#when Damian figures out Tim knows their identities they get to hang out at boring social events | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mochegato · 3 years

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Calling Dibs

This day was going to be boring, Jason knew that before he agreed to the trip in the first place. ‘Agreed’ is a generous term. ‘Relented’ might be a better term. Regardless, he was in Paris for the next week. He was looking forward to the Louvre and seeing Notre Dame, but he was expected to spend time with his family for a large part of the trip and end with a branch opening party, because those are always so much fun.

He had barely plopped onto the hotel couch when something went flying past the building, crashing into the building down the street in a cacophony of shattered glass and warped metal. “Holy shit!” Jason yelled, jumping up and running to the window to assess the situation. The family looked to each other to see if anyone had a better grasp of the situation. Everyone shared the same confounded expression, before running out on the balcony to check out the situation.

Bruce sighed. This was most definitely not part of the plans. This was supposed to be a relaxing week with the family looking at art for Damian, going up in the Eiffel Tower (and preventing him from jumping off) for Duke, sampling French foods and checking out French fashion for Steph, exploring the catacombs for Tim, attending the ballet for Cass, visiting Notre Dame for Jason, and time together as a family for Dick, with just a side of meetings for him. Superheroing was not one of the scheduled activities.

Bruce opened his mouth to state a plan, but before the words made it past his lips, blurs of red and black swung past them toward the creature that had destroyed the building. It took more than a few minutes for him to finally close his mouth in a resolute line as they watched the two heroes fight. Jason’s mouth stayed open in awe as he watched the red figure expertly dodge and strike the creature. It stayed open until the creature backhanded the red hero into a wall of the building across the street.

The group flinched in sympathy at the sight, all too familiar with the feeling of getting smashed into a building. She fell to the ground in a crouch. Instead of fear, she looked back up with a glare. She jumped away and landed next to her partner in black and seemed to have a conversation before separating. The black hero distracted the creature while she swung further away. It almost seemed like she had run away until they saw her charge at the creature from the side, hitting circles that decorated its body, shattering them like mirrors as she went. With each hit the creature seemed to deflate more, until she hit the last one, a black butterfly emerging from it.

She captured it in her yoyo and released it almost instantly as a white butterfly. She called something out and threw her yoyo up into the air. As soon as she did, a pinkish red wave rushed across the city and suddenly all the damage they had watched with their own eyes, was reset to its previous condition.

They stared, mouths agape again, trying to take in everything they saw. Finally the silence was broken by Jason. “I call dibs!”

“What!” Dick exclaimed. “You can’t just call dibs on someone.”

“I just did,” Jason scoffed. “I call dibs on the red badass. You can have the cat one. Follow B’s footsteps, protégé.”

“You don’t even know if she’s straight. What if she’s into girls?” Stephanie objected. “Maybe they both are.”

Jason stared at her for a second before his eyes narrowed. “Fine. But if she’s anything other than a lesbian or ace, I have dibs. And the cat one is up for grabs.”

“Oh, I’ll grab,” Steph smirked.

“Fine, whatever,” Dick groused, crossing his arms over his chest and looking away. “Wasn’t looking for romance this trip anyway.”

“Your libido is not the priority right now. Father, did you bring us here for this?” Damian demanded.

Bruce kept his eyes on the spot where the creature had been a few seconds earlier before turning into a distraught woman. “No, I had no idea. But now that we know, let’s investigate. We’ll find out as much as we can from outside sources and try to meet up with the heroes when we can. If they have a regular patrol, we can try to meet them somewhere. If they don’t, we might have to try to show up discretely at the next attack.” He observed the people below already returning to their normal jobs. “It doesn’t seem like this is too out of the ordinary for everyone, so I don’t think we’ll have to wait long.”

He wasn’t wrong. In fact, they only had to wait until the next night for another akuma to strike. As soon as the akuma was dealt with, they caught up with the Parisian heroes, though in hindsight, they perhaps should have announced their presence a bit more clearly, judging by the way Red Hood was hanging upside down off the side of the building they were on.

“Sorry again,” Ladybug grimaced as she helped pull him back onto the roof.

“No, we shouldn’t have snuck up on you,” Red Hood assured her. “I was just struck too speechless by you to give you a better warning.”

Ladybug blinked at him a few times before turning to the rest of the group and motioning toward Red Hood helplessly. Chat gave her an amused smile. “She tends to have that effect even on the best of us.”

“As Red Hood said, we should have announced our presence more plainly. We likely would have reacted the same if you had snuck up on one of us,” Batman said, taking a step forward.

“We just wouldn’t have looked as kick ass doing it,” Red Hood added, leaning toward Ladybug.

Ladybug raised an eyebrow at him, but allowed him to move closer to her. “Well, you certainly didn’t look ‘kick ass’ falling like that,” she smirked at him.

“I’ll work on how I look when falling, then. I have a feeling I’m going to be falling a lot for you.”

Ladybug narrowed her eyes at him and puckered her lips in an unsuccessful effort to keep them from quirking up. Red Hood’s chest puffed up almost imperceptibly at the sight. Ladybug’s eyes darted over to Batman and back to him. “First, I don’t think you came all the way to Paris just to hit on me. I believe we have other things to talk about. Second, if you’re going to hit on someone, take off the helmet. It’s rude. I can’t read your expressions at all. It puts me at a disadvantage.”

Red Hood quirked his head to the side. “Can’t take the helmet off. Secret identity, you know? B would kill me. If he didn’t the squirt there,” he motioned toward Robin, “would try. But trust me, if you saw my face, you’d swoon. And I assure you, I would have come all the way to Paris if I’d known you were here waiting.”

“But we didn’t know you were here,” Batman cut in harshly. He placed a hand on Red Hood’s shoulder and pulled him back with the others. “We were unaware there was a supervillain in Paris. We’d like to offer assistance, ours and the Justice League’s, but first we should introduce ourselves. I’m Batman. That’s Spoiler, Black Bat, Signal, Robin, Red Robin, Nightwing,” he motioned to each of them in turn as he said their name. “And you’ve met Red Hood.”

Ladybug and Chat nodded to each of them as Batman said their names. “It’s a pleasure to meet you all. I’m Ladybug. This is my partner Chat Noir.”

“Sorry, we didn’t bring our full team. We would have if we’d known there was going to be a party,” Chat smiled disarmingly.

“We’ll be sure to let you know next time,” Spoiler grinned back at him.

“Can we sit down with you sometime to discuss the situation?” Red Robin interrupted whatever Chat was about to respond with. “It doesn’t have to be tonight, but we weren’t planning on staying in town too much longer. Not that we haven’t been enjoying our time here. And we’ve definitely enjoyed watching you work. You have got some really good moves.”

“Oi,” Jason interrupted, smacking him in the shoulder. “I called dibs.”

“Dibs?” Ladybug quirked her head to the side and scrunched up her nose in such an adorable way Jason let out an almost inaudible choke. Quiet enough that only Red Robin, letting out an almost as silent scoff, and Chat Noir, with his enhanced hearing, heard him. Chat zeroed in on him with a knowing smirk. He rested his arm on his baton and got into a comfortable position leaning against it, waiting for the entertainment. “What is ‘dibs’?” Ladybug continued, oblivious to the dynamic between the three.

Chat’s smirk grew. “Dibs, M’lady, is when you claim first rights to do something.”

Ladybug stared at him for a few seconds as she put together what he was implying. Her head whipped around to Red Hood. Her face was furrowed in an offended scowl. She pointed to herself. “Am I the thing you’re going to do first?”

Jason jerked back at the suggestion as Chat Noir and the rest of his family, sans Batman and Robin, started laughing. “No! No, no, no. No. Not… No.” He waved his arms desperately. “Not that. I…” He took a breath and glared at his family to get them to shut up, expecting them to know he was glaring harshly under his helmet. “I just get to be the first to try to impress you.”

Ladybug rolled her eyes. “You want to impress me? Do something impressive. And I don’t date as a superhero, so you’re going to have to impress civilian me. Good luck with that.”

Chat gave Red Hood a patronizing grin. “You’re going to need it,” he singsonged. He looked back and forth between Ladybug and Red Hood a few times, his eyes sparkling with mischief. He swung his baton over his shoulders and rested his arms over it. “But then again, she is the embodiment of luck so, maybe she just gave it to you.”

Ladybug’s head whipped back to him and she narrowed her eyes at him in warning. He smiled innocently back at her as if he hadn’t just been meddling in her love life… again. He needed to meddle in his own instead. Although, with the way Spoiler kept eying him, maybe it was already taken care of. “Anyway,” she said loudly, bringing the focus back to the topic at hand. “Tonight isn’t good. We both have early mornings tomorrow. But tomorrow night should work. How about meeting here tomorrow at 22h?”

“Okay, now that that is settled, I have a very important question,” Spoiler spoke up. Signal groaned next to her, preparing for whatever her question was going to be. “Where is the best place to get some French treats?” Batman let out a deep sigh. “What! I came to France to eat amazing French food and shop French fashion. They live here. They should know the good places to go.”

Chat straightened up immediately and sent Ladybug a feral grin. “You don’t say…”

“Chat,” Ladybug hissed warningly.

“They’re just asking for advice,” he answered in his most exaggeratedly innocent voice he could muster. “You wouldn’t want to deprive them of the best food in Paris. Would you, M’lady?” The devilish grin in his eyes was a complete contrast to the innocent voice. He turned back to the bats, the picture of politeness. “The absolute best place to get pastries in Paris is Tom and Sabine Boulangerie Patisserie on Rue Gotlib. It’s amazing. I recommend trying… everything. And it just so happens their daughter is one of the most amazing designers in… anywhere.”

Spoiler grinned at him. “A man after my own heart. Thanks, Kitty Cat. I’ll take that under advisement. And do you also frequent there?”

Chat blushed slightly and looked away quickly, but not before Ladybug saw the reaction and smirked at him. “Yes, he does,” she assured Spoiler. “He frequently frequents there.”

“And what about you?” Red Hood interjected, leaning toward Ladybug again, much to Batman’s chagrin.

“Are you kidding? She’s the reason I found it in the first place. I swear she’s there daily,” Chat grinned.

“Ooh, Kitty Cat, you sure know the way to a girl’s heart,” Spoiler purred at him. Chat’s cheeks burned red, but didn’t look away from her this time.

Ladybug pursed her lips in annoyance at his romantic interference but quickly smoothed out at the sight of his blush. A smile was back on her face when she turned back to the Bats, eyes lingering a bit longer on Red Hood before moving to Batman. “Anyway, we will see you again tomorrow. But Chat, maybe you should get an idea of what Spoiler likes so you can bring treats for her to the meeting tomorrow. I have to go though.” She waved at the bats before turning to Chat with a wink. “Have a good night.”

Red Hood stepped forward before she jumped away. “You don’t want to know what I like for tomorrow?” he asked huskily.

She looked up at him with a sultry smirk. “Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea of what you like. Sweet dreams.”

Red Hood watched her jump away. “Oh they will be,” he whispered to himself.

<><><><><>

Marinette had been apprehensive all morning. Every time the bell above the door rung, she braced for the bats. She let out a relieved breath as a man walked in by himself. She wasn’t positive, but she was pretty sure the group would come in together. She wasn’t sure why she knew that, but somehow she was confident of it. The man blinked a few times at her before smiling charmingly at her.

And damn if that smile couldn’t melt ice. She let out another breath, this one to calm her cheeks. She smiled at him, warmer than her regular customer service smile. “Can I help you, monsieur?”

“Do you, by any chance, have a bowl or something I can put some water in?” he asked awkwardly in barely accented French. The cocked head and curious look Marinette gave him prompted him to continue. “I wanted to… there’s this stray dog outside and he looks like he needs some water.”

American, she noted… with dimensions roughly matching Red Hood’s. And oh God, those muscles weren’t just the suit. Well fuck. Guess she did give him some luck after all. “Of course he’s fucking Adonis hot,” she muttered under her breath, but apparently not quietly enough. He smirked at her and chuckled.

Marinette’s eyes snapped up to him and she blushed furiously at having gotten caught. She took a deep breath and smiled back at him. “Blonde with a dark stripe down his back?” He nodded at her, a surprised look on his face. “That’s Éclair. He’s a local stray. An absolute sweetheart. Here, let me get the bowl I usually use for him.” She rushed to the back and came back with a filled dog bowl and some pancetta. “Can you give him this too, please? I usually do, but I’ve been stuck inside most of the morning.”

He gave her another ice meltingly brilliant smile and nodded in thanks.

She tensed at the next man who walked in, not really knowing why she was apprehensive. Red Hood was already there. She gave him her customer service smile even as her eyes darted out the window to watch Red Hood feeding Éclair. She could imagine the hearty laugh he let out when Éclair leaped up to lick his face. She smiled at the sight.

“Excuse me,” the man stepped into her line of sight.

She immediately turned to focus on him, regretfully tearing her eyes away from Red Hood and Éclair. “Yes, monsieur. Sorry about that. How can I help you?”

The man looked her up and down and leaned toward her. “I was looking for something sweet. Maybe you could help me.”

She cringed internally, but gave him a strained smile as she leaned away. “Of course, sir. We have a lot of sweet treats. Maybe you can look over the petit fours, éclairs, macarons, and tartlets. Let me know if you have any questions.”

“I have a question already,” the man gave her a leering smile. “Are any of the treats as sweet as you?”

She gave him a flat look and took a step back. She almost missed the door chime ringing. “I assure you, monsieur, you would find me far from sweet. Let me know when you’re ready to order.” She turned away and started wiping the counter instead.

Red Hood took the opportunity to step up to her and pass the bowl back to her. “Thank you. He looked very happy after the treats.”

Marinette blinked at him a few times and looked down at the bowl unmoving for a few seconds before the reason clicked for her. “Right,” she answered, louder than she meant to, as she took the bowl. “Can I get you anything?”

“What do you recommend?” he asked as he moved to block the other man’s line of sight to her.

She smiled appreciatively at him. Maybe he was impressive after all. “You looking for something sweet or savory? We have great bread, but if you’re looking for a treat, I would recommend an assortment of eclairs. It just seems apropos. Honestly, I think it’s all good, but I’m a bit biased.” She leaned in as if confiding a secret and winked at him.

He chuckled and nodded. “That is definitely something to consider.” He side eyed the other man in the store. “I’ll take a look around I think. Figure out what it is I want.”

Marinette nodded and gave him an understanding smile. She turned to the other man. “Have you decided, monsieur?”

The man made a show of looking around. “Are you on the menu? Because I definitely know what I’m interested in,” the man answered, leering at her again.

Marinette gave the man a flat look. It was not the first time she’d heard the line. She didn’t get it as much as waitresses, but still, it was a tired line… from a married man… that she had already turned down. “No, sir. I’m not on the menu,” she answered curtly, “because we are not a brothel, which are illegal in Paris, I might add. However, a quick internet search will direct you to the areas of the city where you can find that kind of menu items. If you would like one of the pastries, please let me know which ones you would like, otherwise, please leave.”

“I’m not good enough for you, but you’ll flirt with him,” he motioned toward civilian Red Hood.

“First, I get to choose who I’m interested in and that isn’t you. Second, he,” she motioned toward civilian Red Hood, “called dibs on flirting with me. Now either order or leave.”

The man huffed and left, trying to slam the door on the way out. The door closed with a gentle thud. Marinette rolled her eyes. “Sorry about that, monsieur. Are you ready to order?” She sent him an apologetic smile.

Jason stared at her for a few beats trying to figure out if her previous words meant anything. She could have just said that because the guy was an asshole. It could be a coincidence. And her partner could have sent him here purely because they had really good food. “Oh, um… what do you recommend I take?” he asked again absentmindedly, his mind still on how likely it was that it was all a coincidence.

Marinette smiled innocently at him. “Me out.”

Jason looked at her wide eyed. “What?”

“You asked what I recommended you take. I recommend you take me out,” she shrugged nonchalantly, but the grin was devilish.

Jason opened his mouth and closed it again. “Any other day, beautiful. Any other day I’d say yes, but I’m kind of working on someone else and I’m a one woman man.”

Marinette looked at him for a few seconds, a brilliant smile beaming at his response.

“Thanks for helping out, Sweetie,” her mom called coming from the back room. “I think we have it covered now. Oh,” she looked up at Jason, then at Marinette’s smile, and back to Jason. She smirked at the two. “I think you should be able to take off now, get to your real job.”

Marinette nodded and took her apron off, stowing it under the counter. “Thanks, Maman.” She leaned up and kissed her cheek before making her way around the counter. Jason turned to her as she walked out, watching her as she moved. She paused a few feet in front of him. “I have to admit, you impressed me after all.”

She smiled sweetly at him before moving to the door. She turned back at the last second, twirling to face him. “But you flirted much better with the helmet.” She winked at him and disappeared through the door.

Her mom chuckled before clearing her throat. “Anything I can help you with, dear?”

Jason turned to her blankly, still processing what Marinette had said, after a second he smiled and rushed to the door. “No, thank you ma’am. I have some dibs to collect on.”

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@jasonette-july-event @maribatserver

#maribat #jasonette #Jasonette July #Jasonette July 2021 #prompt - design

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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 3 years

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Stalker X Stalker, Part 6

First

Perma tag: @nathleigh @peachmuses

Stalker x Stalker taglist: @aespades @jayjayspixiepop @blueslushgueen @fan-written @seraphichana @nerd-nowandforever

Just remembered I had a plot so oops

Marinette wasn’t stupid. Nino had a brother only a few years older than Robin, and that brother had never acted so young or clingy at Robin’s age (and it surely wasn’t a thing about Robin, because she had yet to see him cling to anyone else). She knew that Robin was just using her to mess with Red Robin.

But she didn’t particularly mind. It was kind of funny to watch Red getting all worked up over his little brother and friend being close. She was glad she had her mask, because otherwise she definitely would have given away the act by this point.

Robin, for his part, had been upping things more and more every time he saw her. She wasn’t sure whether this was because he knew that she knew or because he was testing the limits of what he could do without her saying anything.

Red looked like he was at his wit’s end with Robin held out a hand for Marinette right before crossing a street. She took it, which was when he finally snapped:

“He’s twelve, not five!”

She pulled her face into a mock frown. “Are you saying that twelve-year-olds should get hit by cars, Red?”

Red Robin sputtered.

“Miss Ladybug, why is he so mean to me?” Robin asked with wide eyes. She could see the corner of his lips twitching in an effort not to smile.

She winked. His eyes narrowed just slightly then he widened them back to their wide-eyed sadness.

“I don’t know, sweetie. He’s just a meanie, I guess.”

Red Robin threw his hands up in either anger or defeat. It didn’t really matter which one it was, they counted it as a win.

Tim wasn’t surprised to walk into the Batcave one day and see Marinette’s face on the Batcomputer. The only thing he didn’t know was whether she was up there because they had figured out her identity or because Tim had started hanging out with her as a civilian.

He took a long sip of his coffee as he considered this, then he trudged over. Might as well find out.

“Hey guys,” he announced his presence.

He watched Duke out of the corner of his eyes. Duke was the newest of them, he could usually count on him to have more pronounced reactions.

Duke didn’t seem all that awkward. So it must have been them finding out her identity.

Tim sidled up beside them. “Sure that’s her?”

Bruce, never one for using his words when he didn’t have to, held up a small container of blood.

He hummed his understanding and intended for that to be the end of the conversation… but it was getting increasingly hard to ignore the eyes boreing into the side of his head. Tim fought to keep a straight face and unclench his jaw and ignore the stupid ‘d-d-don’t be suspicious’ song playing in his head.

And then Cass tapped him on the shoulder and he cursed quietly.

“Fine. Fine. I knew. Happy?”

Cass was not. She narrowed her eyes at him.

“I saw her run into an alleyway and I followed -- obviously, it’s Gotham and alleyways are dangerous -- and she transformed right in front of me.”

She nodded and let it go.

Bruce, however, did not.

“You knew her identity and didn’t think to tell us?”

“I thought to tell you, I just didn’t,” he said with a cheeky grin.

Ah. The Disappointed Dad Stare. He had certainly not missed that.

His grin melted into an awkward smile. “It felt weird to reveal her. She clearly cares about her identity since she hasn’t told us herself yet, I figured I’d respect that as long as I could.”

“... you weren’t making progress on her identity on purpose. God, that makes so much more sense,” muttered Steph.

He shrugged. “Easy to avoid someone’s identity when you know who it is.”

Bruce was still looking at him disapprovingly.

