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avaritia-apotheosis · 3 years

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Phantom Children [DP x Batman Crossover] Ch. 2

In which: Danny thinks, Talia is concerned, and we finally see Ra's al Ghul's pride an joy: the Lazarus pit

AO3 | Prologue | 1 | [ 2 ] | 3 |

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DANNY COUNTS THE DAYS by the hours he is in the monitor room. One hour is all that he is allowed. One hour after a day of learning and fighting, of ‘yes ma’am’ and ‘no sir’ and ‘stand up straighter, boy’ and ‘remember that you have feet.’ Of being handed a sword only to have it knocked out of his hand (pickitup-pickitup-pick-it-up). Of ‘here’s eight plants, only one of them is the antidote to the poison you just ingested, and you better hope you remember the difference because this is the life you live now, Danny.’ This is what you agreed to for some time in front of a few television screen.

One hour. Sixty minutes. Three thousand and six hundred measly fucking seconds was all he got to see his family before he’s ushered back to his room. Dark. Barren. Windowless.

God, when was the last time he saw the stars?

He spent his multitude of ‘one hours’ simply watching. That was all he could do, really. Watch and collect snatches of Amity—of Before. Like torn pieces of an antique photograph, unable to be restored but too precious to throw away.

Talia would call him too sentimental. Danny would love to remind Talia that if it wasn’t for her and her freaky older-than-dirt dad, Danny wouldn’t even need to be fucking sentimental.

Breathe in for four. Hold for seven. Breathe out for eight.

Repeat.

Repeat again.

One more time.

There’s a voice in Danny’s head that sounded too much like Jazz telling him that this kind of behavior was unhealthy. The Jazz in Danny’s head didn’t exactly know why, though they’re both pretty sure that constantly watching your family and friends move on after your death probably isn’t good for one’s sanity. Especially since Danny isn’t really dead.

Well.

Dead-er.

He isn’t—

(family-love-mememe-why aren’t they looking harder-don’t they care-they care-for their own good-what about-happy-no-me-them-me-them).

Truth be told, Danny isn’t angry that everyone in Amity seemed to be getting on with their lives. God, he’s seen how his suppsed-death affected them. He can’t—he won’t be responsible for holding them back from living when he can’t even be sure if he’ll ever be able to return to Amity again.

(He’s seen what happens when someone refuses to move on. Hell, the Zone is full of it. It’s either you obsess with grief…or you try to rip it out of yourself entirely.)

Danny wanted them to live on. Be happy. (With him.)The FentonWorks portal remained under constant vigilance, and since Pariah Dark, most ghosts recognized Amity as his haunt and tended to stay away. With any major threats he could only hope that Clockwork would step in somehow and at least keep it contained. Tucker and Sam were more than capable enough to handle most of his regular rogues gallery, especially if Red Huntress was backing them up too.

Amity…didn’t really need Danny anymore to protect it.

(Family-happy-protectprotectprotect-what?-safe-not safe-not needed).

For all that they tried to find out, Danny, Sam, and Tucker never did manage to figure out what his ghostly obsession was. Sam went out on a limb and said Heroism which…wasn’t quite right but fit the bill well enough.

And what was the point of heroes?

To build a world where they aren’t needed.

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There was a noticeable shift in her son’s demeanor after he learned of the true nature of his parentage. Though it should be noted that while Talia showed a photograph of her beloved to Daniel, she did not disclose his true identity as to Ra’s al Ghul’s orders. Her father reasoned that it was more advantageous for Daniel to develop a closer connection with the maternal side of his family as opposed to the Waynes—a name that would be more familiar and thus better viewed than the strange people who kidnapped him.

No; ‘Recovered’ would be the most appropriate term. Daniel was her child. Would always be her child, no matter who raised him.

Daniel was…quieter. Somber. His eyes glazed yet sharp—blue eyes bloodshot despite maintaining a regular sleep schedule. Like pit madness with neither the madness nor the pit; simply the look of rage that bubbles beneath the skin, close to boiling over yet never there.

He continued to watch his false family obsessively. Yet…he had taken to watching Talia as well. Quietly. Unobtrusively. Small glances at the corner of his eye. Contemplative looks with furrowed brows whenever he presumed she did not notice. He had even taken to meticulously check his reflection in the mirror; pinching cheeks and turning his face this way and that, cataloguing his features as if to find what parts of him was from her—or perhaps if there was any part of him that ever resembled the paranormal scientists he once called parents.

Even if the physical similarities were not there, the DNA testing—regardless of the anomalies found in Daniel’s genes—was proof enough that he was her son.

“You have been keeping with your diet regimen, yes?” Asked one of the League’s physicians. He pressed his gloved fingers against Daniel’s skin, brushing the ridges of his ribcage. Marring her son’s skin was a large, faint scars. Fractals branching across his torso like the branches of a gruesome tree. “You are still too thin.”

“Fast metabolism,” Daniel mumbled. He is sat on an examination table in their medical wing, black shirt neatly folded beside him. His figure, though not skeletal, per se, was gaunt. His ribs poking from his pallor skin, stomach still concave for a boy who ate double the portions than any other member of the League of Assassins. “I’ve had it since the accident, but it’s never gotten this bad.”

The physician hummed, jotting his notes down along side the results of Danny’s vitals. The exact numbers were unknown to Talia, standing as she was by the door, though she could infer the results from previous physical examinations. (Low blood pressure and core body temperature. Faint pulse, slight tachycardia,) “Do you have any ideas why?”

Daniel’s lips thinned, eyes darting to the side as he always did whenever Phantom was related in anyway. His face was too open; Talia needed to train him out of that. “My…” He took a deep breath. “Ghosts aren’t supposed to stay very long in the Material world. It lacks the ectoplasmic energies that helps them ‘stay alive,’ so to speak. Usually they can supplement some of this by filtering some of the ambient energy in the atmosphere to strengthen themselves—it’s why Amity was such a hotspot for ghosts because of the large concentration of ectoplasm in the atmosphere—but it still isn’t a good long term solution.”

He scratched the back of his head. “Since I’m still somewhat human, I’m able to spend way more time in the Material world and can substitute spending days in the Zone by instead filtering ambient energy and eating.”

The physician made another noise, the tip of his pen tapping against the side of the clipboard. “So I take it then that, as your other half doesn’t have access to this ‘ambient energy’ as you call it, it is forced to take what energy it needs from the calories you’ve consumed, yes?”

“Basically.”

“What will happen if you do not have enough calories to supplement this energy?”

Danny shrugged, a rueful smile on his face. “Dunno. Maybe this time, death will stick.”

Talia narrowed her eyes.

Such a thing will not happen. She had been forced to give up on Daniel once, and then later on she lost her youngest to her beloved. Never again.

This child was hers.

------

“Father, did you not say that the anomalies found in Daniel’s DNA were similar in composition to the Lazarus pit?”

Ra’s al Ghul did not pause in pause in his reading to look up at Talia. The bird shaped magnifying glass held steady above the ancient manuscripts spread across his desk, eyes focused on the words and figures carefully inked onto the page. “Yes.” He set aside the magnifying glass and gently flipped the page. “It is what strengthened my belief of the connection between the Lazarus pit and these spirits.”

Talia straightened. “With your permission I would like to place Daniel into the pit.”

Her fathered looked up, curious. “You forget what the pit does to those who are in good health.”

She placed the results of Daniel’s most recent physical exam on to of his desk. Ra’s sat back in his chair and idly flipped through the folder, reading the contents as if no different to reading the newspaper instead of how his grandson is slowly being starved by his own biology. “Well, well. This would be a problem.”

He closed the folder, a wry grin curling at his lips. “Have him ready for tomorrow. I am curious as to how the pit would affect one already half-dead.”

------

Danny is awoken by Talia sometime the next day. “Come,” she said. “You do not need to change, so come quickly.”

He got off the bed with a silent groan, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with the heel of his palm. “Where are we going?”

“Not far. Somewhere that will help you.”

He snorted. “Letting me go home would help me.”

Talia doesn’t answer, simply waiting for him at the door. Danny groaned, combing away as much of his bedhead with his fingers as he followed her.

For the first time since being dragged to Nanda Parbat, Danny is allowed to venture beyond his small section of the compound.

He didn’t really know what to expect.

Still didn’t stop everything from being so…anticlimactic.

Beyond the steel door, normally kept locked and guarded by two of his shadow guards, was a hallway. Endlessly long with a wide pathway, lit enough by the fluorescent lights overhead but not enough to banish the shadows that clung to the stone walls. The hallway looked empty. ‘Looked’ being the key word, here. Even if he couldn’t see them, Danny would bet on his half-life that the shadows were teeming with life.

Talia led the way through the maze of twists and turns (were they underground?), a couple of shadow guards quietly following behind them.

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

Talia looked at him from over her shoulder for a moment, then turned away. “Have you heard of the Lazarus pits?”

“Lazarus? Like the guy who came back to life?” Neither of his parents were really religious. His dad only really Baptist in name because he was born into a Baptist family that, too, wasn’t overly strict in their religion. The only reason why Danny knew of this Lazarus guy was because of Mr. Lancer’s unit on Greco-Roman and Christian allusions.

Talia nodded, turning a corner. “The Lazarus pits are natural pools with restorative properties, capable of rejuvenating the body, healing grievous injuries, and even bringing the dead back to life.”

Danny nearly tripped over his own feet. “What? That’s—” Impossible. He ran up to Talia, wildly gesticulating with his hands. “What’s dead is dead. Resurrecting the dead goes against the natural law of the universe!”

“Well, you seem to be doing fine.”

He frowned, crossing his arms. “That’s different. I’m still dead, even if my entire existence seems like the but end of a Schrodinger’s joke.”

“Be that as it may, what I speak is truth.” She stopped in front of a door and opened it. Then, stepping aside to usher Danny in first. “See of yourself.”

Danny stepped inside, Talia following behind him, and—

Oh.

Before he even saw the pit, he could feel it. A low and steady hum reminiscent of the ghost portal. But…different. Not necessarily fainter but garbled, like hearing someone speak underwater.

The room was a large, open space, with stone walls framed by red wooden pillars. It was dim, lit only by the green glow of the pit that consumed the majority of the space. A square pool of too-clear waters and toxic-looking steam rising from the surface.

The waters felt of the Zone but…not.

“Ah, Daniel.” He nearly jumped out of his own skin. Ra’s al Ghul stepped out of the shadows behind him, hands folded behind his back. The green glow highlighted the sharp contours of his face; the shadows that clung to him only making his visage harsher. “It is good to see you.”

Danny greeted the Demon’s Head with a League salute. “Grandfather.”

The word felt foreign on his tongue despite being in English. To formal for a boy who never really had the chance to interact with his own grandparents. But Danny was told to refer to Ra’s like this, and so he did. (He was only grateful Talia didn’t insist on calling her ‘mother.’)

Ra’s al Ghul was an enigma. Centuries old yet he looked only about a decade older than his mom and dad. (Jack and Maddie Fenton will always be his mom and dad. They raised him. Loved him, in their own eccentric, science-y way. No blood test or adoption or ninja-assassins could change that). Like Danny’s still-unnamed biological father, Ra’s carried himself with theatrical purpose. Comically villainous in his attire and grand gestures, though unlike Vlad, Ra’s had this overwhelmingly intimidating presence that engulfed whatever room he stepped in.

Ra’s was a man that commanded attention as opposed to demanding it. And now, at the focus of the man’s calculating gaze, Danny could not help but stand stiff at attention.

“You’re mother was right,” Ra’s said. Danny barely restrained himself from perking up at that word. “You are wasting away, Daniel.”

Tell me something I don’t know.

“Well, at least you still have that fire in you.”

Danny startled, slapping his hand over his mouth. Shit, he didn’t know he said that out loud. Out of the corner of his eye, Talia suppressed a small smile.

“You have that in common with the Detective,” Ra’s continue, circling Danny like a carrion that spotted its next meal. “That and the rather foolish notion on not properly reporting the extent of your injuries.”

“With all due respect, grandfather, I wasn’t expecting on staying here for this long.”

Ra’s gave him a knowing look. “But something is keeping you here, isn’t it?”

“Keeping my family and friends hostage is a pretty good motivator, apparently.” An insidious thought bubbled in Danny’s mind. But that isn’t all, is it?”

“I have consulted your mother and your physician as to the nature of your condition, and I have decided that the Lazarus pit would be a sufficient way to restore your health.” He gestured to the pool. “It appears that your DNA shares several similarities to the composition to the Lazarus pit.”

Danny crouched at the edge of the pit, hovering his hand above the water’s surface. “It’s because it contains ectoplasm. An impure kind, I think.”

“Will the impurities be harmful to you?”

He pursed his lips. “I don’t think so? My body can filter out the impurities just fine, it’s just that I’ve never encountered thistype of ectoplasm before. It’s so clear and—aqueous, I think is the word.”

There’s a strange glint in Ra’s eyes. Dare Danny say it, it even looked mischievous. It made him uneasy, and just as Danny made a move to step back, Ra’s al Ghul picked him up by the collar of his night shirt—

And threw Danny into the Lazarus Pit.

#danny phantom #batman #danny phantom x batman crossover #phantom children.txt

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enmy-writes · 3 years

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Baby Avenger

Summary: (Y/N) is one of the youngest avenger members and some government officials repeatedly let her know of “her position.” So, she lets them know exactly what her position is.

Word Count: 2100

Fandom: MCU Avengers

Pairing: Avengers x Reader

Genre: Fluff, soft, slight angst and sadness, & family love.

Rated: 18+

Content Warnings: profanity, death, abandonment, bullying, this is my first ever post of any fanfiction ever so it’s probably bad

**** This is my first ever imagine that I have ever finished and published. Please give me feedback and let me know what else I should write! I’m very excited and nervous so please let me know if you enjoyed this :) I’m thinking of making this Y/N character into a little “Baby Avenger” one-shot series, so let me know your thoughts ****

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Baby Avenger.

Baby. Avenger.

In her head, her stomping can be heard throughout the whole Compound and all of its residents and guests can hear her anger. They know she’s going right to the meeting room; not the team meeting room, but the meeting room they use when they have special guests in for a meeting.

The new government officials who are now “in charge” of the Avengers since The Snap Part 2 were in for the day to go over the general plans that the Avengers have been coming up with. They’re nicer than those in charge of the group from the Accords, but in no way were they nice to majority of the group as a whole.

(Y/N) (L/N) happens to be the second to youngest member on the team coming in at an age of 18, second only to her best friend Peter Parker

(Y/N) is an orphan, the typical origin story of any superhero. Her parents spent their last minutes pushing her out of their burning house in rural Pennsylvania. Actually, it was her father who got her out of the flames and by their fishpond 100 meters from the house. Her mother was inside, trapped under a steal beam in the basement.

(Y/N)’s mother was a scientist who worked in secret in a little band of scientists who tried to accomplish their own small victories in testing the alterations and limits of humans. The goal of these scientists is to stay out of sight of the CIA, FBI, S.H.I.E.L.D., and other government agencies. Most of them are left alone and those who get found are either immediately sent to a high security prison or recruited to continue their experiments for a certain country/agency.

(Y/N)’s mother decided to give herself her treatment she was working on instead of potentially kidnapping someone in the everyone-knows-everything kind of town that they had been living in. Her experiment and life studies were all in trying to find a way to unlock the rest of the human brain so that more than that small percentage is being used at a time. It has been hypothesized that humans could do a lot if their brains just used itself more.

The only problem is when she gave the treatment to herself, she was unknowingly pregnant, and the treatment attached onto that small lifeform instead of her own. She created a super baby.

No one knew the exact answer to what is on the other side of that tunnel of science. No one knew what opening the mind could do, there were only theories to support ideas. Plenty of scientific evidence, but it meant nothing with no legit proof.

Well, turns out that those on the team of “you will gain the ability to read minds and shit unlike any human” were the correct guessers.

(Y/N) can read others’ minds, move things with her mind, slow down time in her mind to be able to successfully breakdown a situation and perform the best possible reaction to anything that comes her way. Oh, and the color spectrum is broader for her, allowing her to see a significantly more amount of colors than a normal human (including seeing the aura’s and heat that people give off. Very useful in the few missions she goes on.).

But her parents are dead.

After setting small (Y/N) down, her father ran back in to save the love of his life. Or, well, that’s what the towns’ people say to romanticize the situation. A brave man trying to save his family.

In the end, her father had shaken his head, laughing at the moment like a mad man with tears running down his face. He pulled (Y/N) in for the tightest hug that he had ever given the girl—which is tight considering how close the two really were. They were just like two peas in a pod, the light of each other’s lives, basically soulmates.

