Candle-burner - Soul Possesing A Body - Tumblr Blog
here I lay me down - s.r.
a/n: ex!spencer gets shot, and you show up at the hospital to see if he's okay. spencer is still desperately in love with you. based on this post wc: 2.3k (she is LONG)
Spencer wakes to a cacophony of sounds, others breathing and various beeps and hums from a variety of medical machines. He hates the noise of the hospital, as he knows what always follows. It’s pain, and ever since he kicked dilaudid, he doesn’t get the relief that people are always pushing on him here.
The last thing Spencer remembers, he was in front of Morgan, who was about to get shot- it was a piercing memory, one that even the anesthetic wearing off slowly couldn’t numb. He’d jumped in front of it, and the pieces of Morgan pacing around his room and the whole being in a hospital thing click into place.
When he blinks his eyes open, he sees Hotch speaking to the doctor with his endearingly concerned eyebrow scrunch and it’s then that he notices a familiar scent in the air.
It’s perfume- he knows because he’d bought it- a mixture of jasmine and lilies, and the memory of the night he gave it to her bursts into technicolor when he closes his eyes. It had been her birthday, and he’d gone with Penelope and Emily to pick out a gift for her.
He remembers how she’d lit up, her warm doe eyes brightening with fondness that he’d earned, and the way his heart had flipped in his chest- the memory is in crisp detail. He remembers the way she’d kissed him, equal measure in thanks and in adoration, and it’s comforting to remember right now. He tries to think of her often, especially when waves of pain crash over him like an unruly ocean that threatens to drown him. There was someone who loved him at one point, he tries to remember.
He wants to compliment the nurse wearing it, but even as limited as his social skills are in this state, he knows that telling the nurse you like her perfume because your ex wore it is probably inappropriate.
A roar of desire presents itself in his chest- he has no desire to want her here, but Spencer can’t help but fantasize about her presence. Her nimble fingers running through his hair, her soft voice cooing at his injuries. It was always nice to come home to her after a rough day- her disposition warm and kind and good. It’s his fault he doesn’t have it- his fault that she doesn’t love him anymore.
It’s as if he conjured her, when she walks in the door.
He literally cannot believe that she is here, in his hospital room- he drinks in the sight of her like a man starved. She’s beautiful- he’d never forget this but it’s been so long since he’s seen her. The curve of her cheek, her cupid’s bow, the slope of her neck- the details he spent the best year of his life memorizing under careful touch.
Her body language is protective, one arm wrapped around her waist and the other at her mouth, her delicate fingers holding a tissue. Had she been crying?
Before he can think of what to say to her, she speaks to him.
“How are you feeling?”
He’d forgotten just how her voice sounded. Or rather, how it sounded when she was concerned for him. It’s addicting, hedonistic in the ways of wine and drugs and everything else you should have in moderation but had to give up. It’s just so comforting, her lovely doe eyes looking at him with warmth and concern.
“Hey,” he replies, not answering her question. He might be imagining her. They might have given him drugs. There’s no way she came and see him of her own volition.
She pauses for a moment, biting her lip in an incredibly endearing way (and god, he’d missed looking at her) before she makes the decision to walk over to the side of his bed. He tries to crane his neck to look at her and she scolds him, and this doesn’t make any sense.
“You got shot,” she says, voice warm and concerned, and if he squinted he could hear love in her voice.
“I’m okay,” he tries to reply.
“You got shot,” she says, eyes flaring with emotion. She always hated that he minimized his pain.
“You came,” he says, after a beat of silence. Her fingers are running through his hair and he tries to commit this to memory. It doesn’t mean she loves him. She’s the kind of person who stops on the street to give someone the last dollar in her wallet, of course she would visit her ex-boyfriend in the hospital after he got shot.
It doesn’t mean anything.
“Of course I came, Spence,” she says, intentionality in her tone, “You got hurt.”
It’s selfish to lean into her touch, but she smells like home and he doesn’t know if he will ever be held like this again by her. And he doesn’t care to be held by anyone else.
Hotch comes in, and if he’s surprised to see the two of them together, it doesn’t show on his face. He tells Spencer that the. Bullet had been clean through, and that he’d been lucky. He’d avoided internal bleeding and would need to stay at home for a week.
When Hotch leaves to ‘give him some space to process’, the silence lingers.
“Thank you for coming.”
