Youtube/vlog Au Part 1

youtube/vlog au part 1

waking up with steph

Close as Strangers

Tim hurts Stephanie a lot

Or: soulmate au that none of you asked for where any injury inflicted upon your soulmate is also inflicted onto you

Stephanie flies up with a scream breaking through her lips, ripping her bedsheets off and clasping her side. The heavy metallic smell of copper floods her nostrils, and Stephanie bites back the pain ripping through her.

Already there are more bruises blossoming on her body, purple and blue covering her like a painting.

Her hand comes away sticky and she sighs, blinking in the dim light casted in her bedroom by the moon. The sun isn’t up yet and Stephanie resigns herself to another sleepless night.

She stares at her hand, blood staining it slowly as it runs over the lines on her hand, bleeding through her fingers and onto the bedsheets- Oh hell no.

Stephanie flings herself out of her bed, wincing slightly at the pain that burns in her right side, observing her bedding with horror. The blood is spreading already, blooming out like a wave, consuming everything in it’s path. She swears silently. This is the seventh one she’s ruined ever since she’s moved out of her mom’s house and into Gotham University.

And this one was her favorite too.

Rubbing her eyes, she makes her way slowly to the bathroom and lifts her bloodied shirt to check on the injury. She groans, pain beating into her skull. Her breathing starts getting labored, and it hurts to draw in a breath. When she finally meets this soulmate of hers, she’s actually going to kill him.

Stephanie leans over to grab her first aid kit, which was already starting to run low on supplies.

She just restocked it last week.

She cleans her side as quickly as she can before expertly wrapping the wound, with deft fingers who’ve had years of experience behind them.

Her soulmate’s a pain. It is his fault that she’s now majoring in the medical field. She wasn’t going to have her mother wrap her wounds for the rest of her life, and someone was going to have to care for her idiot soulmate.

Although it did seem like someone did, seeing how he wasn’t dead yet. Her soulmate must be a huge daredevil because there hasn’t been a day since she’s turned 13 where she hasn’t woken up with a multitude of bruises and cuts on her body.

(Steph tries not to think about the amount of times she’s woken up with broken bones. One of the biggest mysteries in her dorm is the topic of her soulmate. Who’s so daring that their soulmate would end up covered head to toe in wounds?)

“Soulmates are a gift and should be treasured, they said,” she grumbles under her breath, moving onto the other cuts still opening up on her body, “it’s a blessing, they said.”

At this point, it’s better they don’t meet. She’s not sure if she’ll be able to restrain herself from killing the idiot herself.

Rolling her eyes, she throws herself back onto her bed. Her soulmate might be determined to get himself cut to pieces but she sure as hell isn’t looking forward to facing her test without sleep.

As it turns out, the test isn’t an issue, curtesy of Two Face invading.

They all watch with bated breath as he flips the coin.

“Tails,” he announces. “We wait for the Bat.

There’s a collective sigh of relief. With Batman, they have a chance of salvation.

Stephanie feels something start to build up, like something important and life changing is going to happen, and it’s going to happen soon.

Robin comes in first, bursting in the door with his bo-staff in front of him. Batman quickly follows suit and Steph watches with bated breath as they engage in battle.

Even when everyone else runs out, she stays in the corner, fixed onto the battle. She stares in horror as one of Two Face’s grunts drives a knife into Robin, burying it to the hilt and blood gushes out and-

Steph doubles over as pain erupts from her own abdomen and a small scream escapes from her lips.

Two Face doesn’t see her, and but Batman and Robin do, and in her pain-induced haze she thinks their eyes may have widened.

And then everything goes dark.

Stephanie awakens slowly to the familiar beeping of a heart monitor. The rest slowly washes over her, the slight murmuring of voices, the tapping of keys on a keyboards and- Where those bats?

Her eyes snaps open and she flies up, cringing slightly as her body screams in pain.

“Hey, take it easy,” she hears, and the curses she has ready die down in her throat.

Turning over, she studies the male who’s to be her soulmate. He’s a cute one, hair blacker than night, eyes bluer than the ocean.

Stephanie wonders what she’s done to be blessed with a man who basically won the genetic lottery.

And then she remembers that he’s the reason why she’s been in constant pain everyday for six years and her mood sours quickly.

“Just my luck,” she grumbled. “I meet my soulmate and I can’t even get out of bed to strangle him properly.”

