Opening Closed Doors (Thunderbolts x Isolating!GN!Reader Headcanons)
Request: hihihiđI really like your work and I was wondering if you could a headcanon one with the thunderbolts where like, reader struggles with isolating themselves and mental health issues and stuff (if this makes sense đź) tytyty - Anonymous
Description: Being a member of the Thunderbolts and having a tendency to isolate yourself
a/n: as with my other headcanons, i have done as much research as possible. enjoy! poor mental health, reader tends to isolate themself a lot, possible romantic tension with bob (bc i am obsessed with bob x reader stuff atm)
gif credits: @kitc0nn0r, @sacredsorceress
Arguably, these are the best people to talk to when you think about the issues of isolating yourself
The team themselves do acknowledge that having personal time is important, but they learn to come together when they need each other most of all
The main problem - it's difficult for you to replace the isolationist behaviour, and you genuinely try
Yelena and Bucky know exactly what you are feeling - when it all becomes too much to handle, so you just shut down completely
The two of them go to simply talk to you, whether it's sparring, chores, or even a stakeout for a mission
Yelena initiates the conversation, essentially getting you to talk about anything on your mind that wasn't going to debilitate yourself
Bucky then catches on by sharing some stories from the '40s - like his rationings or the books he was able to get his hands on when first published - you found those stories cool
They both tried to get you talking, and it was fairly effective
Ava, John and Alexei are a super mixed bag - on the one hand, they can be extreme chatterboxes, non-stop banter and chitter chatter, or they could be in their own heads
The three of them pull a little scheme of their own to get you out there, rather than, as Alexei puts it "rot in your room like dead pig" or however that goes
So, they decide to take you out on a night on the town, nothing special, just a club in some secluded corner in New York - Ava and Alexei dance boldly to the music
They get you to dance and keep up with their boisterous antics, and John, for as emotionally constipated as he is, opened up his support
It was refreshing - and you needed that desperately
Bob, being a man who also suffers with some isolating problems, tries to get out of his own slump to help you
He decides to sit and just eat with you, talk to you, cook and clean with you - giving you as much human interaction as possible - it was his nature, good-hearted and came from a safe and warm place
In truth, he hated seeing you suffer and you being quiet about it, essentially entrusting that he would always be there for you when situations got really rough
And maybe those puppy dog eyes did a lot more than intended
In short, the team just knows these things - with their own little ways to help you out, the team never hold it against you
You may need a little coaxing, sure - but there's always someone to talk to, even when there's nothing to say at all
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â° being kate bishop's younger sibling would include...
with a role model like kate bishop, you were bound to be two things.
chaotic and fearless.
seeing your sister absolutely CRUSH the competition in archery was something you looked forward to.
you used to make handmade signs with glitter glue & happy faces, cheering her on, even though she was too focused to notice during the competition.
after the death of your father, she was extremely protective of you.
she didn't want to lose anyone else.
when your mother became more distant, often on work calls, she would look after you.
you used to take her bow sometimes when she wasn't looking, feeling the smoothness of it under your fingers, pretending that you were her.
that is, until she saw you holding it, taking it away & tackling you in a fit of laughter.
you two totally have the best text messages.
i feel like there's a lot of those cat emojis used lol
you raid her closet all. the. time. she doesn't even care, just tells you to wash it before you give it back.
that's why you're the best dressed at any event, ofc.
you and kate are super close like "i-know-what-your-emotion-is-just-from-your-face" close.
which is why when kate got involved in the "hawkeye" business, you kinda knew something was up.
i mean, let's face it, kate is bound to be a pretty terrible liar.
oh sure, she tried to keep it from you. blaming all those late nights on hanging out with friends.