It’s kind of worse, actually. The reality where she’s still his girlfriend is superimposed on top of this one, and he can feel the ghost of the kisses she’d pepper his cheeks with. If she still loved him, then she’d hug him and tell him that she loves him, tell him how angry she is for jumping in front of a stray bullet.
It’s my fault, he thinks to himself, eyes raking over her. She’d definitely been crying, he realizes. Her makeup had run and he think she might have slept here. How had he ever gotten someone like her to fall in love with him?
It’s his fault she doesn’t love him anymore.
When the doctor tells him that he needs someone to stay with him for the next few days, and she volunteers, he agrees.
It’s a nice kind of pain, he thinks. Any piece of her is more than he wants of anything else.
_______________________________________
It turns out that she is a wonderful caregiver.
Penelope had been incredibly supportive of this idea, somehow convinced that the proximity would bring them back together. This is a hope that Spencer does not engage in, but still- it’s nice to have her around.
She knows her way around his apartment- knows how he organizes her things. Half her things used to be there too.
Memory is a funny thing. The worst part by far of eidetic memory is the lack of forgetting, and up until now, this was best seen in the horrors of his work. Now, it’s all her.
Taking care of him when he got shot is not the same thing as loving him.
When she makes them dinner (which is so kind of her- he offered to buy takeout and she’d insisted on recreating his mother’s soup recipe. She’d kept a copy of it in her phone. Spencer had almost died of flattery), she sits next to him on his couch
It’s funny how the best memories of his life are so colored now- their trip to Europe, their first kiss, the first time he’d cooked her dinner and she’d watched Doctor Who with him. Ghosts of memory linger through the place, and it hurts to see her sit next to him on the couch with a foot between them.
“Thank you for being here,” he says after a beat of silence. She looks beautiful, and he always thinks this. She’s wearing his t-shirt which is just an awfully tempting view.
It’s his fault he can’t have what he wants.
“I told you I still wanted us to be friends,” she says, looking down at her bowl, “You’re my friend. I’m happy to do this.”
He can tell she means it as an olive branch but it cuts like a knife. Because he never wanted to be her friend. She was the first thing he even wanted enough to ask for it. He still remembers when he’d asked her out the first time, the stuttering and the way she’d looked, how impossible her liking him back had felt.
And then he’d managed to make her fall in love with him. It didn’t even take much- he just had to be himself, the way she says it, and he’d give anything to have that back.
“You’re a good friend,” he replies, instead of everything he’s thinking.
“Hotch thinks so,” she muses, not looking at him, “He was surprised I’d come here after you broke up with me.”
It’s a slight lash out, and it’s fair. It’s not fair that she’s here, wearing his fucking t-shirt, her collarbones exposed under the fabric. He know what her skin feels like under his lips, and now she make veiled comment on his couch.
“Why did you?”
He can’t figure it out. They’d broken up two months ago. He’d done it to protect her- after the anthrax case he’d been fucking fixated on her getting hurt. Because this is the stuff he can’t protect her from. Can’t help if biomedical hazards end up on his clothes, and if he comes home shot.
He got shot. He’s the kind of person who doesn’t get forever with the woman he loves, because he can’t keep her safe. Even if he quit just then- enough people have made an enemy of him. She’d never be safe.
So he made a choice to cut his ties and let her go, and yes, every fucking night since he’s had at least one nightmare about what she looks like crying and asking him to stay. He never, ever wanted to see her like that, but he also never ever wanted her to be a widow.
She’d find someone else. She’s so easy to love- he doesn’t like to think about someone else loving her, but he’s sure she won’t be alone.
His voice catches in his throat.
“It is nice of you,” Spencer chokes out, “I never wanted you to have to do that.”
“Let’s not talk about this now,” she says, getting up to get him another serving, and he grabs her wrist.
“Ba- Hey, please. Talk to me.”
“What do you want me to say?” she says at him, but she doesn’t pull her wrist back.
“I just-“ he stammers, but it’s heavy and something he can’t give up, the combination of her gaze under his and her soft skin in his grasp, “I can’t have you here and hate me. I just can’t take you hating me. I know- I know what I did. I know it’s not fair to ask and I know that we’re not together and I know it’s my fault but god, you can’t hate me. I can’t take it.”
“You think I hate you?”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“You think I came to the hospital in the middle of the night, slept in a waiting room, cooked you soup and slept on your couch because I hate you?”
He doesn’t know what to say. How could she still love him?