“Don’t worry, I have contingencies,” Tim said.

His father relaxed, finally. He motioned for him to go on.

“Well, a few need confirmation. I still don’t know if her yoyo can be cut and it’s hard to tell if other people can unzip her hood or not. But if the hood is open then The Flash or Superman can easily get the earrings from her -- beyond those she’d just a normal person with some fighting skills, same contingencies as The Arrows or any of us. If not then Green Lantern can probably neutralize her.”

Bruce nodded.

The other kids looked mildly concerned.

“Wait, he has contingencies for us?” Duke said.

Bruce was back to looking dismayed. Tim showed them all where their files were (he wouldn’t hack them for them, obviously, he didn’t want to break the news of exactly how messed up Bruce’s contingencies were). He could practically see all the sweat beading itself on his forehead beneath his cowl.

(Tim hid his smile. He’d finally gotten revenge for the time he’d made him stay inside after The Chloroform Incident. And revenge was sweet.)

… it wasn’t until he started seeing his siblings on the rooftop across from Marinette’s apartment that he thought that, maybe, he should have gotten them into their files. It definitely would have distracted them from the Marinette Is Ladybug situation.

At least Cass trusted Marinette -- she would have slipped up and showed her intentions at least once by now -- and therefore wasn’t likely to come by. Cass would be the one to figure out that Tim coming up to the roof was more than him just checking on his siblings.

The first person that came by was Damian. Fair enough, he’d been around Marinette the shortest amount of time and what little friendship they had was based on his lies.

Now, the youngest sibling sat, cross-legged on the rooftop. He was sketching in his sketchbook between quick glances over at Marinette. He looked up when Tim pulled himself over the side and squinted at him.

“Drake.”

“Dami,” Tim greeted, because it always annoyed his younger brother when he used the nickname. “Having fun spying on Marinette?”

Damian was silent for a few moments before clicking his tongue. “She needs to close her blinds more often.”

“Aw, do you care about her?” Tim teased, reaching over to ruffle his brother’s hair.

He pushed his hand away. “She’s a Gothamite and is therefore under our protection.”

Tim snickered and shook his head, taking a seat beside him on the rooftop. “We can tell Duke about it once everyone else has had their chance at checking her out. He’s the only one that can get away with asking her to close it.”

Damian nodded firmly.

Tim hid the fond smile on his face by diverting his brother’s attention: “So, what’re you sketching?”

Damian’s eyes lit up.

The next person to drop by was Bruce himself. He was sitting there, in all black despite the fact that it was less useful during the day, with full spy equipment.

Tim dropped down beside him and was offered a set of headphones. The two of them stayed there in silence for a long time, listening to Marinette going about her day. She was currently cooking something and singing along to a song:

“I always feel like... somebOdy’s watching meeEe… andIhavenoprivacy~.”

Tim was choosing to ignore the song choice in favor of giggling about her inability to hit the notes. He could feel Bruce watching him out of the corner of his eyes, but he didn’t say anything and neither did Tim.

Next was Steph.

Steph raised her eyebrows at Tim when she saw him.

“Come here often?” She asked in a tone that was only half-joking.

“Only recently,” he lied. “Trying to figure out if any of you trust my judgement.”

“Doubtful.”

“Yeah, Duke is my last hope.”

She snickered and shook her head. “To be fair, you’re whipped. You could have been biased.”

“But I’m not.”

“But you’re not,” she conceded, then turned her gaze back on Marinette. “She’s cute. I approve.”

“Glad to know you trust her.”

“I wasn’t talking about it like that and you know it,” Steph said with a wink.

Tim blushed and pushed her face away. “You’re the worst.”

Marinette was having a little difficulty figuring out the not-quite-a-language that the bats spoke with her. She wanted to learn it because she cared about Black Bat and, though she could use ASL, it was clear that she wasn’t comfortable with any particular language… but wow was it hard to learn a language when there wasn’t any actual language involved.

Thankfully, Signal had said he would teach her since he had learned it the most recently and therefore might have an easier time teaching it.

Now, it was just after they had finished their lessons for the day and the two of them were relaxing together between their patrols. He had his head in her lap as they both scrolled through Twitter, occasionally laughing and showing each other the dumb things that the other bats had supposedly done. Her favorite so far was the picture someone had discreetly taken of Robin while he was petting their dog.

And then Signal suddenly sat up straight, eyes so wide beneath his domino that she swore that the lenses were going to pop out.

“Uh --?”

“We need to go,” he said.

She felt his hand wrap around her wrist and now she was being dragged somewhere else --.

There was a rush of air and next thing she knew she was being held just barely off the ground.

She blinked all the dryness out of her eyes and then looked up to see that her captor was none other than Superman himself. He had grabbed both of them and taken them to where the Batcomputer was, holding her by her hood and Signal by the back of his shirt. He looked angry, but not particularly at her. She followed his gaze to where Batman was sitting in his Batchair.

“B --.”

“Batman,” said Batman sternly.

Oh, so Superman got to know his secret identity and she didn’t?

(She was ignoring the fact that Batman’s civilian name started with a B.)

“Batman, what do I have here?”

“Two children?”

“Two. Metas.”

“Technically, Ladybug isn’t a meta. Her powers were given to her by a god that lives in her earrings,” Batman informed him.

Marinette tried not to smile too much. Look at how much he had grown. He was using her excuses now.

Superman’s eyes narrowed. She’d say something about how ‘if looks could kill, Batman would be dead’... but, considering the fact that Superman could kill someone with a single look, it didn’t really work.

“And is the god allowed in Gotham?”

Batman didn’t have an excuse for that one. He just grunted a specific grunt which Marinette had learned meant: “What’s your point?”

Superman also knew this specific grunt, apparently. “My point is that the last time I was in Gotham you put kryptonite in my coffee! You said no metas, and we listened, but now you have two!”

“They’re my kids.”

Marinette blinked. “News to me.”

Signal tried to reach across Superman to punch her arm. Superman was a very wide not-man, so he came up short.

“Do you want to be kicked out of Gotham?”

“Guess I’ve always wanted family here,” she said quickly.

Superman squinted at them for a long time before, finally, dropping them.

“You’re lifting your no meta rule.”

“No --.”

“Yes. If even you’re not going to listen to it, neither should we.”

Batman didn’t seem happy. Superman didn’t seem to care. Probably because he was a good head taller and had far more superpowers than Batman did.

Superman left soon after.

Marinette knew it wasn’t the time, because Batman was back to his Batbrooding, but she couldn’t help the grin slowly spreading across her face.

“So, Dad, can I have the new Xbox for Christmas?”

Duke had visited Marinette. Tim hadn’t seen him visit, but he definitely had because Marinette had closed her blinds and they hadn’t been open in days. She was still in Gotham, though, she had gone on patrols and, as far as he could tell, she didn’t have any places in Gotham in her name. She had to still be in the apartment, so Duke must have visited as Signal and told her to close them.

And he should have been happy about this. It was far safer that way. The less people knew that there was a woman living alone in that apartment the better.

… but he couldn’t help but be concerned.

The blinds being closed was his best indication of when she was about to leave or currently not home. He didn’t like that he no longer had a way of figuring that out. How was he supposed to watch over her while she was getting groceries if he never knew when she was going?

He gives her a necklace with a tracker in it the next time he sees her as Tim.

She raised her eyebrows at the box he was holding out to her. “Don’t you think it’s a little early to propose?” She joked, but he could hear the slight wariness bleeding into her tone.

He grins easily. “It’s just to thank you for the outfit you’re making me.”

“You pay me,” she said. “That’s thanks enough for me.”

“Maybe I just feel a little bad about guilting you into making it in the first place.”

She hesitates, but he could see the shiny red gem inlaid in it winning her over. It doesn’t matter that she wasn’t a gold digger, she was a fashion designer and he had purposefully chosen a common gem color so she’d be more inclined to wear it more often. It worked with a lot of outfits and it came from someone she -- hopefully -- considered a friend? There was little reason to say no.

As expected, she gave in.

She turned around and he carefully clasped it behind her neck. He pressed a tiny kiss to the back of her head.

When she turned back around her face was redder than the gem. He couldn’t help but smile.

“Ready to go?”

She nodded, taking his hand and allowing him to pull her along to the newest attraction.

Marinette fell back on her bed with a huff.

“Tikkiiiiiiiii,” she complained.

The kwami slipped out of her purse and came up to float above her face. “Did you enjoy your date?”

“It wasn’t --!”

Tikki laughed at her dismay. Because Tikki sucked.

She dropped the pillow back beside herself and curled up in what had used to be Tim’s jacket (she wasn’t joking when she’d taken it, he was never getting it back).

“Tim better be Red Robin. I’m not doing the whole ‘two crushes at once’ thing again.”

You know, there were actually times where Tim felt bad about chipping Marinette. He wasn’t out of it enough to think that it wasn’t messed up, he knew that there was a reason he didn’t want the other bats to know.

And he knew that, if he had to keep his habits from fellow bats, his habits had to be pretty bad. Every single one of them had a tendency to watch over their loved ones from time to time, it just came with the territory of having friends that are a) vigilantes/heroes/Rogues, b) stupid enough to live in Gotham, or c) an unfortunate mix of both. And, really, when you have the entire world at your fingertips it’s hard not to cross a few lines from time to time.

But Tim couldn’t bring himself to care about that line when she didn’t seem to care about her own safety.

She left the house constantly. Tim was beginning to suspect that she’d had her blinds open so often in order to feel closer to people rather than because she liked sunning herself. This would be fine… if she wasn’t leaving as a civilian. Marinette cared about her secret identity almost as much as Bruce did, so he knew that she probably wouldn’t try too hard to escape attackers for fear of them finding out who she was through her very particular fighting style. The bats had drilled her on the best ways to deal with being held at gunpoint and everything, but not every criminal was completely predictable. Bruce’s parents were a prime example of that.

She also had a tendency to take food without checking to see if it was laced. She did it especially when Tim handed her food and, while he liked that she trusted him, he didn’t love that she was as trusting of him as she was.

Marinette had trouble detecting when people were watching her, too. He figured it was just a byproduct of having most of the stuff she did as Ladybug filmed by tv crews and random civilians… but understanding why she was like that didn’t make him any less concerned about it.

Most damning, however, was how she dealt with catcalling.

Tim never felt a need to intervene when any of his siblings got catcalled on the job. He could trust them to tell whoever it was to stop with however much politeness was correct for the situation (usually not that much).

(The only exception was Damian because, unlike everyone else, Damian was still very obviously a minor. And even then the temptation to beat them up was mostly sated by the fact that Damian knew far more nonlethal ways to hurt them than he did.)

But the few times Marinette had gotten catcalled in front of him she… had just very politely asked them not to say that? And, when they didn’t stop, she had just sat there in her discomfort until they were done?

And Tim had done nothing but watch in stunned silence the first few times. It hadn’t been on purpose, he had just… not been expecting it. She usually acted far more confident, usually had some sort of retort on her tongue, why was this any different?

He didn’t know. Both he and Steph had tried to ask but she shut down both times and they didn’t want her to be more upset than she already was so they’d stopped trying.

The bats just silently agreed to check in on her through comms when she was quiet for too long and, if she didn’t respond, head towards her last known location and start looking.

So, yeah, his paranoia wasn’t completely unfounded.

Marinette blinked at the envelope Black Bat had handed her.

She turned it over in her hands, wondering if it was some kind of test, but that wasn’t really as much of a Black Bat thing as it was a Batman or Red Robin thing. So, she figured it probably wasn’t dangerous. She still found herself examining it. It was done in an old style, with a rough and slightly yellowed paper, a red wax seal with a pointy hat emblem she didn’t recognize, and ‘Ladybug’ written across the front in gorgeous calligraphy.

“Uh…?”

Black Bat only smiled at her and made a motion to open it.

Marinette hesitantly opened the letter and pulled out more weird paper. It was splattered with something that looked suspiciously like dried blood. In the same elegant script that had decorated the front, it read:

Your spirit has been summoned to my annual Halloween Party!

Dress to kill!

This was followed by a bunch of directions and timings and stuff about RSVP-ing.

Marinette looked at Black Bat, somehow even more confused than she had been before.

Thankfully, Red Robin chose that moment to run down the stairs, waving his invitation excitedly.

He stopped short when he saw Marinette already holding her invitation and huffed, sending Black Bat a halfhearted glare. “I wanted to tell her.”

Black Bat’s smile morphed into a smirk.

“Rude,” Red said. Then, he turned to Marinette. “We got invited to his Halloween Party!”

“Yeah… whose Halloween Party, exactly?”

“Scarecrow’s, of course!”

… what?

#stalker x stalker #maribat #shutterbug #timmari #timari #timinette #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #tim drake #red robin #marinette: all the rogues are dangerous and smart i need to expect the unexpected #scarecrow: im having a halloween party!!#marinette: ... i guess that IS unexpected...

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thattimdrakeguy · 3 years

Note

Do you have any more ideas for Tim’s long lost older sister? I’m intrigued 👁👄👁

I’ve had the headcanon for years, but I’ve never fleshed it out in my head. So I’m just gonna spit ball some ideas.

She got adopted into a well-off middle class family, and has another two adopted siblings, because very quickly after her new family got her, they wanted to make sure she had siblings.

She’s at least 4 years older than Tim, and maybe up to 8. Cause I feel like she would’ve came very early on into Jack and Janet’s relationship. I’m just not sure when I’d gage they ever started dating cause I’m not sure if it’s said anywhere.

Because she was raised into a very kind, charity giving family, she’s a very kind person, but I don’t feel like that would mean she’s entirely responsible or anything, because she still goes to a public school and could be anything from there cause of friends.

She’s probably a bit rambunctious but not criminally so. Like the cops might know her because she hangs around people that do worse stuff, but not really that she’d do it herself.

Probably depressed and has minor self-hatred because her parents seem so perfect to her, that she can’t replicate it. But she isn’t angry at her parents, she loves her parents (as in her adopted parents). She’s just upset she can’t be like them because she doesn’t feel she can live up to them.

Aware she’s adopted and not bitter about it because she loves her family so much she doesn’t really want to know her last family. She wasn’t even sure who her bio parents where till one of her friends asked out of curiosity and she realized “Oh &!$# I have no idea”. So she asked and was told. Which she did find out that she had a biologically baby brother.

But she never searched out for him because she was too attached to her adopted family and figured and guessed correctly that her bio parents probably never told him she even existed. Not that she never wanted to see him though.

Laying up at night very light trying to imagine what he was like. And only got to find out one night because she happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time during a crime, and during an attempt to save her from a convenience store robbery. He jumped in, but bonked his head on something to be left out cold. Not knowing what to do her sister brought her home. Which was very close by to her house, only a block. Only reason she was out was to get some eggs for a dessert her parents were making.

Her family all being, good, although flawed people (her parents just hide it well. I kinda wanna add more detail to them some time so they aren’t so freaking bland and boring), decided to help out because it was like “OH MY GOSH IT’S AN 8 YEAR OLD” they say to the unconscious fourteen year old boy. When they take his mask off to get a better look at his eye to be able to tell if he suffered a concussion or not they instantly recognize him as her bio baby brother.

No one tells him at first. Tim’s more concerned about three things: Where is he, do they know who it is, and who changed him into the oversized PJs that barely fit him.

They become friends though, and they go to the same school together. So she kind of protects him there. She’s a senior and he’s a freshmen, so she’s able to do that a lot easier.

One day when another bad thing happens (cause it’s Gotham City, of course bad things will happen again) and he’s stuck as Tim Drake and unable to do anything without blowing his identity away, she tells him the truth. To which he makes one of the most panicked faces and screams anyone's ever seen because at this point they’ve known each other for so long he’s knows it’s true even if he questions it a whole bunch.

Her name is Samantha, because (and this is kind of dumb and embarrassing) when I was first getting into the Bat-Family, like before Tumblr, before reading any comic again when I haven’t for years for the most part at that point, I thought Stephanie was also one of Bruce’s kids. So I made this little AU in my head where they were bio siblings that were orphaned on the streets (might’ve gotten that from BTNA Tim), but I couldn’t remember Stephanie’s name yet, because I was like “BATMAN, NIGHTWING, RED HOOD, DAMIAN. WOAH”, and didn’t know freaking anything about the others yet besides a few things of Tim that I remembered learning from when I was a kid. I had a small connection to him (I think) at that time, but I didn’t really know a thing about him for the most part. So I thought until the next day when I looked it up, or when ever it was, that Stephanie’s name was Samantha.

Samantha Dover or something can be this new character’s name tho. I don’t know what last names are lol. So might change it soon.

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kumeko · 4 years

Photo

A/N: For the Summer Lovin’ zine, where I wanted to do a light, fluffy, summer romance. With bonus Steph and Tim teasing Damian (as is their right) and Cassandra helping out where she could.

…

Endless fields of unripe wheat. A cloudless blue sky stretching as far as the eye can see. The occasional house poking out of an otherwise flat terrain. Damian stared outside the car window and clicked his tongue. No wonder his father had declined to come; there were no shadows here to hide in, only light.

“What’s the matter?” Stephanie asked, an impish smile on her face as she poked his cheek. “Bored?”

“Of course not.” He swatted her hand away but that only made her laugh. “We shouldn’t be here.”

“Why?” From the driver’s seat, Tim glanced at him in the rear-view mirror. If Stephanie’s smile was teasing, his smirk was downright malicious. “Scared you’ll have fun?”

Damian crossed his arms. He would never for the life of him understand what his father saw in that fake Robin. No, it went deeper than that—what did he see in most of his proteges? Stephanie didn’t take anything seriously, Tim didn’t have the skills, Dick was too fun-loving, and Jason had no control. The only not disappointing one in the bunch was Cassandra, and Damian feared that one day the others would infect her as well. He should have gotten rid of them while he had the chance. “We should be training, Drake,” Damian replied, irritation leaking into his voice.

“An important part of training is taking breaks.” Stephanie poked his cheek again. He was going to break her finger one day. “It’s summer, school’s out, and Bruce and Dick have Gotham covered. We can have a little vacation, the world’s not going to destroy itself without us.”

“Without you, maybe,” Damian sneered. The effect was ruined as she pulled his cheek.

“Without us,” she repeated, still sporting that insufferable smile. “If it’s serious, they’ll call us. It’s not like the League doesn’t know where the Kent farmhouse is.”

Damian wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. Surely the most dangerous man in the planet should have his parents hidden somewhere secure, instead of having their name on file. Villains broke into the JLA all the time as it was; it wouldn’t be that long before someone stumbled upon this badly kept secret.

“You’re wasting your breath, Steph.” Tim shrugged, his eyes on the road. “He doesn’t know what a break is.”

From the front passenger seat, Cassandra gave Damian a sympathetic smile. She had been silent till now, more than content to just listen. Which was probably why he preferred her to the others; she wasn’t a blabbermouth like the others. “A break can help your body recover,” she offered.

At least that was practical advice for once. Damian leaned back in his seat. “I suppose.”

“You’re such a softie to her and Dick.” Stephanie leaned back into her seat, finally leaving him alone.

“It’s too bad Dick couldn’t come,” Tim sighed. “He could have muzzled the brat.”

“Well, while we’re meeting our favourite aliens, he’s got his own alien to meet.” Stephanie waggled her brows before she and Tim burst into a fit of laughter. Leaning forward, she rested a hand on Cass’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, I’ll share mine with you.”

“Okay?” Looking confused, Cassandra nodded.

“And Damian’s got Jon,” Tim chimed in, exchanging a look with Steph.

Wisely, Damian kept his mouth shut. With these two, almost any response he gave would only be ammo.

-x-

“Damian!”

He barely had time to turn around before Jon barreled into him, knocking him over. Landing flat on his back, Damian grunted as his breath rushed out of him. Jon had little restraint in the best of times, and almost none when he was emotional. Frowning at the mop of dark hair on his chest, he rolled his friend off. “Kent.”

“Kent,” Tim and Steph said at the same time and he didn’t have to see them to know they were wearing identical smiles.

“Damian!” Pushing himself off the ground, Jon shot him a grumpy look.

Quietly, Damian muttered, “Fine, Jon.”

The idiot duo cackled behind him and he wasn’t sure if Jon’s bright smile was worth it. Picking himself off the ground, Damian didn’t bother to dust off his clothes before hauling Jon up. “Where’s my room?” he asked, dragging Jon along as he headed to the main house. “And please tell me those two are sleeping in the barn.”