"silly kate", you had said, "you don't HAVE any friends!"
so finally she confided in you. swore you to secrecy.
that didn't stop you from spying on her.
okay, not really.
but you liked her weird little apartment, with the metal staircase and the target on the wall, the big window opposite the door.
and you just happened to be there one day when she came in with a DOG.
oh and clint barton too. but that's not really that important.
a dog, a one eyed dog, bounding up to you and panting, tail wagging with enthusiasm.
your life was complete.
kate rolled her eyes, questioning why you never got that excited when SHE came home.
speaking of clint barton, he totally thinks you're cool.
you happily tell him all of the embarassing stories you know about kate.
you nearly DIED of laughter when he told you how he casually mentioned that kate had tripped and fallen in front of massive amounts of people at a very important event in the middle of a mission.
kate never let you down, no matter what.
she was always just a call away, whether it was to laugh, cry, or just talk.
you found yourself in her old room often, lying on her bed & looking at the posters around the room, the medals and trophies she had won.
despite all of her achievements, she never made you feel lesser than or worthless. she always encouraged you no matter what.
sure, she would send you old pictures of yourself she found on her phone, threatening to send them to the avengers. (no WAY she had ALL their contacts.)
sure, she always took more than half of the blanket when you had movie night on the couch.
and sure, she constantly messed up your hair just when you had gotten it perfect.
but all in all, she was your big sister, and you loved her more than the sun.
but not as much as you loved lucky the pizza dog :)
Request - If you write for sinners, can you please write an imagine where Mary (Hailee) has a younger brother who doesn't turn into a vampire and survives the film, and Mary finds him when he is an old man and reunites with him?
1932, Mississippi.
It's nighttime and Mary went to the juke joint. She walks around and she looks for Stack but he saw her. He quickly rushed towards her and they started to have a serious conversation. But Mary didn't notice her little brother also entered the juke joint. You head to the bar and you buy a drink, then you look and watch people dance and you are enjoying the performance of the band. You didn't notice that your sister left crying, so you bought another drink.
Mary, is outside feeling sad and angry. But Remmick started to sing and she watched them perform. After the song, Remmick started to talk with her but Mary wasn't in the mood. She did walk away but Remmick took the chance to grab her and bite her.
Remmick and the vampires started to attack people outside. But Mary managed to get invited Then she saw you and her eyes widened.
âY/N, what are you doing here? When did you get here?â Mary asked
âI followed you here, Iâm having a good time. I really liked-â
âYou have to go now!â Mary yelled
âNo! You are not the boss of me!â You yelled
You walked away then Mary went outside, to tell Remmick to cancel the plan. But he didn't listen then he made Mary go back inside. Annie, and Smoke saw that Mary had blood on her face. She turned Stack into a vampire but at first people assumed he was dead. Stack shot Mary multiples times then you pushed him, but everyone saw Mary stand up and she laughed
âWe are going to kill every last one of ya,â Mary laughed sinister
âMary?â You said
She was going towards you, but Annie throw holy water on her. She runs away and you go after your sister, but Cornbread is outside, and he is a vampire. You and the others are outnumbered, Annie dragged you inside and you fell to the ground.
âYour sister is dead, Y/Nâ Annie said
âNo! She isn't dead!â You cried out
You cried and wiped your tears away.
âWe need to get weapons now, we are outnumbered,â Smoke said
âWhat about my sister?â You asked
âShe is gone, she is with them now and so is Stack. Don't let them fool you,â Annie said to you and Smoke
Everyone started to get weapons and were ready to fight. But Lisa couldn't accept the fact that her husband is a vampire. But Remmick knew how to break her so she would let everyone inside the juke joint. He talked about her family and that's when he smiled, she yelled out to let everyone inside.
Now, you and the others are fighting. You had a gun and you started to shoot them in the head. When you ran out of bullets, a vampire started to run towards you then Annie shot him in the head. You ran behind the bar and found a knife, but a vampire jumped over the bar and you quickly threw beer in her face. To distract her then you stabbed her in the head multiple times then in the heart. You run towards Annie and Pearline to save them, you killed the vampire and you stay by their side to help them. While fighting, you got separated from Pearline and Annie.
