said Barbara with a sorry look.

“I sense he's filled with much wisdom,” Katara says as Aang sticks his tongue to his staff and it freezes.

“I switch back and forth between liking this girl and not. One second she’s got gumption, and the next she’s all starry-eyed and naïve,” grumbled Steph.

“I wonder who that reminds me of,” Damian whispered into Marinette’s ear. She felt her cheeks heat up.

"I'm not naive," she shot back.

He raised a hand with two fingers close but not touching, "You're a little naive." Marinette huffed, but silently admitted to her boyfriend's point. She had a tendency to believe the best in people; she saw it as a strength and appreciated it in this Katara character, but it was so far from how Damian viewed the world, it honestly confused his siblings when they first started dating.

Damian confided in her that he found it inspiring. She had been through so much, understood the cruelties of others, and still could see the good in people.

The scene switched to the Fire Nation ship again, and Iroh explained the concept of firebending to an irate Prince Zuko.

“Finally, a display of actual competence,” exclaimed Damian.

“Enough! I've been drilling this sequence all day. Teach me the next set! I'm more than ready!”

“My tutors would have skewered me if I dared to act in such a manner,” he commented again, softer than the first time. More so that only Marinette could hear. Damian’s family was more than aware of his childhood and what it entailed; Marinette slowly learned with comments like this. She squeezed his hand again and received a small smile.

The scene shifted back to the village where Sokka’s failed “warrior lesson” occurred, and then-

“We don't have time for fun and games with the War going on!”

“What war? What are you talking about?”

“Where have you been, frozen in ice for a hundred years?” joked Dick.

They watched Aang offer to take Katara to the North Pole to find a water bending master. The two children go and play with the penguin creatures, but the tone shifted when an old Fire Nation ship appeared on the screen.

“Bad ship” muttered Cass.

“If you want to be a bender, you have to let go of fear.”

“There are so many things wrong with that statement I don’t even know where to start,” said Tim.

They watch Aang and Katara enter the Fire Nation Ship and wander talking about the war.

“Aang, how long were you in that iceberg?”

“I don't know. A few days, maybe?”

“I think it was more like a hundred years!”

“Are you kidding me?” yelled Jason. “How are they just figuring this out now?”

On-screen Aang stepped on the line of wire, tripping the traps.

“Tt. Amateurs.”

"See, she told him it would be a bad idea!"

A flare rises through the air.

“That’s not going to cause any-”

“Oh, shut up Tim.”

The Fire Prince once again appeared on the screen.

“The last Airbender!”

“I was right,” he mumbled.

The screen faded to the credits, and Dick turned to the group.

“So? What do you think?”

“Slow.”

“Nobody has any sense.”

“Are any of the characters actually likable?”

He frowned. “Okay, okay, so the first episode isn’t the best. I swear it gets better. Back me up here Barb.”

Barbara nodded. “He’s right, it takes a few episodes to build the characters up and we see some genuine action. But by mid-season, I swear you’ll be hooked. And then we’ll get to season two and the best characters will arrive.”

“Hey,” Dick exclaimed, pointing a finger at her. “No spoilers.”

“I thought it was fun,” Marinette offered. “It’s very clearly a kid’s show, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.” She wasn’t going to say each and every person in the room had childhood traumas, and a show full of lighthearted fun was probably just what they needed. She could think it, but she wouldn’t say it.

“Thank you, Marinette,” said Dick with a smile.

“I rather enjoyed the elderly tea drinker,” intoned Alfred. “He’s more than he appears to be.”

“Uncle Iroh? Yeah, he’s the best!” commented Barbara. "But everyone is great."

“Alright, episode one finished, nine more to go.”

“Let’s hope it’s more enjoyable than the last,” uttered Damian, a chorus of agreement followed his statement, but when the show started up everyone grew quiet again.

Marinette was sure whatever happened next, it was bound to be interesting.

Tag List (Although it is on ao3 too)

@m3owww @your-resident-chimken-nuggie @loveswifi @fusser90@animegirlweeb @ihavehomeworkbutistillhere

#damian x marinette #maribat #maridami #damimari #mlb crossover #ml x dc #marinette dupain cheng x damian wayne #marinette dupain-cheng x damian wayne #moodboard #damientte #damianette #marinnette dupain cheng x damian wayne #mlb x dc #characters watch the show #maribat watching atla

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