“Nah, they’ll be rooming with Conner and Kara, just like you’ll be with me.” Jon wrapped an arm around his back, almost skipping as they headed in. “It’ll be fun!”

Fun. That wasn’t the word he’d use for it. Perhaps he could at least sabotage their beds after this.

-x-

Balancing a dagger between his two fingers, Damian studied the target. It was perhaps one of the simplest targets he’d practiced with, a static bale of hay only 50 yards down. A single red x made of cardboard sat on the bale. There was no challenge in this. Still, some practice was better than none. Raising his hand behind him, Damian whipped his arm forward and tossed the dagger.

With a solid thwack, the dagger hit the target dead center.

As expected. Child’s play, really.

As though to cut into his preening, Jon applauded behind him. “Wow,” he cheered, his voice deadpan. “That was amazing.” Sarcasm dripped from his words as he hovered over the ground, giving Damian the most bored look possible.

“There’s nothing else here to use,” Damian sniped back, not appreciating the reaction. It figured this was the place the Supers called home, this land of sunlight. The Kents owned few weapons, if one could call them that. A shotgun, several farming tools, and an oddly sharp kitchen knife were their defenses of choice. Miraculously, no supervillains had dared to take over this quaint town, and he could only chalk it up to luck. Probably the same luck that allowed all the Supers to fly without a single neighbour to report them.

Not finished, Jon leaned forward, shielding his eyes with a hand. Fake squinting, he studied the target. “That’s, what, ten in a row? All in the same spot, somehow?” The scorn disappeared from his tone and Jon gave him a thumbs up. “That’s actually really cool.”

Cool was again not a word Damian would use but he accepted the compliment. “If I couldn’t do that much, I’d hang up my cape.”

“Right, right.” Jon landed on the ground next to him, clapping him on the back. “And you’re doing ten more of these?”

“I need to keep up the practice,” Damian muttered, distracted by the tingling in his back. It had been happening recently, at Jon’s point of contact, and he wondered if it was some uncontrolled Kyptonian strength running through his flesh. “Even if the practice is subpar.”

“Of course.” There was a mischievous twinkle in Jon’s eyes. “But you’re just going to get the same result. And it’s boring.”

Rankled, Damian pulled away. “Practice is not—”

“There’s more fun ways to practice instead.” Jon pounced, tackling him to the ground. “Let’s fight.”

Well, that was certainly something Damian could get behind. Flipping them over, he smirked. “You’re on.”

-x-

“So, Damian, was it?” Ma Kent smiled at him kindly as she exited the kitchen. The smell of cooked chicken wafted through the air, filling the dining room. In her hands was a bright, flowery plastic bowl filled with Brussel sprouts. “I heard a lot about you.”

Damian stared at her. The dining room was empty save for them—the others hadn’t yet come back from whatever wasteful endeavours they had planned and Jon was feeding Krypto. While he had begrudgingly accepted the fact that he’d have to eat dinner with everyone, there had better not be any expectations of conversation. He had planned to let Jon do all the talking, to cover up his silence, but that wasn’t possible right now. When Ma Kent smiled at him, he reluctantly replied, “I see.”

“Ahaha, got a way with words, I see.” Chuckling, she set down the bowl. A bowl that did not match any of plates. Actually, now that he was paying attention, none of the big serving bowls matched, all of them hideous plastic monstrosities. Noticing his scornful expression, she rubbed her neck sheepishly. “I know what you’re thinking. I used to use my good china whenever someone came, but after two dinner attacks and one food fight, I’ve learned my lesson. If the powers are out, my plates stay in.”

“I see.” Not that he had asked for clarifications. Not that he was curious in any way, shape, or form about it.

“You really do have only one mode.” Laughing, she returned to the kitchen. ��Like father, like son. Glad the rest of your lot didn’t turn out like this; don’t think I could have handled that much grumpiness at my table.”

“I’m not grumpy,” he muttered under his breath.

“Man, Krypto was hungry tonight!” Jon tumbled in through the window, ecstatic. Catching Damian’s expression, he cocked his head. “What, did I miss anything?”

Resisting the urge to cross his arms (because he wasn’t grumpy, he was stoic), Damian gave him a surly look. “Nothing.”

Ma Kent chuckled again. “Nothing, hun. Now make sure to wash those hands.”

-x-

The stars were bright here. Sprawled on the roof, Damian leaned back and studied the night sky above him. Without Gotham’s pollution, the milky way was visible for once. Stars glittered above him, taking advantage of the moonless night. He had almost forgotten what the night sky could look like, what it had those nights long ago when he lived in the desert, training under his mother’s watchful eye.

An almost silent presence approached him and Damian discretely reached into his pocket for a dagger. The stranger’s hand touched his, stilling it, and he looked up to find Cassandra Cain. She offered him a smile. “It is silent here,” she murmured, sitting down beside him.

“I suppose.” Damian glanced at her, then at the fields below. It looked like a dark sea, threatening to swallow them whole. An owl hooted, crickets chirped, and all in all, it was far quieter here than it was in the city. Just when had he gotten used to the never-ending honking? Even the smell here was different. The farm felt clean.

“It is,” she corrected, hugging her knees. She closed her eyes, listening. “It is…not bad to relax.”

Not bad, perhaps, but not good either. Not when there were lives at stake in Gotham. Damian wouldn’t call himself a hero, not by any stretch of the word, but Gotham was Batman’s. Gotham was his and he was loathe to let its citizens die when they under his protection. “Isn’t it?”

“No.” Cassandra closed her eyes. Words were hard for her, action easier—perhaps one of the things he respected so much about her. When she spoke, her words meant something, they were considered and honest. “Relaxing…you can recover. Recharge. See things differently.” Opening her eyes now, she smiled at him, a waxing moon. “See what you are protecting.”

Damian stared. He was too late; Cassandra had been infected by the others. “I don’t need to see—”

“Damian!” Before he could finish his sentence, Jon floated down beside him. Dressed in bright blue pjs his mother had to have bought for him, Jon landed on his right. “What’re you doing up here alone?”

“Alone?” Damian looked at his left once more. Empty. Cassandra was gone. Even if her brain had rotted, her skills remained, and he didn’t know whether to be impressed or irritated at himself. Turning back to Jon, he shrugged. “Reflecting.”

“Reflecting on what?” Jon raised a brow before asking. “Wait, is this one of those bat-broods Dad was talking about? How you guys all go to a corner at some point or another and just sulk?”

Speechless, Damian gaped, his jaw hanging loose. Of all the things he expected to hear, that wasn’t one of them. That wasn’t even on his least likely list.

“I mean, I can’t picture Steph sulking, but maybe she wasn’t Robin long enough to get the broods.” Jon sat down next to him, bumping shoulders. “Or maybe you took all of them?”

“I’m not sulking,” Damian growled, resisting the urge to hurl Jon off the roof. Not that it would do any good, he’d just fly back and be twice as mocking about it. What was it with the Kents and their presumptions?

“Then what?” Jon’s eyes lit up and he hit his fist on his empty palm, as though he’d solved a case. “Stargazing?”

It was as good an explanation as any. Better, actually, than his own, considering he had none. “Sure.”

“Prepare to be amazed!” Jon pointed up, a wide smile on his face. “A city boy like you, you haven’t seen half of these stars before.”

“City boy?” Damian scoffed. “You’re not much better.”

“I’ve been in the country plenty of times,” Jon retorted, his mood still bright. It was like sitting next to the sun. “Besides, I can fly. Dad’s takes me up all the time to see the stars.”

A very frivolous waste of power. No wonder Bruce worried about this family.

“Anyways, see that star over there?” Jon leaned closer, wrapping an arm around Damian’s back to bring him closer. “So that’s part of the big dipper.”

Of all the stars to start with, the big dipper? Really? Damian didn’t know if he should be insulted or not. It wasn’t like he was much of a ‘city boy’ himself; growing up in the desert, his mother made sure he could navigate just as easily at night as he did the day.

He could say he had the best tutors, that he knew every constellation by heart.

He could say that Jon was pointing at the wrong dipper, he meant the one slightly below it.

Damian could say any or all of those things, but for once in his life he kept quiet. Jon was smiling and he didn’t always have to prove he was the smartest person in the room.

-x-

“So, any bets?” Steph asked, shielding her eyes as she leaned back and squinted at the sky. Despite the intense July heat, she stood away from the shade. Above them, small specks in the bright sky, were Conner, Kara, and Jon. They raced through the air, sometimes coming low enough to hear their laughter, other times they were barely visible.

“On what?” Tim asked. Like her, he was staring up at the sky. Unlike her, he was smart enough to stay next to the barn and the meager relief it provided. Perhaps he did have a modicum of intelligence after all.

Not that Damian would applaud him. Using a handful of pebbles, Damian started flicking them at distant targets, smirking when they hit with a satisfying thwink. Perhaps Jon could hide his training dummies and Tim could hide his weapons, but they couldn’t force him to be idle the entire time he was here. Glancing at Cassandra, who was sitting nonchalantly on the ground next to him, a pleased smile on her face, Damian was perplexed. How could she handle this?

“The next Super. Like, it’s obvious that Cass is the next Batman, but I dunno about them.” Ignoring Damian’s glare, she finally strolled into the shade. She leaned against the barn door and crossed her arms. “It’s between Conner and Jon.”

“So Kara’s not interested?” Tim stroked his chin thoughtfully. After humming for a few minutes, he turned to Cassandra and asked, “Who’d you rather work with?”

Unable to handle the indignancy anymore, Damian barked, “I’m the next Batman.”

“Sure.” Stephanie rested a hand on her hip, giving him a pitying look. “Whatever makes you feel better.”

“Go easy on him, it’s not easy to find out that he’ll be Robin forever.” Tim shook his head sadly. “All of that time, all of mommy’s promises that’d he’d get the job, it must be crushing.”

“What?” he squawked.

“He couldn’t even accept that Cass is Bruce’s favourite.” Coming over, Stephanie squeezed his shoulder. “And then there’s Dick—you’re maybe third? Maybe?”

Picking a pebble out of his hand, Cassandra flicked it at the bushes. A bird shot out of it, startled. “Either of them…are fine,” she answered slowly. “Conner, then Jon?”

Et tu, Brutus? Damian turned to Cassandra as she tossed yet another pebble with pinpoint accuracy. He should have realized earlier that they were all after his job, that there was no one here he could trust.

“Ah, Conner takes it on for a little before giving it to Jon.” Stephanie nodded sagely. “True, that’s also in the running.” Her hair fell in front of her as a flyby occurred and she quickly pushed back her golden locks. “You know Jon actually hangs out with them?” Wrapping an arm around Damian’s shoulder, she bemoaned, “Why can’t our baby be so friendly?”

“It would be…weird,” Cassandra pointed out, getting up now. She patted him on the back. “He is…different.”

“Who is?” Kara landed on the ground, her hair looking like a wild nest. It seemed being Kryptonian didn’t protect them entirely from physics.

“Damian, but you already knew that.” Stephanie retreated before he could attack her. “What’s up?”

Kara glared at him before smiling at Stephanie. “A race! We’ll each pick one of you up and see who can fly the fastest. So, Steph or Cass?”

“Cass!” Stephanie volunteered, leaning against Cassandra. “I’ve had plenty of flights. It’s a sacrifice, but someone has to do it.”

“Sacrifice.” Tim rolled his eyes. “You just don’t want to mess your hair.”

“Both things can be true.” She stuck her tongue out.

By now, Jon and Conner had landed as well, standing next to Damian and Tim respectively. Conner smirked cockily. “We’ve got this in the bag.”

“Yeah, we did this every day in the Teen Titans.” Tim high-fived Conner. “It’ll be too easy.”

“Oh, just you wait and see!” Kara stood next to Cassandra, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “I’ve practiced.”

“We’ll win!” Jon declared, grabbing Damian’s hand. Leaning closer, he whispered, “And no matter what, you’re my Batman.”

“Huh?” Damian tried to look at Jon but before he could, he was already in the air and the race had started.

On that day, Damian discovered that his stomach was both stronger and weaker than he’d expected.

-x-

At nine pm, it was dark. Dark in a different way than Gotham got—for all the narrow alleys and forgotten warehouses, it was never truly devoid of light. Whether it was a flickering streetlamp or the semi-blocked lights of an office, there was light somewhere.

Here, though, in the middle of nowhere, it was pitch dark. Damian could just make out Jon’s figure sitting next to him. The others, still sitting near the barbeque a short distance away, were impossible to see. The only thing visible were the stars above, as disgustingly bright as ever. Somehow, the sky never turned truly dark, a thing he had forgotten. It had been too long since he’d been in the desert, since he’d left the city behind.

“I’m glad you came.” Even without looking, he knew Jon was smiling. He was always smiling, always moving, always something, like his face didn’t know how not express his emotions, like his body would combust if he stayed still.

Damian didn’t bother to reply. Leaning forward on the dock edge, he skimmed his shoe against the still waters, watching the dark ripples warp the galaxy below. The only thing rivalling the stars were the fireflies drifting lazily nearby, yellow spots against the black.

Unfazed (and Damian didn’t want to think about when that happened, about when Jon stopped getting angry at his silence and just accepted it), Jon rested his hand on Damian’s, threading their fingers together. It was an oddly intimate sensation. Damian didn’t mind it for some reason. “It’s a lot more fun when you’re around. I wish you didn’t have to leave tomorrow.”

This time, Jon’s stare was expectant. Damian glanced at him, then back at the fireflies. “It wasn’t a complete waste,” he muttered, a half-truth. Perhaps there was something to vacations, but he loathed to admit it.

Jon laughed, seeing through him. “Knew you’d like it here.”

Feeling a little prickly, Damian glared at him. “Don’t act like you know—”

“But I’m right, aren’t I?” When Damian didn’t say anything, Jon leaned closer. “I know you.”

Before Damian could react, Jon’s lips were on his cheek, a warm pressure that was all too temporarily. His jaw fell slack. His skin burned. For once, his words failed him and he felt like a simpleton.

“If I knew that’d shut you up, I’d have done it ages ago.” Jon smirked, looking playful.

“Jon!” Pa Kent yelled. “We’re making smores.”

“Save me some chocolate!”

And just like that, Jon leaped to his feet, dashing away, and Damian still didn’t know what to say.

-x-

The roof was empty when he sat on it. Cassandra wasn’t there to give advice. Jon wasn’t there, laughing as he strung together stars like they were the pearls, creating tapestries on the sky above. There was just complete and utter silence, just as Damian preferred.

While his skin had cooled down, his heart hadn’t, and he tried to meditate. Crossing his legs, he emptied his mind. Jon’s lips had been soft. He emptied his mind. His hand was rough. He emptied his mind. Jon—

And maybe he had been wrong before; it was too late for himself. He’d been infected by all these damnable people around him, to the point he had actually considered asking Tim Drake of all people for advice. Friendship, family, love—

It was too late. He had all of them and as loathe as he was to let them in, he was even worse about letting them go.

-x-

“So.” The confident Jon of yesterday was gone, leaving a more nervous boy in its wake. He was constantly fidgeting, his eyes darting all over like he didn’t know where to look. Judging by the bags under his eyes, he probably hadn’t slept.

Good. He deserved a little suffering for leaving like that, for forcing Damian to think about his feelings. “So?” he drawled out, relishing in the little flinch Jon gave.

They were standing in front of the Kent’s house, in the cool morning air. For the first time in two weeks, the sun wasn’t beating down on him and Damian couldn’t wait to return to the air conditioning of the Wayne manor. Already, the others were packing up the car, leaving only him and Jon to say their goodbyes.

Or, well, whatever it was that Jon was trying to say. Damian tapped his foot on the ground, raising a brow when Jon didn’t say anything.

“See you later?” Jon managed weakly.

Sighing, Damian tossed him a bone. “Even a stopped clock is right twice. This vacation wasn’t terrible, I’m not adverse to doing it again. However, we are making this up with double the amount of work when we get back.”

Jon blinked. “You still want to be partners?”

Damian nodded. “Yes, I thought you had superhearing?”

“And the other thing?” Jon asked, stepping closer.

It took all of Damian’s willpower to not step back, not even when Jon was close enough to touch, to kiss. Feeling a familiar flush on the back of his neck, he coughed and looked away. “That…that was fine too.”

“Really?” Jon’s voice was filled with an earnest hope and Damian’s stomach flip-flopped.

“Don’t make me repeat it,” Damian growled, feeling uncharacteristically flustered.

“Damian!” That was the only warning he got before Jon’s arms were around him once more, his lips pressed against his own. Behind him, he heard a bag drop and of all the people to bear witness to this, it had to be the morons in his family.

It was hard to pay attention to both them and Jon, to the pure joy that radiated off his—Damian didn’t know what to call Jon anymore. Friend didn’t feel appropriate. Whatever it was, he’d figure it out later, when they were alone and they didn’t have the peanut gallery around. Gingerly, he wrapped an arm around Jon, pulling him closer. When they finally parted to take a breath, he glared at Jon. “Did you have to do it in front of them?”

“That’s your first response?” Jon grinned, leaning close to kiss him on the nose. Reluctantly letting go, Jon stepped back. “See you in a week.”

“Like I’m letting you off the hook that easily,” Damian grumbled, pretty sure his entire face was red now. While he took after his mother, his brown skin could only hide so much, and unfortunately his carmates eyes were sharper than most.

Ignoring the stares, he marched to the car and plunked himself into the front passenger seat. He was not going to deal with Stephanie’s teasing a second time around, not when she had more ammo. At least Drake would have to keep his eyes on the road.

-x-

The entire car ride back was filled with Tim and Stephanie singing, “Damian and Jon, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

Damian had never been more tempted to kill.

#damijon #damian wayne #Jonathan Kent #robin #batman #superboy #fanfic #dc comics

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vikingpoteto · 4 years

Text

Red Robin under the spotlight

Read on AO3

______________________

Relationships: GEN. Tim Drake & Jason Todd, Stephanie Brown & Tim Drake

Summary: Red Robin and Red hood are basically urban legends, no one is sure they're real. That is, until there is a picture of the two of them grinning at each other on Gotham Gazette's front page.

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Tim Drake is having… a day.

Stuck in his office for the afternoon, he is praying for nightime to come soon so he can put on his suit and vent his frustration by beating up some unsuspecting criminal. He’d known being a CEO wasn’t particularly fun, but he didn’t expect the board of directors to be babies for so long.

He skims his proposal for what feels like the hundredth time unsure of how to make it clearer that that is the best course of action for their investments. The fact that he is only 18 should not trump his very solid, data-based arguments.

So he’s already in a bad mood and praying for a distraction when his office door swings open and Tam Fox storms in.

“Timothy!” she shouts.

He feels like he's about to learn he should be careful with what he wishes.

“Hey, Tam, I missed you too?” He tries.

Behind her, his secretary makes a helpless gesture as if trying to communicate she tried to stop Tam. Tim gives the woman a tired smile and makes a dismissive gesture.

Ignoring that, Tam slams the door closed and repeats for emphasis: “Timothy.” She pushes an iPad into Tim’s chest. “What is the meaning of this?”

Raising an eyebrow, he takes the iPad and looks at the screen, noticing he’s staring at a Gotham Gazette article and… Tim’s heart stops.

The headline screaming at his face says RED DYNAMIC DUO? by Vicki Vale and beneath it…

“Oh god,” Tim whimpers.

Beneath the headline there’s a picture of him and the Red Hood.

Or, well, Red Robin and Red Hood. They’re sitting on the fire escape of one of the abandoned buildings in Jason’s territory and both are seemingly at ease. Too at ease. There are two BatBurger bags at their side and their fingers are intertwined. Red Robin is staring at their joined hands with a wide smile. Fucking hell. Tim always makes a point of never smiling in front of anyone when he’s in his suit, he has a reputation to protect. He doesn’t know if it’s better or worse that Red Hood isn’t wearing his helmet, because it emans his open grin is visible as well - and thank god Jason has the habit of wearing a domino under his helmet.

Who the hell took that picture? How the hell did they go unnoticed by both Tim and Jason?

He then starts reading the article, every word feeling like a punch to the gut.

Gotham City has seen its share of vigilantes over the years and, unlike public figures such as Superman, they prefer to keep to themselves, making many people wonder whether they’re even human. As a shot captured by an amateur photographer that chose to remain anonymous, we find out at least a pair of the many Gotham “heroes” are closer to us than we thought.