âYou are mine!â Remmicked smiled
He started to run towards you and you started to run. You run upstairs to the balcony, but Mary sees you being chased
âY/Nâ Mary said
She runs towards Annie to grab the holy water. Then Mary heads upstairs, and you are on the ground holding a wooden stick between you and Remmick.
âIâm going to enjoy killing youâ Remmick smiled
âGo to hell!â You yelled
Remmick is much stronger and he pressed the wooden stick on your neck. You are struggling to breathe but Mary throws holy water on him. It started to burn and she kicked him off you and he is in pain, then Mary pushed him over the balcony but he didn't die. Your sister helped you stand up but you moved away from her
âY/N, you can be a vampire like me. We can live together for a long timeâ Mary said
She moves closer towards you but you move back.
âDonât get near me!â You yelled
âI am your sister. We only have each otherâ Mary said
âJust get away from me! How could you?â You cried
âI didn't have a choice. Remmick attacked me before I had a chance to defend myself. Y/N you know I can fight,â Mary said
She grabbed your arm but you pushed her.
âYou are a monster!â You yelled
You run away and Mary started to cry, she doesn't blame you. What you said to her broke her and She wished the night had gone differently.
⍠⍠⍠âŤ
2026âŚ
Since what happened in 1932, Mary hasn't seen her brother. She did hear he moved out of Missippi but nobody knew where. Every day and every night, she would think about her brother. But she did get into a relationship with Stack and they became a power couple. But he knows how much she missed her little brother, Mary carries around an old picture of her and Y/N. In the picture he was eight years old and she was eleven.
Mary gets on her laptop and gets on Facebook. She typed in his name but she noticted people with the same last name. The profile is public and she started to look through the pictures. Then she reads the caption and her heart jumped and she smiled
âY/N, it's youâ Mary said
She looks at the location. She typed in Frankfort, Kentucky and she quickly bought a plane ticket. Then she started to look for clues in the picture, she found a clue. In one of the pictures, there is a family group picture behind a house. She reverse-imaged the house and she got an address. She takes a picture of the address and quickly went to pack her suitcase.
â˘âââ˘âââ˘
Mary can feel her heart racing and she knocks on the door. She was about to leave then she heard the door open and she heard your voice.
âMary?â You said
She turns around and smiled, but you noticted the tears.
âIâm sorry,â You said
âIâm sorry too, Y/Nâ Mary cried
You hugged her and she hugged you tight. She cried harder but she couldn't stop smiling, after the hug you smiled at her.
âYou got so old,â Mary said
âThe curse of a human. You look the same,â You said
âThe curse of being a vampire. You have to invite me in,â Mary said
âMary, you can come inside and enjoy me for dinner,â You said
She followed you inside the house. She looks around and she sees family pictures and she wish she could be in the family pictures with you. She sits down at the table and you give her juice
âGot anything stronger?â Mary asked
âNo. It's been almost a hundred years since I saw you,â You said
âA very long time, little brother. I missed you so much, every day I thought about you. I looked every inch in Mississippi for you but no one knew where you went,â Mary said
You put the cup in front of her then you sit across from her.
âAfter that night, I left Mississippi forever. That night scared me for life. I followed you, because I wanted to spend time with you and drink but you wanted to see Stack. Is he a vampire?â You said
âYes, and we are together. But I wanted to come alone and see you,â Mary said
âFigures. Mary, whyâ You said
âAfter I spoke to Stack and it didn't go well, I left the joint. Remmick was already outside with two other people, he was talking to me but once I turned my back that's when he got me and turned me into a vampire. I had to feed and I needed blood, that's when I turned Stack into a vampire. I wanted to save you butâŚâ
âWhat I said to you, I was scared out of my mind, Mary. I did miss you a lot, I was scared to see you again. That's why I left and just randomly headed to Kentucky, I didn't tell anyone not even my best friend,â You said
âI see you found someone and started a family,â Mary said
âYes. Since I got married I stayed here and started a new life,â You said
Mary takes out the old picture and showed it to you.