“It’s you,” he replies. “You’d always do that for me.”
She’s closer now, moving into his space more and more and he can smell his own body soap on her because she showered here, and he’s overcome with a desire to hold her.
“Why do you think that is?”
She’s almost in his lap now, and there’s a greed to this now, the way he pulls her a little bit closer. She tips her head back in a bitter, tinny laugh that he doesn’t like the sound of.
“I mean, Spencer- I love you so much that I don’t even care if you love me back.”
“You still love me?”
“I’m working on it,” she says, a bitter smile on her face, “You’re hard to get over.”
“Don’t get over me.”
It’s not the smoothest thing he could’ve sid, and he kind of regrets the implication on her face, sees her gorgeous features crumple.
“That’s mean, Spence.”
“No! No. Don’t. Don’t-don’t do that. Don’t move on with your life and find someone else because this is the lightest I’ve felt in fucking weeks.”
Her eyes widen into saucers, and her grip tightens on his hands, and Spencer feels like he could fly.
“I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have made you go and I should’ve let you be the person who picks me up at the hospital and I know, I know how lucky I am that you’re still here, that you cared enough. Please, please don’t get over me. I know it’s not far to ask.”
She blinks a few times at him before opening her arms for a hug, of which he flies into at breakneck speed. His ribs hurt but he’d forgotten what it was like to hold her. And yes, maybe wanting this makes himself selfish, but he wants this. Maybe this can the one thing he lets himself have.
“I do love you. ” he speaks into her collarbone, and she shushes him.
“No, no,” he says, looking up at her, her gorgeous doe eyes shaky with uncertainty he knows is his fault, “If you’ll still have me, I’d like to-I’d like to try again. And I know that you probably can’t trust me and I have so much to make up for and-“
“Spencer,” she says warmly, twining their fingers, “I’d like to kiss you now. Okay?”
He nods a bit fervently, shaking as he does, but when she kisses him-
It’s just as he remembers. She leans into him, her delicate fingers cupping his jaw and he wraps his spindles arms around the curve of her waist, pinning her to him like she might float away if untethered.
When Spencer gets back to the office, he it’s not just his wounds that have healed.
Head Cannon
Bruce never actually learned how to act rich till he was already in his early 30's due to traveling for training and still forgets most of the stuff he learned because he so used to just focusing on his family and being Batman. The perks to being rich? Your rich! There are no other perks!
Dick was raised in a circus, and despite joining Bruce and the world of rich at a young age, Bruce still doesn't teach him anything about being rich other than how to act nicely and how to hide from paparazzi,
Jason is notoriously from Crime Ally, he knows less about being rich and how to use the power of being rich, he will learn the proper way to act like he has money, just to do the exact opposite because F the rich. And Steph has the EXACT same mindset
You would think Damian knows how to act rich and all the perks to being rich because he's the famous Al Ghul the demon head's grandson right? Nope, he trained how to kill people and how to lie, not how to flaunt money
Tim drake is the only Wayne that is raised on what it's like to be rich and rich perks and sucky parts. You want to get into that one really exclusive club on 14th Street? The one with the 4 month long waiting list? Tim could bring you and 10 other people and still get in without a reservation. Tim can tell you how to properly mix 40 different types of alcoholic drinks because rich people are obsessed with alcohol . Hell you want a free drink just join Tim at a bar near the diamond district because people who are famous get 2 bottles of whiskey free of charge.