The vigilante known as Red Robin Gotham's patheon of heroes a couple of months ago and little is known about him. He’s been seen working with the likes of Batman, Robin and even Batgirl, making us all think he’s one of the good guys. It seems like Red Robin’s circle of friendships doesn’t include only Justice League members, though.

The Red Hood, the man so tenderly smiling at Red Robin, is a notorious mob boss whose territory's size, GCPD especulates, rivals Black Mask’s. Red Hood wanders between both criminal activities and a violent brand of justice and, while he's been seen working side-by-side with heroes like Nightwing, a hero that since has only been seen in Bludhaven, no one can claim to have seen the Red Hood so comfortable around one of the bats of Gotham

The two young men were pictured in a tender moment. Could this mean that Red Robin is straying towards villany? Is the Red Hood is considering changing his ways? Or, perhaps, are we facing a pair of starcrossed lovers, separated by different set of morals, but still unable to stay away from one another?

Tim makes an inhumane sound. The words star crossed lovers jump from the screen, burning his eyes and making him wish he was going over a dumb business proposal still.

“Well?” Tam demands. “What is that, Tim?”

“I don’t know, Tam,” he answers, his voice weak. “What on earth- How the hell… Oh, god .”

“Why were you hanging out with the Red Hood?”

“Stakeout,” Tim says simply.

“Why were you on a stakeout with the freaking Red Hood?”

At that, Tim recovers enough to feel a bit miffed. That’s the same tone she had last year when Tim was working with assassins and he gets offended on his brother’s behalf. Even if, you know, said brother had also been somewhat related to the assassins in question. In the past.

“Hey, Hood is not as bad as the news make him look. Sure, he’s not exactly clean, but he’s a valuable undercover agent and…”

Tam makes sounds of a woman whose white Valentino bag had liquid lipstick spilled in. “Does that mean you are dating the Red Hood?”

“What? NO!”

Tim pinches the bridge of his nose. God, what a mess.

“He’s my brother,” he says.

Tam looks like she goes through the 7 stages of grief in a very short time and, honestly, Tim feels for her. He likes Tam a lot. She is smart and strong and the poor girl has had to deal with so much since she and Tim became friends.

“Are you telling me… that Dick Grayson…”

“No, Dick’s not the Red Hood.”

She stares at the picture again and then at him. “This isn’t Duke or Damian, Tim.”

“You’re right. It’s a long story. I can’t tell you, though. I trust you but Hood’s identity isn’t my secret to share.”

Tam closes her eyes and breathes in and out slowly. After all the crap she had to deal as one of Red Robin’s friends, a stranged brother that happened to be a crime lord (an anti-hero, really) wasn’t that far fetched. She didn’t know much about the Drakes because Tim didn’t talked about them, so, for all she knows, Red Hood could be Jack’s or Janet’s bastard child. Although Tim can figure her theories, he doesn’t try to explain anything. Whatever she works out is better than letting her know Red Hood is Bruce Wayne’s son brought back from the dead.

“Fine. You’re not dating a criminal. You’re a criminal’s brother.”

“I mean… if you think about it, I’m a criminal too.” He smiles sheepishly under her glare. “Being a vigilante isn’t exactly something I can put on my resume.”

Shaking her head, Tam checks the picture again. “What were you even doing? Because it looks like you’re holding hands and finding it hilarious.”

“We… hm. We were thumb wrestling.”

She stares at him, her expression empty of any emotion. Tim cringes.

“Look, not everything is death traps and high risks, alright? Sometimes stakeouts get boring!”

“You were laughing your head off because you were having a thumb war with the Red Hood,” Tam deadpans.

“Hm. Actually the thumb war wasn't that funny, that was him cheating. I was winning so he kept talking shit about Dick’s past to make me laugh and lose focus.”

Tam finally sits down and she looks at ceiling as if she’s considering all the life decisions that lead her to this moment. At this point, Tim knows she’s just being dramatic, because knowing Red Hood cheats at thumb war for certain isn’t more shocking than the time she met Tim.

“The thumb was isn’t important now, though,” Tim says. “ This is a huge problem. Hood’s gonna be in hot water if people think he’s friends with a hero.”

He refuses to use the word lovers, because ew. Sure they’re not related by blood, but… ew. Tim sees him as a brother, damn it.

“Well, I’m afraid there’s not a lot we can do now,” Tam says apologetically. “The article’s been up since this morning. Even if we have them take it down, it’s already out there. #RedDynamicDuo is trending on Twitter.”

Oof. That’s… oof.

Tim intertwines his fingers and glares at the tablet in front of him as if waiting for the puzzle to solve itself. He knows it won’t, so it’s up to him to fix this. His burnt out brain suggests calling Bart and asking him to run back in time and stop that cursed thumb war. His practical brain has half a mind to call Oracle and see how much online evidence she can get rid of. He has to contact Gotham Gazette and threaten them into not putting vigilante’s identities at risk by posting such pictures, although he doesn’t hold high hopes for that course of action. What he needs now is a bigger scandal, although he fails to think of something more dramatic than Red Robin and Red Hood being buddies…

Right as he’s starting to feel a bit forlorn, his phone buzzes on the table. A picture of Dick smiling flashes on the screen and Tim allows himself to perk up for a moment. Dick for sure will be able to help him.

“Dick!” He picks up, full of hope.

Tim is greeted with cackling. Dick’s cackling.

He groans. “Richard.”

“AHAHAHAHA O-oh god, you… aha... b-baby bird, you… HAHAHAHA--”

Tim isn’t paid enough for this. He hangs up.

“Can you help me with this?” He asks.

“Don’t I always?” Tam quirks an eyebrow.

Smiling tiredly, he stands. “I’m taking the rest of the afternoon off. Can you take care of… you know… day job stuff?”

“I guess. Good luck with your… your family thing.”

THE BIRDNEST

spoiler alert: *insert game of thrones joke here*

In the hood: Go fuck yourself, Stephanie

spoiler alert: not judging u bro he hella cute

WonderWing: steph please

cassandra cain-wayne: ?

send me a Signal: they’re talking about that picture of Hood and Red holding hands cass

yumm: were NOT holding hands

cassandra cain-wayne: I print that picture.

In the hood: W H Y ! ?

cassandra cain-wayne: cute :)

spoiler alert: she right and she should say it

In the hood: Steph, turn on your location. I just want to talk.

yumm: stephanie I hv pics of u sleep drooling on me from that that 1 patrol dnt test me

spoiler alert: shut up red dynamic duo

Tim hates the internet.

Barbara is kindly trying her best to muffle the online reaction, but there is only so much she can do without outright deleting people’s tweets. Tim knows for a fact that that would only cause a bigger uproar, so he asks her to settle for burying mentions of them under a fake algorithm.

He has yet to think of gossip hot enough to top the rumors, but he doesn’t think even his fake engagement to Tam last year received so much attention. A glimpse into Gotham’s elusive heroes’ personal lives was too exciting to let go quickly.

When he walks into his apartment, he wants nothing but to take a hot shower and a nap. He knows he can’t, though.

As well as he knows he isn’t alone.

He plays it cool, walking in as though he doesn’t notice the person in the shadows. He drops his keys and phone on the nearest table as he would normally and turns around too abruptly to allow a reaction, his fist connecting to… someone’s palm.

“Nice reflexes, Baby Bird,” Jason says, quirking an eyebrow as though mildly impressed.

Tim groans. “Would it kill you to use the door?”

“It might, better not risk it.”

“It shaves five years of my life span every time I come home and you’re waiting in the shadows. Of all of Bruce’s habits to pick up…”

Jason simply shrugs. “So… what’s up, honey? ”

“Ew, don’t say that,” Tim groans.

Keeping his nonchalant facade, Jason lets himself fall into Tim’s couch as though he belongs there. Tim heads to his room to change into more humane clothes.

“I’m assuming Dickie shared the news already,” Jason says.

“He couldn’t stop laughing long enough to say anything,” Tim replies from his closet. “Tam was kind enough to show me, though.”

“Tam… is that your ex-fiancée? Hmm… The news sure keep shipping you with everyone, speaking of which.”

Grumbling the whole time, Tim puts on a purple hoodie he might or might not have stolen from Stephanie and that he wears whenever he’s stressed. He wears that hoodie a lot. Heading back to the living room barefoot and feeling slightly more prepared to deal with the situation, he says:

“I’m assuming you aren’t here just to hang out.”

Jason gives him an unimpressed look. “I’ll give you three guesses.”

Tim blinks once. Twice. No, it can’t be that… “ Everyone thinks you’re a rat.”

“Bingo.”

And this situation keeps getting better and better. Red Hood is feared enough that he can get away with hanging out with the goody two shoes every now and again and keep his rep. Being caught eating burgers and giggling with a hero was a whole new animal.

They have to assume Hood’s safe houses were compromised as well. The point of having many hideouts is that you’re never left with nowhere to go, but even Jason wasn’t prepared to have everyone in his territory turn on him. That and they all had been raised and trained to be paranoid. It was too big of a risk to assume he’d be safe in a known place.

“Crap,” Tim mutters.

“I considered ditching Gotham and spending some time with Roy instead…”

“But that would be as good as a confession. You’d never gain their respect again,” Tim completes for him.

Jason nods.

The only silver-lining about this situation is that this is Jason. Granted he isn’t too angry to think, Jason is practical and willing to do what’s needed, even if it’s annoying or if it makes him uncomfortable. Tim likes working with him because of that.

“You know where the extra blankets are,” Tim says.

Because, of course, if Jason can’t be at his own place and he can’t be with Roy and Kory, he’d crash Tim’s place. The manor isn’t really an option for him and Tim doesn’t blame him for that.

“The plan of action?”

“I’ll let you know as soon as I figure out.”

Jason sighs. “I’m going to punch something in your Red Robin cave.”

“Be my guest.”

Damage control is necessary, of course, especially for Red Hood’s safety, but there is something bothering Tim more. He opens the news and studies the picture. It’s a damn good shot, almost looks like it was staged. He closes his eyes and tries to remember that night. In order to take that picture, the photographer would have to be in of of the buildings across the street and they’d have to be good enough to go unnoticed not by one, but by two highly trained vigilantes, one of which had his senses enhanced by the Lazarus pit.

He messages Babs quickly for more info on whoever sent those pictures to the news, but not even Oracle had managed to track them yet. It sounds like the photographer walked into Vicki Vale on the street and handed her the picture, because there was no digital footprint of such interaction.

Without any more ideas, he puts on his suit and heads out, glad that is patrol night. Perhaps punching criminals will give him some clarity.

Tim is nowhere near closing any of his cases and Gotham is unusually quiet because of course the criminals would choose tonight of all nights to be chill. The night Tim needs a crime. That’s why he’s more than a little thankful when a crackling sound in his comm lets him know someone’s trying to send him a message.

“Hey, hot stuff,” a familiar voice calls, “I have an underground gambling den to dismantle tonight, you want in?”

Red Robin smiles. “Is that a date?”

“I don’t know, is it? I don’t want Red Hood coming after me.”

“Batgirl.”

She laughs shamelessly. He hopes Barbara isn’t listening. Although the alternative would be Wendy listening, and he doesn’t know which one would be worse. Steph’s sense of humor isn’t for everyone and while, Tim doesn’t mind their inside jokes and got used to her eternal flirting, he feels as though those should remain between the two of them only.

“I’m serious, though,” Steph continues. “I don’t think backup is needed per se, but I miss fighting criminals with you. Plus I figured you could use a punching bag or two.”

He grins. He just really loves Steph.

“Send me the details. I’ll meet you there.”

Turns out it’s a pretty standard burst for them. Gambling den covering a massive drug operation, because this is Gotham. Why wouldn’t they use an illegal thing to cover another more illegal thing? That sounded like a great idea.

He finds Batgirl waiting for him on top of a building. She simply smiles and points at the shady alley down the street.

“Gentlemen first?” she offers.

“It’s your case.”

With a nod, she dives towards the ground and Red Robin follows her closely, frowning in confusion when she doesn’t dropkicks any windows. Instead, she casually strolls towards the back of the alley where a suspicious metal door that could easily go unnoticed if it didn’t scream CRIMINAL ACTIVITY HERE. Batgirl knocks at the door and gestures at Red Robin to stay away.

A slit on the door slides open and a confused crook tries unsuccessfully to see who’s there. With both vigilantes’ out of his line of sight, the poor bastard has no option other than opening the door to check. Batgirl swiftly pulls him into a headlock as soon as he walks into view and Red Robin’s grinning face is the last thing the man sees before the pressured applied makes him pass out.

Red Robin doesn’t figure what Steph’s plan is until she cuffs the unconscious bouncer and stands straight, offering her arm.

“You’re so dramatic.” He rolls his eyes, even as he takes it.

“Shush, you think I’m awesome.”

That he does. Especially when the two of them climb down into the basement turned illegal cassino with their arms locked as if they’re a couple. It’s cartoonishly comic how long it takes everyone to realize Red Robin and Batgirl are standing on the entrance, looking around at the 50 different illegal activities happening at once.

Not as comic as when Batgirl shouts over the music: “Please, don’t stop on our account!”

The gamblers sober enough to freeze in horror.

“Before we start, anyone wants to just give themselves in?” Red Robin offers.

That’s when guns start firing and all hell breaks loose.

The night ends, as it would, with Batgirl and Red Robin walking home a trio of strippers. The women weren’t to blame that their work environment was less than ideal and they certainly didn’t need to be left tied up waiting for the GCPD like the mobsters Steph and Tim beat up tonight.

Red Robin wanted to just watch them from the top ot the buildings and make sure they got home safe, but Batgirl insisted they walked alongside the women. Their costumes don’t look completely out of place near them and Red Robin doesn’t know what to think of that.

For a second, he thinks he hears someone behind them. Everytime he turns around, he finds nothing but an empty alley, so he shrugs if off as him getting hit tooo many times.

While Batgirl excitedly chats with two of the women about their future employment - one of them is in this line of work just to get by, the other genuinely enjoys sensual dancing as a form of art but wishes she could work somewhere better - when the third of them discreetly detaches herself from the group to walk closer to Red Robin.

She still looks tense and guarded, her arms tightly wrapped around herself and Tim wishes he had a jacket to offer her. The way she sideeyes him says she wants to say something, but is too nervous to start. Not wanting to betray his persona, he simply waits, trying to appear as non threatening as possible.

“Thanks a lot for savin’ us, Red Robin,” the woman says finally. “I can’t believe I’m meetin’ ya.”

He gives her a small smile. “I’m just glad you’re safe, ma’am, there’s no need to thank me.”

“I just wanted ta say… I get ya.”

Red Robin tilts his head to the side. “Ma’am?”

“The thing with your man. Must ta’ be hard dating the Red Hood. I know how it is.”

He was… He was getting sympathy from a stripper with bad taste in men.

“There’s nothing gross between Hood and I!” He lets out before he can help himself, his voice a little louder than intended.

The other women startle at his outburst and turn to him, wary. One of them reaches for what is clearly a pocket knife that she thinks is cleverly hidden in her bra.

He sighs. “I’m sorry, ma’am, just… Batgirl, I believe you’ve got things from here. I’m taking off.”

She gives him a concerned look, but ultimately nods. Under Batgirl’s and the three strippers perplexed glares, Red Robin grapples his way out of there.

Tim wakes up around noon feeling as though he was hit by a truck, as he does when he sleeps longer than three hours a night. He slowly sits up and looks around his messy room, wondering how come he’s feeling so miserable. The smell of food stirs him into some sort of alertness.

Right. He’s not home alone today.

Yawning and scratching his belly, he forces himself to get out of bed. He know that the longer he stays the more likely he is to slip into a coma, his body demanding compensation for years of sleep deprivation. Tim drags his feet towards his kitchen where he finds one of Gotham’s most dangerous vigilantes humming to himself as he makes breakfast. Or Lunch. Brunch. Whatever.

“And here I thought I was the family’s zombie,” Jason says in lieu of good morning.

Tim grumbles something about his brother being too comfortable in Tim’s kitchen, but he doesn’t dare complain. Jason is probably the only person that uses Tim’s stove and one of the perks of having him over is that he does cook. A lot.

The one disadvantage about having Jason over is…

A knife lodges itself on the counter in front of Tim when he tries to reach for the coffee pot. Tim didn’t even see him throwing it. He glares at his brother.

“Food first. Coffee after,” Jason says.

“I’m too nauseous to eat, I just woke up.”

Again without breaking eye contact with the pot he’s stirring, Jason blindly reaches for a package of crackers casually left on the counter and hands it to Tim.

Tim makes sure to give him his best rebellious teenager glare before grabbing the stupid crackers and sitting down to eat them. Stupid Jason with his stupid boredom. Tim had forgotten Jason goes into full mom mode when he has nothing else to do and that he’s particularly obnoxious about Tim’s eating habits.

“I consume the necessary calories,” Tim mumbles over his cracker.

“Okay, Damian.”

Tim throws a cracker at him. Jason easily dodges without looking, which is kind of annoying.

After that, the two brothers fall into comfortable silence. Tim knows Jason wants to talk about their plan of action, but he knows Tim is nowhere near awake enough to hold a conversation. Besides, Jason doesn’t like being bothered while he’s cooking anyway.

By the time the food is ready, the crackers worked their magic and Tim no longer feels as though his stomach is ready to puke out its emptiness. He grabs dishes he hadn’t used in quite a while and sets the table for the two of them. The brothers start eating in silence, Tim slowly recovering his sense of self - no wonder he goes for so long without sleeping, he takes too long to reboot when he does - and Jason mindlessly scrolling through his phone.

Then something on the small screen makes Jason choke on his food.

Tim quirks an eyebrow. “You okay?”

“Hm… Timmy, you may wanna take a look at this.”

“What?” Tim takes Jason’s phone. “Oh, for fuck’s sake !”

It’s another news article. The picture is fortunately less detailed, just a red and black silhouette against Gotham’s sky that may or may not be Red Robin standing over one of the many gargoyles. The text, however.

RED ROBIN MAKES HOMOPHOBIC REMARK AND SHOCKS ADMIRER

Gotham’s newest vigilante busted an underground gambling den last night. Despite his heroic deed, his words after the fact were less than commendable. When questioned about his relationship with the Red Hood by one of the women he rescued, the hero allegedly said that there’s “Nothing gross between him and Hood.”

“Personally, I was shocked,” said the woman in question, Krystal Math, 25 years old. “Red Robin became my favorite hero when I heard he also has a dead-beat boyfriend. I was starting to finally see myself in one of those bats, you know? I couldn’t believe when he said being gay is gross. Never meet your heroes, I guess.”

THE BIRDNEST

WonderWing sent a screenshot.

WonderWing: red robin is cancelled for homophobia, pass it on

Robin: Good. It’s about time we rid ourselves of him.

Cassandra Cain: Little brother does not approve gay rights? :(

yumm: im literally bisexual

spoiler alert: he avoiding the question

in the hood: #redrobinisoverparty

yumm: I hate this fucking family

Tim hasn’t stopped pacing around the room since he read the most recent article. Those were his exact words by the letter, meaning someone had been listening. He doubts Krystal, bless her heart, was the one going to the news with his “homophobic remark”.

Having basically given up on getting Tim to calm down, Jason is the one to get the porch door open for Steph. Because apparently she’s been learning from Jason and acquired his hatred for front doors. Steph knows how Tim gets, so she promptly ignores him and gets comfortable on the reading chair to check the article fully.

“This is nuts,” Steph says. “We were being careful. I made sure of it.”

Tim believes her. Batman and Robin are basically public figures at this point, even if they don’t interact with civilians if they can help it. Red Robin and the Signal were heard of and spotted around the city, but not a lot of people really know of them. Red Hood was basically a urban legend until recently and Black Bat sill is. Batgirl, however, is known for being a people hero.

She was, back in Barbara’s time, stopped for a bit with Cass, but Steph embraced the old tradition whole heartedly. She would walk people home late at night to make sure they were safe, wave at little girls in the bus, talk to kidnapping victims until they were under heavy blankets handed by the police. Steph was extroverted and charming and she used that fully as Batgirl like she never could as Spoiler. That being said, she and Barbara always made a point to avoid pictures, security cameras and whatnot. If there was a hero good at hanging with civilians while unnoticed by the media, that hero was Stephanie Brown.

Tim’s phone is buzzing. He ignores it in favor of stomping around some more.

“Well, something must have slipped your watchful eye,” Jason says, shrugging.

Steph glares at him. “Mine, perhaps, but are you implying someone went unnoticed by Oracle?”