But love makes you do crazy things.

“You listen to me, (Y/N).” He gripped her face in a painful grip, cheeks sure to be bruised later. “I will always love you. Don’t doubt that, baby girl, okay? I love you so so so so much” By this time, tears are pouring off his face, the neon flames coming from the house reflecting off his wet face. “Mommy… mommy just needs me now, baby. I need mommy, too. We love you so much.”

It had confused her, his words. Nothing could prepare her to watch her father run back into the house, leaving her by the pond with nothing but a small bag of little family things like pictures, little stupid gifts, and a notebook she had stolen from her mom’s bookshelf one day.

Her mother’s grandfather had been friends with Howard Stark, both science men having been in the same circle of famous inventors since before WWII. While neither her mother nor father personally knew his son, Tony, he was still listed as the godfather to the child. With no close friends allowed in their secret circle, old bonds and pacts that her grandfather had with the older Stark led to a blind trust in the man.

Tony Stark had agreed to be the godfather during a one-week bender in his 30s, and when he was yelled at about it, he chose to just keep it there because “the chances of this happening is very slim.”

But here we are, Baby Avenger.

The officials who are here now actually were the same people that used to do check-ins and such with them pre-Accords, so they knew the team better than any government official save for the rare union that the team members may have with government officials. (Y/N) randomly has one with the Queen of England (she did a favor for Her Majesty once, and now they have tea every third Thursday of every month).

They knew that Tony suffered from panic attacks, and they knew Steve was going through a never ending loop of an existential crisis, and that Bucky will most likely always be having an identity crisis, and that Sam cries to sleep a lot around a certain time of year that renders him almost useless in his sleep deprived state he puts himself into. They know EVERYTHING vulnerable about the team.

So, that means they know how when she first got to the team and to Tony that she wouldn’t speak to anyone unless absolutely necessary. It took her almost a year to be able to speak more than a sentence to every person she was around. No one was too upset, though, Tony was trying to figure out how to save himself and rebrand his whole legacy and the Avengers weren’t really a family family yet like they are now. (Y/N)’s shyness made it much easier on the adults to figure out their stressful situations.

The officials, though, never got why she wouldn’t speak to them. They actually pushed her progress back more and more with taunts and comments such as “Oh, the baby can’t speak?” or a “Get your phone out! She’s about to say her first words!” every time she did go to say something.

Tony soon got fed up with it and filed a lawsuit against them which threatened their agency enough to pull them out and let a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent be a liaison for them. After their presence was rid of, (Y/N) grew exponentially with her new family. She was still home schooled, but now she had Peter Parker as a friend and world geniuses as her teachers. She was an only child, but now she’s a big sister to Morgan and has plenty of people on the team that are dubbed her siblings (since they don’t act their age majority of the time to be considered aunts and uncles).

While she’s trained to fight, (Y/N) doesn’t go out on the field much unless they need her brain or her extended vision. She likes to remain behind the computer screen and help that way. She’s invented a way to make prosthetics like Bucky’s become more available to the general public and has started a school/home that’s three miles from the Compound for orphaned kids, mutants, super kids, and those who aren’t accepted where they come from.

In conclusion, (Y/N) is 18 and not useless in any way, shape, or form.

So why, why, do these absolute short dick idiots decide that they can come into here, her home, and push her around like she hasn’t contributed more to the Earth and society in the short 18 years than their middle-aged asses?

Eyes narrowed and seeing red, she stomps her way down the last hall, shoving herself into the door of the meeting room and throwing it open.

The team stays unfazed, knowing she’d show up pissed at some point. The officials, though, jump in their seat and turn to look at her.

It wasn’t the biggest meeting, the original Avengers plus Bucky, Sam, and Wanda sit around the table. Though, Rocket and Groot are here sitting along the back wall, looking bored as hell. Thor must have drug them along.

Fists clenched, (Y/N) narrows her eyes more. She’s been here since the first attack. Sure, she didn’t fight since she was like, 8 or so, but she was in charge of her man-behind-the-computer work. She’s been a part of the team since the beginning, and these assholes are too big of pricks to acknowledge that.

That’s what’s pissing the girl off. This could have been a meeting for every one of the fighters of the team, which she wouldn’t go to because that’s not her role. This meeting, though, was scheduled as “Originals plus the newly appointed leaders only.” She’s an original.

SHE IS AN ORIGINAL.

SHE. IS. AN. OG.

AND YET, they remained in telling her she wasn’t invited because “The Baby Avenger doesn’t need to join big kid conversation.”

She locked eyes with her adopted father and her best friend, aka Peter Parker, aka the only reason she knew this meeting was still being held.

Poor, lovely Peter. He grew confused when his best friend wasn’t sitting in between Mr. Stark and him for the meeting, especially when the officials referred to the meeting as they did. He was just there to take notes for Mr. Stark, not that the man wouldn’t remember it all. Pepper thought it’d be a good idea if Tony had written evidence to anything said in these meetings so that he wouldn’t be pouring statements out of his ass without proof, and poor, lovely Peter got elected to take such notes.

When he noticed you weren’t there, he had sent you a text asking where you were and that your drink that he brought you was right next to him.

“(Y/N)! It is so great to see you, my wonderful flower.” Thick arms wrapped around her as a golden man squeezed her tight to him. Thor and (Y/N) had a special relationship. They’re always close and do the most innocent of tasks together like flower crowns, step-by-step painting classes, and making those Tik Tok crocheted blankets made with that big yarn. He even had taken her to Asgard (back when it was a planet) for a royal ball where she was the guest of honor. They’re just soft together.

Though, rage blocked that softness that normally occurs between the two. Pushing off of him, she points her finger at the men in the front. The officials look like they’ve seen the devil and all of Hell and (Y/N) can see the fear pouring off of them.

“Let’s get this clear,” she says as she slowly stalks her way up to them. “I am an Avenger. I am an original Avenger. I know about 3,000 ways to kill you in this room at this very moment with anything. I drink tea with the fucking Queen on Thursdays, and I’ve created a better orphanage/school system in 2 years than this country has in the 250 years it’s been around. Don’t you EVER call me a fucking baby again, you fucking hear me?”

By this point, she’s right up in their faces, her glare unwavering and them sweating. The silence in the room was great and seemed to go on forever. The team held their breaths, some trying not to laugh and some scared of backlash that might be trust upon the girl.

With one last eye narrow (you could blindfold her with toothpicks at this point), she whips around and walks back to Thor, placing herself sideways on his lap and relaxing into his hold. Peter passes her (Drink Order) down the table, and (Y/N) takes it.

Clint, Bucky, and Sam try and hide their laughter when the meeting starts again as they look at their long-time teammate cradled and curled up in Thor’s arms, head on his shoulder and under his chin as she sips her drink with an angry look in her eyes and a pout on her face.

All wrapped up like a baby.

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robotnik-mun · 4 years

Photo

So, what happens when I decide to throw caution to the wind and mash together as many fucking Sonic Continuities as I possibly can? You get a big ass tangle of a family tree that needs to be split up into five separate images, that’s what.

It’s ugly, it’s unpolished, and I made it on a whim. Because the mental image wouldn’t leave me. And because I actually started developing this godforsaken nightmare of a family tree, born of merged continuities, headcanons, and sleep deprivation.

Now keep in mind that this thing is pure crack- it implies a world where Sonic eventually collapses from exhaustion of having to fight TWO Robotniks. It’s a mish mash of what-if’s, continuity mergers and personal ideas glued together. And I wanna stress it has nothing to directly do with my current setting- this is just like, The Path of Insanity.

Anyway, yeah. Against my better judgement I made notes for this insanity. Also, you may notice pictures of characters from other franchises being used as portraits for various characters. Those are basically faceclaims of sorts, meant as abstract representations rather than the literal idea of what they looked like... since, honestly, even I’M not cruel enough to inflict my ‘art’ on you.

Anyway, let’s get the ball rolling-

“Robotnikhotep”

-Robotnik Ancestor in ‘Mobigypt’. Was probably some big important muckity-muck.

“Julius Robotnikus”

-Probably Mobius’ answer to Caligula. His family eventually fell out of power and was forced to re-settle in what would eventually become Overland.

Ivo Kintobor

-Yeah, that whole ‘House of Ivo’ thing? This is the guy responsible. Most likely a douchenozzle, as there is a high concentration of that in the bloodline. Basically a minor warlord who unified a bunch of clans to form his own Kingdom, that was subsequently absorbed into Overland during the unification.

Brutus Kintobor

-Oh wow, a SKINNY Robotnik/Kintobor. This douche canoe attempted to conquer Angel Island for the Overland, but failed miserably. Sent back home in disgrace, a failure.

Gerald Robotnik

- Originally born Gerald Kintobor of the House of Ivo in Overland. He was more interested in science than politics, and after completing college he left that mess behind and immigrated to the United Federation. He changed his name to signify the break from his family history.

-Explored Angel Island in his youth, where he learned about Chaos Emeralds and the like from the various ruins there. He was even friends with then-guardian Janelle-Li.

-Started up Robotnik CORPS. He founded it as a way to disseminate his technology to the people of the UF and earn money to fund more experiments.

-You know the rest. The ARK, Maria, NIDS, Black Doom, Shadow, yadda-yadda-yadda.

Olga Robotnik

-Gerald’s wife. Duh.

-She met him while he lived in a spare room her father was renting out. She’d collect his rent. They grew close and eventually had kids and started a family.

-The shit this poor woman endured is amazing, but she managed to remain unbroken by it, and tried to remain close to her surviving grandchildren.

Grigory Robotnik

- The first son of Gerald. He wasn’t a genius, but he pursued a career in academics and became a doctor of physics. He had two children, Warren and Maria.

-After the ARK incident he became paranoid and accused the government of covering up what really happened. The obsession to uncover the truth destroyed his physical and mental health, and he died a shunned outcast ranting on pirated radio stations about various conspiracies.

-Died in a halfway house, but he managed to get ahold of Gerald’s diary before biting it. While he never got to use it to bring down GUN, it still paved the way for Eggman’s eventual use.

Amelia Robotnik

-Maria’s mother. After the ARK incident and the supposed death of her children, she fell into a deep depression and eventually committed suicide. In case you haven’t noticed, the story of the Robotnik family is depressing as fuck.

Warren Robotnik, ‘Warpnik’

-Maria’s brother. What a tweest!

-He was with her on the ARK, and demonstrated a similar scientific gift to his grandfather. He wasn’t close to Shadow the way Maria was.

-When the ARK was raided, he was captured and subjected to brainwashing treatments by GUN in the hopes of turning him into a loyal, in-house mad scientist. All it did was make him batshit crazy.

-He escaped some time during the Great War, and is now loose in Mobius, a lunatic geneticist fixated on continuing his grandfather’s ‘great work’... or at least his own warped perception of it.

Maria Robotnik

-You know her. You love her. Her life is a tragedy. She’s Maria! Nuff said. Years later, and she still weighs heavily on Shadow.

Ivo Kintobor

-And here is where things get a bit confusing! Ivo was born ‘Ivo Robotnik’, the second son of Gerald. Long story short, he was a douche more interested in politics and profit, and as such did not get along with his father, who bequeathed the family company to his younger brother.

-Despite this, Ivo SOMEHOW managed to reproduce. And when the ARK incident happened, he bought the government line hook line and sinker. He changed the family name back to Kintobor and moved everyone back to Overland to start anew.

-He’s like 50% responsible for Julian winding up the way he did.

-And yes- he DOES want to bulldoze the puppy orphanage to create a combination oil rig/toxic waste dump.

-Was murdered by Julian, who disguised it as an accident.

Lydia Kintobor

-ICE BABY ICE.

-Julian and Colin’s mom.

-She 100% supported her husband’s douchery, and was an active participant in tormenting her secondborn son in the hopes of ‘breaking’ him out of being a genius.

-Killed in the same ‘accident’ that took her husband’s life.

Colin Kintobor Sr.

-Born in the United Federation, but moved to the Overland as a child and grew up there.

-Major league Nationalist and Human Supremacist. Prick.

-Hated Julian basically forever and was encouraged by his parents to do so. He became their ‘golden child’ and was pushed to succeed at everything.

-Pursued a career in politics, law, and the military, and eventually served as a general in the Great War.

-Was eventually murdered by his own brother

Miriam Kintobor

-Colin’s first wife, via arranged marriage.

-She was pretty much his opposite, yet despite that fact the two came to genuinely love one another.

-Died giving birth to their son. Have I mentioned the Kintobor/Robotnik family history is a trainwreck yet?

Angela Kintobor

-The second wife of Colin. She probably met him while serving as a military functionary during the Great War. She is also the mother of Hope Kintobor.

-Other than that, I got nothin’. She likely died when Hope was young, by way of Swatbot invasion. Seriously, do NOT become a Kintobor Love Interest.

Colin “Snively” Kintobor Jr.

-You know him, you hate him! It’s the Snivster, bay-bee!

-His mother died giving birth to him. His dad blamed him for this. You can guess the rest.

-You know most of the story- crappy childhood, admired his uncle Julian, helped him take over the Kingdom of Acorn, spent a decade as his punching bag, etc etc.

-After seemingly offing Julian during Endgame, he briefly took over the Robotnik Empire.... and promptly lost it to Naugus, forcing him to flee for his life. In exchange for information about Robotropolis’ defenses, King Acorn spared his life but sentenced him to be imprisoned forever.

-Was busted out by a returned Julian so that his uncle would be able to properly ‘thank’ him for losing his empire. Helped the FFs to escape Robotnik’s revenge, and after spending time bumming around with them (and hating it) decided to throw in his lot with Crazy Uncle Ivo.

-He’s regretted it ever since... though he sticks with him because its either Ivo or Julian, and Julian will ensure his death is cruel, messy, and lingers for years to come.

Hope Kintobor

-The second child of Colin Kintobor. She was born during the later years of the Great War and spent much of her early life living in siege conditions as Overland tried and failed to stop the advancement of Robotnik.

-Eventually she witnessed the death of her father and remaining family at the hands of Robotnik before being saved by Sonic. She had an extended stay in Knothole afterwards, where she slowly learned that much of her people’s views of Mobians was innacurate.

-She eventually moved to the United Federation as a ward of GUN, serving as the technology expert for Team Dark. She is close to all of them.

-Seeks to redeem the name of her family so that it’s legacy won’t be one of bloodshed, conquest and madness. She’s got a waaaays to go, to put it mildlry.

-Despite everything she still cares about her awful, awful half-brother.

Dr. Julian Robotnik

-Had a REALLY goddamned crappy....well, life, basically. Take my word for it.

-Has basically murdered his entire immediate family by this point.

-Prior to the Great War he aided the Overlander Ministry of Conflict in toppling the legitimate government of the Kingdom of Amunopolis (Aleena’s Kingdom), forcing it’s royal family to flee to the Kingdom of Acorn and re-settle under new identities, with crown princess becoming ‘Bernadette Hedgehog’. That’s right- he’s indirectly responsible for Sonic existing.

-Blah blah blah evil experiments blah blah war crimes blah blah sentenced to be executed by Overlander government during the Great War and blah blah blah coup.

-Took over a large swathe of Mobius and expanded to conquer more, and for a time seemed like he might conquer the entire planet. The Robotnik Empire is.... not a fun place. Then or now.

-Then Sonic and the FF’s happened. Then Endgame happened, and he was... indisposed for a while, leading to his empire being diminished. While he has returned, he has suffered numerous setbacks since then, and the Robotnik Empire is now greatly diminished from its peak.

-That being said, he still rules a pretty big part of the planet, and is still the biggest danger to the world at present.

-Hates his cousin Ivo.

-REALLY goddamn hates That Hedgehog.

Laura Kintobor

-That’s Doctor Laura Kintobor (nee Ellison) to you, buster.

-She and Julian both worked as scientists with Overland’s science ministry, where they met and befriended one another. She eventually managed to coax Julian out of his shell, and their friendship bloomed into a romance, which led to the two marrying.

-She worked in the organic sciences division and was an expert on biology and zoology. In contrast to most scientists, she was very much an outdoorswoman. Even managed to convince Julian to partake.

-Much like her unfortunate sister-in-law, she died in childbirth... giving birth to a stillborn daughter.

-Yeah, this shit is grim.

Theodore Robotnik

-Third son of Gerald. Blatantly named in reference to Theodore Roosevelt, who was used as a visual reference for Eggman.

-Basically a professional beancounter who later inherited Robotnik CORPS. He chose to stick with his original name even after the ARK incident, and struggled to keep Robotnik CORPS afloat in the immediate aftermath of the incident.