foldingfacets DPxDC fic masterlist
Multi-Chaptered Fics
Bus to Nowhere I Just Wanna Talk Life Alert (PeePaw, please, I'm begging) Death Throes (Danny/Grundy - Dandy) Break-Ins At Three, Breakthroughs At Four (Jazz/Jason - Anger Management) Several Degrees of History (Lancer/Clark/Slade - Banned Books) Hopeful Life of Death (mind the tags) Partially Temporal, Partially Temperamental Caught Before The Fall (mind the tags - Dick/Clockwork - Golden Age) Brides, Birds, and Batshit Family Matters (Wives Fic)
One Shots
Our Love Will Last Us (mind the tags - Dani/Mar'i - Space Princess) Gotham Circusa - Wait, That's Not It (Dick/Danny - Green Elephant) Catching Snowflakes With Your Tongue (Bizarro/Klemper - Playdate) Peace, Quiet, and Another God Damn Superhero (Lancer/Clark - Literacy) Can't Hack My Heart (Roy/Tucker/Skulker - Technical Experts) Scavenged My Love Among The Ruins (mind the tags - Bart/Dan - Doomed Timelines) Lightning Through My Neck, And I've Found You (Danny/Grundy - Dandy)
Series
foldingfacets DPxDC Ship Week 2023 Break-Ins At Three, Breakthroughs At Four (mind the tags)
Can we talk about how if jason and jazz got married and had a family (most of their kids would prolly be adopted), jazz would be the super successful breadwinner of the family and jason would perfectly fill the role of domestic housewife. He would mother hen SO HARD and he would love every minute of it. Three of his kids would climb him like a jungle gym while he did house chores like vacuuming and dishes and he would unironically drive a minivan everywhere. Jason = ideal housewife plz and ty
Jason? Housewife? I mean I can tell where you’re coming from fanon version of the guy but if you wanna do comic version of Jason, the dude would rather help Bruce on a mission than stay at home all day. Let me see what I can do because I mostly know Jason from when he was straight up a villain in comics.
Ok so he never really had a good father figure that shows what a dads meant to do. All of the stuff he knows is from asking friends on what to do, parenting books, Alfred, and books he’s read as a kid. Jason would be positively floundering with raising a bunch of kids at first. He’s good with kids so he does that just fine but dealing with kids for a long period of time? That takes some work. He doesn’t know what a normal kid is meant to do and what he can tell them. He grew up on Crime Alley and then became a billionaires ward. That’s quite the wild childhood living situation. What age do kids normally learn how to cook? How to lie? How to defend themselves? What are normal hobbies people have? All of these questions just swirl in Jason’s brain as he does his best to give his kids a normal life.
Jazz is the breadwinner while Jason is getting a solid 40% cut from mobs in his territory? I’d love a job that pays that much. I don’t think she’d be the breadwinner but Jazz definitely does a normal 9-5 job while Jason does stuff more at night. Jason staying with their kids during the day while Jazz is out of the house makes sense in that case. He spoils the hell out of his kids. He’s a massive pushover and does everything be can to prevent his kids from turning out like him.
He absolutely wouldn’t fit into your stereotypical role of housewife stuff. Still, imagining a 6ft tall 225lbs man of pure muscle and scars taking his kids to a local park and sitting on a park bench watching his kids run around and play while absentmindedly flipping a butterfly knife open and closed at incredible speed. Or threatening a kid who’s bullying his child with a whole ass Glock and then instantly switching to caring for his kid who got punched and checking them for injuries is some lovely mental imagery.
Additionally: Jason going to parent teacher conferences and forcing the school to implement disability accommodations classes for the teachers because one of his kids slightly mentioned that his teacher didn’t let him have extra time to work on his test like they should have. Casually cleaning his teeth with one of the scariest fucking knives you’ve ever seen while meeting with one of his kids friends parents. Bullying the principal to invite a mystery guest speaker to his kids schools for an Anti Drug PSA and low and behold, Red Hood walks into the school gymnasium and does a fucking incredible one man play and an almost poetic speech on the effects of drugs and how it can impact your families.
When his kids realize that they can simply climb on him and he doesn’t mind their weight they start doing it constantly. They scramble up his legs onto his shoulders and just sit there while Jason cooks dinner. The only sign that Jason acknowledges the kids presence is to warn them to not put their feet near the stove and to ruffle their hair when they get settled on his shoulders.
Jason not only has a mini van, it’s one of the most decked out mini vans to ever exist. This thing is built like a covert batmobile. You could take on an army of tanks with this car but he simply uses it to weave around traffic like a madman driving his kid to ice skating school.
Jason absolutely isn’t the ideal housewife but he’s a housewife that you Do Not wish to fuck with. You touch his kids and that’s the last thing you’ll ever do.
Short DPXDC Prompts #567
Danny possesses one of the many Bats in the Batcave and the Batfam, completely unaware that this bat is actually a whole ass person, just treat Danny as a strangely human acclimated bat that they see as a pet.
Short DPXDC Prompts #684
Wes Weston cannot believe it. He just saw Nightwing remove his mask in an alley. Does he inform Dick Grayson that he knows or does he keep it to himself?
There really is no feeling quite like discovering a new song that fits your blorbo to a T. Best I can do to convey it is something like
sub au for my Danny has Talia au
Damian finds out he has siblings as in Elle and Dan because of time travel shenanigans. It's an accidental future time travel Damien has taken over as phantom, Ellie with the hero name Wrath and Dan as banshee.