“Well, someone obviously did,” Tim snaps, tossing his phone at the couch in frustration. “What happened after I left, Steph?”

“Nothing,” she says honestly. “I walked the ladies home. Krystal was a bit miffed but she didn’t say anything, so I thought she was just a shipper upset that her OTP wasn’t canon.”

“You think she went to the news after?” Jason suggests.

Steph frowns. “Why would she? She didn’t look like she had media connections exactly.”

Tim’s phone, that bounced off the couch and fell with a soft thud on the carpet, continues to explode with texts. He sighs and stops to pick it up and finally answer them.

“Appearances can be deceiving,” Jason argues. Then turns to Tim: “You should look into her. I’m gonna check other possible sources.”

“Hm-hum, just a second,” Tim mumbles, typing furiously. “Damian is being a nightmare and asking for help on a case.”

“Wack. Are you telling him to solve his own cases instead of using your intell to impress Bruce?”

Tim glares at Jason.

“Really? C’mon, Timmy, we’ve been over this.”

Stephanie gives them a puzzled look. “You’ve been over… Dami being a nightmare?”

“Jason says that whenever someone is mean to me I should reply by attacking them where hurts the most,” Tim explains.

“He knows all of our weaknesses and he has the quickest thinking,” Jason says, frustrated. “The least he should do is stand up for himself with that knowledge!”

"Kinda rich coming from the guy that tried to kill him," Steph says, quirking an eyebrow.

"Steph," Tim scowls. "He didn't know me then and the pit rage--"

"Timmy," Jason cuts him off.

Tim sighs. "Besides now I could off him in 20 different ways if he tried any of that shit again. There. Happy, Jason?"

"That's my baby brother."

Steph smiles at him. “You know what? You’re onto something, Jaybird.”

Tim interrupts his walk of worry again to smile a bit. Something about Stephanie and Jason agreeing on something is immensely satisfying.

Still, on the matter at hand, Tim says, “If I go off on Damian, Dick’s gonna get mad…”

“Then go off on Dick as well,” Steph promptly suggests.

Jason high-fives her. “Atta girl. Besides if Dick doesn’t want us to tell Damian to fuck off he has to work harder on teaching him not to be a little shit. Everyone here has a tragic backstory here and we all know Damian goes too far sometimes.”

Tim shakes his head again. “Regardless, Damian’s case will have to wait. We’re gonna go with your plan, Jay. And Steph…”

“Wow, no way, José. I’m just here as an eyewitness. I don’t want to get involved with homophobes and end up shipped with Jason or some shit.”

Tim glares at her. “I was going to offer you some of our leftovers, but since you’re not interested, that’s fine.”

While Jason laughs and Steph protests, he proceeds to look for his laptop, hoping this isn’t going to be a dead end.

“This is a dead end,” Tim declares.

From what he can find, Krystal wasn’t even paid for her impromptu interview. Apparently Vicki Vale showed up at her place to confirm the veracity of a story that she heard God knows where.

Dick is in Bludhaven, but he insisted on facetiming them when he realized his brothers were struggling, even if he mostly just made worried faces from Tim’s phone as Tim, Jason and Steph exchanged notes. As a rule of thumb, Tim doesn’t involve his siblings in his cases since he became Red Robin, but this is definitely an all hands on deck situation. Tim isn’t desperate enough to get Bruce involved, but he’s getting there. Especially when Dick says:

“Babs couldn’t find anything in Vicki’s email or phone. She’s double checking all of Vicki's sources, but so far it’s been no good.”

“We could always get Vale and hang her by the ankles on top of some building until she talks,” Jason suggests. "Let's go old school on her."

Everyone ignores Jason. Tim stands for another mug of coffee. Dick lets out a frustrated sigh. Steph keeps watching all of them from the couch, where she’s been lying down and tossing gummy bears into her mouth for the past half-hour.

When no one acknowledges him, Jason sighs and stands. “Alright, this’ been fun. I’m going to patrol.”

Dick frowns. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“He can’t vanish,” Steph says. “One thing is crashing Tim’s place to make sure he won’t get ambushed in his down time. If Red Hood goes AWOL he might as well admit he’s working with the Batclan.”

Jason nods. “If I don’t do my job, next thing I know Black Mask takes over my stuff.”

“Can’t have Black Mask taking over his stuff,” Steph agrees.

Dick glances at Tim as though expecting him to disagree with the plan. Tim lets out a defeated sigh. “He’s right. Just… make sure to find a safe place to change into your gear so no one sees you. If there are any safe places, that is…”

Jason rolls his eyes. Tim knows he’s going full Robbie Downer mode, as Jason likes to call it, but he can’t help it. It’s not often that he finds himself without any ideas. He should have been able to solve this already. Since nothing comes to mind, he starts imagining unrealistic scenarios in hopes that they’ll give him some insight outside of the box. AU in which I was never shipped with my brother by some nosey reporter. AU in which I went out Damian instead of Jason that night.

Tim groans in frustration. “Why did it have to be Jason? We could get away with me having a thumb war with literally anyone. If it was Batman out there, this wouldn’t be that much of a problem.”

“Maybe if you hung out with all your brothers and not just Jason there wouldn’t be as many rumors about you and Red Hood,” Dick mumbles.

Tim glares at the phone.

“Really? You wanna go there? You wanna talk favoritism, Richard? Because you’ve been favoring Damian for-freaking-ever.”

“Drag him!” Jason cheers.

“Tim,” Dick says, looking genuinely upset, “I love all-”

“Save it,” Steph cuts in. “We all have favorites Dick, there is no use denying it.”

Because Dick’s eyebrows are knitted in confusion, Tim clarifies: “Bruce’s favorite is Cass, yours is Damian, Jason’s is… I don’t know, his guns. Steph is my favorite, unfortunately. Steph’s favorite is Cass, Cass’ favorite is Duke, Duke doesn’t have favorites, he’s the only good person in this family, and Damian’s is also you.”

Steph nods. “You did it! You broke the Bat Family dynamics to its bare essentials!”

“And that is why Tim is my favorite. After my guns,” Jason adds.

“Jason, we do not rate our siblings.”

“That’s why you’re in last place, Dick.”

Ignoring Dick’s enraged noises, Tim sets his mug aside. “I’m going patrolling, even if today isn't my turn. Solo this time. Hopefully Red Hood and Red Robin being separate out there will help the rumors die down a bit.”

No one has a better idea - Tim’s least favorite sentence - so that’s what they do.

It’s another infuriatingly quiet night.

Red Robin stops a couple of muggings, scares the crap out of some drug dealers. At some point, he considers contacting Poison Ivy and asking if she has any corrupt CEO she wants help with. He could, you know. It’d stop Ivy from killing someone and on his last run with Harley Quinn she did let slip that Tim was Ivy’s favorite Robin.

He almost falls mid swing at the memory, thinking he might be onto something, but then he remembers Harley hadn’t particularly recognized Red Robin as the third Robin. She was just ranting about how the new tiny Robin had no sense of humor and Ivy missed the last one. Besides of course Harley Quinn wasn’t feeding Vicki Vale some BatFanfic. Tim’s brain must be really burnt out if that’s the best hot take it can come up with.

It’s almost 3am and he’s taking a pair of muggers that can’t be much older than Tim to the police. He’s about ready to call if a night when someone shouts:

“Red Robin!”

He looks on instinct and his stomach drops when he sees Vicki Vale running towards him. Crap.

“Red Robin, can I get a statement?”

He keeps walking. He’s just one dirty alley away from GCPD, otherwise he’d just tie the stupid muggers to his back and would use his grappling hook to get out of the situation, grapple safety be damned. The muggers gingerly attempt to hide their faces as the reporter runs to them swinging a digital recorder. Vicki acts as though she can’t see them.

“Red Robin, what do you have to say about the rumors of your relationship with the Red Hood?”

The rumors you created? Red Robin quickens his pace and the muggers trip over themselves. He stares straight ahead, pretending he doesn’t notice the woman basically running in heels to keep up with him.

“Are you ashamed of it? Is it because he’s a criminal or because he’s a man?”

Red Robin wonders if the muggers would walk the rest of the way and turn themselves in if he asked nicely.

“Don’t bother, lady,” one of the muggers says. “He’s a nasty bigot.”

The other mugger nods and the two of them are wearing matching pouty expressions. Now Tim just feels bad. He didn’t become a hero for the recognition and he’s not in the business of doing PSAs like Superman, but he doesn’t want the strange socially woke criminal youth of Gotham to think they’re being arrested by a homophobe.

“I have no problem with two men in a relationship, I’m bisexual,” he tells the muggers. “Still, I’m not dating Red Hood. Just because I’m bi it doesn’t mean I’m dating every male vigilante I run into.”

At that, the two crooks look mildly surprised and suddenly they seem to feel a bit better about being arrested. Would you look at that.

Red Robin delivers them to the police, painfully aware that Vicki Vale is nowhere to be found anymore. He feels like he’s going to pay dearly for being too prideful to let himself be mistaken for a heterosexual person.

Lo and behold, Twitter, on that very same morning.

@Gotham_Gazette:

Red Robin hints that he might be bisexual. “No, I’m not dating the Red Hood, just because I’m bi it doesn’t mean I’m dating every male vigilante,” said the hero on the rumors about his relationship.

@dgraysonman hints??? he literally said he’s bi smh

@stephssss wow only the male vigilantes? biphobic. let red robin date batgirl too

@babsgeez be gay do crime, be bi serve justice

@thomascommaduke no cops at pride, only Red Robin using a bi flag as cape.

“Timmy…” Jason starts.

“Don’t. Just leave me alone to die.”

“That’s fair, have a nice day.”

At this point, Tim is surprised Bruce hasn’t intervened. As unaware of social media as Bruce can be, he’s always on the look for anything that might compromise their secret identities. Tim pulls two all-nighters in a row doing detective work and still makes no progress on his search for the person that sent Vicki that picture and overheard his conversation with Krystal. He fully expects Batman to jump him on his next patrol and give him a lecture.

When he comments that to Jason, he gets a confused look in response.

“You didn’t get a lecture? Bruce was the one that told me first. I had to hear about being careless for 20 minutes before I got home and could take off my comm.”

Tim frowns in confusion. Bruce had talked to him once or twice after the news got out and he didn’t comment anything on it.

“That’s Batman’s psychological profiling,” someone suggests.

Tim almost jumps out of his skin when Steph casually walks into the living room with a bowl of chips.

“What are you doing here? And are those my clothes?”

Steph shrugs in the sweater that clearly doesn’t belong to her. “Jason and I are doing movie night.”

“Movie night,” Jason mocks. “She’s been here for the past two days. Did you seriously not notice, Tim?”

Tim’s jaw drops.

Steph sighs and her expression turns guilty. “Fine. My mom is out of town for the week and Jason is a better cook than I am. Is it a crime to bum off your ex-boyfriend and his bizarrely talented in the kitchen brother?”

Before Tim can say anything, Jason interrupts: “What were you saying about Batman, Steph?”

She heads to the couch and starts looking for the remote, her feet propped on the coffee table. “B knows Jay will just shrug it off and deal with the consequences, hence the need of a lecture. If he annoys Jason, he’ll stop and reflect on it, even if out of rage. He knows Tim’s already overthinking and working his butt off to fix it, so he doesn’t want to add any pressure.”

Both Jason and Tim stand in dumbfounded silence. Since when does Steph know Bruce so well?

She raises her gaze when the quietness stretches and quirks an eyebrow at them. “What? Am I wrong?”

“Hm. No. That’s pretty much what we’ve been doing,” Jason admits, if a big begrudgingly. “That’s annoying though.”

Steph simply makes a dismissive gesture and pats the sit beside her. “Tim, you need a break. Wanna join us?”

Tim hesitates. On one hand, the fact that Bruce trusts him that much is a tad touching… and knowing it makes him feel he has to solve this as soon as possible. On another… it’s kind of annoying that Bruce knows him so well and yet doesn’t think about offering any assistance. Tim is not stubborn enough to refuse a helping hand when he’s on a pinch.

“You’re not going to solve anything if you’re hallucinating from sleep deprivation, Timbers,” Jason points. “Besides we’re watching Avatar.”

“Fine,” Tim says.

If for nothing else, just to prove to Bruce that he’s not an overworker and he can slack off in the absence of a parental figure.

Tim falls asleep in the middle of the second episode. Steph and Jason vow to take him to bed once they’re sure he’s completely out, but they only last until the end of the first season. The three sleep soundly on the couch for good eight hours and regret dearly when they wake up with necks too sore to fight crime for at least a day.

Consequences. They always come.

Almost a week goes by in which the rumors are but an annoyance to Jason and a source of stress to Tim - but almost anything can stress Tim if he tries hard enough, so that’s not saying anything. Jason is still staying at Tim’s, but he’s considering going back to his own place when they go for three days with no new article and nothing unusual has happened.

Until it does.

It’ a rainy night Tim is going over reports for the next WE meeting when he hears a noise coming from the balcony. His stomach gives a familiar twist when he recognizes Batgirl hunched over the weight of one Red Hood.

He rushes to her aid, already feeling nauseous. There’s no blood in sight but whatever happened must be serious if Jason is willing to let Batgirl give him a piggyback ride. Tim lets them drip water all over the floor and, in his panic, has half a mind to appreciate that Batgirl’s boots have enough traction that she doesn’t slip.

“What on Earth…”

“The most ridiculous thing,” Steph bables as she and Tim drag a very dizzy Jason to the couch. She then starts ranting so fast Bart Allen would be proud. “He was doing his thing as usual, but some of his people turned on him and there was an ambush and so many flipping people against one poor Hood and good god that guy shot his helmet at point-blank which, damn , that was so stupid, of course the freaking helmet is bullet proof, it just ricocheted and…”

“Steph, calm down,” Tim interrupts. “Jason, can you report?”

When he gingerly attempts to take off his helmet, Steph takes over and undoes the safety measures before carefully removing it. There is a dent on the back part where he had been presumably shot.

“Hm,” Jason grunts, squinting even behind his domino mask. “Ambush. Shot. Concussion. Very concussion. Ankle hurts? Prolly not broken, tho. Also stabbed?”

Tim nods. “Steph, get the medical supplies. Where’s the stab wound, Jay?”

Jason points to his thigh and there is an improvised bandage keeping him from losing too much blood. Considering how well done it is, Tim figures it’s Steph’s work. He nods and starts checking his brother’s vitals and making sure there aren’t other serious wounds.

When she comes back with the supplies Tim needs, Steph has her cowl down and a somber expression. She turns off the lights for Jason’s sake, the only source of light left on being the lamp near where Tim is already ripping off a piece of Jason’s pants to have better access to his wound. Steph sits by Jason’s side and grabs his hand, much to Tim’s surprise. He’s too busy taking care of the stab wound to ask, but he doesn’t have to. Steph breaks the silence:

“I’m so sorry, Jason.”

Jason gives her a confused look. “You saved my ass?”

“Yes, but…” Steph sighs and turns to Tim. “Babs is with the Birds of Prey tonight, so I was on my own. I was messing around with my comm frequency when I accidentally got into Jason’s. I heard the mess and it sounded like he was in trouble so I panicked. I went to get him and… Well, if there was any doubt that he’s working with the Bats, there isn’t now. It was too obvious that I was protecting him.”

Jason squeezes her hand. “Hm. Pigs.”

“Right. Then the police arrived and instead of leaving right away I stopped to make sure Jason wasn’t bleeding to death. More than a few cops saw me patching him up.”

Tim sighs. Well, shit.

“It’s not your fault, Steph,” Tim says. “I mean… he literally wears a bat on his chest. People were bound to find out it isn’t just to stick it to Batman.”

“Is too,” Jason mumbles.

Tim ignores him. “The situation isn’t ideal, but we all prefer people knowing Red Hood is associated with the Bats than him being dead.”

“I died before.”

“We know, Jay.”

“Do not recommend.”

“We know, Jay.”

Steph fidgets a bit, still looking guilty, but ultimately nods. Tim is about to start stitching Jason’s wound closed when she says: “There’s more. You, hm, you know Renee Montoya?”

“The one valid pig,” Jason says. “I like her.”

“She was there. She helped a ton keep the other cops away from us before we could escape,” Steph says. “I think she wanted to check on Jason and…”

Tim stops moving. He knows Montoya, worked with her before and she’s a nice woman. That being said, she doesn’t have any connections to Hood. Why would she… Oh. The gay rumors. Damn wlw/mlm solidarity.

“What happened?” Tim asks, already fearing the worst.

“Hmmm, we’ll tell you, but I’m concussed, so you have to promise you won’t be mad.”

“Jason.”

Jason sighs. “Well. She asked about our relationship and… Hm. I might have told her we’re brothers.”

Tim stares at them. Steph is cringing and Jason is too out of it to care. At this point… Tim starts laughing, making the other two - even the concussed one - frown in worry.

“Aw, man,” Tim says between chuckles. “What the fuck, am I right? I’m too old for this. Who cares? Not me! Fuck it. Fuckety fuck fucky-fuck.”

“I think we broke him,” Steph whispers even as Tim resumes stitching his brother.

They went from not-sure-if-real to a freaking cop knowing about their family in the span of a week. Tomorrow #TimDrakeIsRedRobin could be trending on Twitter and Tim wouldn’t care. Not anymore. Let them come.Literally everyone in his friend circle is a vigilante, a hero or a criminal at this point, he doesn’t even care about endangering anyone.

It takes actually two days for it to hit the news. He’s alone in his office when Tam texts him a link to Gotham Gazette online. Judging by the lack of other words, Tim figures she’s cutting ties with him again.

The newest article has no actual pictures, but a sketch of Red Hood standing with his guns pointed at the viewer and Red Robin standing behind him, his face only partially turned. The thing looks more like superhero fanart than an official sketch, but that never stopped Vicki Vale before.

VIGILANTE FAMILY? by Vicki Vale

Red Robin, one of Gotham’s many masked vigilantes, was cause of intrigue recently. Many people noticed the hero doing his work around Red Hood’s territory, something not even Batman dares on the regular. Speculation turned into a craze of theories when both red-themed vigilantes were caught sitting on a roof sharing a meal from Batburger and many thought perhaps there was more than your regular vigilante team up.

Turns out the hero and the mob boss aren’t lovers, against popular belief. When questioned about the nature of their relationship, Red Hood snapped and confirmed one of the less popular theories: the two men are, in fact, related. “Red is right and he should say it,” said Red Hood to a bewildered policewoman. “Of course he’d say it’s [REDACTED] gross, he’s my little brother.” When asked about the conversation overheard by our reporter, the policewoman in question refused to give any more details and requested to remain anonymous.

It’s hard to be sure how such development came to be. The Red Hood has been active in Gotham for years as a mob boss and, more recently, a vigilante and ally to Gotham’s bats. While Red Robin is a newer vigilante, could it be that he was trained by the Red Hood? And how do the two brothers fit with Gotham’s oldest vigilantes? Unlike his older counterpart, Red Robin has been often spotted working side-by-side with the likes of Batgirl and Robin, making some question whether Red Robin is distancing himself from his criminal brother. However, sources spotted Hood being aided by Batgirl more recently. Could it be that his former sidekick is bringing Red Hood closer to the side of justice? More on the Red Twins as the story develops.

THE BIRDNEST

spoiler alert: RED TWINS

WonderWing: R E D T W I N S

send me a Signal: ~ * R E D T W I N S * ~

in the hood: uhhhh my bad?

yumm: dis is great

yumm: now im hoods stranged sidekick

yumm: i fucking hate u jason.

in the hood: hey, if you didn't want to be my sidekick you should've picked another color

yumm: screw u u dont own the color red

in the hood: I was born first

yumm: u died first 2

WonderWing: Tim!

spoiler alert: oof

send me a Signal: wow Tim that was too far

in the hood: I’ve never been prouder to be your brother I taught you so well Timmy

send me a Signal: … I stand corrected. I sometimes forget everyone in this family is clinically insane

“Hey Tim. There is discourse about you and Jason now.”

Tim lets out a whimper.

“So apparently some people still ship you two. But those people are being cancelled because shipping incest is problematic.”

“Steph, are you planning on going home? I noticed you took one of my drawers.”

“There’s fanart of you two.”

“I don’t want to see it. That'll scar me for life."

“I’m DMing it to you. By the way there is civilian Red Robin fanart and for some reason they made you blonde.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, I guess it’s more fun to ship people with different hair colors. Should we dye your hair?”

“Why.”

“That way when you finally hook up with Co-”

“Finish that sentence and I kick you out of this apartment for good.”