-Set up a trust fund for his son Ivo, and tried his best to raise him to be a contributing member of society.

-Sufficed to say, that didn’t work. If he’s still alive, he has a REALLY tense relationship with his son.

-Named his son after his older brother as a passive-aggressive act of spite for abandoning the ‘Robotnik’ name.

Dolores Robotnik

-Mother of Ivo. She was a professor of chemistry who decided to put her career on hold in order to be homemaker.

-Was much closer to her son than Theodore was, and often wound up having to play peacemaker between the two. ESPECIALLY during Ivo’s tumultous teenage years.

-Sufficed to say she is not exactly pleased with how he turned out, assuming she’s still alive even.

Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik

-HE IS THE EGGMAN. HE’S GOT THE MASTER PLAN! Really, do you NEED to know any more?

-Well, okay, you do. He was born very shortly before the ARK incident and never knew his grandfather.

-His childhood wasn’t horrible, but it was rough in areas due to his high intelligence making things more difficult for him than they should of be. Loads of disagreements with his dad over pursuing science. Spent years plagued by the derogatory name of ‘Eggman’ due to his weight problems.

-You know how you fantasize about ruling the world as a kid? He never really left that stage of things.

-He initially worked as a research scientist in the fields of AI and energy. During the Great War he was approached by GUN to develop weapons for them. His research would go on to form the basis of the robotic soldiers later used by them in the Robotnik war.

-Began his plot to take over Mobius during his time there, and secretly began to appropriate resources and machines to build a hidden base on the distant South Island. Eventually his schemes were discovered by GUN, but he fled.

-While his cousin conquered portions of Mobius elsewhere, Eggman began his long term Death Egg scheme as a means of conquering Mobius in one fell swoop with the aid of the Chaos Emeralds.

-You can guess how it goes from here- he encounters Sonic on South Island and in the Scrap Brain Zone and is defeated, thus setting the tone for MANY other defeats in the future. He eventually took on the name ‘Dr. Eggman’ as a way to differentiate himself from his cousin, and to make the insult that dogged his life into a name to be feared ala ‘Penguin’.

-When his cousin Julian was seemingly killed and the Robotnik Empire in dissarray, Eggman started new bids to take over the world. He established the Metropolis Zone as his ‘capital city’ and founded the Egg Army to help supplement his Badnik Horde. The Eggman Empire now exists as a terrorist army at the beck and call of Dr. Eggman, though he’s still got a ways to go.

-Has four sons by three different women. Slut.

???

-Haven’t got a name for her yet. She was a random girl that a college age Ivo knocked up, which putty much put an end to her collegiate ambitions. She gave birth to two sons, one of whom she bitterly named ‘Ivan’ as a reminder of his origins after failing to get child support out of her babydaddy. She re-married and is currently leading a comfortable enough life. Humors her son because she knows it annoys his biological father.

Ivan Eggman

-The oldest of Eggman’s sons. In his mid 30s or so. Scientifically gifted, as his father was.

-Has numerous, numerous issues pertaining to his stepfather, a hard and strict man with little toleration for nonsense.

-Idolizes his biological father and desperately wants to be acknowledged by him, even changing his original surname to ‘Eggman’. Eggman the 1st was NOT amused.

-Eventually founded a company, Eggman Industries, and grew rich rapidly. Settled by the Bygone Islands where he pursues life as a ‘villain’ now, though really he’s more like a public nuisance than anything.

-Honestly he’s basically living a ‘second childhood’ of sorts using his scientific know-how and riches, and has vowed to one day impress his father and earn his acknowledgement. As you can imagine, it is.... not working out at all, given that he’s even more of a goober than his pop.

-Ironically, he isn’t naturally bald- he SHAVES his head.

Steve

-Yeah, he ain’t a robot here- Steve is the organic, younger (by about a minute) twin brother of Ivan.

-Utterly unconcerned with science or any of that jazz. He’s basically a bohemian beach bum, complete with californian accent- he spends much of his time surfing and earning cash from side jobs.

-Really mellow and easy-going, and doesn’t really dwell on stuff.

-Utter himbo.

Mrs. Robotnik

- Ex-Wife of Ivo Robotnik. Haven’t given it too much thought, but she and Ivo met while working in acadamia, and eventually married.

-Initially the relationship was pretty solid, and they even had a child together. However things swiftly deteriorated between the two as Ivo’s immaturity and increasing anger at the world strained their relationship, along with him being a lousy parent to their son. She eventually divorced his ass.

-After going through a rough patch with her son, she has begun to re-connect with him after his years a delinquent, and now happily supports his endeavors.

Ivo Robotnik Jr.

-Middle son of Dr. Eggman. Had a nonexistant relationship with his father while growing up, which combined with the divorce eventually turned him into a juvenile delinquent.

-He roamed with a biker gang for a while, and prefers to be called ‘Junior’ rather than ‘Ivo’.

-Fell in with Breezie for a while, the both of them unaware of the other’s connection to Eggman. They eventually went their separate ways once Junior began to turn over a new leaf. He still carries a torch for her, though is painfully aware it’d never work out. Their relationship is... complicated, these days.

-Has since become a software security engineer, making a living providing Anti-Eggman/Robotnik software to companies.

Lindsey Thorndyke

-A famed actress. She and Ivo had a drunken tryst at a wrap party where he’d been invited to act as a consultant on scientific accuracy. To avoid scandal she informed her husband, and they passed off the baby as their own.

-What more do you want. Its LINDSEY.

Chris Thorndyke

-The youngest son of Ivo Robotnik. Spent much of his life completely unaware of his true parentage.

-Eh, what can I say, I kind like the theory of him actually being a Robotnik in some capacity or the next.

-When he was a boy, he befriended Sonic and his friends and even hosted them during the days when Eggman’s schemes for global conquest caused him to haunt Station Square for a while.

-Admired his grandfather Chuck and pursued science to be like him, studying physics and engineering.

-Thanks to his mom he’s something of a film buff.

-In college he learned the truth of his heritage. This has put a strain on his relationship with his parents.

Francis Kintobor

-The youngest of Gerald’s sons. Pursued a career as a schoolteacher. While he changed his name in the aftermath of the ARK incident as his older brother Ivo had, he chose to make a small joke at his brother’s expense over the ludicrousness of the name change by naming his own son ‘Ovi Kintobor’.

-Named after Francis Mao, aka That Guy Who Made That One Comic Adaptation From 1991.

Elizabeth Kintobor

-Dr. Ovi Kintobor’s mother. A career veterinarian with a strong love of animals. That’s about it.

Ovi Kintobor

- Grew up on Westside Island, among Mobians. Had a pretty happy and contented childhood, and like many of the other various members of the Kintobor/Robotnik clan developed a pronounced interest and skill in science at a young age.

-Developed a particular interest in researching Chaos Emeralds.

-A Concientious Objector, he served as a medic during the Great War.

-Deeply, deeply shamed by the actions of his more notorious cousins, he has essentially hidden himself from the world to pursue his research and evade their notice, while helping against them in whatever way he can.

-Has secretly transported people threatened by his cousins to safer places, and once caused a mass sabotage of their respective robotic forces through the ‘Nicenik Virus’.

-An ally of the Freedom Fighters.

-Deeply distrusts GUN (which frankly isn’t a bad call).

-Bit of a hippy, but really is a genuinely nice guy who wants to help others through science.

-In some villages he is known as ‘Mr. Tinker’.

#Sonic the Hedgehog #Dr. Robotnik #Dr. Eggman #Colin Kintobor #Chris Thorndyke #Gerald Robotnik #Hope Kintobor #Snively #Warpnik #Maria Robotnik #Robotnik Junior #Boom Eggman #Steve Eggman #Robotnik Jr #Truly this was the best way to spend the finite thing known as my time on earth

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lyricsaboutcats · 4 years

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Datamining Andromeda: Humans

We’re getting closer to the end of this series! We’re going to dig around Mass Effect Andromeda’s files for information about the human characters. Some of them have summaries and biographies hidden inside the game files for the developers to use.

Datamining Andromeda: Asari Datamining Andromeda: Salarians Datamining Andromeda: Turians Datamining Andromeda: Krogan

When it comes to the humans, many minor NPCs have summaries while major characters such as Liam, Addison, and Gil do not.

Warning: There are spoilers ahead!

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Major Human Characters:

Cora Harper Cora Harper is a human soldier who trained with mysterious asari commandos. Talented and smart, Harper is a consummate professional who finds herself always looking for a trusted mentor to give her guidance and a path in life. She was a close friend of the Player's father--as close as anyone got--and can give insight into him even after his passing. Harper is a woman of few words: in a pinch, she prefers to let a bit of deadpan humour or a well-placed shot do the talking.

Suvi Anwar Suvi Anwar is the Tempest's resident science officer. A brilliant physicist, she was recommended for the Pathfinder Initiative, and jumped at the chance to explore the wonders of a new galaxy. Initially attached to the NEXUS as part of the team responsible for the data collection and analysis of the conditions in the Heleus Cluster, Suvi campaigned to become part of the Pathfinder's scouting team, in order to expand her investigation of the cluster. Excitable, may occasionally talk to herself. Brain goes fast, mouth runs to keep up.

Harry Carlyle Harry is initially the team doctor on the Pathfinder team, but then swaps job with Lexi. Harry remains on the Hyperion and helps watch over the sibling. Harry is in his late 40s, easy-going, and game for anything.

Ryder Sr. Father of the player character. Tough, no nonsense ex-soldier-turned-Pathfinder. He's a commanding presence.

Ellen Ryder Ellen Ryder is the wife of Alec Ryder, the original human Pathfinder who dies in M1 (and mother of player characters, Scott and Say). Ellen met Alec when he was doing his N7 training on Earth. Ellen was a scientist involved in the early stages of human biotic research, delving into the use of implants as a way of harnessing biotic abilities. At the time, this was very primitive and often dangerous work. Alec and Ellen married, but he was then deployed to the First Contact War, leaving Ellen as something of a soldier's wife, moving around wherever Alec was posted. Next up was the Citadel, where Alec was ambassador and Ellen raised their two children, Scott and Sara for a number of years on the station. On the Citadel, Ellen found new horizons opening up in her field, with the galactic knowledge of biotics far in advance of the work she'd been doing on Earth. But there was a dark side too. Ellen experienced the onset of a serious degenerative disease. Its root cause could be traced back to her early work on biotics on Earth, at a time when the danger of exposure to eezo was little understood. Because her illness was so rare, there was no known cure. The family moved back to Earth to care for her and Alec devoted himself to developing SAM as a way of curing her. Alec enlisted Ellen in the project, and together they leveraged her knowledge of implants, melding it with Alec's understanding of A.I. The project consumed Alec, and he became a distant and aloof figure to both his wife and children. Whereas Ellen tried to put on a brave face and remain a committed mother - she eventually ended up the de facto "single parent" in place of their mostly absent father. Despite her disease, she remained a loving and committed mother, caring deeply about her two children. Eventually, her condition worsened to the point where it was too late, death was inevitable. She was willing to accept this, but Alec was not. He loved her too much. Despite their sometimes rocky relationship they still felt passionate about each other, even to the very end.

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Mysterious Benefactor

Race: Human A character in the Alec Ryder memory flashbacks. This is the Mysterious Benefactor -- the secret backer of the entire Andromeda Initiative who originally hired Alec. She's a woman, though her face will remain hidden in this game and we'll only hear her voice.

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Humans of Kadara:

Sloane Kelly Sloane Kelly also known as the "Outcast Queen" is a "Robin Hood" figure who leads the Outcast Legion pirate faction by holding the spoils of war in one hand and a loaded gun in the other. A hardened survivor from the Nexus rebellion, she holds a deep personal grudge against the Andromedia Initiative--and, by association, the Pathfinder. South African. Attractive but tough. Like Furiosa from Mad Max.

Reyes Vidal Reyes Vidal presents himself to the player as a smuggler and contact of the Angaran Resistance, but he is secretly the Charlatan, one of the two major pirate lords vying for power in Kadara Port. He is charming and driven, but ultimately selfish and values himself above others. Casual, friendly with a flirty undertone. A very slight Chilean accent. Han Solo handsome--rugged but put together.

Dr. Ryota Nakamoto Ryota Nakamoto once worked for the Outcast Legion, but when Sloane turned what should have been a medical breakthrough into a drug, he quit and started up a free clinic in the slums of Kadara Port. He is Japanese, but doesn't have an accent.

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Humans of the Nexus:

Jien Garson This is Jien Garson, the founder of the Andromeda Initiative. A charismatic visionary billionaire ala Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, or Steve Jobs. She is seen in the video "info wall" in beginning of game. She will also be a character in the MEA prequel novel.

William Spender The son of an influential investor of the pathfinder initiative, Spender was assigned to the Pathfinder Initiative as an administrator. Though he was not competent, his ability as a politician was such that he managed to preserve his position within the Initiative until the departure of the arks. Woken up during the arrival in the Heleus Cluster, he became the director of colonial affairs’ assistant more though lack of personel than anything else. His propensity for dodgy politics and behind the scenes dealing (and lying) continued, though a fatal miscalculation led to him becoming a pawn of the Nexus Exiles. He subsequently contributed to the departure of the krogan clan among other issues. He complies with Tann's requests thus is in good odor with him. Addison knows he is less than qualified and suspects he had a part in the krogan leaving, but no one has any idea of his involvement with the exiles.

Cryo Deployment Administrator Vladimir Brecka Dedicated but long-suffering assistant to the Colonial Director. Generally good natured, but knows his place in the order of things, and wants better. Knows that a good job will lead to better things for everyone, so he grins and bears it. Light Romanian Accent.

Doctor Camden Chief botanist and manager of Hydroponics who left for Andromeda after the Divorce From Hell. Camden is brisk and fussy, annoyed that people dismiss him as "a gardener" when his work in Hydroponics keeps everyone still breathing, eating, and drinking--nothing important, right? He nurses that grudge like a favourite teddy bear, but underneath it all he's deeply concerned that a thin green line separates the Nexus from life and death. Akin to the Doctor from ST: Voyager.

Yolanda Carter Operations Manager. A seemingly quiet and posed woman, Yolanda will rain the fires from hell down upon any unsuspecting fool who presumes to think her request for this or that item is superfluous. While some are intimidated by her, having fallen foul of her before, all respect her ability to get shit done. She works with Vetra and the two make a scary team when they are like-minded on acquiring something for the station.

Ada DeYoung A young technician working under Kesh on the Nexus. She is optimistic and tends to take everything with great aplomb. Kesh sends her to fix problems that no one can figure out, as the joke among the engineers is that the bugs then to happen when she's around. She is excellent at tracking down power issues within any given sort of network.

Sung-Soo Hwang Technician. An engineer working under Kesh in the engineering department. He is a hardware specialist who tends to be partnered with Ada more often than not due to their complementary skillsets and the fact that he takes the power outages Ada discovers with humor and has set up a countdown betting pool as to the next outage she tracks down.

Colonial Affairs Ops Lin. A young woman, asian, working the comms in the Colonial Affairs area. She's generally in charge of ensuring Addison is aware of on the spot reports when she's not at her desk, and managing the flow of information from settlements to the appropriate department head.

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Humans on Meridian After the Last Mission:

Iora Pillay (Chief Operations) Iora Pillay (iora, not Lora) takes on the managerial position meant to temporarily organize Hub operations until a permanent leader is decided, then assist that leader in perpetuity. East Indian by way of the Citadel. Focused, careful. Respects the Pathfinder, but on some level considers their job "done." Very pro Nexus-as-new-Citadel. She is "second wave," one of the first of the humans "defrosted" after the Hyperion was placed.

Hunter Kerry (Chief Engineer) Hunter is heading up the planned deconstruction of the Hyperion, managing the balance between reuse and recycling. New Zealander. Plainspoken, tough as balls. Doesn't care about politics. Complains that accommodating aliens messes with construction, but then goes above and beyond to do it. He just wanted you to know. He's another second wave defrostee.

Darla vas Hyperion (Placements Officer) Darla vas Hyperion is in charge of assigning occupations as the Ark is slowly repurposed and the humans in stasis are awakened. Spent most of her life among Quarians, because her parents were diplomats. Utterly used to ship-life and the specificity of roles that demands. Pale. Used to life in a sterile environment. Middle management, glad to be in HR and not farming. Idolizes the Pathfinder. Another second wave defrostee. Korean Heritage.