The bat family is meeting the future bat family and Damian off-handedly mentioned Ellie and Dan. The family expects these two to be future adoptees when he drops the fact that they're on a mission with his mom. They start asking if Talia is now an ally and Damian says technically but they're on a mother-child bonding trip that they've Disguised as a mission. It's after this that Damian drops another bomb on the fact that both of them are his full-blooded biological siblings.
The bat family starts asking where the hell they are in their timeline. Older Damien looks his father dead in the eyes and shrugs. He has Danny's chaos.
I think it would be really funny for them just to find out how the three of his kids are doing in whatever timeline this is happening.
Damien is a hero named Phantom that the family later learns is taken from Talia's hero name that they didn't know she had and he uses Lazarus Magic( it's ghost Zone/ infinite realms Magic).
The daughter Bruce didn't know he had is a antihero named Wrath who he later finds out accidentally became a chaos God.( all of Talia and Bruce children have the potential to become gods but he does not know that)
A son using the code name banshee that Bruce was not expecting that nonchalantly talks about The Times They were evil And the fact they've probably ended the world multiple times.
Potential DPxDC Prompt
Danny survived high school with his identity intact. It wasn't easy, and it involved "Phantom" making a deal with his parents to help fight the ghosts in return for their amnesty if permanent banishment back to the ghost zone, but no one was getting zapped or gooped or vivisected, so it's all great! Meanwhile Danny Fenton, though his life, has perfected a near universal stain remover that's not just effective even post-washing, but is also environmentally friendly (thanks ghost zone chemists for working even after death on your craft). He decides to submit it to the Wayne Foundation's Innovations of the Future contest for a potential scholarship (Jazz was already teleprompting him from her college in sending out at least ten essays a week for scholarships from other sources). He gets a full ride to the University of Gotham, along with a hefty contract for exclusive rights to his stain remover formula. The issue? Danny knows the product includes a short-lived form of ectoplasm to work, and he is very, very hesitant to allow something as big as Wayne Corp to learn about that. His parents and their zeal caused so much harm just wanting to learn about the Ghost Zone. How dangerous would it be for an Entire Corporation, whose business is to exploit for gain, to learn about it? He didn't think this scholarship application through, did he? Meanwhile Batco is horrified and aghast that a civilian not only sent in something with Lazarus water in it for a fuckin' scholarship, it is actually useful for something besides raising the dead!
“The what?”
Danny and Duke had been having a pretty okay day. Duke got a ridiculous packet to complete from his professor, and Danny tripped down the stairs in the library, causing a ruckus that got everyone’s attention.
So yea, everything was going well until they decided to push their luck and go to a new coffee shop a bit further away. It wasn’t the coffee shop itself, but the goons that came out of nowhere to kidnap Tim Drake-Wayne who was getting an order to go, which turned into a gang fight in the middle of the street.
Danny and Duke, along with Tim, ended up sheltered behind a car and missed the opportunity to bunker down inside the shop.
“Well, this isn’t what I planned today,” Tim comments.
“Same,” Danny agrees.
“Maybe we can wait it out?” Duke suggests.
The other two give a look that says that it was not going to happen.
“Rock, Paper, Scissors for peeking,” Danny says, already holding out his fist.
“Bet.”
They look at Duke.
Peer Pressure works and he groans with clear discomfort at the situation.
Duke loses. A bullet whizzes past his head.
“Nope! Nope. Not doing that again.”
Tim rolls his eyes at the dramatics, but with Danny still there he bit his tongue.
“What’d you see?”
Duke looks at Tim like he’s crazy.
“Lots of people with guns,” he answers hysterically.
“Need a hand?”
Red Hood had swung down from the nearest rooftop, hand gun in both hands. He pops off three shots before having to duck behind the car with them.
“Hood, what are you doing here? This isn’t Crime Alley,” Tim asks like they bumped into each other at the supermarket.
Hood shrugs, “Close enough.”
“Oh sweet, can I borrow that?” Danny randomly asks.
Before anyone can question what he was talking about he was already reaching out to take the handgun off of Hood’s thigh.
“Whoa-“
Danny turns to look over the car’s hood and pulls the trigger. Nothing happens.
The others pull him back quickly. He winces at the hard fall to his tailbone.
“Holy crap! Danny!”