âI would look at that picture every day and hope you would be okay,â Mary said
âI remember this picture and that day. I didn't want to take the family picture but you bribed me to take the picture for mom,â You said
You and Mary laughed.
âYes, I bribed you with ice cream from the busy bee parlor,â Mary giggled
âI made you buy the biggest ice cream for me,â You smiled
âI missed you and mom,â Mary said
âI miss her too. I want us to be close again, Y/Nâ Mary said
âI want that too. But how do I explain you are my sister who is a vampire?â You said
You and Mary didn't know what lie to come up with.
âI don't know, I really don't know but I will leave you alone, I don't want to ruin what you have,â Mary said
Mary stands up and she was going to leave, but you stopped her.
âDonât leave. We will tell them the truth. We have been apart for too long. I don't know how long I have but I would want to spend time with my big sister,â You said
She hugged you tight and you did hug her back.
âI promise I will make it up to you,â Mary said
âStay the night, Maryâ You said
She nodded and smiled âOkay,â
You and Mary continued to talk. You show her family pictures and tell her stories about your family, then she tells you what she been doing to get blood.
Request â-⢠Could you do an FTM story for Wednesday with her trans brother please?
Your sister sent a raven to your dorm, you open the letter and you start to read it. She wants you to meet her at the lake, the raven flew away then you leave your dorm room. When you arrived to the lake, you saw your sister sitting down and had a box next to her.
âYou could get a phone and text,â You joked
You sit down next to her, then she looks at you.
"I find social media to be a soul-sucking void of meaningless affirmation,â Wednesday said
âWhy did you want to see me?â You asked
âWhy did you get sad when Miss Capri, used the pronoun she towards you,â Wednesday said
You started to hesitate but she waited for your answer. You have music class with your sister and you never mentioned why you don't like using the pronoun âsheâ.
âI don't feel like my true self as a girl,â You said
âWhy?â Wednesday asked
âI felt more like myself when I wore menâs clothes. I feel like my true self as a guy. I hate wearing girlâs clothes and people calling me by âsheâ⌠-â
âHow long have you felt like this?â Wednesday asked
âFor a long time, I was scared to say it out loud but not anymore,â You said
âYou don't want me to call you my sister?â Wednesday asked
âNo and Iâm going to change my name soon,â You said
âI don't mind having two brothers,â Wednesday said
Wednesday saw your facial expression change to happiness, when she said that. But her facial expression stayed the same, she can see that her brother wanted a hug.
âYou can hug me this one time,â Wednesday said
You quickly hugged her and she patted her your arm, and you couldn't stop smiling.
âDo you mean it?â You asked
âWhy would I lie? And yes I mean it. Throw grandes with me,â Wednesday said
âYeah. How do you think mom and dad will take it?â You said
Wednesday throws the first grenade into the water, then you copied her.
âMother and father will still accept you. Father, will take you shopping and buy the same suits he wears for you. Don't dress like father,â Wednesday said
âI won't dress like him,â You said
âAre you transgender?â Wednesday asked
âYes. Do you know what it means?,â You said
âYes, I know the definition of the word. Remember, I went with Uncle Fester to Estonia for a hunt?â Wednesday said
âYeah, I remember why,â You said
âUncle Fester and I met a person who is transgender also transformed into a werewolf, that's how I know the meaning of the word,â Wednesday said
âThatâs cool,â You said
You and Wednesday kept throwing grenades into the lake. She listened to you talk about your experience and how you feel in your body. Wednesday is a supportive and encourages you to tell the family.
â˘âââ˘âââ˘
You are at your familyâs house. Your mother made sure everyone would eat their favorite food during dinner. Your sister encourages you to tell them.