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(text source: Game/VOCharacters/ using Frosty Editor)

#mass effect #mass effect andromeda #cora harper #suvi anwar #ellen ryder #sloane kelly #reyes vidal #long post #datamining andromeda

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justfangirlthings2003 · 4 years

Text

I Loved And I Loved And I - Hanahaki AU

WARNINGS: MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH

This is probably the saddest thing I’ve ever written sooo sorry.

AO3 link here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24196216

NOTES:

So Hanahaki is a very uncommon disease. Like, it was about normal in the past but it died out in the nineteenth/twentieth century. However, it is possible to get but is very very highly unlikely (like 0.00001% of the population have it) so doctors have been taught how to perform the surgery. It is still a very well-known disease.

For the sake of the plot, you can only have the surgery if you give your full consent (because Bruce seems like the type of person to have the surgery done on his son even if they don’t want it - he’ll do whatever it takes to keep them alive)

I’ve messed up the timelines a lot just so that I can have the Batboys being good bros (but it is an AU fanfic and like Thawne says in the Flash TV Series: The Timeline is malleable)

Also the Invasion happened but Wally survived because I said so.

When Wally West entered Dick Grayson’s life, he did so in a whirlwind of colour. Dick remembered it clear as day. He was standing around in the Watchtower, twitching in his place. Bruce told him beforehand that he would be meeting Kid Flash that night and as excited as he was that he was going to be meeting a potential new friend, he was filled with anxiety. The kids at school, the rich people that attended Bruce’s galas and the people at the Gotham City Juvenile Delinquent Centre all hated him - called him names like “Gypsy boy” and “Circus Freak” because of his Romani background, tanned complexion and thick accent - so why would someone with literal superpowers like him? Then it happened: the room was filled with reds and golds and oranges - lighting up like a blazing inferno - and when the colours died down, all he could see was a red haired ten year old wearing gold and scarlet and a bright grin. When their eyes met, Dick knew that Kid Flash was going to be special.

_____

Dick was fourteen years old when he realised it. He was lying on his bed, hair mussed and wearing his favourite elephant print pyjamas with mismatched canary yellow and crimson socks, telling his parents about his day. It became kind of a ritual for him to either sit cross-legged in front of the Flying Graysons poster that was pressed protectively by a bulletproof sheet of glass, clutching Zitka against his chest, or to just lay on his Egyptian cotton sheet, just staring at the ceiling as he recounted his day. He was at the part where he and Wally were sitting on a park bench, eating ice cream when he was suddenly struck by an image of his best friend smiling at him with windswept hair. How the late afternoon sun caught on the edges of his ginger hair, embroidering it with gold. How his emerald eyes, framed by amber lashes, suddenly looked much more captivating, more beautiful, and Dick wanted their green gaze on him at all times. He was suddenly struck by the urge to grab Wally’s cheeks, to trace the pads of his thumbs along his galaxy of freckles and kiss him until -

Wait, what?

Did he seriously think about Wally like that? About kissing him? Wallace Rudolph West - his best friend - the guy that ran into a wall the first time they met, the guy who makes terrible science puns and flirts with anyone that moves and thinks nine times out of ten with his stomach than his head and is smart and loyal and funny and kind and the most amazing person Dick has ever met.

Uh oh. He’s in trouble.

_____

The trouble with falling in love with your best friend is knowing that nothing would change but everything will. If they started dating, they would still have movie nights, eat terrible junk food and spend hours on end playing video games but if Dick confessed and Wally didn’t reciprocate then he ruins one of the best relationships he’s ever had just because of a few hormones. And - oh God - what if Wally feels guilty? What if Wally thought that he was leading Dick on, making him think that he liked him like that? What if he started beating himself up for breaking Dick’s heart?

No.

Dick would just have to stay silent. To just hope that his attraction with his (absolutely amazing in every way) best friend was just a silly little teenage crush and will just go away in time. After all, Batman says that the mission comes first.

___

“Hey, Dick.”

“Yeah, Wally.”

“We’re gonna be bestest friends forever and ever, right.”

“‘Course we are. Why wouldn’t we be?”

“D’ya pinky promise?”

“What’s a pinky promise?”

“It’s what the kids do at school. It’s when you put your pinky fingers together and make a promise and you must never ever break it.”

“Why? Do you die if you do?”

“No, I don’t think so. But it’s just really really bad if you do. Like stepping on a puppy’s tail bad. So do ya wanna do it.”

“‘Course I do.”

“To being bros forever.”

Dick smiled at the ten year old in front of him as he interlocked their pinkies, “Bros forever.”

___

“Yo, Dick, I need your help,” Wally said to him after the Team had completed a mission in New York where this generic mad scientist villain was using robots to terrorize the city and commit crimes. Wally managed to nab a damaged drone as a souvenir and now Dick was in the process of reassembling it and turning it into a robot that shoots out chocolate sauce. Wally was adorably confused when he looked over the acrobat’s plans but Dick told him that it was going to be asterous.

There’s another thing about falling in love with your best friend: you can’t exactly escape them. You spend time with them everyday which makes you notice things: like how their eyes crinkle at the sides when they smile, how their voice always goes up around three octaves when they’re embarrassed, how they always bite their bottom lip when they’re nervous. Dick always noticed these things about everyone, Bruce had him doing character profiles since he first started training as Robin (no, seriously. The day he met the League, he was told to give a full analysis of their characters, as well as possible strengths and weaknesses and ways to take them down, the moment he returned home. He was eight) so that he could always find out everything he needed to know about a person within ten seconds, but earlier he just noticed them - now he noticed them and it made him feel all kinds of butterflies in his stomach.

“Names, KF,” Dick chided without looking up from where he was turning a screw, regardless of the fact that they were in his room that was encased with 20 cm of lead so no one with super-hearing could figure out their identities.

“Oops, sorry, Rob. Anyway, I need your help.”

“Shoot.”

“I wanna ask out Artemis.”

Dick almost dropped his screwdriver. He looked at his best friend, who was standing by the door of his room. That red hue that covered his cheeks was so adorable that Dick barely resisted the urge of getting up and kissing the daylights out of him. But wait, no. Artemis. Right, Wally wants to ask out Artemis, not him. Honestly, he could see it. They were always trading insults with no real heat. He guessed all of that teasing was unresolved romantic attraction, a courting ritual for superheroes - Catwoman has always had a bantering relationship with Batman.

“Okay, why are you here then?”

“I don’t really know how to ask out girls.”

“You flirt with M’gann all the time.”

“Yeah, flirt. Not ask out. Or like, date.” (Date. Why does that word hurt so much?)

“Neither do I.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“You’re the son of a playboy billionaire. You must know something.”

“Well… (Dick? Dick? What are you doing?) You could practice on me.” (What?! Why the hell would you say that, Grayson?)

“Al-alright then,” Wally let out a deep exhale and strode directly in front of Dick with a smirk on his face, “So, ughh, hey. Wanna go out for ice cream later or something? (Yes. Yes, God, yes.) Yeah, that felt right. I think I’m gonna go ask her now. Thanks, Rob. You’re the best!”

When Wally hugged him, all he wanted to do was melt into that comforting warmth and stay there forever.

___

Batman made sure to prepare him for everything - how to survive kidnapping if you’ve lost your sight, what to do if you’re stranded in the middle of nowhere with limited supplies, where to go if the League had been compromised by their evil alternate dimension counterparts (apparently something happened before he came into the picture, something about a good Lex Luthor and the Crime Syndicate?) - but he could never have been prepared for his first heartbreak.

Dick was no stranger to pain; he likes to think of pain as some sort of old friend - in a weird, twisted way - because it’s the only thing in his life that was constant. The only thing that he could rely on to always be there for him, that would never truly leave him. Yes, he knew that that mindset was unhealthy, but he held onto it because to get rid of pain was like getting rid of a shadow - impossible and only attainable in absolute darkness, when you’ve lost all sense of direction.

Dick walked into the communal area, ready to have a fun-filled day with his best bro in the universe. Ever since Wally and Artemis had gotten together, all of their bro-time had seemed to be on the back burner: afternoons spent with Dick hunched over pizza and trading pixelated blows on Barry and Iris’ TV were replaced with movie dates with Artemis, hanging out in the park with him with trips with her to the mall, playing basketball in the court in the Manor gardens with days spent at diners and cafes with her - hell, he can’t even sit next to him because everytime he entered a room where Wally was, she was snuggled up next to him with her head on his shoulder (the same shoulder Dick used to cry on after a nightmare). He longed for the days the two of them would have karaoke sessions, heads banging vigorously up and down as they strummed their air guitars like their lives depended on it and screaming old 80s bops until their throats ached but even when they were together it was like all of the red head’s attention was on her, what with him on his phone either texting her every five minutes or having hour long conversations or simply just directing every conversation to be about her (“Hey Dick, where do you think I should Artemis for date night?”, “God, why does she always talk about my eating habits? I’m a speedster - I need the extra energy for my enhanced metabolism. Girls, honestly.”, “Oh my god, Dick, you should’ve seen the look on Arty’s face when I hit her during our date at the paintball arena. You were right, she loved it.”). The more time he spent with her, the more he was pushing Dick away with a sheepish “maybe later, dude” and Dick gets it. Artemis was a brilliant fighter, a real asset to the team. She wasn’t broken and had mental breakdowns and panic attacks at inconvenient times - it’s no wonder Wally prefered to be with her. He always thought that maybe the only reason Wally was with him was because of his sad backstory - the poor orphaned circus boy who watched his parents die at eight years old - it was enough to make anyone take pity on him. So he just did what anyone would do, he smiled and nodded (he’s a performer - has been since he’s learned how to walk - acting happy is just another role he has to play, another way of keeping his audience interested), gave his advice and hoped and prayed that it was enough to make sure he wasn’t left in Wally’s dust.

“Hey, Wally,” he greeted, walking up to them. Normally, before the days of Artemis, he would leap onto the couch cushions from behind and spring into a forwards flip from his hands and land on his feet in front of Wally with a smile but the last time he did that the blonde archer got annoyed so he stopped.

“Oh, Robin. Hey there, what’s up?” Wally asked as Artemis shifted her position so that she could place an arm around his torso, pressing herself against him more firmly.

“Well, I was wondering if you were ready for our hangout.” Dick replied casually, pulling out his cool cocky Boy Wonder persona when in reality he knew he was going to be blown off again (You never used to pretend in front of him before), “I’ve got ten different Barbie movies lined up and two boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts with your name on them.”

“Uh, actually, man, I can’t make it today,” Wally said, his tone apologetic, “I already promised Arty that I’d take her to the Weapons Museum today. I was going to tell you after I bought the tickets but I guess it just slipped my mind.”

“Wait, you guys watch Barbie movies,” Artemis piped in amusement, her nose scrunched as she gave a huff of laughter, “aren’t those for like little six year old girls that wear tutus and ribbons around their pigtails and dream of being fairy princesses when they grow up.”

“Yeah, we do,” Dick didn’t mean to sound defensive but he didn’t appreciate her tone. His masculinity wasn’t so toxic and fragile that he’d deny liking something that was classed as feminine - he grew up in a travelling circus, where gender roles didn’t matter (the bearded lady back at Haly’s was one of the most awesome people eight year old Dick knew). He loved watching The Island Princess with Wally - he totally related to Rosa trying so hard to please the upper class royal families despite not fitting in and being called ‘uncivilised’. Plus it had a talking elephant, which was awesome.

Wally cocked his head and made a noise at the back of his throat, “It’s less of us watching them and more of us laughing at how cliche the plots are.”

Dick looked at him. Is that what he really thought? He remembered belting out ‘I’m just a girl like you’ with Wally as Princess and the Pauper playing on the giant IMAX screen in the Wayne Manor theatre room. Did he secretly hate it? Just pretended to have fun to spare Dick’s feelings?

“I’m really sorry, dude,” Wally said, looking uncomfortable as he rubbed the back of his neck, “We can hang out tomorrow or something, right?” Poor Wally, he sounded so genuinely sorry. Dick didn’t want to be a burden, didn’t want their hangouts to be a chore Wally must fulfil. So he just smirked.

“Seriously, bro, I get it. I’ve got some stuff to do at home as well anyways. Been meaning to touch up on my aerial skills for some time actually. Now you guys have a fun time. I’m gonna be bob bob bobbin’ along.”

He’s happy for Wally, he really is. What sort of best friend would he be if he wasn’t? When Wally is with Artemis, he seems joyful, light, giving her smiles that he only used to give him. Wally deserved to be happy and if he was happier with Artemis, even by an atom’s amount, then who was he to deny him that?

——

One of the reasons Dick was at the top of his Advanced Mathematics class and award-winning Mathlete was because he genuinely loved Maths (and being at the top of everything was one of Bruce’s expectations). Back home, at the circus, he remembered having math teachers from around the world - he was the youngest there and everyone made sure to give him an education that he found was much better than the American school system. The acrobats, tightrope walkers and unicyclists taught him about physics and forces required for balance, the plate spinners, knife throwers and cannon-blasters taught him how math was an integral part of performance. Even the musicians and dancers would explain how numbers were important in their acts. He remembered how his six year old self was sat down in front of a group of daredevils (he always loved watching them zip around in their Globe of Death) and was taught everything he needed to know about a motorcycle: how it ran, how it was assembled, all the physics and mechanics behind it. He knew from then on that he definitely liked maths. Well, he’s got to anyway - being an aerialist means that you’ve got to know all this stuff about trajectories and aerodynamics and forces and motion and stuff.

But the best thing about Maths was that it was constant, never changes. Two plus two equals four, it has always equalled four and always will equal four. Dick is certain that if he were to build a time machine and go a thousand years into the future, two plus two would still make four. That's why he loves numbers so much: they don’t lie or change or forget you. You can rely on them. With numbers and equations, you’ll always get a right answer - with people you only get a not wrong answer. He may be a dynamic performer, a world-class actor that can never sit still - always willing to contort and change for the sake of his audience - but for once he wants the comfort of permanence.

____

“Dick,” Wally said solemnly one day. The two of them were sitting on the edge of the top of Dick’s apartment building, dressed in civvies, watching the sky and the hustle and bustle of the city. It was one of the rare days Dick and Wally could hang out - what with Wally at college and Dick patrolling Bludhaven both as Nightwing and Officer Grayson - and Dick wanted to make the most of it: the two of them went to Happy Harbour and spent the two hours they had playing at the Arcade and stuffing their mouths with whatever they could get their hands on. If Dick tried really hard, he could pretend that they were 14 and 16 again and Wally was his and only his. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“What is it,” Dick asked cautiously. Wally’s expression was too serious, it looked wrong and out of place - nothing at all like the goofy kid who stuck science themed stickers on every surface he owned and covered his room in glow in the dark stars so that the two of them could pretend to be intrepid voyagers snuggled up inside their tent - a hastily made blanket fort - with a flashlight that bore the Flash symbol.

“We - well, Artemis and I - we’ve been thinking. And trust me it’s got nothing to do with you, okay, absolutely nothing. But, well, it took me a long time to get to this decision and I think that it’s the right thing to do. So, well, what I guess what I’m trying to say is I’mquittingtheteam.”

“What did you say,” Dick whispered in shock. He knew exactly what his best friend said - after knowing him since he was ten he’s become fluent in Wally-speak - but he had to make sure-

“Artemis and I,” Wally breathed out, “We’re … leaving the team.”

“What? Why?” Dick tried to mask his panic but all he could hear was ‘leavingleavingI’mleavingtheteamI’mleavingyou’ over and over again in his head.

“It’s just that, well, it’s just that I’m moving to Palo Alto so that I can go to Stanford Uni and it’s gonna be a bit of a hassle living a double life.”

“It’s alright,” Dick said quickly, feeling his eyes start to brim with water, “I’m - I’m sure that The League would understand if you wanna take a few off days. Not everyone there’s like Bruce.”

“The thing is I don’t want to be Kid Flash anymore, you know. I don’t want to live a life where I could die any time I go out on the field. I just want to be Wally West: a college student trying to get into the CSI and lead a normal life. Sure I wanted to save the world back when I was a kid, but that was just a childish dream - I, I want to just be normal. (yeah, all the way in California. Away from me). I’m not going to be going away or anything (are you sure?). You know that right (do I?). I’ll still be there for you (LIES).”

Dick smiled and lied through his teeth, ignoring the feeling of hot tears streaming down his cheeks, “Hey, I’m good (you were never there for me anyway, were you just practicing for this moment?). I get it, the superhero life isn’t for everyone. You should do what you want. If you need any help I’ll be right here in ‘Haven.”