“Dude, are you trying to get yourself killed?”
“What is wrong with you?”
“Hey!” Danny interrupts their freak out. “It’s not my fault his gun is broke.”
“The safety is still on, idiot,” Hood tilts his head.
“The what?” Danny asks in genuine confusion.
The three brothers all pause and look at him.
“The safety? On the gun? So there isn’t a misfire?” Tim explains. He was stuck between shocked and judgmental.
“This is why people who don’t know how to shoot shouldn’t touch guns,” Hood says in frustration while reaching to take it away.
Danny pulls it back out of reach.
“I know how to shoot, thanks. My parent’s weapons just don’t have safety things. I’m not used to it,” he grumbles.
“What do you-“
But Danny was already finding the safety and flicking it off before trying again. This time he hits two goons, one in the shoulder and another in the leg.
The batboys glance at each other.
“So,” Hood tries to be casual, “what do your parents do?”
“They’re scientists,” Danny answers, mainly focused on shooting another person dressed in a mask, “but they make their own weapons.”
“Are they by any chance mad scientists? Or borderline rogues?” Duke asks as half a joke.
“Of course not,” Danny answers. Then he pauses to actually think about it. “I don’t think so.”
“Cool. That’s fine.”
**
After that Danny had a few more ‘meet and greet’s with the local vigilantes and saw some lingering shadows around their apartment. They had the weirdest questions about his family.
The idea of the Batkids doing normal people things while suited up is hilarious to me, you know, like Red Robin and Spoiler making the 9 o'clock news while racing through a grocery store because they totally forgot to get the things Alfred asked them to bring for the family dinner. Or Damian and Dick swinging into the Bludhaven Zoo mid-patrol because Dami really wanted to see the new baby tiger. Red Hood buying lemonade from a kid's stand and then standing there awkwardly messing with his helmet, trying not to hurt the kid's feelings. Black Bat, on a particularly tiring day randomly appeared in the nosebleeds of the ballet hall and started sniping phones out of people's hands. Or Signal and a deeply irritated Batman changing out a blown-out tyre in some back alley, earning amused looks.
I think it’s funny to think that whenever Jason shows up to ANYTHING with a duffle bag the batfamily and co think there could be decapitated heads inside:
Dick: whatcha got there Jason?
Jason: my luggage for the mission??
Dick:
Jason:
Dick:
Jason: HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU GUYS THERE AREN’T HEADS IN HERE
Dick: THERES ALWAYS THE POSSIBILITY
Jason: I HAVEN’T KILLED ANYONE IN MONTHS
Dick: THAT WE KNOW OF
I imagine that then the Justice League becomes weary of Jason with duffle bags due to the bats. So the outlaws could be helping with a mission and:
Superman: Hood if it’s alright we’d like to search your bag?
Red Hood: there’s just my gear inside
Superman: we just want to double check it is your gear…
Red Hood:
Red Hood: not you guys too
Red Hood: THERE AREN’T ANY DECAPITATED HEADS INSIDE
Arsenal: at this point you should just put heads in there.
Red Hood: I’m not trying to get back on the Justice Leagues Wanted list Roy
ok probably ooc but what if Tim kinda sees Bruce as his son. He hangs up Bruce’s weird ramble papers like you would a child’s drawing. He praises Bruce when he does something well, scolds him when he does something bad.
Tim has no reason to see Bruce as a father figure, but he has every reason to see him as a son. Plus, Bruce is always adamant that Bruce will never his dad, not the other way around
Jason: “he replaced me with you! A new shiny son since his first one died cause of him!”
Tim: “I.. believe you misunderstand my relationship with the Batman.”
Bruce should be named Billy cause he is the Batson
Tim puts little gold stars on the mission reports Bruce does well on and has a chart to track how well the man is doing at self-care tasks. Surprisingly, the frowny stickers are very effective at shaming Bruce. Maybe it's the disappointment of an inanimate object, maybe it's because a child is putting up the stickers, but Bruce hates seeing when a new one has been added to the list.
It would be hilarious if Tim pulled out the list for Jason and Damian too. He has sections for "insults," "murders," "knife pulled," and "bodily harm to family members."" He doesn't tell them he's the one doing it, though, cause it wouldn't be as effective. They just appear in a common area one day for all the Bats to witness.
Alfred puts ones up for the others as well.
We Didn’t Start The Fire
“See man, the moon!” Kid Flash said as they came outside, standing on the pile of rubble.