The boy cracks a hesitant smile and Steph tries to ignore the fact that her heart (and the heart monitor) skipped a beat before flying into overdrive.

God he’s handsome.

Stephanie blinks when she feels a hand gently encase her own, rubbing it apologetically. She fixes her gaze onto her soulmate, the one who’s very soul was carved out to fit hers perfectly, and feels her checks heat up.

Stephanie tries to think of something to say, something to kickstart the conversation.

What does one say to the person whose soul is tied so closely to their own that their body can’t stand it when the other gets hurt?

Stephanie squirms slightly under his intense stare, the way his eyes seems to be worshiping her.

“Hi,” he finally says with a crooked smile that she loves already. “I’m Tim.”

She smiles, warm as the sun.

“Hello Tim, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Stephanie.”

And then the silence is shattered and their fate is sealed.

Stephanie has boldly established that purple is not just a "girl's color". She has a PowerPoint and a 100-page essay on why purple is an "everyone's color".

@time-to-hit-the-clouds personally I think Bruce noticed that 13-year-old Dick had noticed Barbara and was like “hah AS IF” and “you’re waaaay too young, chum”

“Bruce shut up I don’t know what you’re even talking about”

[cue Bruce’s “dad face”] 😏

And it’s kind of true, Dick know Babs is pretty but he doesn’t really think about it too much. Bruce is safe.

But then. 

Dick turns 18. 

He notices Barbara. NOTICES notices. 

Barbara notices him noticing her. 

And doesn’t mind. 

[cue flirting] 😘🤗

Bruce minds. 

And DAMNIT, why did they have to pull this over on him now?? Bruce can’t hate Barbara! She’s been around way too long!!!

[cue Bruce’s brooding/sulking while Dick and Babs flirt in the background] 

😑 … 😚😌

Bruce makes a vow. No more Batgirls.

He wasn’t banking on a Spoiler. 

6 years

“I can’t believe you’re finally leaving,” Stephanie says, bumping her feet against the bed.

“Yeah,” Tim agrees, focused on folding his clothes. “Took awhile to get here though.”

“If only you were leaving next year,” she says wistfully.

That gets his attention. He stops folding, and looks at her.

“Why?” He asks, curiosity peeking through his eyes.

“They say if you’ve been friends for seven years, you’ll stay friends forever,” Steph says, leaning back on the bed. “We’ve only got six.”

She can’t see him anymore, but she knows he’s shaking his head.

“Do you not have faith in our friendship lasting?” Steph thinks she can hear hurt in his voice. She doesn’t know. She tries to pretend that the chasm between the two isn’t growing.

“Maybe.”

Stephanie hears Tim pause. She can picture what he looks like: face almost blank, but with that kicked puppy dog light shining through, head slightly tilted, hair falling in front of his eyes.

She wishes she had the courage to look up at him, because it would be a stunning sight to see, but that’ll address the tightness in her heart and it’s too late for that now. 

“Stephanie?” He asks again, and yup, that’s definitely hurt she hears in his voice.

She stay silent, hoping that maybe he’ll give it up and they can move on to the light topics they were discussing beforehand (she knows he won’t).

Instead, the silence between them grows heavier and heavier and suddenly it’s hard to breathe and Stephanie wants to scream– 

“It’s just,” She starts hesitantly, “You’re going to be so far away.” She watches Tim’s shoulders relax slightly (and hates herself a little more for causing him a moment of worry because Tim doesn’t deserve that he doesn’t deserve that–)

“Yeah, I know what you mean. It’ll be weird not even living in the same town as everyone.”

Stephanie says nothing, choosing to watch him silently as he turns back to his backing and almost wishes she said something else. Instead, she just wonders. She wonders about how Tim will be when he gets to his college (he’ll throw himself completely into his work at first, never bothering with socializing. He’ll dedicate himself wholly into his work and never come out unless there’s someone who can drag him out, someone who won’t be her anymore). She wonders if he will be able to make friends (he will. Tim is extremely charismatic once he pokes his head out from work. It’s how she stayed by his side even after her initial curiosity wore off.)

She wonder if he’ll finally get a girlfriend. (He will. Tim has a soft charm to him that make it hard for anyone to look away, has a crooked smile that still made Steph swoon even after years of friendship. He’ll get a beautiful girlfriend easily, one who will hold his hand and go out on dinner dates with him and meet his family and gently cup his face and lean up and kiss his lips–)

Steph suddenly feels sick.