“Thanks man, you’re the best (“Thanks, Rob. You’re the best!” a teenaged Wally West said before he ran off to ask Artemis out). You supporting me really means a lot.” Just then a ‘ding’ cut into the silence and Wally fished his phone out of his pocket, “Aww man, it’s Arty. I best get going.” and with that he was gone, leaving a whoosh of breeze in his place.

The last time he felt this abandoned was when he watched a man and woman fall to their deaths. He supposes that Wally and his parents are similar like that. They both are going to be in a better place. It just so happens that the better place in question doesn’t include him.

He’s been tortured by the Joker, beaten to near death by Two Face, and was left in a pool of his own blood by the Penguin but none of that physical pain could ever come close to the anguish he feels when he watches Wally leave. The agony fills him up to the brim and he can’t - he can’t breathe. He races down the stairwell of the roof and slams the door of his apartment open. The sound of the handle banging against the wall is lost on him as he heaves over his bathroom sink. He looks at his red-eyed, tear-stained reflection in the mirror. In the sink, lilac petals clung onto sticky red blood.

—————

“Hanahaki Disease:” Dick’s computer screen read, “The term hanahaki comes from the Japanese words hana (花), which means "flower", and hakimasu (吐きます), which means "to throw up”. Hanahaki Disease is a disease in which the victim coughs up flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love. It ends when the beloved returns their feelings (romantic love only; strong friendship is not enough), or when the victim dies. It can be cured through surgical removal, but once surgery is undergone, the victim loses all feelings of affection (both romantic and platonic) as well as the ability to ever love again.

The victim's lungs get filled with the flowers and roots grow in their respiratory system. It often develops over months or even years, beginning with coughing up a few petals and growing in intensity (and pain) until the victim is vomiting entire flowers, by which point the disease has entered its final stages. The rate at which the disease worsens and spreads throughout the body is specific to the individual. The longest case was Danielle Chamberlain (1801 - 1834) who had it for 10 years and the shortest case was Akai Shimizu (1914 - 1931) who died after two weeks.” *

Well.

He’s screwed.

______

When he was about to go to bed after a night of patrol, he lay in bed in the darkness, staring at the ceiling. He turned on his phone and pressed the playlist he and Wally made when they were kids. ABBA came out of the speaker:

Where are those happy days, they seem so hard to find

I tried to reach for you, but you have closed your mind…

____

The love you gave me, nothing else can save me

S. O. S.

When you're gone

How can I even try to go on?

When you're gone

Though I try, how can I carry on?

___

It was Wally’s birthday party and Dick stood in the corner of the restaurant Barry had reserved for the occasion. The only people in the building were the old team, Barry, Iris, Clark and Bruce. And Roy was there too, which was nice. When Wally was egged on to do a birthday speech before he cut the cake, he spoke about how lucky he is to have so many amazing friends and such an awesome girlfriend. When the redhead gave her a peck on the cheek, Dick’s stomach gave a lurch as he could feel the inevitable cough building up his throat. He tried to excuse himself as he made way into a disabled bathroom and locked himself in there. After coughing out a cluster of chrysanthemum petals - and holy cow, that’s a lot of blood - he carefully opened the door to find himself face to face with a concerned Roy Harper.

“Everything good there, Dickie?”

“Wha- oh, yeah. I’m fine.”

Roy raised an eyebrow, “You sure? ‘Cause I heard retching and you don’t look too hot.”

“I guess I might have food poisoning. I did eat some old Ramen for lunch yesterday.”

Roy did not look convinced. He never really stopped being Dick’s older brother, even after he left the team. Sometimes the two of them would trade text messages when they’re not too busy. He loved Roy so much (not as much as Wally) and he was sure that Roy loved him. The red haired archer would always make sure to check up on him when the date of his parents death anniversary would arrive. He wondered how long it would take for Roy to get fed up with him.

“I think that you should go home and get some rest.”

“What, Roy? No, I can’t. This is Wally’s birthday and he’ll be crushed if I go (as if). What sort of friend would I be if I leave? Plus, I hardly get to see him otherwise,” noticing how high and desperate his voice sounded, he quickly added, “you know, what with him in college and me working as a police officer and everything.”

…

“Sure... Look, Dick, I’m sure Wally would understand if you go. Your health is more important than a party (no it’s not. Why would I matter to anyone?). Just go home, alright. I’ll save you a slice of cake.”

Contrary to popular belief, Dick knew a losing battle when he saw one, “Alright, Roy, I’ll head off. Just do me a favour, okay. Don’t mention me being too unwell to B. You know how he gets. I don’t want him or Alfred getting too worried.”

“Sure thing, bird brain,” Roy smirked but his eyes still had that concerned, protective look in them. He clamped his hand onto Dick’s shoulder, “just remember, though, that it’s okay to have people worrying about you.”

Dick gave a toothy smile he didn’t feel at all, “‘Course I will.”

“Yo, Goldie. Open up.” Jason yelled as he pounded on the apartment door, “C’mon Dickolas, I’m freezing out here.”

“Jason, quit yelling,” Tim whispered sharply to the older vigilante, aware of how loud his knocking is.

“Tt, I don’t see why we can’t just enter the apartment. It’s not like Grayson would be angry, he’s forever asking us to visit.”

“Yeah but the fact that he isn’t answering the door is really concerning,” Tim said, mostly to himself, “Jason - quit banging, you’re going to wake all of his neighbours - just use the spare key he gave you.”

“Alright, alright. Keep your hair on.”

And with that Jason opened the door and the boys entered the apartment.

“Big Bird?”

“Dick, are you alright. Roy called us. He said you weren’t feeling well. He sounded really worri-”

“GRAYSON!”

Jason and Tim immediately looked at each other when they heard Damian’s shout from his position outside of Dick’s bathroom before rushing to meet him. The youngest’s horrified face was pale and his terrified eyes were staring straight at something that when they followed the line of sight made them freeze.

Dick was collapsed over his commode, breathing heavily as if every breath he took caused him immense pain. Splashes of blood and petals were leading up to him like a horrific trail and his dark hair was matted against his pallid face.

“Dick!” Tim cried as he ran towards Dick and crouched beside him.

“Ti’m?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s Tim.”

“Wha’ - wh’ryu-?”

“Roy,” Jason answered, looking uncharacteristically scared himself as he sat himself down on the other side of his brother, “he called us and said that you weren’t well. We tried to call you but you weren’t answering so we came to check up on you. Why didn’t you tell us you had Hanahaki?”

“I didn’t want you guys to worry. I didn’t realise how bad it was-” he was then cut off as he retched more blood and petals into the toilet bowl as Tim rubbed circles into his back.

“Who is it?” Tim asked.

“It’s Wally, isn’t it.” Jason said. It was a statement, not a question.

“How - how did you?”

“It’s kind of obvious,” Jason shrugged, acting nonchalant but failing to get rid of that fearful look in his eye, “Even when I was Robin, I could tell you had the hots for him.”

Dick wiped away the blood dripping down his chin,“You guys can’t tell Bruce.”

“What do you mean we cannot tell Father?!” Damian cried, “We can get you cured.”

“Damian,” Dick looked at his positively shaken brother, “do you know what Hanahaki is?”

“Yes, of course -“

“Then you know why I can’t tell Bruce. If I tell him, he’ll force me to get the surgery.”

“But, Dick, you don’t need to. You could just con-”

The eldest cut Tim off, “I can’t confess Tim. He doesn’t want me. I can’t just force him to be with me.”

“Then you just need to-”

“I’m not getting the surgery either. I just can’t”

“I don’t want you to die Dick,” Tim immediately burst into tears as he roughly embraced the man. Dick held him close, whispering comforts into his little brother’s hair, when he saw that Damian had tears running down his own cheeks. He held open an arm and he youngest dived into Dick’s side and hugged him as well.

Dick looked at Jason imploringly, “You can’t tell Bruce. Please.”

Jason’s jaw was set, his eyes firm but he relented at the sight of his brother’s bloodstained face.

“Okay.”

Dick sat cross-legged in front of two identical graves, the rain pouring down heavily onto his body. He felt someone stand behind him.

“Dick?” Wally asked, “Is everything alright? Is there anything you need?”

“Could you stay here? For a bit?”

“Of course I will,” Wally sat down beside him and held him close, “I’ll always be there when you need me.”

One night, Jason decided to go visit Dick after spending his patrol taking down a drug cartel. He had called the first Robin previously but the man didn’t answer his calls. All 20 of them. After a conversation with Tim, he found that he wasn’t responding to any attempts made to contact him and that his tracker showed that he was still in his apartment. Entering Dick’s apartment through the window, he cautiously stepped into his brother’s living room and his heart dropped to his stomach.

Dick was slumped against a wall with his eyes closed. Trails of scarlet liquid dripping down his mouth and chin dropping onto the pool of blood, chrysanthemums that surrounded him. Bottles of gin were littered across the floor around him, which was what shocked him the most - Dick was not a heavy drinker. He called alcohol a trapeze artist’s worst nightmare.

(“Alcohol makes you lose focus,” Dick said, “losing focus means losing balance and grip. The moment you lose focus, you lose your life.”)

“What the hell happened here, Big Bird?” Jason asked in worry. He crouched in front of one of the strongest people he ever knew and gently shook him. Dick’s eyes were flickering open. Their baby blues were dim, misty, lacking their usual brightness and warmth - everything about them that made them Dick’s.

“Wha - Jay! What areya do-doin’ here?” Dick’s voice was garbled, confused and Jason felt a surge of protectiveness rush inside his veins. “You don’t - don’t gotta be here. I’m - I’m fi-ine.”

Jason took in his infallible older brother’s haggard form - his unusually pale face and the dark rings around his eyes) and sighed, “I need alcohol.”

______

“I just - I thought he might have cared about - about me.” Dick sniffed tearfully, words still slurring even a half hour later, “But no he only cared about her. “I’m worried about Artemis” what about me?! I - I was so sc-scared, Jason. My - my team was in danger, an-and I already lost you, I - I couldn’t - couldn’t lose anyone else. And - and I was all by myself and I - I - I just couldn’t-” he broke down crying, clutching Jason’s shirt like a lifeline. Jason’s arm immediately stroked Dick’s shaking back, making sure to pat his hair as well.

“Shh, shh. It’s okay Dickie. I’m here, just let it out,” Jason murmured soothingly.

“All I ever wanted was to be- be friends again. But no matter how hard I tried, he-he just - he just kept pushing me away. I know that I’m not good enough for- for Bruce, but I thought that - that maybe, I was enough for him.” He then started crying again, his words slipping from English into a mix of Romani, French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, German and every other language he learned at Haly’s. Jason was still swiping his hand down the curve of his spine. After he composed himself somewhat, “He was my first - my first friend after my - my parents. He- he said he’d - he’d be there for me. We p-promised to be b-bros. We pink-pinkie promised an’ ev’rythin. I told him ev-evrythin: ‘bout my p-parents, my night-nightmares. I even told him ab-about that time I killed the Joker.”

Wait, hold up.

“You killed the Joker?”

“Ye-yeah,” Dick wiped his nose with his sleeve as his voice became a whisper, “I thought he killed Tim and started - started taunting me about your death and I couldn’t just stand back so I saw red. Next thing I know, I beat him to death. Batman revived him when he arrived”

“Dick..”

“When I saw him I I ju- just couldn’t help myself. You know what he said when I hit him? “I hit Jason a lot harder”.”

“God, Dick.” Jason was quiet for a second before saying, “Did you use a crowbar? Because if you did, I really would’ve appreciated the poetic justice.”

“Jay-”

“Yeah. Bad timing. I just can’t believe you killed the Joker”

“I couldn’t let him get away with what he did. No one’s allowed to hurt my little brother and gets away with it.”

Dick then coughed up more blood and petals. Jason held him close as he apologised between sobs.

————

John Grayson hissed in pain as his wife dabbed the blood stained wet cloth on the cut on his face. A few minutes ago, his cheek was sliced by a drunkard with a broken bottle that was harassing a few of the circus folk after a show. Dick sat on his father’s lap, hugging him tearfully.

“Why - why did that man do that?” He asked his parents.

“Because he didn’t like us,” Mary replied. She placed a bandage on her husband’s wounded cheek and kissed it.

“But why, Mami?”

“Because he was scared of us.”

“Why would he be scared of us?”

“Because we’re different, păsărică (little bird), and that makes him scared. People don’t like difference because it’s new, they can’t understand it and when people can’t understand anything they get scared.”

“So that’s why he hurt Tati? Because he was scared?”

“Yes, draga mea (my darling). Fear makes people do terrible things, Dick. It makes people lie, cheat and kill. Many people consider it to be the strongest force on Earth.”

“Do you think it is?”

“No. Because I know the one thing that’s stronger than fear.”

“And what’s that Mami?”

“Love. Love is the most powerful thing a person can have. It’s what stops fear from consuming you. When your heart is full of love then your life is full of light and happiness. When you feel love, you can do anything. So remember, my little Robin, to always keep love in your heart because when someone loses their ability to love, they lose their ability to be a human and their life is plunged in darkness.”

“Don’t worry Mami. I’ll never forget.”

———-

His siblings decided that enough was enough. They came clean to Bruce and forced Dick to come to the Manor. Well it was less of a force and more of tranquilising him and carrying his body to Gotham, but semantics. He awoke later in his bedroom at the Manor, hooked onto some sort of monitor. Bruce, of course, was furious.

“How could you have kept this from me?”

“Because I know how you would react. You’d make me get the surgery.”

“Of course I would. You’re my son. You are not going to die.” Bruce said the last part with such conviction.

“No, Bruce.”

“Dick, if you don’t get the surgery, you’ll die!” Tim yelled, every world laced in pain.

“Don’t you see, Tim,” Dick argued back, “if I get the surgery, I’ll die anyway. I’ll never feel love ever again. I’ll never be able to feel that comfort when I remember my parents, that pride when I find out that Dami’s won another award, that warmth in my chest every time I’m with my friends, my family. I’ll be looking straight at my family’s faces every single day but I’d never be able to tell them I love them ever again. That’s not the person my parents raised. I’ll be alive, but I won’t be living. I won’t be Dick Grayson, I’ll just be a man that looks like your brother.”

“That’s alright,” Tim replied back, his voice hysterical with desperation. If it weren’t for the fact that Dick was hooked onto the machine, he would’ve thrown his arms around his little bird, “You’ll still be our brother even if you don’t love us. We’ll still love you.”

“No, Tim.”

“So that’s it then,” Jason said bitterly, “you’re going to give up your life just because one idiot speedster doesn’t love you.”

“Listen to yourself Grayson,” Damian yelled, tears streaming down his face and oh did Dick want to get up and hug him as well, “you speak as if your love for West is worth dying for but isn’t your love for us worth living for?”

“I do love you guys, Dami. I love you all so much. That’s why I can’t get the surgery. Because you all deserve a brother that can tell you that every single day of your life. You all speak like me not loving you won’t hurt you and maybe it won’t. Maybe for the first few months it won’t. But what about in two years, three years, he’ll even ten years in the future, you mean to tell me that you won’t be able to handle it. That you won’t resent me for never being able to give you a hug, never ruffling your hair comforting you when you're sad, you’ll be able to live with me acting as if you’re nothing to me. You wouldn’t love me, you’ll tolerate me like I’m some sort of burden and I refuse to be a burden on anyone

“You won’t be a burden,” Tim whispered, as his own tears stained his shirt, “you’ll be our brother.”

That night, both Tim and Damian slept on either side of their older brother with Jason lying on a mattress beside them.

——-

“YOU CHEATED!”

“Jay-bird, how can I cheat? It’s snakes and ladders.”

“I don’t care. I still say that you cheated.”

“Oh come on-”

“Dick!”

Jason and Dick were interrupted from their good-natured bickering by the sound of a very familiar voice. They both swivelled their heads to the source of it to see a very bedraggled Wally West standing at the doorway of Dick’s room.

“Dick. I-I heard the news. I came to see- are- are you alright?”

“Wally West,” Jason stated darkly, “you’re the person that’s supposed to be his best friend.”

“What?” Wally looked confused as Dick gave him a sharp look as if to say ‘Don’t’.

Jason ignored him as he stared straight at the older man, “You heard me. I thought friends were supposed to watch out for each other. I guess the definition changed after I got put into the ground.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Jason, enough,” Dick hissed.

“What I’m talking about, Wallace, is your complete inability to be a decent human being. What I’m talking about is how you think that you can waltz in here all willy-nilly and act like you haven’t spent years pushing Dick away.”

“What? I haven’t been-”

“Oh, you haven’t. Well, silly me. It’s just that I thought ignoring someone for months on end constitutes on pushing away. Like seriously, with friends like you, who needs enemies?”