“And Superman! Do we fulfill our promises or what…” his voice trails off as a grinding clanking sound echoes behind them.
They turned around, confused to see a tricked out pale yellow Volkswagen bug trucking its way up the rubble and crumbled building blocks. It stopped before it got too steep, a man in a familiar white lab coat stumbling out.
Immediately, they were on guard, the man haphazardly climbing towards them.
Robin drew two batarangs in each hand, standing in front of Superboy as he got closer. It didn’t even matter that the Justice League had just landed behind them, if this CADMUS scientist tried something, Robin would be the first to defend Superboy. Without hesitance.
The man stopped in front of them, huffing for breath.
“You’re-!” He stopped, leaning over his knees with gasping breaths, “Sorry, one sec!” He held up a finger, gasping for another few seconds before stepping forward-
Chains of water surrounded him before they could blink, Robin looking back surprised to see Aqualad standing with extended weapons and a grim face.
“This is odd.” The man looked at the water wrapped around him, wriggling a bit before shrugging. His eyes zeroed in on Superboy, “You’re okay!” He said with a blinding grin.
Superboy recoiled and Robin immediately stepped between them.
“What.”
The man glanced at him briefly before looking back over Robin’s head, “You are okay right? I mean I tried my best but I couldn’t figure out a way to get you out- I mean if I’d known you were there to begin with I’d would have never-but then I wouldn’t have-
“Who are you?” Superman asks, suddenly close from behind them.
The man’s mouth clicks shut, looking between them all before a grimacing smile rises to his face.
He extends his hand at the elbow between the liquid chains, “Dr. Danny Fenton, ex-biochemical engineer of CADMUS labs Mr.Superman,sir.”
Flash zips forward, the eyes of his cowl narrowed, “Ex?”
The grimace turns into a wince. “Oh.. heh, yeah, I’ve found that arson is usually a pretty good kickstart of sudden unemployment,” there’s a thoughtful pause as he looks over the rubble, “It’s usually accidental though.”
Nobody responds.
“What? You didn’t think that lab fire started on its own did you? How else was I supposed to get you here?”
“There’s a Justice League public phone! That’s literally its entire purpose!” Kid Flash shouts, throwing his hands in the air. At this point, Aqualad cautiously lowers his water bearers, releasing Fenton.
“Oh, sure, I call a bunch of superheroes and tell them my boss is doing a Grow-Your-Own-Superman in the boiler room. That’d go over well.” He pauses, “Though the sidekicks was a surprise.”
The comment goes uncorrected, as the rest of the league has snapped to face Superboy the moment he says it.
Superman looks stricken as Superboy reveals the logo on his torn shirt.
Fenton unceremoniously breaks the tension, “Sorry I never asked, do you have a name? I’d feel really bad just calling you-“
“… They called me.. Superboy..” He says, still not looking away from the man of steel in front of him.
“That’s not-“ Fenton rubs his temples and sighs harshly, “Okay, I can fix that later, whatever-“
“You’re not gonna be ‘fixing’ anything, Doctor.” Robin snarls.
Fenton blinks. “Huh?”
Batman steps forward, “Green Lantern.”
Green construct cuffs snap around the Dr.Fenton’s wrists, though he looks at them puzzled.
“Superman, check for survivors in the damage, Flash find some salvageable evidence before it finishes burning. The rest of us, we’ll continue this interrogation at the hall.”
“Wait what?” Dr. Fenton says, perking up like a meerkat even as Batman turns away with swirl of his cape.
“What about me?” Superboy asks, desperation in his hesitant step forward.
Batman looks to Superman. Superman nods, and then shoots off into the rubble and emergency vehicles.
“For now, you come with us.” Batman says, and Superboy’s shoulders loosen just a hint.
The dark knight pauses again before turning completely, “And don’t think we’ve forgotten the rest of you,” he says, cowled eyes narrowed over his shoulder, “Robin.”
Robin shirks back, “Heh.. Right.”
“Wait what’s going on?” The Fenton scientist yelled back over his shoulder as Green Lantern pulls him away.
He starts to say something but the construct fully engulfs him now, shifting from a platform to a soundproof bubble.
It seems to shock him enough, Fenton tapping at the walls and looking like he wants to take it apart and take a sample.
Robin grit his teeth.
He was not gonna let these CADMUS freaks touch Superboy again.