Instead she thinks about the past six ears, the most beautiful six years of her life, the phone calls at 2 a.m. when she would talk and he would groan about sleeping and oh God what if those end please no.

But it’s no use because suddenly she’s thinking too hard and she realizes that soon instead of long talks at night Tim will be hanging up early and laugh with his new girlfriend and his new friends and she will fade slowly out of his life until one day his girlfriend will point at a picture of her and ask who is she? and Tim will laugh and throw his arms around her and say no one important to us dear.

She’ll slowly lose importance in his life and that thought terrifies her.

Please, she begs to whoever is listening. Please don’t take him away from me.

tangled and stretched (but never broken)

Timsteph Soulmate au take 3: the red string of fate

Stephanie remembers the first time she saw the red string. 

 She was six, and her grandma winked at her before making a cats cradle with the string connected to her pinkie, stretching out to the kitchen where her grandpa stood. 

 This, she murmured, placing Stephanie on her lap, is the red string of fate. Those connected by it are destined lovers, and are predetermined to always meet at some point in their lives. It can tangle and stretch, but never break. The one on the other end of the string will always the be the most match. And one day, you will find your other half, my sweet little Stephanie. 

 Stephanie nodded eagerly, imagining the time when she would find her own soulmate, her own love. 

 Bah! Her grandma’s voice suddenly changed. But your mother is stubborn. She insisted on defying the red strings of fate and marrying someone who is not her better half. This marriage will not end well, my little Stephanie. Be careful around that man, my sweet. You will have to face a hard future. 

 Years later, Stephanie can not say she is surprised when her father starts falling deeper into his criminal schemes and when her mother starts embracing her pills more than she ever embraced Stephanie. 

 Still, Stephanie is unprepared for how far her father would go to be recognized, how far her mother would fall down the abyss.

 And she slowly recognizes that she has to stop her father. 

 When she meets Robin, it’s insignificant. 

 Well, as insignificant as hitting someone with a brick. 

 When the brick cracked across his face, Robin and her ring finger jerked and she realized with that the string on her finger, the one that never seemed to end, was connected to the pinky finger of Robin.

She only saw Robin’s shocked face before she ran.

He was her soulmate, she would realize in shock when she got home and could finally think coherently.

My soulmate, she whispers to herself at night. Soulmate, the night would whisper back to her. Soulmate. 

 It took three days for Robin to track her down. (I followed the string, he whispered to her when they’re curled up together on the bed. I would’ve followed it forever to meet you.) 

 They carve out their spaces in each other’s hearts, with soft whispers of love and gentle caresses. They smile at each other under the moon, lost in each other’s warmth. 

 Then he is torn from her. 

 (I am no longer Robin, he says stiffly. And you can not visit me or else my father would grow suspicious.) 

 She becomes Robin. Then she “dies”. 

 She comes back. Then Batman dies. 

 Tim looks at her with betrayal. 

 (Don’t let me catch you in that suit again, he snarls, and her heart breaks as he tries to tear down what she worked to hard to protect.) 

 But then he’s back and she’s Batgirl and he’s Red Robin and Batman’s alive, He exclaims to everyone.

They work on a case together and she can’t help the shiver that runs up her back as his eyes drink her up in her purple dress. 

 But Batman’s back and Tim turns away from her again and she smacks Batman (her!! Stephanie Brown, normal girl who has to scream for her words to be heard.) 

 When everything settled down, she could only look from afar and feel the chasm between them, feel her string burn with an intensity at being in such close proximity with the one who completes her heart. 

Still, with the string, it’s only a matter of time before the found each other again.

 As she stands across from him, she can’t help but to remember that time, ages ago, when she was Spoiler and he was Robin and they were young and in love. Looking across at him, she can’t help but feel exactly she did at the young age of 15, looking shyly across at Tim with a soft smile. Under the moonlight, everything feels new and she feels young and innocent and ready to conquer anything with her love. 

 It doesn’t take much for them to find nirvana in one another, tangled up in sheets whispering sweet nothings to each other, feeling years of separation disappear like nothing as they giggle with each other. 

 They’ve changed but that’s okay because she still fits perfectly under his arm there and he still touches her like that and they’ve changed but they’ve also stayed the same. 

 Grandma, she whispers out to the night. I found him, the one on the other side of my string, can you see? 

 Beside her, Tim shifts and pulls her closer.