“What’s your problem?”

“I don’t like watching Dick get hurt.”

“Yet, when you guys met again the first thing you did was try to shoot him.”

“Enough!” Dick yelled, “Please. I’m going through a lot right now and the last thing I want to hear is my brother arguing with my best friend. If you’re going to argue can you please do it outside.”

“Alright then,” Jason says as he grabs Wally’s hand and drags him to his own room, “C’mon West, there’s a lot I want to say to you.”

After Jason closed the door, Wally started, “What’s your deal?”

“My deal?” Jason laughs with no humour, “My deal is that you’ve been a s***ty friend to my big brother and I don’t stand for it. He needed you and you abandoned him when he needed you the most. He loves you more than everything and you can’t spare him the time of day. You were his best friend and the first person he ever trusted after the League and Alfred and you go around for years acting like he doesn’t exist! He drops everything for you! No matter where he is or what he’s doing, he’s always been there for you. The Pit may have messed up my head but I still remember this one time back when I was Robin. We had been in a burning building and he sacrificed himself for me. The idiot pushed me away when a wall was gonna collapse on me and trapped himself under it whilst yelling at me to escape. By the time Bruce got to him he was out. Was hooked on the breathing equipment for two days. The moment he got his phone back was when you called about something to do with Artemis and he stayed on the line for two whole hours listening to you and never once mentioned about how he almost died. Well now he’s dying! My brother’s been dying for a while now but you were too busy playing happy families with your girlfriend to even notice!”

Wally just looked horrified as he whispered, “I - I didn’t mean to push him away. I’ve been so busy and-”

“Really,” Jason raised an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed, “you know, I always thought you never deserved him. To be honest I don’t think anyone deserves to have Dick in their life. To this day I still ask myself what good did Bruce ever do to have someone like him. He takes so much s*** from everyone and refuses to do anything about it. No matter how hurt he gets, he’ll always forgive you. He is just too good for us. Maybe that’s what this is. Maybe it’s the universe’s way of taking him back, of saving him from getting hurt again. Like it’s saying “I gave you a gift and you didn’t treat it right so now I’m taking it back. You had your chance and now it’s too late”. Tell me West, if he wasn’t lying on his deathbed, would you even be here. Or would you still be living in your happy little bubble without giving a s*** about the person that has always stood by you.”

His voice went low and quiet as he stood directly in front of the red head, using the few inches he had over him to loom over him as he clutched the front of Wally’s shirt, “The only reason that I’m not throwing you out of here is because Dick cares about you and I prioritise my brother over revenge. But listen here, if you say or do anything from this moment forth that upsets him in any way, I’ll make sure that you can’t take a step in Gotham without one of the bats going after you.”

“Understood,” Wally nodded, tears in his eyes, looking angry, aghast and ashamed at his behaviour.

____

“Dick, I’m sorry. God, I’m so so sorry.”

“Wally, it’s okay. Really.”

“No. No, it’s not okay. You’ve got to stop making excuses for everyone.”

“Wally-”

“No, Dick, please. I’ve got to say this. Ever since I started dating Artemis I’ve been a terrible friend. Don’t try to deny it, it’s the truth. I kept blowing you off and pushing you away and you just wanted to spend time with me. I was so happy to have started dating, I didn’t realise that I was hurting my best friend. And I’m so sor-”

“Wally,” Dick cut in, “it’s okay. Really. You have your own life. I couldn’t expect you to drop everything for me.”

“You drop everything for everyone.”

“Yeah, and I’m cool with that. Listen, I forgive you, alright. I got to terms with it ages ago,” Dick was smiling at him, his tone bearing no resentment and his eyes filled with warmth, “so can you please stop apologising and tell me about your life.”

______

That night, after Wally had left with promises of returning soon (“Why should you believe him?” a voice asked cynically, “he’s made promises before. He promised that he’ll always be there for you, that he’ll always have your back. Fat lot of good those promises were.”) Jason had sat beside him. Both of them were reading quietly, finding comfort in the silence and the constant beeps of the heart monitor.

“Jason?” Dick inquired after a while, not looking up from his well-worn copy of the Robin Hood novel his mother and father gifted to him on his seventh birthday.

Jason grunted in response, eyes still trained on his own book.

Dick took that as a reason to continue, “Why did you say those things to Wally?”

Jason looked him straight in the eye and replied, “Because no one hurts my big brother and gets away with it.”

The silence continued for a second before Dick spoke up, “Do you think you could read your book to me?”

The other vigilante raised an eyebrow, “You want to hear about The Reign of Terror.”

“Jay-bird, I’m an uncultured gypsy circus freak that Bruce Wayne took in as a charity case and you’re a street rat from Crime Alley that was yet another charity case. Nothing would be a better way for us to bond than to hear about anarchy and revolution against the bourgeoisie. Nothing brings together two people better than discussions of Class Warfare. Besides, it might give us ideas for Bruce’s next stupid gala.”

“True that,” Jason flipped to the front page and began, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness..”

_____

Later on, after a night of patrol, when Tim and Damian came to Dick’s room, they found him asleep with a softly snoozing Jason holding him protectively.

_____

“I love you, Dick,” Bruce whispered as he traced the back of Dick’s hand with his thumb, eyes boring into his sons, “I know that I don’t say it enough. You don’t hear it any where close to as much ass you deserve to. But I love you so much. You’re my son, my light. You were the one who pulled me out of the darkness. I can’t lose you, Robin.”

Dick’s eyes were watering and lips, trembling, “I’m not getting it, B.”

“Please. Please for me. I know I’ve already asked you for a lot, more than I should. But please consider it. For me, for your brothers, for your family. Just - please just consider it.”

Dick took a breath, “Sure, I’ll think about it.”

Bruce smiled tearfully, “Thank you, chum.”

He leaned down, cupped his son’s cheek and kissed his forehead.

____

“I have an idea,” Damian declared after removing another block from their Jenga tower. He, Jason and Tim were huddled around him on the bed. They spent the entire day playing every game they could think of - Bluff (“To enhance our body reading skills of course”), Taboo (“Jason, quit squeezing that thing before I throw my mug at you”), Uno (yeah, they had to stop three minutes in to prevent Damian from attacking Tim because of another plus four) before deciding on Jenga. When Tim got the box out, Dick proclaimed that he thought that the plain brown pieces of wood were ‘too boring’ and ‘lacked personality’ so the four of them used Damian’s art set as well as Dick’s old paints to decorate them. The end result was like something out of a Picasso painting, all conflicting colours that stuck out everywhere, but Dick thought it was the most beautiful creation on Earth.

“What is it?” Tim inquired as he removed a yellow brick that was covered with small smiley faces. He released the breath he was holding as the tower wobbled but stayed standing.

“We kill West.”

“What, Damian?” Dick exclaims, startled by Damian’s blunt reply. Whilst his youngest brother hasn’t made his negative feelings for the speedster unknown, it was unlike him to so casually speak of his murder - at least around him. “How could you say that.”

“The reason you are … in this condition” - they all flinched at the unheard ‘dying’ - “is due to West not reciprocating your feelings towards him. If he were no longer in the picture, there would be no reason for there to be unreciprocated feelings and you shall be cured.”

Dick’s eyes softened, “Damian, it doesn’t work like that. I won’t stop loving him even if he’s dead. And even if it did work, you can’t just kill him because it’ll save me. The reason I’m lying on this bed is because of me and me alone. None of it is his fault.”

“Why do you even love him?” Jason asked, “After all he’s done?”

“I don’t know,” Dick mused, he took out a brick near the foundation of the structure (a bright red one that had the words ‘BATMAN SUCKS’ scribbled on in black marker) - making it unstable and unable to hold up - and watched their carefully crafted tower crumble, “I guess the one thing I’m good at is getting hurt.”

——-

That night Dick was tossing and turning, unable to sleep. He couldn’t get much rest anyway, he’d be abruptly woken up by the bloodied petals that would burst out of his mouth like a geyser. Lo and behold, his body shook as he coughed, blood splattering onto his fingertips. He stared at the red that trickled down onto his palm. He remembered reading Macbeth back in Middle School and always wondered about Lady Macbeth - how she spent night after night plagued by her own guilt, perpetually washing her hands to get rid of the imagined bloodstains. He wondered how she felt to be trapped in her own nightmare, to lose control of her own mind. How much sleep she sacrificed. What she must have thought as she climbed the steps of the tower. How she must have felt when she jumped off, knowing that her suffering would be over. Unfortunately, Shakespeare died so he won’t be getting any answers soon. His mind flashed back to two other broken, fallen bodies and his hands covered in blood that wasn’t his own, as he just lay in bed and wondered.

“Food poisoning, really,” Roy Harper said, unamused. Dick smiled weakly in response, “God, look at you. What would’ve happened if I didn’t give the Manor a call when I did. Would you have, what, just died in your apartment, waiting for someone to stumble upon your corpse?”

“I didn’t want anyone to find out this way. Or at all to be honest.”

“Dick, seriously man. I’m supposed to be your big brother. How could you hide this from me. I thought you could tell me everything.”

“Roy, Hanahaki is a disease that can only be cured in two ways. Both of them are things I’d never do.”

“Richard John Grayson, I swear-”

“The only way for the surgery to work is if I consent, right. Well, I would never consent to losing the most important part of me.”

“And you won’t confess because-?”

“I can’t force someone to be with me out of pity. Especially not when they’re with someone else already. When they’ve already pushed me out of their life.”

“You really are a piece of work Grayson, you and your stupid hero-complex. You know what happens if this continues, right? You die! You die and there’s nothing any of us can do.”

“I kind of get that, Roy,” Dick deadpanned, “seeing as I’m the one that’s dying.”

“You seriously believe that I, the League, your friends, your family would be able to live without you?”

(Wally could)

“It would hurt or be hard but I’m sure that they could. My presence is not essential for survival. Besides the League existed before me, it can exist without me.”

“Who hurt you, my little kitten,” Selina hummed as she traced the lines of his face.

“No one, Selina,” Dick replied, eyes shut as he melted into the show of affection, “I hurt myself.”

The days went by. More and more people were begging and pleading with him to take the surgery. That his life was not worth his feelings for one person. That they would still love him even if he couldn’t love them back. That having him alive and unfeeling would be much better than not having him at all. He had never seen Bruce let out so many tears in his life. The sight of the cold, calculated Batman that would make Gotham’s hardest criminals fall to their knees imploring him with a cracked, choked up voice on the verge of breaking down was something he would never forget - and he caused it.

“You are a fighter,” Diana had said one day as she sat next to him. She had spent her time telling him every story that she could think of. “You always had been. I admit that I was cautious when I heard that Batman had taken in a partner. I didn’t know if having a man like Bruce Wayne in your life would be good for you. But you were definitely good for him. You’ve changed him in ways that I couldn’t even dream of. I understand your decision, and while it’s not the one I would’ve wanted for you to take, it’s the one that suits you. For Dick Grayson without love is like the Solar System without the Sun.

Dick took her battle-hardened hand with his own week one and held it, rubbing it with his thumb.

“You are a fighter,” the warrior repeated, fire in her eyes, “so when you go down, go down with a fight.”

___

“When I die,” Dick said one day, high off of pain meds, “I don’t want anyone wearing black to my funeral okay. I see enough darkness already in my life, there shouldn’t be sadness during my death. Everyone should be wearing the brightest colours imaginable. At least have a yellow sock or something. I want music and laughter and embarrassing stories. Play Rick Astley instead of that terrible organ march. Hire a bubble machine instead of a Priest. And I don’t want any stupid roses either. It’s either sunflowers or nothing.”

___

“Why are you doing this Dick?” Wally asked tearfully. Dick was so weak now. His veins darkened as flowery vines curled around his chest and arms. He looked like a masterpiece, an untouchable work of art, “Why are you just letting yourself die.”

“Don’t start, Wally. Please.”

“Dick…”

“I’m not getting the surgery, Wally. So you should just drop it. You should know how stubborn I can be. So how’s things with you?”

“Dick...”

“Seriously, you’re my best friend. I want to know that at least your life doesn’t suck.”

“Well, Artemis and I broke up so ...”

“What?” Dick exclaimed in shock, “you guys broke up? But you were so happy together (happy enough to forget me). You loved her so much.”

“Yeah, that’s the thing. I don’t really know if I loved her or just really liked her. We just realised that we weren’t compatible, you know. She wanted more than I can give her.”

“Bro,” Dick looked at him with concern, “I’m so sorry. Are you okay.”

Wally gave him an incredulous look, “Dude, you’re literally dying but you’re asking me if I’m okay?”

“Again, you’re my best friend, it's my job to worry.”

“God, I don’t deserve you.”

“Hey,” Dick chastised, “I’m the judge of whether you deserve me or not, okay. And I say that anyone who has a breakup is entitled to at least two movies and three hours of video games.

“Is that so?” Wally raised his eyebrows.

Dick gave the gravest nod he can muster, “Of course it’s true. I got a doctorate in Best Friendology, you know. So I know what I’m talking about.”

“Well, if the doctor orders.”

——

“The spark just died out, I guess. We started to realise that we were acting less like a couple and more like roommates that occasionally made out,” Wally exclaimed as he shovelled another mouth of caramel chocolate crunch ice cream into his mouth, “It was like we were just trying to make it work but it just wasn’t catching on. It’s okay though, we’re still friends so I’m cool with living the single life.”

“Not for long though,” Dick said, smiling at him with a look of pure fondness that Wally couldn’t help but blush, “you are an amazing person Wally. I’m sure you’ll find someone.”

“Yeah, right.”

“No, really. You probably don’t think it but you’re still my best friend. No one can take that away. Having you in their life would be the greatest honour a person can receive.”

“Psssh, whatever. Let’s see if you’ll still say that once I kick your butt at Call of Duty.”

“Dick, you can’t be serious.”

“I’m really sorry, Uncle Clark,” Dick looked down, refusing to meet his idol’s disheartened gaze.

“Dick, look at you,” Dick was sure that Clark gave him a once over with his x-ray vision when he entered, if that slight wince was anything to go by, “you’re wasting away. This isn’t you.”

“If I take the surgery, I wouldn’t be me either.”

“Of course you will. I know you think that we won’t love you if you do but we will. You will always be my nephew. I’d rather have you alive and not love me than never seeing you again.”

“Uncle Clark, I understand what you’re saying and if it was anyone else but me I would be agreeing with you. Yes, I know it’s selfish to do this but it’s the only choice I have. I don’t want people to look back at me and remember me as the person who forgot how to love. For me to be the cautionary tale for what happens if you let your emotions get the best of you. All my life I wanted to catch people, to be the safety net my parents didn’t have. If I lose my love, my passion to keep the people I love safe, then I’ll lose the very reason why I exist. You may be able to live with me but I won’t.”

“I love you Dick. So so much. Ever since the day I met you, when you threw yourself into my arms and asked if I could take you flying, I knew that you would be special, that you would change everyone’s lives for the better. And I was right, even if you made it a habit to give me heart attacks ever since you put on that mask. You will always have my respect.”

“I love you too, Uncle Clark. If anyone deserves that ‘World’s Best Uncle’ mug I gave you when I was ten, it’s you. I’d do anything for you. But this is the one thing I won’t. I’m sorry.”

They sat in silence before Dick piped up, asking sheepishly, “Do you- do you suppose you could tell me a Kryptonian legend. I wouldn’t mind hearing that one about Nightwing and Flamebird again.”

Clark smiled sadly, “It would be my pleasure.”

_____

Today’s the day.

Dick knew that he wasn’t going to survive the night. So he did everything he could. When his family came to check on him, he greeted them with a smile. When the clock chimed ten o’clock, he told them to leave.

“Dick, it’s okay. We can skip patrol,” Tim said.

“No, Tim. Batman needs Robin by his side and Robin needs his older brothers to watch his back. You can’t stop protecting Gotham just for me.”

“We’d do anything for you,” Tim’s eyes were sad, it made Dick feel bad for lying to him

“I know. Trust me, I’ll be alright. Now go so when you come back I can hear all the juicy details.” Dick gave him one of his signature Grayson smiles, using his so called puppy dog eyes for extra effect (he is ashamed to say that it’s not the first time he used them on a family member but desperate times..). “I love you guys, okay. Te iubesc, fratii mei mici (I love you, my little brothers).”

“We love you too, you big idiot,” Jason replies and Dick isn’t faking the smile when he hears that.

“Alright, come on guys. Pre-patrol hug, bring it in.”

___

“I’m not going to make it Alfie,” Dick says when Alfred arrives.

“I know, dear boy.”

“You - you know?”