With the cat out of the bag, they start doing different damage control.

Red Hood is now openly working with the Bats, so Steph and Cass dismantle Hood’s former safehouses around Gotham which mostly means getting Jason’s books and bringing them to Tim’s place. Jason suggests the places should be converted into something useful for the neighborhood, such as libraries or a community center of sorts, so Tim starts working on what needs to be done by WE to make that reality. Tim also makes sure Bruce pretends not to know Jason is using a lot of money illegally acquired to getting himself new hideouts.

They dance around the topic a lot and nothing is really said until Steph brings it up. Steph, whose mother returned days ago. Steph, that definitely doesn’t want Jason to leave, because apparently she suddenly has a new favorite ex-Robin. Steph, that is currently eating homemade waffles in Tim’s kitchen, even though Tim is 83% sure she didn’t sleep over last night.

“Why doesn’t Jason just moves in?” she asks.

When neither boy replies immediately, she continues:

“I mean, it’s more practical, isn’t it? Tim’s place is already secure, he has a hero hideout downstairs and you two already work together all the damn time. Tim’s office can be converted into a room for Jason, because, let’s face it, I spend most of my free time here and Tim never uses it. I once saw him take his laptop with him to the bathroom and then return to the kitchen table instead of using the office. We wouldn’t even have to take the shelves, because Jason would fill them.”

They exchange a look.

“You know, she’s right,” Tim says. He shrugs like it’s no big deal, really.

He isn’t nervous at all while Jason stands there, his expression unreadable. It’s not like he enjoys way too much having his brother around and got way too comfortable with having a roommate and a half (if you count Steph) on the past weeks. Tim doesn’t care, he’s cool like that.

“I mean. I guess having you as a roommate beats living alone,” Jason finally says.

Tim fails to hide his grin. “We can start working in turning the office into a room this weekend.”

Jason smiles back and messes his hair.

Tim’s first theory is that Steph wants Jason off the couch so she has an official place to sleep, because apparently Jason’s cooking is that good.

His second theory is that she noticed how happy Tim is to finally share a house with family. The Wayne Manor had been home for a while, sure, but despite Alfred’s best efforts the place wasn’t the coziest. It wasn’t the same as sharing an apartment with a brother, bickering about sharing chores and openly discussing their night jobs before shifting the conversation to a video game they want to buy. Sharing actual meals and making sure one another wouldn’t end up dead in a ditch.

Tim decides to stick with his first theory, after all it’s easier for Steph to make Red Twins jokes if Jason and Tim are under the same roof.

Even without new gossip, the idea of vigilante brothers is too interesting for the general public to let go. Tim and Jason start acting mostly in the shadows and having no interaction with civilians at all and they’re still the topic of Gotham’s variety shows and online discussions from time to time.

Because they don’t slip again, Bruce has yet to bring up the subject with Tim, but the mystery remains. Who listened to all those conversations and how? Tim keeps expecting the other shoe to drop, to get a message demanding ransom for their secret identities, something, anything , but nothing happens. Nothing freaking happens and he’s never been this frustrated.

That is, until, it happens. The ultimate betrayal.

Dick’s next visit coincides with the time Cass is over for the week. Because Bruce is secretly a sap in the wrongest way, he suggests they all go patrolling together. Such great family time.

Despite their initial protests, they must all be the same kind of freak, because they all agree. They split up soon to cover more ground, but keep their comms on so it still feels they’re all in a big menacing group.

Red Robin is somewhere near the crime alley when Nightwing announces he noticed some of Two Face’s goons getting into a building. He checks his wrist pad for their locations and notices Nightwing isn’t that far from where he is. The next closest person is Red Hood.

“I’ll take care of it,” Nightwing says over the comms.

“Negative. Two Face himself might be there,” Batman intervenes. “Wait for backup. The Red Twins--” And he stops himself as though realizing what he’s saying.

“Batman!?” Red Robin gasps in a betrayed voice.

Nightwing is already having a laughter fit over the comms almost drowning the sound of Bruce’s disappointed sigh.

“I’m sorry, Red,” his father says and he even forgets to use Batman’s scary voice. “Nightwing and Batgirl have been saying it so much that-”

“Save it,” Hood groans. “And stop laughing, Jerkwing!”

The worst part is knowing that, even if he solves the mystery, the Red Twins thing is probably going to follow him to his untimely death.

Tim all but lost hope when he gets an email from Barbara. “To my favorite Red Twin” says the subject. He groans, but opens the email, because one does not simply ignore a message from Oracle. Then he almost drops his phone.

Attached there is a grainy picture of a young woman talking to Vicki Vale. The image had certainly been enhanced digitally as it’s probably from a shitty security camera, but you can still see the woman’s face clear as day. She looks like she’s handing Vicki something, her shoulders tense and her expression wary. The body of the message is, most likely, the woman’s personal info. Her name is Lisa Harris. She is 27 years old. She lives somewhat close to Jason’s territory. And, most importantly, Babs added to the end of the message:

The picture is from the night before the Red Twins article ;) Vicki didn’t talk to anyone other than her coworkers and our pal Lisa on that night.

Jason comes out of his room when Tim trips on the coffee table in his hurry to stand. “What’s up?”

Tim hands him the phone. Jason’s eyes grow wide. “I don’t care about subtlety. We’re both going after this chick.”

“Agreed.”

“Should we wait for Steph? She’s gonna be mad that we went when she’s in class.”

“Jason, Steph doesn’t live here.”

“Doesn’t she, though?”

“We’re not waiting for Steph. She’s not involved.”

“Aight, but when she’s bitching I’m gonna say I remembered her and you said no.”

They leave their bikes behind first for stealth sake, but mostly because the place they’re going isn’t that far from their place. Tim shivers at the thought of someone so dangerous living near him. He wonders what kind of information Lisa might have gathered and for how long she’d been watching them. Is she a new enemy? Perhaps a member of the league?

The shitty building she lives in doesn’t suggest that. It’s just another grimy Gotham apartment complex that didn’t age well. The place they’re looking for doesn’t have a balcony, only a useless fire escape so rusty it would probably crumble under any sign of flames. It’s a perfect hiding spot, because nothing suggests a villain lives there. It’s just a building, home to many underpaid bachelors, nothing too suspicious about it.

Red Robin reminds Hood of that before they nod to each other and split. Jason goes into the building with a ton of confidence, for such a big guy trying to go unnoticed. Tim uses his grapple to reach the right window, not trusting that fire escape for even a second.

The window is open and he finds himself looking at a place not that different from the one Jason lived before moving in with Tim. Mismatched furniture of the living suggests whoever lives there didn’t have money for fancy decor or that they don’t mind how the place looks. However, something about the place looks… well, lived in. It doesn’t look like a criminal temporary hideout, but rather someone’s place.

As he hesitates, a woman walks in. The woman of the picture, Lisa Harris. Her long blonde hair had been tied in a knot on top of her head and she’s getting ready for bed, if her oversized T-shirt and pajama pants say anything. She’s holding a bowl of cereal.

She reminds him of Steph and that causes him to hesitate for a second. What if this girl is innocent? Their evidence is circumstantial. Maybe she just happened to talk to Vicki Vale at the wrong time.

That hesitation costs him dearly. The woman appears to feel his eyes burning the back of her head. She glances at the window and their gazes meet.

Crap.

Lisa inhales sharply and drops her cereal bowl. Before he can reassure her of anything, she’s bolting for the door. He pats himself in the back for his backup plan, because just as she opens the door she runs right into Red Hood’s chest. Lisa stumbles backwards, her expression horrified.

“Knock knock?” Hood quips.

She lets out a squeak and guilt makes Tim wince. Once again he opens his mouth to tell her they’re not here to hurt her when she… vanishes.

She simply disappears right in front of their eyes.

“Shit, she’s a meta,” Hood hisses.

Red Robin’s thoughts fly a thousand miles per hour, finally making the conexions he stupidly missed for so long. Of freaking course. He was so used to dealing with a bunch of idiots in colorful costumes and assassins and whatnot he hadn’t taken in consideration that ninjas aren’t the only exceptional enemies they face. And if his theory is correct.

“She’s still here,” he says. “If I’m right, she can turn invisible. That’s how she’s been listening to private conversations.”

A soft gasp follows his statement and Hood is moving almost as fast as Red Robin’s insights. An invisible woman is still solid and her clumsy footsteps are still audible, so on the moment that follows Jason seems to embrace air.

“No!” She cries out, flashing in and out of sight for a few seconds.

“Careful,” Red Robin warns.

Hood is wearing his helmet, but Tim knows him well enough to know his brother is glaring at him as if saying duh?

Lisa tries to stomp on Hood’s feet, she squirms and grunts, but he doesn't budge. Apparently invisibility is her only power and she looks terrified.

“It’s okay!” Red Robin hurries to say. “We’re not going to hurt you!”

She turns her frantic gaze to him. Her brown eyes suddenly become watery.

Shit.

“Hood, let her go,” Red Robin says.

“Seriously?”

“Yes. You’re not going to try to escape again, are you, Lisa? We just want to ask a few questions.”

He wishes they had waited for Steph.

Lisa hesitates, paralysed, but slowly nods. Her eyes never leave Red Robin once their gazes met, not even to check whether Hood is going to let her go or not.

“Hood,” he calls again.

Groaning something about being too trusting, Jason lets her go. He is gentle about it, too, making sure to let her feet touch the floor carefully instead of simply dropping her. Regardless, as soon as she’s left to stand on her own legs, her knees give in and she drops on the floor. At that, Tim can tell even Jason is hiding guilt behind his helmet.

He shakes his head to regain focus and crouches in front of the woman. If at this point they just apologize and leave, they’ll have traumatizes this poor woman for nothing.

“Lisa Harris,” he starts. “That’s your name, right?”

She trembles when he says her name and that should have been the first red flag. He blames it on the stressful situation and moves on.

“I’m sorry for startling you,” he says. He keeps his expression empty, even if he again can tell Jason is cringing at the understatement. “No one here is going to hurt you. We just want some answers. Is that alright?”

Her hands are balled tightly on her lap as though she’s making a lot of effort not to move them - perhaps to punch them, defend herself? But again she doesn’t look prone to start a fight.

“You’re him,” she whispers, her voice heavy with… something. It almost sounds like affection. “You’re really the Red Robin. In my room.”

That red flag is harder to ignore. He is about to check for other shock symptoms when Hood calls.

“Hmm… Red? Are you seeing that?”

He follows his brother’s gaze… and his chin drops. On the wall opposite to the door hangs a giant corkboard. On the corkboard, held by black and red tacks there are dozens of Red Robin pictures. Some blurry, some taken from so far that you can barely be sure it’s really Red Robin or not, the infamous picture of the thumb war (demon horns had been disturbingly scribbled on Jason on that one) and… He doesn’t have words.

“You’re my hero!” Lisa claims.

“Is he? I couldn’t tell,” Hood says.

Red Robin punches his knee, which is all he can reach from where he is, and turns his attention to the woman in front of him.

“Lisa, for how long have you been following me?”

“Since you saved me,” she says. “Well… Hm. You didn’t save me. But you stopped a heist at the Central Bank a couple of months ago and I was there. I could've died without you.”

Aw, crap on a stick.

“Do you… do you know who I am?”

“You’re Red Robin,” she repeats.

“He’s asking about his identity behind the mask.”

The way she glares at Jason doesn’t suggest she had been shaking in fear moments ago. “He’s Red Robin,” she insists. “I don’t need anything else.”

“If you don’t know… how do you have so many…” Hood gestures vaguely at her creepy corkboard.

“I did detective work,” she says and glances at Red Robin as if expecting a pat on the back. “I noticed you always go on patrol on mondays, wednesdays, fridays and saturdays. Then if I wandered around long enough… It was just a matter of hard work and bit of luck, really.”

Damn. Now that Tim thinks about it, the one time he went on patrol spontaneously was also the night Vicki Vale found him by coincidence rather than magically knowing what happened.

“Fuuuuck,” Hood groans. “I told B patrol schedule was a dumb idea!” Then, in a deep growly voice, “ It’s a matter of efficiency Hood, don’t be paranoid. Who’s paranoid now, Batloser?”

“Not the time, Hood.”

“Right. Proceed.”

Red Robin sighs. “Why did you sell my pictures to Vicki Vale?”

At that, Lisa looks suddenly ashamed. “I.. I’m sorry. I thought… I thought you were involved with him and I panicked. I thought… I thought seeing what it would do to your reputation would make you see that he’s not good enough for you.”

“Rude.”

“Hood.”

“What? She is.”

“I was trying to learn more about him, you know? I was. When I found out he was your brother, I realized you had no option, right? Family is family. I even told the news again to clean your record.”

So he had a stalker. A stalker concerned about his love life, no less, that’s… great. Just great. Of all the scenarios he considered they’d have to face, this is not one of them. Before he decides what to do, however, Lisa speaks up again.

“You sound so… nice.”

Tim stares at her in confusion, unsure whether to thank her or not. Regardless, she didn’t sound like she was complimenting him.

“I mean… aren’t I supposed to be?”

“No! I mean… you’re… you’re dark and brooding and serious and you don’t waste time with civilians unless forced…” She frowns and Tim figures she’s thinking about the night with the strippers. “You’re… the night.”

Jason snorts. Tim punches his knee again. “Lisa, I’m pretty sure you’re thinking of Batman, not me.”

Her expression twists in such fury both vigilantes prepare to restrain her, but instead of directing her anger at them, Lisa scoffs.

“Don’t get me started on Batman! All that crap about being mysterious and working alone? Then he joins the freaking Justice League? Just… Batman, in the middle of a bunch of rainbow wearing clowns. And then… all those freaking kids. Why does he have so many kids?”

“Lady, we ask ourselves that everyday,” Tim admits.

Lisa is wearing the same expression Krystal had when Red Robin denied his relationship with Hood.

“I’m sorry, Lisa, I’m grateful that you admire me, but you can’t keep following me like this.”

Her eyes teary again, Lisa swallows dry. “Clearly, if you’re sorry about it.”

They can’t exactly take her to Arkham for taking pictures. Tim feels less bad about the whole thing when the woman stands and starts telling them in a very loud voice to get the hell out of her house.

“Fine,” Jason says, heading to the corkboard. “But I’m taking this.”

“Take it,” she shouts. “I don’t need it anymore. You’re just like Batman!”

And that’s how Red Hood and Red Robin find themselves standing in the middle of a dusty hallway, Hood with a conspiracy board under his arm.

Well, that happened.

In the end, Steph was furious about them going to the stalker’s house by themselves, but there was not a lot she could do except doodle on every picture of the stalker board.

There must be something very wrong with their sense of humor, because their text group becomes a mess of jokes about the stalker Robin being stalked. At that Tim has no problem exercising Jason’s lessons in holding grudges and refuses to help them with any of their cases unless they stop it. The thing is that all of them find the whole thing hilarious.

All of them except Duke.

“Give it a while,” Tim tells him. “You’re the most recent acquisition to the family. In due time your idea of funny will be just as warped as ours.”

“Hm. When was the last time you slept, Timmy?” Duke asks.

“Tuesday.”

“Today is Tuesday.”

“Hahahaha yeah.”

“... Jaaaaasooon! Come over here! Tim is going into The Ring territory! Do something about it!”

Bruce doesn’t find it funny either. He isn’t happy that there’s a deranged meta he didn’t know about, but Tim thinks that was the least surprising part of the whole ordeal. He reckons a lot of metas doesn’t want to be a hero or a villain, they’re just regular people that live regular lives and happened to win in the metagene lottery.

Or… well. In Lisa’s case, not so regular.

And that’s why upon hearing the story for the first time, Bruce completely freaks out. He starts considering possibilities from scaring the woman as Batman - “That’s a terrible idea, dad, you heard she likes that shit,” says Dick over facetime - or having her arrested - “Father, having bad taste in men is hardly a crime. She has yet to do anything to harm Timothy” Damian helpfully reminds him - and finally to fill out a restraining order - “For who, Karen?” Jason snaps. “Red Robin? Or you want to walk into that nut job and tell her she’s not allowed near Tim Drake-Wayne?”

Long story short, it’s chaos. Tim has had enough of a crazy night, so he sits back near the training area of the cave and sips the tea Alfred made him. Bruce is doing Tim’s stressed out circuit, pacing back and forth around the cave while his children follow him - Damian is holding the phone higher than his head so Dick can talk to Bruce at eye level - and they try to talk him out of doing anything stupid.

Most of them, anyway. It looks like Duke is definitely looking into the possibility of a restraining order.

Cass detaches herself from the mess and heads towards Tim. She looks calm, as Cass always does, and some of that calm transfers to him. When she takes a seat by his side, he smiles at her.

“Okay?” she asks.

Tim shrugs. “Weirded out, mostly. I’ll be fine.”

She points at her then signs Tim’s house as a question. She’s asking him if he wants her to come over.

While Cass is one hell of a bodyguard, Tim thinks of Steph, who’s most definitely playing with his video games back at home, and of Jason, whose schedule mostly matches Tim’s, hence he is, more often than not, at one shout of distance. Tim can’t think of any place that feels safer than his home right now.

“I’m fine. Jay and Steph are taking care of me. I’ll just have to be twice as careful during patrol,” he says.

Cass nods, satisfied. She gives him a forehead kiss and leans against his side. The two of them watch their family yell at each other for the next ten minutes, matching serene smiles on their faces.

Bruce settles for keeping Lisa under occasional watch.

Barbara stalks her online and finds that Lisa has left a Red Robin fanclub (Tim did not know those existed) and closed all of her threads on the Red Robin subreddit (Tim knew about those, but kept his distance), making it seem that learning that Red Robin is just a polite-ish kid really killed her love.

Bruce says he’ll keep tabs on her because he know she’s a meta, it’s not like he’s being overprotective, he totally knows Tim can take care of himself, really.

Other than that, Bruce is way too happy about Jason’s new living arrangement. He even almost smiles.

Tim… is fine. The whole thing is creepy, for sure, but he finds out that his siblings making so many jokes about it makes it easier to handle. Yay for their unhealthy coping mechanisms.

He doesn’t think he will ever be okay with media, though. It’s annoying enough that he has to deal with reporters as Tim Drake-Wayne, he definitely doesn’t need the attention as Red Robin.

Luckily for him, his siblings help him with that too. One time he’s wrapping a gang bust with Nightwing when a reporter comes running towards them, begging for a few answers. Red Robin cringes inwardly realizing there are no close buildings to use his grapple, but before he can say anything, Nightwing squeezes his shoulder.

“Go, Timmy. I’ve got this.”

Tim smile. “Thanks, Dick.”

And he leaves the silent and swift way only a Bat can do.

Things are great. As great as they can be in Gotham, at least. Tim wakes up at 9am - an early time for a vigilante, but he got at least 5 hours of sleep, so that’s something - and heads to the kitchen. He finds Steph (who still swears she doesn’t live with them) and Jason bickering over pancakes they’re making. Smiling to himself, Tim mumbles a good morning and starts washing the dirty dishes from last night.

The peaceful morning is interrupted by Steph’s phone buzzing. She use a paper towel to clean her hands before checking it and…

“Uh… Timbers?” she calls.

He freezes, the pan he’s washing suddenly forgotten. “What now?”

Steph is trembling with contained laughter when she hands him the phone. Duke just sent her a link to a news article. Tim clicks and finds himself staring at the headline RIVALRY BETWEEN HEROES? followed by a clear picture of Nightwing and a blurry shot of Red Robin.

The article follows:

After dealing with an infamous gang of contrabandists that operated near Gotham’s harbor, Nightwing and Red Robin went their separate ways without much courtesy. Despite the short collab, it appears that Red Robin didn’t appreciate Nighwing’s help, his farewell words being a sarcastic “thanks” followed by calling Bludhaven’s hero a “dick”.

Tim raises his eyes to the other two. Steph is hiding her face into the crook of Jason’s neck, her shoulders still trembling a bit. Having read the article over Steph’s shoulder, Jason is biting his lip.

Tim deadpans: “This is the funniest shit that ever happened to me.”

The three of them explode in laughter and they cackle for a good minute, until the three of them are breathless and their cheeks hurt.

“I-I want to print that and frame it,” Steph manages between giggles. “Let’s hang it on the living room.”

“Good… ahaha… Good work, Timbers,” Jason says, smiling wide. “For that, you can have extra pancakes.”

Tim is still grinning when he goes back to his dish duty. Maybe being under the media attention isn't so bad after all.