Not Fenton or anybody else.
Love how tumblr has its own folk stories. Yeah the God of Arepo we’ve all heard the story and we all still cry about it. Yeah that one about the woman locked up for centuries finally getting free. That one about the witch who would marry anyone who could get her house key from her cat and it’s revealed she IS the cat after the narrator befriends the cat.
Prepared for Anything Part One
Danny stared at the ceiling, bored, as the creepy clown laughed manically at a camera. Danny hadn’t been in this dimension for two minutes, (he’d portalled directly into Joker’s hideout) before he was promptly tied to a chair. He could get out of it easily.
Thing was, there were others here, restrained more thoroughly than Danny. They wore colourful, armoured suits and were obviously the vigilantes/heroes of this. . .place—Gotham? Danny’d heard the name mentioned a few times now—This Freakshow wannabe was obviously one of their villains.
Danny had been hoping someone would show up without having to draw attention to himself. What was this dimension’s stance on halfas? Or ghosts?
But no one had come yet, it had been an hour, and he was getting stiff from sitting here so long without being able to move his limbs.
Danny heaved a loud, exasperated sigh-groan at the ceiling. The guy, face-painted like a toddler who’d gotten into their parent’s make-up, suddenly stopped monologuing.
Good. It was getting annoying.
“Are you done yet?” Danny complained much like the impatient teenager he was. “I’ve got crap to do, wrap it up, would you?”
Danny came here to explore. He was not exploring. He should be exploring and it was all this dude’s fault.
Danny supposed he could go all ghost on him and bounce, but he came all this way. It wasn’t much of hassle, but still. Danny was stubborn. He knew this.
The warehouse was silent. The creepo wasn’t talking, anymore, he wasn’t doing anything, and Danny deigned to lift his head from where it’d been thrown back on the chair.
The costumed people were looking at him in horror.
Danny wasn’t sure why.
The walking fashion disaster began to cackle with condescending amusement.
Yeah, okay, whatever.
Danny ignored the man’s delve into something about Danny’s impending doom, or threatening him with pain, and something, something, something. Something about broken this, burning that, yada, yada yada, when Danny got an idea.
Behind the chair where his hands were bound, knowing no one was behind him, he quietly broke the ropes on his wrists. The vigilantes—a red one with bandoliers crossing over his chest and one who wore a largely grey and black suit with an R emblem on the left side of his chest—were valiantly trying to dissuade the psycho to leave Danny alone, who now realized the said psycho was coming towards him, carrying a crowbar.
How original.
The Joker, as Danny heard someone call him at some point, he’s not sure when, leaned in close. His breath stank.
Danny made a disgusted face. “Do you not brush your teeth at all? Gross, dude.”
“You won’t be mak—“
Danny punched him in the jaw. The guy went down pretty easily.
Danny made an annoyed noise as he bent down to untie his ankles from the chair legs. He muttered to himself. “Stupid villains, always gotta get in the way, why can’t I just have one nice vacation, huh?”
“How did you do that?”
Danny looked up at the red one. “Do what?” He asked, standing and stretching with satisfying pops.
“Get free.”
“Oh. . .” Danny reached into his hoodie sleeve and pulled out a small hand saw. He guessed he coulda used a knife, but it was the first thing he'd thought of.
The guy spluttered. “You just keep a saw in your sleeve?”
“Yep.” Danny popped the P. No need for them to know he can make portals. As tiny as needed. “You guys want help out of those, or what?” Danny gestured to the chains keeping the two bound on the floor.
“No, Joker’s goons outside probably has the keys, we have back-up. . . .coming. . . .where did you get that?”
Danny didn’t miss a beat as he crouched to get a grip on the chain with the large pair of bolt cutters. “Ah, ya know, never leave home without a good pair of bolt cutters.” He offered. The room they were in was pretty bare, saying he found it “lying around” wouldn’t work. It’d be pretty obvious.
“That is absurd.” The younger one said. “Where did they come from?”
Danny snapped the red one free and moved onto the angry eyebrows one. How did they still emote so well through those masks? “Just had it on hand.”
“But wh—“
“Oh look! There ya go! I gotta go, nice being held hostage with ya’ll.” Danny ignored their calls for him, climbing out of the nearest window and disappearing.
never let anyone tell you that trawling through mediocre victorian poetry isn't worth it. we just happened upon an absolute BANGER of a worm poem. go read it or else 🪱🪱🪱