The Englishman raises an eyebrow, “You may be able to deceive your brothers but do not forget that I was in the army, Master Richard. I can tell the look of a man who knows when his time has come.”

“I didn't mean to lie to them,” Dick says softly, “I just- I couldn’t let them see me like that. I didn’t want them to worry. It’s probably not the right decision but…”

“My dear child, I don’t believe that there is a right way to go about these sorts of affairs. Even on your last breath you try to shield them from the horrors of this world. You are a remarkable person, Master Richard, that is for sure.”

“Do you think I’ll meet them when I- when I go?”

“I cannot say for certain. However, I know for a fact that if you do, they would feel nothing but pride for the young man you’ve grown up to be. Just as Master Bruce and I am.”

“I love you, Alfred.” Dick’s weak voice was tearful as he looked at the man that was a grandfather to him growing up.

“And I do you, Master Richard,” Alfred’s words were choked, as if he’s struggling to hold himself together. The butler wiped away a black forelock, “It’s been an honour to serve you.”

____

After the man left on Dick’s command, with tears streaming down his usually held together face,the first Robin laid down on the bed, clutching his old stuffed elephant as he stared at the ceiling with a soft smile.

“Hi Mami, hi Tati. Let me tell you about my day…”

___

When Alfred gave them the news over the comms, the residents of Wayne Manor were stunned into silence. Not one of them moved or uttered a word before they raced back home. They all entered Dick’s room in a frenzy only to pause at the sight before them.

Alfred was sitting at the foot of Dick’s bed which was enwrapped with flowery vines - originating from the former Boy Wonder’s chest - that reached the floor and curled over the soft carpet in the shape of angel wings. Dick’s hands were clasped daintily over the centre of his unmoving chest, his eyes closed like he was asleep, his mouth was slightly parted and chrysanthemums blossomed between his lips. Black hair framed his face like a halo as lilac petals covered his body, softening his edges. The stems embraced his form, like it was protecting it from the rest of the world.

He looked like a masterpiece. A work of art to forever be treasured and to never be touched. It was the picture of haunting beauty, a real-life paradox. How could something so beautiful, so captivating be so horrific. As a painting, the sight was alluring, awe-inspiring but as the harsh truth, the picture of the man’s corpse made everyone want to vomit.

Damian and Tim fell to their knees next to him; crying, screaming, pleading. Pleasewakeuppleasewakeuppleaseplease. Bruce held them close, his own tears staining his batsuit. He wanted to shout, scream, to punch something Goddamnit! This was not supposed to happen. His son, who was so full of life, who somersaulted into his life with bright eyes that would put a nebula to shame and eager-to-please smiles, can’t go. Not like this. Not by himself, in his room (he always hated the size of his room when he first came - hated how it was nothing like the compact trailer he grew up in). He could never sit still, not even during stakeout, not even as an adult. To see him just lying there, face blank, paralysed like he just saw Medusa was unnatural. Not even Scarecrow’s fear toxin could cook up an image so fearful.

And Jason. Jason just stared.

It was too late

_____

Nightwing’s memorial was put up in Mount Justice the next day. Every hero on Earth attended the service. No one said anything. They all just stood there in organised rows, silently looking at the hologram of one of the strongest, most respected heroes to ever walk the planet.

Dick would’ve hated it.

___

“He was supposed to be the best of us,” Clark said later, when everyone had returned home. Crime won’t stop because one hero had died. The world won’t stop spinning because Nightwing was no longer walking on it. No matter how many people wished it would.

______

“Who was it?” Wally asked.

“You,” Jason replied.

___

Richard John Grayson died a week later. The pneumonia he had contracted became fatal. That was the only information Bruce Wayne gave out to the press before shutting himself in his house, refusing to come out for a month.

The funeral was held two days after the announcement but no one except Dick’s closest friends and family were allowed to attend. Every person wore a sunflower on their jacket and a brightly coloured tie.

____

Wally sat cross-legged in front of three identical tombstones.

“I’m so sorry, Dick,” He wept, “I’m so so sorry.”

___

When Dick Grayson left Wally West’s life, there was no fanfare, no blinding lights or blaze of glory. He wasn’t Robin or Nightwing, a hero or civilian, the ward of a billionaire or the child of two acrobats from a circus, the brother of three grieving boys or the nephew of the mourning Justice League. When Dick Grayson left, he died only as a man who loved too much and expected too little.

*Mostly copied and pasted from Fanlore.org: https://fanlore.org/wiki/Hanahaki_Disease

#birdflash #wallydick #dickwally #wally west #dick grayson #cries for days

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trndsttr0961 · 4 years

Text

Dark Avengers - Chapter One

P L A N E T : T E R R A : 1 9 8 4

T O N Y

- - - - - -

“Father?”

“Hmm.”

“Look, I build it myself! Do you like it?”

His father glanced over at the miniature robot his eight year old son had built.

“It’s not good enough.” Howard Stark simply stated before resuming with his paperwork.

“When will it be good enough?” Tony asked his father, hoping that one day he’d have his approval.

“It will be good enough the day you actually put some effort into making it!” Howard sternly told Tony. “Now leave, you’ve already wasted enough of my time.

Tears filled chocolate brown eyes.

“But papa,” Tony started tugging on his father’s sleeve.

Suddenly, large hands gripped the collar of Tony’s shirt, and he was looking into cerulean blue eyes that were filled with anger.

“What did you say?! WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME?!” The elder Stark roared, spittle flying into young Tony’s face.

“P-pa-papa,” Sobbed the eight year old child as he tried to look anywhere but his father’s hatred-filled eyes.

“YOU WILL ADDRESS ME AS FATHER, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?! ” Howard screamed at his son, shaking him furiously.

“Y-yes, I’m s-sor-sorry,” Tony stuttered in attempt to get his father to stop shaking him like a rag doll.

“MY SON WILL NOT BE WEAK, YOU MUST BE MADE OF IRON! DO YOU HEAR ME?!” Howard grasped Tony’s face in his large hands and roughly turned it towards his. He looked his son straight in the eye,

“You must be made of Iron.” He said, much more calmly than before.

Tony furiously nodded as the words that had been shouted at him in one of his father’s furious rages repeated themself inside his head.

Finally, Howard let go of his son and resumed his paperwork.

“Now take that atrocious thing you call a robot and Without even looking up from the documents, he took the robot his only son had made, and threw it at Tony’s feet.

With tears in his eyes, Tony picked up the robot and quickly walked as fast as he could out of the room.

Looking down, he saw that the robot hadn’t been dented the slightest bit even though his papa father had violently thrown him at his feet. While examining the little robot’s exterior, he remembered the words his father had implanted inside his brain at a young age.

“You cannot be weak, you must be made of iron.”

“Crying is for boys, you must become a man if you want my approval.”

Filled with a newfound determination, he clutched the robot to his chest and hugged it so tight, it was as if he’d never let it go.

“You’re stronger than I ever could be,” Tony whispered, voice full of admiration down to the robot. “You’re just how my father wants you to be, made of iron. You’re not even real, yet you’re more of a man than I’ll ever be.” Tony finished, almost enviously.

“You need a name, a name that people will one day fear and respect. I’m gonna call you,”

Iron Man.

Tony smiled to himself, and happily skipped to his room where he spent the rest of the day tinkering with his new best friend and seeing what else he could do to make Iron Man invincible.

A few months went by, and fall turned into winter, and everything seemed to be going fine, when one day, Tony overheard his father and another woman discussing something urgently.

“Peggy, if the Tesseract is really there, then we have to try and get it! We might never get another opportunity like this!” His father urgently told the woman, as if trying to convince her he was right.

But the woman didn’t budge. “Howard, I know how badly you want the Tesseract to experiment and whatnot on it, but we have no idea how the Tesseract will react after being stuck in the ice for so long!” The woman scolded his father, which was a rare sight to see.

Tony didn’t know what this Tesseract was, but maybe if he could get it, his father would love him and he would become a man just like Iron Man!

Eagerly, the eight year old ran to his father’s lab and used the giant computer to search all existing databases for this Tesseract.

He kept on sneaking down their to do research for a few more weeks, before his father finally caught him. Luckily, Tony had just had a major breakthrough on how to contain any possible explosion caused by the Tesseract.

It was in December, almost Christmas, when Tony snuck down to the lab and pulled up his research file. He was furiously jotting down notes and scribbling equations when a booming voice echoed throughout the lab.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, boy.” His father said, anger building up in his voice.

“I-I was ju-just,” Tony stuttered, fidgeting with his hands and looking everywhere in the room except his father.

“Spit it out, son. What the hell are you doing?!” Howard boomed, his patience wearing thin.

Well here goes nothing, Tony thought.

“I was researching the Tesseract!” Tony blurted out.

His father froze, not expecting such an answer. He quickly recovered and with only a small hint of anger asked Tony why he would do such a thing.

“I j-just wanted to m-make you proud, father. I just wanted you to love me.” Tony confessed, secretly hoping that his father would reassure and hug him. “Do you love me?” He slowly asked, trying to avoid his father’s gaze.

“Tony, I- I,” Howard tried to answer his son’s simple question carefully. “Of course I-,” Howard was cut off by a beeping sound coming from the computer. Father and son rushed over and were amazed by what they saw.

Feeling a surge of pride in his son, something he hadn’t felt in years, Howard gently ruffled Tony’s hair.

“I’m proud of you son.”

That was all Tony had ever wanted to hear.

- - - - - -

With Tony’s research as well as Howard and Peggy’s, in a few months, S.H.I.E.L.D. was able to go and retrieve the Tesseract with zero casualties and zero collateral damage.

As Howard Stark examined the Tesseract in his lab, there was still one mystery he had yet to solve. What exactly did the Tesseract do? Well, there was only one way to find out.

He looked down at the control panel, and used the surprisingly efficient (with the exception of Dum-E which was the first one) robot hands his son had built to gently grab the Tesseract and move it towards him. He was frightened that touching such a powerful object could vaporize him, so he called his son into the room.

“Son, how would you like to become a hero?” He asked his son, throwing out the bait.

“I would love that, Pa- I mean Father.” He quickly corrected, bashfully glancing up at Howard.

Howard painted a fake smile on his face and looked back down at his son. He kneeled down, so his face was level with Tony’s and softly said,

“Anthony, I’m proud of you. You’re not made of iron yet, but you’re finally becoming a man. If you hold the Tesseract for me to see how we can use it, you can finally become both; iron and man. Will you make me proud, son?”

Tony jerked his head up. He wasn’t stupid after all, he knew the risks when handling the Tesseract. “But what if-” He started.

“Do you want to become a man made of iron, or not?” His father pressed, his patience wearing thin.

“Of c-course, f-father.” He stuttered, frightened for what was about to come. He tentatively walked towards the glowing blue cube, and he could practically feel the energy radiating off of it.

“Go on,” Howard encouraged him. He hadn’t even noticed he’d stopped to admire the entrancing object.

Gingerly, the young boy reached out with his eyes squeezed shut and lightly touched the cube with his index finger. He let out his breath which he hadn’t known he was holding when he wasn’t instantly vaporized the second his flesh touched the cube.

He looked back at his father to see what he should do next, even though he already knew what was going to come.

“Great job, Anthony! Now you just have to grab it and focus on the energy and channel it through your body.

Hesitantly, Tony grabbed the Tesseract with both of his small hands, and lifted it up and off of the pedestal it was currently on. By now, a team of S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists and specialists had arrived and were instantly alarmed when they saw a boy who looked no older than eight holding one of the most dangerous and powerful artifacts known to mankind, with his father encouraging him to do so.

“ARE YOU MAD?! HE’S JUST A CHILD!!” Peggy Carter frantically screamed at Howard, trying to press any button to make it stop.

“Don’t worry, Margaret, the boy’ll be fine. See?” Howard calmly stated, gesturing to the boy who was holding the cube with an awestruck look on his face.

“Now Anthony, channel the energy through your body and try to make the Tesseract do something.”

Tony did as his father asked, and focused on the Tesseract’s sheer power and energy. He imagined it flowing through his body and tried to think of his happiest memories to make it do something. He thought of the time he and his father, as well as his mother sat in the living room drinking hot coca as snow was falling outside. Tony Stark thought long and hard about this memory and before he knew it, he was enveloped in blue and grey smoke, filled with electricity and power.

When he opened his eyes, he was no longer in his father’s lab. In fact, he was in the same exact living room that he had been thinking about in his memories.

So it teleports you! He thought. He ran back down to the lab, grasping the Tesseract in both hands. Tony was panting and sweating furiously by the time he made it back down to the lab, when he realized he could’ve just used the Tesseract to teleport back.

So much for being a genius.

As he approached the lab, he heard his father yelling at all of the scientists and specialists from S.H.I.E.L.D.

Maybe he’s worried about me! Maybe when I come back, he’ll be happy that I’m safe and he’ll finally tell me he loves me! I’ll finally become like Iron Man! Speaking of which, Tony saw the robot outside the lab where he had left it right before all of this happened. He picked up his best and only friend, and walked into the room. What he didn’t expect however was for his father to be hysterical about something missing. Not someone. Something.

He didn’t care about Tony, all of the frantic screaming and shouting were for the Tesseract, not his only son. With tears streaming down his face, he forgot to compose himself and hesitantly made his presence known. With the Tesseract in one hand, and his robot in the other, he finally spoke to his father.

“Papa?” He asked, hesitantly.

His father whipped around and when he saw the Tesseract, Tony could of sworn he saw a hungry look in his father’s eyes. After a brief second it passed, and his father rushed over and took the Tesseract out of his son’s hands. He had a sick sort of smile on his face and barely even acknowledged his only son. He admired the Tesseract for a few more seconds, and all was silent until Howard broke out of his trance and put the powerful cube back on it’s pedestal.

But Tony couldn’t shake the hungry look in his father’s eyes out of his head.

- - - - - -

Meanwhile in space,

. . .

“Sir, we’ve detected a major energy surge on the planet Terra, it could be the Tesseract.” Ebony Maw informed the Titan sitting on his throne.

“Are you sure?” The Titan’s booming voice echoed throughout the throne room.

“Yes, your lordship.” The Maw pathetically bowed down to him.

“Maw, set course for the Planet Terra and prepare our finest soldiers.” The Titan ordered The Maw.

“Right away sir.” Said The Maw as he scurried away.

Once he left, the purple giant felt a smile creep up onto his face.

- - - - - -

Back on Earth,

. . .

Tony lay in bed, wondering if his father really loved him. He glanced at his clock. It had been two hours since he’d gone to bed, and it was now just a little past 12:00am. Tony sighed. He wasn’t going to be able to sleep tonight anyways, so why not just tinker with Iron Man a little bit? Maybe his father would be proud?

For a few minutes, Tony just sat there on his bedroom floor tinkering with his robot, when he heard a large boom come from outside, followed by a blinding light. Tony had to cover his eyes with one of his hands, and out of fear, he grabbed Iron Man with the other.

Right then, a blaring alarm went off, one that his father had placed in case anyone ever came and tried to steal the Tesseract from him, as if it was his to begin with.

His Father!

Knowing him, his father would immediately rush down to his lab if he wasn’t already there, and prepare himself to fight off intruders. Fearing for his Father’s safety and possibly his life, Tony ran down to the lab and skidded to a halt at what he saw in front of him.

A huge purple giant was looming over his father as he held a long metal sword against Howard Stark’s chest.

“Where is the Tesseract.” The giant boomed, making it sound more like a demand rather than a question.

The giant was about to push the sword into his father’s chest, when Tony suddenly screamed out of impulse,

“STOP!” Please don’t hurt him, he’s my father!” Tony sobbed, trying to get the huge man to stop.

The purple alien seemed surprised for a second, before a wicked smile crept up onto his face. With a simple nod of his head, two of his minions appeared out of nowhere and grabbed his arms and wouldn’t let him go, no matter how hard he struggled.

“LET ME GO!!” Tony kicked and screamed furiously.

When one of the giant’s minions clamped his clammy hand over his mouth, Tony promptly bit down on his hand as hard as he could, drawing blue blood from the alien.

The alien screeched, and proceeded to stab Tony in the neck, but was stopped by the mysterious purple alien.

“Maw, do not harm the child,” The titan boomed, with what could’ve been a hint of anger in his voice.

Tony swivelled his head around to get a glimpse of the alien who’d just tried to stab him, and much to his delight he looked rather familiar.

“Squidward?! Is that you?? You’re rEaL?!?” Tony excitedly shouted, confusing literally everyone in the room.

“ExCuSe mE?!?” The Maw spoke in a deadly voice, using his telekinesis to lift up a fallen piece of concrete and shave off the sides to turn it into a dagger.