#batfam #red robin #tim drake #jason todd #red hood #stephanie brown #red bros #poteto writing #lmao here take this

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themusicplayedherlife · 4 years

Note

If you have a request box and it’s open can I get a Tim x demigod reader. Tim is a son of Hermes and the reader is a daughter of Athena. The reader only likes hanging out with the seven pulse Nico, Will, Grover, and Calyps. The adult figures are Mr. D and Chiron. She only hangs out with the seven Nico, Will, Grover, and Calypso and had been in every quest with Percy and the rest since Percy got to camp. The reader is antisocial and an introvert. Tim somehow worms his way into her heart.

a/n: i am so sorry this is so lateeee! you have no idea how many times i started this and rewrote it. you really gave me a hard challenge lol but it’s here and i hope you like it

Tim couldn’t stop staring. He knew it was probably weird and he should look away, but it’s fascinating watching you swing your sword. You’re so graceful, so calm and collected when you flex your wrist to make a harsh cut in the air.

“What are you staring at?” is the question that drags him out of his dream like state.

Looking up, he finds his brother staring down at him. Well, not really his brother, but someone he considered as such nonetheless. They grew up together, even though they didn’t share the same god or human parent, just a legal guardian that gave them a home when all hope seemed lost. But he was as much of a brother, maybe even more, as his cabin mates were.

“Nothing,” is his nonchalant answer. Dick already knows what he’s staring at, anyway, he doesn’t even need to ask, but he loves teasing him about his crush.

Dick snorts. “Yeah, sure, I believe you.”

Practice swords clash and grunts fill the air. You stand at the ready, not giving into Percy’s playful taunts. Growing bored, Percy finally rushes at you and you easily sidestep him and swing, getting Poseidon’s son square on his back.

“Stop sulking and go talk to her,” Dick suddenly says after a beat of silence.

Tim can’t help but wrinkle his nose in annoyance. As much as he loves his brother, he really wishes he were less meddlesome.

You flip your hair back and stare down Percy as he tries to counterattack, but you get him again, right behind the knees, Annabeth shouts your praises and it causes Percy to pout and turn to look at his girlfriend, once more leaving himself wide open for you to attack.

“Easy for you to say,” Tim mumbles. “You get along with everyone.” Must be the Aphrodite genes in him.

“Because I make an effort.” Dick nudges Tim’s head with his finger before ruffling his hair just as Percy throws his sword to the ground and raises his arms. “Look, she and Percy are done training for the day, now is your chance.”

This is his chance! He hops to his feet, but suddenly his feet stop as his mind starts over thinking. What if… “What if she wants to be on her own?”

He knew how guarded you were, after all, you had been betrayed in the worst way possible. Betrayed by someone you trusted and looked up to; someone who was like an older brother to you. While Tim was hurt to find out that a housemate—a sibling no less was behind the betrayal, it didn’t have the same impact on him as it did on you. You had been devastated, full of anguish as you tried to deny what became so clear (if any of his siblings—Dick, Jason, Cassandra or Damian—did half of what Luke did, he would’ve lost his mind). He wonders if that’s why you choose to keep to yourself? Avoid the hurt that someone could cause you by keeping your friend circle so tight and close?

He’s an idiot. Of course it is.

Dick rolls his eyes. “Just go-“ he pushes him forward- “and talk to her!”

“What do I even say?” He asks in a panic.

“Ask if you can sit together for dinner!” Dick suggests. “Or if she’d like to train with you tomorrow! You got this, Timmy!”

Yeah. Yeah! He does have this! He can totally do this! Tim nods resolutely, ready to march up to you and ask if you’d like to sit with him, only to find you’re no longer on the training ground. His shoulders fall and he lets out a loud sigh.

With a sympathizing chuckle and a pat on the back, Dick says, “Next time.”

“Yeah, next time,” Tim murmurs.

He tries his luck as you’re cleaning your weapons, a hand me down celestial-bronze sword from Annabeth and two identical blades gifted to you by Damasen when you fell into Tartarus with your sister and Percy.

You were pretty territorial with your stuff, preferring to clean them and wield them yourself. He’s only ever seen you let Annabeth touch them, and only because she gave you your first weapon.

“Hey,” Tim speaks up slowly, gaining your attention, and you pause in your ministrations. “Um, sorry, do you mind if I—“ he points at the cleaning wax and everything you have laid out to keep your weapons in top condition.

Your eyes fall to the spread in front of you and you nod, raising an eyebrow in his direction.

“Thanks,” he mutters and he gently lays out his own weapons gifted to him by Bruce. They’re not the most traditional of weapons like yours or most in camp and he can tell you’re intrigued by the way your eyes linger on them. “Uh, do you want to try using it?” he asks, motioning to his custom bo staff, made out of celestial-bronze, with his hands.

You shake your head, but the curiosity lingers in your gaze and Tim feels his heart speed up when you don’t look away. “How do you kill monsters with it?”

“I—I don’t,” he answers truthfully. “It disorients them, gives my brothers or Cass a chance to finish them off.” You nod slowly, unsure if that’s such a wise idea. Monsters don’t attack to disorient, they attack to kill, so why shouldn’t he? “But I do sometimes use it as a makeshift sword,” he jokes and for a moment he swears he hears a small puff of air that sounds kind of like a giggle.

It’s enough to have him grinning widely.

“Hey—“ a voice interrupts—Nico. When did he arrive at camp? “You done, yet?” He asks you, not even acknowledging him, which isn’t much of a surprise. Hades’ son tends to keep to himself, preferring to travel on his own, too, but occasionally he’d seek you or the others out for companionship.

“Just about,” you answer him, voice lighter and full of warmth. A tinge of envy shoots through his veins. He wonders when you’ll be able to direct that voice in his direction. “Give me a moment to wipe off—there.” You pause and your eyes lock with his for just a moment. “Do you mind putting all of this away?”

“No,” he answers dumbly, unable to break eye contact with you. “No, I don’t mind.”

“Thanks, Drake,” you murmur and quickly put your weapons away to join Nico for who knows what.

He hopes he can spend more time with you next time.

Next time comes a lot sooner than Tim thought it would.

He can’t sleep. It’s not the first time, either. His cabin mates usually make fun of him, say his mind is always running and that’s why he’s never able to rest. He’s starting to believe there might be some truth to their words.

With a sigh, he carefully sneaks out of the cabin, grabbing his red hoodie as he goes. He follows the path to the woods where he knows he’ll find some peace and quiet. He knows he shouldn’t stray far, even with Wayne Tech and the fleece protecting the perimeter, you could never be too careful. He doesn’t go too far from camp, but far enough where he’s sure Connor won’t find him and try to pull some kind of prank on him when he realizes he’s gone.

The twigs snap under his feet as he gets closer to the lake where all the naiads play in during the day. He knows they’re all asleep by now and shouldn’t bother him, or so he thought.

Hands wrap around his wrist, ready to throw him over their shoulder with all of their weight, but Tim is quick. He’s able to pull away and wrap his own arms around his attacker—why are they so light?—and is able to throw them both on the ground where he successfully managed to pin them down.

Peering down at the person pinned beneath him, his eyes widening almost comically, embarrassment finding a home on his cheeks. Shit.

“Drake?” Your eyes are just as wide and shocked as his, mouth parted slightly as you stare up at him unblinkingly.

Your name falls from his lips the same way, unsure if it’s really you beneath him right now or some kind of mind trick.

The shock drains from your eyes and you grow serious, suddenly bucking him off of you. He gets the hint and quickly scrambles to his feet.

“I’m sorry, you just grabbed me and I—“

You ignore his rambling, wiping dirt off of your pants. “Why are you out here? You know it’s dangerous.”

His brows furrow and he fixes his hoodie. “Could say the same to you.”

You eye him, head tilting and he has to tell himself to keep eye contact—don’t break, don’t break. He swears he can get lost in those endless shimmering eyes of yours. You sigh and turn away first and Tim let’s out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Same,” he answers, voice coming out as a broken squeak. He curses himself for not keeping his voice leveled. He really has it bad doesn’t he?

You don’t say anything, instead you head towards a small patch of grass by the glistening water of the lake and plop down. You bring your knees up to your chest and you just sit there, and Tim doesn’t know how, but he somehow manages to find the courage and strength to drop himself down beside you.

He waits for a beat, and when you don’t tell him to leave, he relaxes, one leg stretched outward and his palms resting against the ground as he leans back.

You spend the rest of the night in companionable silence.

Tim thankfully has the option to opt out of Capture the Flag this week. On his mini quest with Jason and Cassandra, he got hurt pretty bad saving a child from a wild hellhound terrorizing a small town on the outskirts of Gotham. Not that he’s happy that he got hurt, because ouch hellhound teeth digging into skin is the worst thing he has experienced, and that’s saying a lot as a Demi-god and Robin.

Don’t get him wrong, he gets why everyone gets super excited about it, but sometimes—members of the Ares cabin, like Jason, especially—get super competitive and it becomes this whole thing where everyone fights all day and they take more jabs at one another than usual.

“You still ain’t good, kid?”

Tim spares a glance over his shoulder at Jason, who is geared up and ready. Dick and Cassandra flank his sides both in their own personal gear.

“Hellhound got me pretty good.”

Dick ruffles his hair. “I’ll see if I can get Chiron to spare some Nectar or Ambrosia after the game.”

He had some when he arrived at camp, but it wasn’t enough for a Hellhound bite apparently. “That’d be great. Thanks, Dick.”

“Stay safe,” Cassandra mutters patting his arm before making her way over to her other team members with excitement. He forgets how much she loves Capture the Flag.

Dick shakes his head and Jason chuckles lowly, the two following after her.

“Good luck!”

“Won’t need it,” Jason barks back at him, smirking.

He rolls his eyes and pities the fool that’ll have to take on his brothers and sister.

“Here,” a soft voice says just as a small bag of squared treats falls on his lap and he startles, barely catches it before it can drop to the ground. “I had some extra Ambrosia lying around.”

He blinks at the food and then up to find you looking away from him, your friends just a few feet away.

“I’ve never fought a hellhound, but Percy and Annabeth said they can be pretty vicious.”

“Are you sure—“

“Yeah,” you cut him off, finally meeting his gaze, a small smile on your beautiful face that has his heart racing and the wound in his leg throbbing. “Keep out of trouble, Tim.”

Tim. You called him Tim! This is—that’s great news! Just as he’s registering his name drop, he realizes you’re already walking away from him to join the rest of your friends waiting off to the side.

“Thanks,” he calls out to you and you glance at him over your shoulder, eyes scrunching up and lips turning up in one corner. Shit. How is it that one simple smirk can turn his world upside down and kick his heart into overdrive? It should be illegal to make someone feel so strongly as you make him feel.

If he dies from his hellhound injury right this moment, he wouldn’t regret anything in his life.

Except he would regret a couple of things. He knows over the last few years you’ve been in and out of the camp, following your sister and the rest of your friends on the prophesied quests, but he wishes he had tried to get to know you earlier. Maybe then he’d somehow be connected to your prophecies too, and he didn’t have to worry about you never coming back.

“Relax,” he hears Jason say behind him as he and his siblings wait with him for any signs of you and your friends. “She’s gone through worse trials than this and has made it out alive. She can handle finding her mother’s darn owl.”

“She’s strong,” Cassandra adds with a resolved nod, completely convinced about her words.

“Yeah,” he says breathlessly. “She is.”

“She may have already found the owl,” Dick reassures, clapping him on his shoulder. “She’s probably on her way to Olympus to deliver it and Annabeth said that might take another week.”

Gods, he hopes not.

It’s another day, and Tim wonders if you’re okay. If you’re keeping safe and warm. He knows Frank and Piper wouldn’t let anything happen to you, you three are as thick as thieves, and trust each other with your lives, but he still can’t help it.

He thinks back on that night on the lake, how you just sat side by side in silence, and more often than not, most nights he’d find himself by that lake with you by his side.

The first time you broke the silence, you asked him more about his bo staff, asking how it worked and if he’d regret picking that as his choice of weapon. He told you it was gifted to him, and he trusted his weapon to get him out of messy situations. You just stared at him for a beat longer before nodding in understanding.

That night, after you had both went your separate ways—you to your cabin and him to his, he lay awake as his thoughts run wild.

Those nights, sitting side by side in companionable silence, or in shy conversation as you watch the water sparkle, feels so long ago now.

He grabs a rock, turning it in his hands, weighing it. He gently raises it and is about to flick his wrist to skip it across the water when a soft voice stops him, the rock falling to the ground and rolling away.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” His head slowly turns, as if trying to process that familiar voice—because it can’t be! Annabeth didn’t think you’d come for another week! “Naiads aren’t fond of campers throwing things in their lake.”

He scrambles to his feet and takes in your form—apart from a scratch on your cheek, you seem okay! “You’re home!”

“I’m home,” you repeat, a slow smile making its home on your beautiful face.

Gods! He could just kiss you out of relief!

“I’m sorry I’ve been gone for so long,” you murmur shyly and his eyes widen. “I heard from Annabeth you’ve been waiting for me.”

“No!” he interjects loudly, and the water behind him ripples. Shit. Don’t wake up the naiads, Tim! “No,” he tries again softly, “don’t apologize. I’m just, I’m just glad you’re safe.”

It’s quiet out by the lake, not a single bird to be heard or an occasional giggle from a nymph breaking curfew. It’s like everything is holding its breath, watching, waiting to see what might happen. Or maybe it’s just him.

“Okay,” you bend slowly, turning away from him as your smile turns awkward, strained, “well, I just wanted to let you know I’m back, so—“

His hand reaches for your wrist without thinking and you stare at him, smile falling from your face, but you don’t look scared. Your head only tilts and your eyes sparkle with the reflection of the stars, and he knows you’re only curious.

He’s curious, too. Why did he stop you?

“I—“ he closes his mouth, unsure of what to say exactly. His hand drops to his side and he berated himself. He’s already made a fool of himself, no need to keep doing it.

You sigh gently, facing away from him for a moment before taking a couple of steps to stand right in front of him, the tips of your shoes almost touching his. He has to resist the urge to hold his breath, because wow, you’re even more beautiful up close. “Tim, do you—do you like me?”

“What?” he asks dumbly, having not expected you to ask that of all things.

Heat radiated off your pores, eyes drooping and a sweet flush beginning to appear on your skin. “Sorry, I—wow. I’m an idiot. Um. I’m sorry, forget I asked that—“

Before Tim knows what he’s doing, his hands have somehow made a home on your warm skin, and he watches as your eyes widen, mouth parting in a silent question. He knows he’s being oddly intimate, but he didn’t know what else to do! Probably not this! But you’re not pushing him away so that’s a good sign, right? “I—I do,” he admits. “I do like you. I like you a lot. Since the moment my siblings and I arrived and I saw you training with Annabeth.”

“That was so long ago, Tim,” you say, voice a little breathless and he really hopes he hasn’t creeped you out.

“I—I know, but you looked so cool telling her to stop taking it easy on you.”

“I was annoyed,” you whisper.

“Yeah.” He grins slowly, almost in a haze. “But I thought you looked cool.” Your eyes drop to his hoodie as his hands drop to his side. “I just—I just thought you should know since you were asking and—“

“I like you, too,” you admit shyly, eyes meeting his and he swears he can see himself reflected in your eyes surrounded by stars instead of these dark trees. “Somehow, someway, you’ve worked yourself into my heart, Timothy Drake.”

“Oh, man!” He can’t help but laugh, nerves finally slipping from his tense bones, an unfamiliar heat taking over every piece of him. And he wonders if this is what true happiness feels like? “Can I—“ he clears his throat. “Can I kiss you?”

When you nod bashfully, he presses his lips against yours, relishing on the softness of them as your hands cup the back of his neck, and gods, he could just laugh again because this doesn’t feel real. You don’t feel real, but you are real, and you’re so sweet and soft and he can keep kissing you all night, but it’s a shame you both need to breathe at some point. And so, reluctantly he pulls away, only to press his forehead against yours.

“Have dinner with me tomorrow?” he asks, breath fanning over your lips.

You chuckle and he smiles. “I’ll have dinner with you every night, Tim.”

#tim drake x reader #i honestly dont remember anything form the books so this might be off?#and it might not include the characters you asked for because i forgot who Calypso is ;w; so I'm sorry #red robin x reader #tim drake imagine #reader insert #timothy drake x reader #tim drake x y/n #tim drake x you #tim drake

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yeaaabudddy · 5 years

Text

A Little Crossover (3/4)

Ship: Peter Parker x Batsis!Reader (Y/N)

Characters: Peter Parker (Spider-Man), Reader (S/H/N), Bruce Wayne (Batman), Dick Grayson (Nightwing), Jason Todd (Red Hood), Tim Drake (Red Robin), and Damian Wayne (Robin)

Type: slight angst, fluff

Requested: Yes, by @wolfiemichele and @comicsgirlimagines

Words: 5 638

Notes: I wrote... too much. Don’t think too much about the timeline lmao it might not completely match homecoming.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Peter lived his life as a student. He went to all his classes, not skipping any no matter what he saw on the streets. Peter had stopped messaging and calling you because you were related to his superhero side.

It wasn’t true because he had seen you without your costume more than he saw you in it but he knew that if he talked to you, you would manage to bring up Spider-Man and he didn’t want to hear it. He was scared.

Ned supported him through it, advising him to at least message you to let you know but Peter knew that if he gave in once, he would go all in because he missed you.

You did call him and message asking if he’s alright. You lived in a different city so you were scared as you couldn’t even see him, couldn’t confirm if he was even alive.

You wanted to make your way down to Queens just to check up on him but you knew that none of your family would let you.

You managed to find Ned’s profile listed in Peter’s friends list on Facebook. You were nervous about messaging him as he was Peter’s friend but you were desperate to see if he was okay especially since the last time you saw him, he was so distressed and was crying.

You ended up messaging him, asking if he was alright because he came to you crying and you haven’t heard from him. Ned responded back saying that he was alright, doing okay and that you should just give him some time.

You respected the decision, knowing that Peter was still not okay and it hurt that he cut you out completely from his life, seeing how easy it was for Peter to just stop.

After a little over a month of not hearing from him, you gave up on him reaching back out to you. You saw from his social medias on him and Ned hanging out, him being happy and you thought maybe the hero life wasn’t for him.

It made you sad that he thought of you as only his superhero friend and not an actual friend but you decided not to dwell on that.

You realized how much time you had now that you don’t talk to Peter as often and instead you put your effort into your patrolling or trying to find happiness in your friends from school.

You frowned sometimes when you looked at your phone seeing all the unanswered texts from Peter but you decided not to let it get the best of you.

Peter was having fun so how could you be the downer in his new life. You didn’t know if Peter would come back to being Spider-Man and even though you wanted to wait for him, you know you shouldn’t wait for a boy who cut you out of his life with no hesitation.

You didn’t have the heart to delete your conversations or anything still hoping that Peter will text you even though you knew it wouldn’t happen.

You moved on then, went on with your life and the experience with Peter made you realize that friends could be a great thing to have in your life. You decided to spend more time with friends in your classes and became closer to them.

You hoped that you could stop thinking about Peter after the amount of time has passed. One of your closest friends you had made, Megan, had noticed you frown at your phone early on in your friendship.

You finally were able to confide into someone about the situation of Peter (not fully because of your secret identities). She told you that it’s okay to still have some feelings for him as you were talking with each other for a while and were really close.

There wasn’t really any closure between you two it was just an abrupt ending and your feelings that you felt towards him didn’t fully develop because he was gone before you could even think about it.

You pushed it to the back of your mind though, not wanting to care anymore.

“Y/N!” Megan called out to you, taking your hand to drag you to the lunch room.

“What’s going on?” You asked confused at the ruckus going on around you, everyone cheering and standing up and no teacher was stopping it.

“People are getting asked to homecoming.” Your eyes widen in surprise at the fact that the dance was coming around the corner.

“Why are they making a huge a deal for homecoming, shouldn’t they wait for prom?” You questioned but Megan just rolled her eyes at the question.

“You always try and downplay these things. Come on, have fun! It’s cute, romantic!” Your friend squealed at the aspect of getting asked out like that but it just made you cringe a bit.

Public proposals are just asking for disasters. You would hate if someone asked you like that because you felt like you would have to say yes.

“I don’t find it that romantic…” You mumbled under your breath and Megan glared at you, hearing your statement.