But Tony just ignored his antics, and hugged the blue and grey alien.

“Does this mean that SpongeBob is real too??” Tony excitedly asked him.

“I AM THE MAW, YOU INSOLENT TERRAN CHILD. YOU WILL BOW DOWN BEFORE ME, YOU INFERIOR INSECT.” The Maw yelled at the insolent child in front of him.

“Enough games,” The Titan interrupted, growing tired of the unusual yet amusing Terran child. “Give me the Tesseract and I’ll let you go.”

“Never.” Howard Stark proudly said, looking the menacing purple giant straight in the eye.

“Well then, I didn’t want to do this, but you leave me no choice,” The Titan said, his voice hinted with regret. “Hand over the Tesseract, and your child lives.” Knowing that the man loved his child too much to lose him over the Tesseract. However, he was quite wrong, and the Terran man boldly looked him in the eyes and proceeded to break the heart of the young Terran boy and the Mad Titan at the same time.

“That boy is nothing to me. Take him, kill him, leave him, do whatever you want with him. I don’t care. You’re never going to get the Tesseract as long as I’m alive.” Howard Stark said, not knowing those would be his final words.

Rage consumed the Mad Titan, and before he knew it, Howard Stark’s dead and decapitated body lay before him and his red Terran blood covered the floor surrounding him. The Titan turned to look at the young boy, expecting to see horror and disgust as well as sadness filling his eyes, but to his surprise, he was met with the blank stare of the young boy without a single tear in his eyes.

“He never loved me, I knew that. He wanted me to be made of iron, like him. He wanted me to be a man. I was never enough for him, but the Tesseract was. He deserved death, he loved no one and no one truly loved him the moment he died. I stopped loving him the moment he told me he didn’t love me.” Tony finished, looking at the Mad Titan with the same steely look his father had. It was full of determination, something that would be useful in a soldier.

A faraway look crossed the young boy’s face, and for a brief moment, everyone in the room felt sorry for him. An unknown emotion surged through Tony’s body, was it hate? sorrow? love? regret?

He didn’t know.

But for some reason, he felt powerful. Without a second thought, he held out his hand to the Titan, but not for a handshake. Instead, a bright blue light shone from his palm, and it slowly builded up into a cube.

The Tesseract

The Titan gave the boy a look of astonishment and stared longly at the Tesseract, but not with greed or hunger like Howard had, but with hope.

In that single moment, Tony made a decision that would forever change the course of his life.

“I’ll give you the Tesseract, if you promise to take me with you wherever it is you’re going.” Tony boldy said, filled with newfound courage.

The Titan knelt down in front of him, but still towered over the young Terran. He reached out and gently placed a hand on Tony’s shoulder.

“You’re father was wrong, you are made of iron,” The Titan firmly told the boy. “I will take you with me and train you to become a fearsome warrior. You have my word.”

Looking into the Titan’s cerulean eyes, much like his father’s, he handed the Tesseract over to the giant.

“Before we go, I want to know your name, mister.” Tony asked the Titan.

“My name is Thanos,” He said, with a hint of a smile on his face. “What’s yours, little one?” He asked the young boy, extending his other hand out for Tony to take.

Tony grabbed his robot in one hand, and took Thanos’ with the other.

“Tony. Tony Stark.”

#thanos #tonystark #ironman #howardstark #ebonymaw #the mad titan #the tesseract #marvel #mcu #darkavengers #fanfiction #trndsttr

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windofderange · 6 years

Text

Let’s talk about gender in Stranger Things 2!

So there’s a bunch of stuff happening in my life and I keep meaning to post something about that, but it’s serious and scary and stuff, so instead, I’m going to ramble a while about why I really love some of the subtle gender role reversals in season 2 of Stranger Things! Like a normal, well-adjusted person!

Also, no major spoilers ahead, but I will talk about things that happened in Season 2, so if you want to come to it totally fresh, please skip this.

So I’m still a little sad that there’s no queer representation in this show. Yes, I know it takes place in the 80s and queer people hadn’t been invented yet, but still. (I was SOOO hoping that the big reveal at the dance would be that Dustin was building himself up to ask Will to dance, but I guess that probably would have been genuinely too much for an 80s middle school to handle.) However, despite that, I was actually really impressed by some of the smaller ways the story undercut traditional gender stereotypes this season, and some of the improvements to how the girl and women characters were written.

That’s not to say that I thought they were poorly written last season - I just thought they were a lot more one-dimensional. Emotional mother. Brainy, goody-two-shoes girl exploring her sexuality. Even Eleven, who was by far the female character with whom we spent the most time, was sort of scattered - the writers clearly couldn’t decide how unaware of the world she should be, and in turn, what things about gender she should care about (ie, she didn’t know what ‘pretty’ meant, but she still wanted to be it), a problem I don’t think they’ve entirely corrected (more on that in a sec). The male characters were similarly archetypal - the drunk, broken-down town sheriff, the maniacal scientist, the lovesick teen, etc.

This season, I feel like the characters all got a lot more flushed out, but more than that, the way they did so also made some really interesting choices about gender and gender roles. Also, I’m occasionally going to refer to the characters as sets because that how some of the storylines run - the adults (Joyce, Hopper, and Bob), the teens (Nancy, Jonathan, Steve, and Billy), and the kids (Eleven, Will, Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Max).

1. Joyce and Bob: Okay, so I know I’m apparently the only person in the universe who doesn’t ship Joyce and Hopper, but I loved Joyce and Bob. Bob is a ‘beta male’ - he’s fat, short, into electronics, likes Kenny Loggins, makes corny jokes, and is too much of a scaredy-cat to watch scary movies. However, it’s made immediately clear that Joyce isn’t just dating him because she needs a man or in order to fill some hole in her life - the first scene we see of them is the two of them adorably flirting, and then hard-core making out. Bob is also consistently shown to be the less driven of the pair (a theme that will actually come up a lot in this post). Joyce is a fighter. It’s an important aspect of Joyce’s character, one that was established last season, but in the context of her frantically fighting to get her son back. In the grand tradition of the Aliens franchise and Poltergeist, Stranger Things holds that mothers are the toughest fighters, and this season makes it clear that that’s always been true of Joyce Byers - it wasn’t just the panic of losing Will that drove her; she’s always been like this. Bob knew her in high school, and makes it clear that he’s always admired her for it. However, the story doesn’t present Bob as emasculated (a term I hate!) - he’s jazzed as all hell to finally be dating Joyce Byers!

In setting up their relationship in these terms, the story gives us something we don’t often see - Bob is a boy-gal Friday. In fact, he’s Joyce’s boy-gal Friday. He’s competent, with a complementary skill set; he’s valuable, and Joyce clearly values him, and he makes a lot of connections and discoveries on his own, but he’s not capable of turning those connections into actions that drive the plot forward until he turns them over to Joyce. And he’s perfectly happy in his role - even when he shows up in her house covered in Will’s bizarre tunnel drawing and is told he can’t ask questions, he’s clearly having the time of his life, solving a cool puzzle with a woman he loves. Like every gal Friday, he can’t conceive of a world in which he could be the protagonist - he’s a superhero, but he’s not the Hero. That’s Joyce

2. Hopper and Eleven: Off the bat, I have to admit that I think the writers are still doing the worst with Eleven when it comes to writing gender, just because they have the most room to play with and they’re not making use of it. There’s no reason for Ele to have a concept of gender performance - she’s a lab rat. We know that the mad scientist raised her to think of him as her “Papa” (whether he was biologically or not), but we’re given no evidence that she had any concept of being his “daughter” or a “girl.” Again, I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but it’s part of the reason I actually really liked the episode with her and Eight (also because I’m a sucker for a coming of age story) because I think pairing her gender development with the punk scene is a potentially brilliant way to play with some of these ideas in a culturally-contemporary way (since gender non-conformity was a big part of punk), and it’s something I really hope the writers come back to next season.

That being said, I did really enjoy the relationship between Ele and Hopper, and in particular, the fact that Hopper is clearly raising a kid, not a girl. We never see Hopper force any gender norms on Ele (even though he had a daughter of his own and could potentially have those kinds of expectations for her), we see them sharing in not traditionally feminine things (building traps, eating garbage, watching scary movies - all things dads usually do with their sons in movies and TV), and even though it’s clear that Hopper knows about Mike’s and Ele’s feelings for each other, we never get any weird matchmaking or overbearing overprotectiveness from him - his overprotectiveness of Ele is always about keeping her safe from Hawkins, not keeping her away from boys. He even embraces her “bitchin’” new look, but clearly also helps her get ready for the dance.

3. Mad Max and the AV Club: So I love Max. I love Max so much. And I still love the AV Club. I do get the point of articles like this one that part of the nostalgia of Stranger Things is a nostalgia for nerds who are actually bullied and oppressed, but I think that’s over-simplifying things. To start with, Lucas is black, and this season they finally managed to engage with that a little, in the same way they managed to engage with Dustin’s disability a little last season. Also, I think the way that the AV club’s masculinity is presented is important. This is not the adorkable misogyny of the Big Bang Theory. They are not traditionally masculine and they are absolutely fighters, and those two things are never presented as being in conflict in any way. Indeed, the constant references to D&D, including their own nickname for their group as “the party,” sort of reaffirms this - for people who know the game, they know you need a balanced party. You don’t want all muscles, or all magic, or all rogues. In many ways, Will becomes the ultimate symbol of this in Season 2 - he is absolutely a soft boy (Hopper even asks if he’s gay in Season 1, to which Joyce rightly replies, “why would that matter?!”), and yet, he is both the major villain AND the one fighting hardest against that villain in this season. His strength to fight the mind flayer stems from his nontraditional masculinity - from his art, and ultimately, from his empathy, being kept in control of his body by the stories of love and affection from his mother, brother, and best friend.

Max is similarly nontraditional - we’re introduced to her by the traditional nerd trope of “girls don’t play video games!,” “girls don’t skateboard!;” however, if we’re really supposed to read the AV club as models for nerd culture, then the important element surely comes in their immediate reversal in meeting Max and seeing that she does indeed play video games and skateboard. Not only do they not gatekeep or question her love of these things, they are immediately more impressed by her because of them. They want to be friends with her because she’s a girl who skateboards and plays video games, and it’s clear that this is the root of Dustin’s and Lucas’ attraction to her, as well. Even Mike’s resistance to bringing her into the party is never presented as her being a girl or a “fake gamer girl” - the show does a good job of showing that he doesn’t like having her around because she can’t know about Ele, and that having her there without knowing means that things are moving on and the others might move on, as well. As soon as Lucas spills the beans and Max is fully on board, Mike’s resistance disappears.

4. Nancy and Jonathan: So I think the teens’ stories are where Stranger Things does the best with undercutting gender roles because these stories are so ingrained and so formulaic normally. These are also the ones that I noticed the most while watching it. Also, full disclosure - I don’t really ship Nancy with anyone, and was sort of disappointed that last season had a teen girl, two love interests, love triangle story line. However, I do think the lovestory between Nancy and Jonathan has some of the best gender reversals. To start with, Nancy is absolutely the Protagonist of their story. Nancy causes everything to happen in their story. It’s her acts that inadvertently bring them together (by getting drunk), but she decides that they’re going to do something to get justice for Barb, she takes them to find the journalist, she comes up with the plan to blackmail Hawkins. Even in the scenes of them getting together, we see her sitting up in bed, trying to decide what to do. She goes to the door, and Jonathan is there. All of the focus is on her as the decision maker.

This role reversal comes to a head in the final showdown with the mind flayer. I loved the call back to the last season when Hopper asked Jonathan if he could shoot a gun, and Nancy took it instead - they had already established that she was the better shot, and again, this scene wasn’t presented as her emasculating Jonathan in any way (and Hopper doesn’t hesitate for a second in handing over the riffle) - it’s clearly just that their lives are at stake, and of the pair, she’s the better shot. But the best is the scene in the cabin - this could have so easily been the teary-eyed girlfriend hanging off her stoic boyfriend (which, to be fair, was a lot of how Jonathan was written last season). Instead, we got Joyce, raging and holding down her son, who was clearly in pain, as Jonathan screamed hysterically and cried, trying to stop her, being held back and finally comforted by Nancy.

Let me be clear - this scene only makes sense this way, given what we know about these characters. Joyce is driven and direct - she’s going to make a plan and stick to it, come Hell or high water. Jonathan has already been shown to be way too invested in Will and his well-being, and it seems completely believable by now that he would even fight his mother if he thought Will’s life was in the balance. Nancy is an outsider - she’s not family, and her concern is mostly for Jonathan. However, even as exciting as this scene was, I couldn’t help but step out of it a bit as I was watching it and realize how weird it was to see a young man portrayed as hysterical, rallying against a woman with a plan, and then being comforted by another woman, who was relatively calm and unaffected. It works so much better this way, but there are so many show where this scene would have had Nancy freaking out for no other reason than because women are hysterical.

5. Steve: Oh, Steve. heart eyes I am so in love with Steve after this season. Obviously Stranger Things is a show that loves its parallels, and Steve’s stories move increasingly into roles played by women in the original as the season goes on. The initial story with him and Dustin have parallels to Stand By Me and Gremlins, but by the big showdown with the mind flayer, Steve opens embraces his role as “the babysitter,” a role that actually has some decent echoes in 80s movies - Adventures in Babysitting would be the obvious, but Steve’s role in the group also directly parallels Mary Plimpton’s character in the Goonies, as the third wheel to the big brother and girlfriend (except in this case, those two had buggered off to go do The Omen instead), who also delivers the incredibly quotable line, “I feel like I’m babysitting, only I’m not getting paid.”

However, again, we’re not given any hint that Steve has any problems with his new role. After the rest of the adults and teens leave, he directly parallels Mr. Mom, the movie the Byers were watching earlier, wearing an apron and slinging a kitchen towel over his shoulder after doing the washing up. But whereas the entire premise of that movie is how embarrassed Michael Keaton’s character feels to be a stay-at-home dad and how bad he is at household tasks, Steve seems genuinely proud of himself for tidying up the Byers house, and proud to serve as guiding voice to the remaining kids left in his care. Even his use of a traditionally-masculine sports metaphor to explain why they have to stay put reaffirms how much he’s internalized his role - he clearly means for it to be rally speech, as he’s presumably delivered to his teammates, and he shows his own confusion when it concludes with, “and that’s why we’re on the bench.”

The episode briefly looks as though it’s going to offer Steve a redeemingly masculine role of protector with the arrival of Billy, Max’s big brother. We get some macho posturing and a fist fight, and although Steve does get to come to Lucas’ rescue, he’s still soundly trounced by Billy. Again, this is completely in keeping with the characters - we’ve already seen that Billy isn’t just up for a fight, but abusive and dangerously violent. However, it’s Max, the only girl in the room, who puts down Billy, again in a series of gender undercuts - first, she beats him subversively by drugging him (poison being a woman’s weapon and all that), but then, in another reversal, she takes the opportunity as he’s weakened and blacking out to threaten him with Steve’s baseball bat, extracting protection for her and the AV club using the same oath as we’ve seen used previously by Billy’s abusive father. The rest of the episode is clearly The Goonies, with Steve-as-Mary-Plimpton and the kids running around underground, and Steve reiterating that he’s there because he’ll be held responsible if anything happens to them.

Even in the final denouement at the dance, Steve gets the same final appearance as Joyce and Hopper, the other two caregivers, dropping off his ‘kid’ and driving away. (Interestingly, of the teens and adults, only Nancy gets a denouement at the dance - Jonathan is also there, but just gets to smile and wave from the sidelines, the same ending as basically every supporting girlfriend from every teen movie, again highlighting that it’s Nancy who is the Protagonist.)

So why do I care about all of this? Well, one of my biggest frustrations with a lot of TV and films is that I feel like writers still suck at writing women - in particular, women as protagonists. It seems like way too many writers can’t understand how women can make choices that drive the story forward, and that means way too many stories fall back on traditional tropes where women are the backups and support. It’s cool to see so many of those tropes not only avoided, but directly reversed, and so effectively. Bob, Jonathan, Steve, and the AV club are cool, interesting, likable characters. They’re not diminished by not being the protagonists, or not being traditionally masculine. Like I said, I would love to see the writers do more with Ele because there is so much opportunity there for a truly agender character, which is something else sorely missing from modern TV, but I also hope they continue to present women who are ambitious and driven, and men who are emotional and empathetic because it’s super cool to finally get those kinds of stories.

#stranger things #stranger things 2 #jessica over-analyzes things!#spoilers stranger things 2

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