“Shush, I’m trying to watch.” You stretch your neck to see what was going on and saw a homemade poster covered in colour and glitter held by a young boy, asking the girl in front of him to homecoming.

She looked in happiness at the scene in front of her, nodding her head and going to hug him. It was cute, you’ll admit. Still unnecessary.

People clapped around at the success and you joined in, not wanting to be a total downer but immediately made your way to an empty table. You take off your backpack just wanting to eat after wasting 10 minutes of your lunch in the mess of school dances.

Megan and some of your other friends joined after a bit with their own food, chatting with each other. You overhear some of their conversations as you eat, most of them having to do with homecoming.

“If someone asks you, do you think you’ll say yes?” Megan turned to you, talking to you separately. You look at her as you try to finish chewing your sandwich.

“Depends on the person.” You shrug, not really wanting to think about it. You didn’t really want to go to homecoming, it wasn’t really like you to go to a dance and it’s been a while since you went.

You don’t know if it’s your thing, all the music and dancing and maybe if you had someone to go with you would change your mind but it seems like a pretty boring concept.

“I hope for our sake, someone does.” You just roll your eyes, Megan has asked you so many times to just tag along, If you don’t get asked and she doesn't either, to just go with her because she wants you there.

“Are you still waiting for Conner to ask you?” You smirk at her blushing state. Her and Conner have been in a grey area for a while as they both care for each other but aren’t admitting it to the other that they like them.

You just wanted to push them into a room and get them to confess because it was so obvious but you’ll let them figure it out themselves.

By the end of the day you managed to hear and witness more people asking others to homecoming and you don’t know if you’re jealous or not. You never really thought about it, so preoccupied with other things that when you got asked when you were at your locker.

Jack, a guy from your physics class had strolled up to you while you put any books you don’t need to take home, back into your locker.

“Hey, Y/N.” He smiled at you, his smile bright and kind.

“Hey, Jack. What’s up?” You casually ask him, confused as to why he was talking to you. You’ve seen him a couple of times around school and obviously in class but you guys haven’t talked more than needed for projects and homework.

“Well, homecoming is soon and I was thinking… maybe you’ll go with me?” He was nervous and it showed on his face and you almost took pity on him for that. You turned to look at him, closing your locker.

“Uh... “ You thought about it for a second and before you could even think about it, you saw Megan in the corner of your eye pointing at Jack and glaring at you, knowing that she was yelling at you to accept his offer.

“That sounds fun!” You smile at him, his face breaking out into a smile at your acceptance. You felt bad you took long to answer as he was starting to become anxious in his place.

“I’ll see you tomorrow in class then! I got the tickets, so don’t worry about that!” You smile at his enthusiasm, it reminding you of someone else…

“‘I’ll see you.” Jack nods at you and leaves you to yourself and Megan comes over to you.

“Damn you got asked before us all!” She pouted, you didn’t even want to go that bad and you were asked right away. “I shouldn’t be surprised cause... Well, you’re you. Now that you got a guy, you’re going to come to my house to get ready!”

You just realized how much work this was actually going to be.

Time passed fast with you (and no, there was still no response from Peter). The dance was tonight and everyone was feeling the atmosphere for the special day. Some girls were skipping the school day to spend it together, getting ready.

Otherwise, it was a normal day for you but you know that Megan would be expecting you over at her house right after school.

When you told your family that you’ll be a bit late to your assigned patrol because of the dance, they teased you endlessly at the aspect of you going to the event.

“Didn't think you were that type of girl.” Damian had offhandedly said, making you realize that maybe you should start doing more stuff like this just to see if you’ll like it.

They also asked if you had a date of course but you didn’t let up the poor boy’s name. You wanted this to be as normal as possible and you don't need your siblings stalking you because you’re going to a dance with a boy.

“Y/N the dress I picked out for you is so pretty! Don’t worry about the colour, I made sure that it wouldn’t be too bright.” You smiled in appreciation, you didn't know much about how to shop for dresses, the thought stressing you out so you asked Megan for a favour. She texted you a few options that you approved of and chose from them.

“Thanks, Megan.” This all felt so normal for you that it was crazy. Maybe Peter was right that you should enjoy being a teenager but you would never give up your night life of saving people no matter what.

Megan’s mom picked you and your friends up after school, taking you guys to her house. The excited chattering going around you in the car, the radio was turned up to a pop song and everything was too normal for you that it felt weird.

Something just felt off and maybe it’s because you’re not on edge about every single thing right now which is out of character for you.

It is a school dance so what if something happens during it? Your thoughts were running wild with ideas like that because no good moments for heroes were always good. You knew that you weren’t going to be destined with happy moments when you became a hero and so this is just out of your league.

You were getting ready, looking at all your friends being carefree while living in Gotham. They got each other ready and were just laughing saying their hopes for the night.

Conner did end up asking Megan to homecoming so she was shining the brightest of them all.

She took out your royal blue dress that she picked out for you, making you change and get your makeup done. You were all ready.

Since your school had uniforms, these were the only times you got to wear nice clothes to school.

You met up with Jack who was standing in his suit in front of the building with two tickets. You were glad that you knew Jack was nice enough to not leave you hanging, you would be totally bummed if he stood you up (you did buy a ticket just in case).

“You look really pretty.” The boy looked at you with wide eyes. It was no secret that you were pretty but he hadn’t seen you outside of uniform in person.

“Thanks, you look really good too!” He held out his hand to get you to link your arms with him, entering the gym together. Things were looking pretty good at the dance.

You were actually feeling happy as your friends hung close and you even met with some of Jack’s close friends. It was a fun night together, you weren’t with him the whole time, joining your friends in a group dance but you felt like a regular teen.

The worry in your heart didn’t cease but it did calm down a bit at the aspect that maybe today would be nice.

You sat on a chair at the tables off the side of the gym, exhausted by the amount of energy everyone else has. Jack joined you shortly after noticing you, leaving his friends to talk to you.

“Hope you had fun today, I know we don’t know each other that well… but It was nice to get to know you.” You just felt glad that Jack didn’t turn out to be a hidden asshole, you’ve dealt with enough stupid boys for a lifetime.

“Thanks, I’m just glad you weren’t like half the guys in our grade.” Jack just laughed at your ‘compliment’. He can’t believe that you actually agreed to go out with him especially with how you never took notice of him unless you were partnered up by the teacher.

Both of your thoughts were cut off when your phone buzzed. You look towards the table where you rested it against. The screen brightening up to reveal a name you don’t know if you’re happy to see.

The words flashing “PETER P.” across the screen. You stared at your phone in shock not knowing if what you were seeing was real. He ignores you for around a month and a half and then suddenly calls you when you’re actually happy.

Jack notices you pause and that you made no effort to answer your phone.

“Are you okay?” He takes a glance at your phone noticing the name on your screen, not knowing a Peter P in this school. He knew none of your brothers also had the name Peter so he wasn’t sure who it was.

“Yeah, no problem.” You flipped your phone over to hide the name from your sight. You know that ignoring him might be a bad idea but how could he just ruin this moment for you. You were in no mood to get back to the dance and you didn’t want to go home this early.

“Boy troubles?” Jack questioned, his face showing curiosity on your reaction to getting the phone call.

“Something like that, I guess.” You confirmed his suspicion. Your mood had physically dropped and he could tell that you wouldn’t want to dance anymore so he decided maybe you needed some help.

“If you want some boy advice who better to ask than a boy.” He motioned to himself and laid back a bit in his chair. You turned to him as you realized he asked for you to confide in him and you were tempted to.

Here you are trusting another boy but you have an urge to actually get his advice. It was something about how he gave you a great night in a while and that he felt genuine.

You sighed as you gave up and he also realized, straightening himself up.

“Alright, you asked.” Your phone had rung one more time after the initial call and then stopped, not attempting again and your heart was very heavy as you knew that you could’ve heard Peter’s voice for the first time in almost 2 months. You also knew that if you fought with him on the phone then your night would be completely ruined.

“Why are guys so…”

“Dumb? Oblivious?” He offered as he noticed you struggling with your emotions.

“Frustrating!”

“Ah!” He clapped his hand in realization. “How could I miss that one. You do seem very frustrated with him, would you mind telling me what he did?”

“Ghosted me for almost two months and then called me when I’m finally having a good time.” You grumbled loud enough for him to hear it still feeling pathetic for caring.

“Wow.” His eyes widened in response to what you told him. His eyes mouth going dry at what to say to you.

“Yeah, I know. I’m pathetic. He didn’t care to message me for two months and here I am, still caring.” You rest your head on your hand, leaning against the table in shame.

“No, we’re all human. We can’t really control our emotions, you’re not pathetic. Whoever that dude is, is really stupid for ghosting you.” He tried to comfort you but you still weren’t feeling it.

“Okay, I’m going to tell you something. Guys… we don’t know what we’re doing sometimes. We can be idiots but that doesn’t give us an excuse to get away with everything because you don’t deserve to be ignored like that.” You look at him as he ranted out what he thought.

“Maybe… you should call him and hear him out. Decide after you speak to him if you want to cut him off or keep him, get some closure for yourself if anything.”

You nodded at him, feeling like that was probably the best option for you.

“Yeah, I should do that… maybe tomorrow. I don’t want to ruin today with all that.” You smile at him and he smiles back in appreciation.

“You wanna dance then, end the night happy?” He got up and offered you his hand. You took it and he pulled you to the dance floor, allowing you another moment of happiness before you leave and go back home to get yourself ready for patrol.

You just got into your room, your body full of sweat from being around so many people in a confined space. You hope your patrol will go well because you wanted just this one day.

Your dress still intact but your heels were thrown off across your room. You heard a noise in your room and at first you thought it was just an accident with the creaky floorboards but it happened again and with more pressure.

You look toward your closed window, making your way to it and opening the curtains for inspection. As soon as the drapes pulled back, you saw someone you didn’t think you’d see for a while.

The homemade Spider-Man suit was still on his body like the last time you saw him. You gape in surprise at the appearance of Peter without his mask, bloodied up and looking at you, pleading.

You quickly open the window, letting him before you could even think about it. His state stressed you out as he looked like he took a tough beating.

“Peter? Oh my gosh, what happened?” You helped him inside as he struggled. You held his body up as he fell against yours.

“I got him.” He mumbled as his eyes closed a bit, you put him on your bed, he naturally laid down in exhaustion. You went and got a first aid kit you had in your bathroom and came back to see him mumbling to himself.

“Peter, sit up.” You helped him get up and sit up on your bed so you could tend to his wounds.

“I got the bird guy, h-he was going to steal Mr. Stark’s stuff and I stopped him.” He told you as you cleaned his wounds, him wincing in response but still talking.

“D-do you think he’ll be proud of me?” Peter asked you as you put some bandaids over smaller wounds and wrapped up his bigger ones.

You gave Peter a soft smile in reassurance knowing that he was too tired to really understand what he’s doing.

“Yeah, Peter. I think he will.” You laid him down on your bed as you realized he was falling asleep. You heavily sigh as you look at him about to sleep trying to search him for his phone, hoping that he had it hidden somewhere but got no luck.

“By the way, you look really pretty.” He told you before completely passing out. You look at him and don’t know how to feel but you decide to swallow it all, making sure to tell Ned yourself that he was okay and alive before leaving the room and going to sleep next door.

Peter woke up to see a young boy staring at him, he sat up and looked around realizing he was in your room, remembering that he came last night after fighting Liz’s dad.

“Who are you?” The boy’s voice brought Peter’s attention back to him and then he realized this was probably your younger brother, Damian.

“U-um, I’m Peter. I-i’m friends with your sister.” Peter was nervous as he knew how protective your brothers were over you and how Damian felt a bit rough on the outside but according to you, he just needed love.

“You don’t go to her school though.” He pointed out, calling Peter out.

“Uh, j-just her friend from… uh-.” Peter was cut off by the door to your room opening and he prayed it was you.

His prayers went answered as your face popped in through the door and you rolled your eyes as you saw Damian.

“Damian, it’s okay. I know him.” Damian just nodded and prepared to leave before you stopped him again. “Also, don’t tell the rest. Please.” You pout at him, trying to persuade him.

Damian just looks blankly at you but you knew he gave in. “It’s none of my business.” Damian left and you smiled, thankful.

You turned back to Peter who was now sitting up in your bed, your smile dropping slightly off your face but still there. Peter’s heart dropped as you held up a facade around him, not showing how you were feeling.

He knew he was an ass by not talking to you for months and he doesn’t even know why he decided to come over to your house last night instead of going to Ned or going home.

“I’m sorry,” Peter said to you to break the silence in the room that felt too heavy being that it was you two.

“How are your injuries?” You ask, ignoring his apology for now because you don’t know what you’re feeling. You knew you were sad but seeing him made you feel a bit angry and you don’t know why.

“T-they’re fine.” Peter frowns at the fact you ignored his apology but he knew he couldn’t leave your place without at least trying to patch things up between you two. You went to look at his bandaged wounds, unraveling some of the gauze to replace it or if the wound was fully healed, to take it off. “Look Y/N I-.”

“Peter.” You cut him off, wrapping up a deeper wound on his arm. Peter sat quietly waiting for you to talk, not wanting to make you mad. “I don’t know what you want me to say, that it’s okay?” You fussed over his injuries a bit more, putting more force as you wrapped up other parts of his arms.

“I just want to apologize.” Peter grit his teeth as you repatched up the old wounds with no mercy. His body did still feels sore from the amount of times he got hurt yesterday but he didn’t bother commenting on it.

“No explanation?” You huffed out, annoyed at how he wasn’t giving you anything else.

“I mean… I needed a break.” You turn to glare at him, looking him wanting to yell at him.

“That’s not what I’m talking about. The month and a half where you just ignored me, didn't even tell me that you were okay. You just left crying and then I didn’t hear from you again.” You keep your voice calm but you can feel your anger catch up to you.

“I had to ask Ned if you were okay because you wouldn’t answer me.” You calm yourself down as you knew you were getting visibly upset.

“You don’t owe me anything, I know. It’s just… I thought we were more than that.” You confess to him, looking away to put back all your first aid supplies. He grabbed your arm stopping you from getting up.

“We were- are!” Peter knew that his excuse of ignoring you is stupid but he didn’t want to lose you completely.

“Yeah, sure.” You scoffed, rolling your eyes. Peter’s hand still had a tough grip on your arm, keeping you in place no matter how much you tried to wiggle out.

“No, I swear! I-I...” Peter stumbled over his words not really knowing what to say to get you to not kick him out. Peter sighed, realizing he needed to tell you.

“The reason why I ghosted you was because I was scared…” You look at him confused as to why he would be scared of you. “I was scared because I knew that if I talked to you I would give into trying to be Spider-Man again and I wasn’t ready for that.”

“Peter, you know I wouldn’t force you to do anything. Yeah, I didn’t completely agree with you giving up Spider-Man but I told you it was okay to take a break.”

“I know and I’m sorry it’s just I feel like you wouldn’t like me if I wasn’t Spider-Man, if I didn’t have the other side of me that we always talked about.” You realized that he was just scared that you wouldn’t like him just being Peter.

“Peter… you know that I don’t think that at all. When I talk to you, I want to talk to Peter, not Spider-Man. Yeah, he’s cool but he’s not all there is to you. You have a lot more going for you than Spider-Man.” You reassure him, his hand had let go of your arm by now and you got up to put your kit away before sitting next to Peter.

“It’s just that you’re so cool and pretty and I feel like I wasn’t enough for you.” He looked at his hands, shy at his confession. His hands tapping against his knees slightly annoying you.

“I would never think you were not enough if you weren’t Spider-Man.” You let him know what he wanted to hear without walking around it. Peter knew that Liz liked him for who he was because she didn't know about Spider-Man but you were a different story.

You were someone who could do no wrong and is someone just out of his league. He couldn’t even compare to you. You were pretty, smart, funny, and you save so many people a day. Since he gave up being Spider-Man, he thought that he would give you up to because what else would you find interesting in him?

But here you were, telling him that Peter Parker was enough for you.

“Really?”

“I swear.” You put your hand on top of his that was still tapping against his knees. You wanted Peter to completely understand you this time.

He looked at you, taken aback by the feeling of your hand against his. He started feeling nervous under your gaze. His eyes looking all over your face, lingering at your lips for a half a second longer and you caught it.

“Y/N, I-” Peter’s mouth went dry at the aspect of saying something to you about how he felt even though you just became friends again but he didn't want to waste this chance.

You cut him off by bringing your face closer to his, your hand going to hold his face.

“Is this okay?” You ask, hoping that he knew what you were alluding to. Peter looked frozen in his spot, his eyes dropping to your lips and back to your eyes frantically making you a bit nervous at the delay.

He just nods after a few seconds of you waiting and you connect your lips with his right away. Maybe it was the fact that it’s been so long since you saw Peter that your feelings for him felt clear after the tiny break. You realized that Peter wasn’t being a dick to be a dick it was just that he needed reassurance and didn’t mean to hurt you.

He was just figuring stuff out so you couldn’t be mad at him for trying to understand his life even if it did hurt you and you don’t like crawling back to people but you knew how sincere Peter is because he let you into his worries, telling you he was insecure of himself.

You can’t blame him for being a teenager, you were also guilty of not having everything figured out.

Peter immediately responded to your kiss, your hand caressed his face as your lips moved together and his hand made its way to your waist slightly rubbing it. His lips felt so soft and even though they were slightly bruised up and chapped, it just felt right. Your hand went up to his hair slightly to feel the soft curls in your hand.

You pull apart because you realized that you shouldn’t put too much pressure on his injury. Peter followed you as you pulled apart, wanting more but you knew that he might start bleeding again.

“Peter, your injury.” You managed to mumble out, pushing his chest slightly because you were getting tempted to continue as well.

Peter just pouted with slightly swollen lips but then came back to reality, realizing he was here in your room and not in Queens.

“Uh- I should probably text May.” Peter patted his suit to see where he put his phone but you shook year head.

“I texted Ned that you were here last night, I told him to tell your aunt about you not coming home.”

“Oh, thanks.” Peter smiled in relief at the fact he won’t get a lecture after getting home.

“I-i uh, I don’t want to leave this unspoken but- I, I really like you.” Peter managed to calm himself down enough to tell you, he knows that you just kissed him but the thought of you actually saying that you liked him felt unreal.

“Kind of figured with the kissing but… I like you too.” You felt shy as you confessed your feelings and Peter smiled brightly at you at the fact that you guys were not just friends anymore.

He didn’t think he would be able to tell you that he liked you, he thought you were on a different level than him. Hearing you say that you liked him made him feel so giddy. The time on your clock shines bright in the corner of his eye making him realize that he did have to get home (sadly).

“I have to-” Peter hesitantly said while pointing to your window, not wanting to leave you right after you both confessed to each other.

“I get it, just… make sure to actually text me this time.” You joked, really hoping that you will get a message after he leaves. Peter winced at the comment, looking guilty again.

“About that, I’m sorry.” You just laughed at him, he was such a cutie you don’t know how you were ever mad at him.

“It’s okay, Peter. I already forgave you! Don’t worry, I’ll talk to you later then.”

“Do you think I should change?” Peter looked down at his outfit and you laughed at the suit. Peter smiling at the sound of hearing your laugh so full after so long of missing you.

“Yeah, I think you should. I have some of Tim’s sweats, he never knows they’re missing. You can wear that and this sweater.” You pulled out some clothes from your closet. You did tend to take some of your brother’s old clothing as they were pretty comfy and nice to sleep in.

Peter thanked you and just put the clothing on top of what he was wearing, you ordered a cab for him to take making sure to slip some money into the pocket of his sweats so he doesn’t worry about the cost.

“I ordered a cab for you so you better take it, it’d be too obvious if your swing around in that. Money��s in your right pocket.” Before Peter could decline, you pushed him towards your window and he started making his way out. His face showing he wasn’t happy about you paying for him but you didn't care.

“I swear I’ll text you as soon as I’m home.” Peter reassured you, making sure you knew he wasn’t going to leave you like that again.

“I can’t wait.” You both smile at each other. Peter climbed down and sneakily exited the manor area.

You can’t believe the past few hours of your life actually happened… You and Peter kissed.

So I do have another part for this, if you guys want it just let me know!

#peter parker x reader #peter parker imagine #peter parker imagines #peter parker fluff #peter parker angst #spiderman imagine #spiderman x reader #spider-man imagines #spider-man x reader #spiderman fluff #dick grayson imagine #jason todd imagine #tim drake imagine #damian wayne imagine #batsis #basis reader #tom holland imagines

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