âTime to eat. I made sure everyone is happy with their favorite food,â Morticia smiled
âI have something to say,â You said
âWhat is it, my little chaosâ Gomez said
You looked at your sister then at everyone else.
âI don't want to be called Y/D/N anymore. My name is Y/N and I am transgender. I donât want to go by the pronouns she and I don't feel like my trueself when I wear girlsâ clothes,â You said
âWhat is transgender?â Pugsley asked
âA person who gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth,â Wednesday said
âYes, what she said,â You said
âYou have always felt like this, Y/N?â Morticia asked
You couldn't help to smile when your mother called you by your new name.
âYes, I have felt like this for a long time. I just never said anything out loud before, I didn't know how to express myself,â You said
âCool, I have a brother. Now we can torment Wednesday,â Pugsley said
âYeah,â You giggled
âJust because I have another brother doesn't mean I am scared,â Wednesday said
Your dad called you by your new name and you smiled again.
âY/N, you will always be our child no matter how big you get,â Gomez said
Your mother picked up her glass and everyone did the same
âTo a new beginning,â Morticia smiled
âTo a new beginning,â everyone said
⍠⯠⍠âŻ
Back at Nevermore, Pugsley told Wednesday that their brother was being bullied. The bullies were being transphobic, and Wednesday didn't like that. Pugsley did tell her who the bullies were and Wednesday started to think of a plan.
She lured the bullies into the hallway, and one else is around. Everyone and including you, is in the auditorium.
âWhat do you want freak,â He said
âI want you to respect my brother Y/N and stop saying Y/N is a girl,â Wednesday said
In the group, there are five people and they tried to inmate Wednesday but it didn't work. Wednesday isn't scared and won't back down, she is angry at them but knows her plan will work.
âOr what? Your sister just wants attention and she is desperate for it. You and your family are freaks,â She said
âYou don't talk about my family like that. I'm giving you one last chance to make it right,â Wednesday said
They laughed and thought Wednesday was bluffing.
âI will tell her that she isn't a guy,â He said
âWell, this will be interesting to watch,â Wednesday said
âWhat are you talking about freak?â She said
Wednesday whistle, then the bullies hear laughing. Behind Wednesday, they see hyenas slowing coming out and standing in front of her.
âWhat- how!?â He yelled
âDid you know, hyenas jaws are much stronger than a lion's or a wolf's jaw. Itâs interesting,â Wednesday said
The hyenas laughed again.
âWhy-why are they laughingâ She asked
The bullies are feeling terrified.
âThey have different laughters. But right now, they communicate with each other to show excitement for the food,â Wednesday said
âRun!â He yelled to his friends
She watches them run and the hyenas start to chase them. She figured they would run to the auditorium and scream for help. She walked towards the auditorium, when she got there she saw people running in fear. But the hyenas were only chasing the bullies, but Wednesday is enjoying the show in front of her.
After what happened Principal Weems called your family into the office. You were sitting between your parents and Wednesday was sitting next to your dad.
âWednesday, caused chaos. How did you even get hyenas,â Principal Weems said
âI have my sources and I won't say from whom. They were being transphobic and I had to deal with it and defend my brother,â Wednesday said
âEveyrone panicked and they are still scsred, Ms. Addams,â Principal Weems said
âIâm not going to apologize,â Wednesday said
âWhat will be their punishment for bullying our son,â Morticia said
âI didn't know she would do that,â You said
âWednesday, will have detention but that's not it. She will help the staff members at a daycare set up for a show that the kids will do. For the other students, they will have detention and they will learn that being transphobic is wrong. Y/N, I do believe you didn't know about this and you won't be in troubleâ Principal Weems said
Principal Weems respects you being trans and she calls you by your new name.
âWe will pay for the damages-â
Wednesday didn't let her father speak.
âI will not be around kids who eat their boogers,â Wednesday said
âYou don't have a choice,â Morticia said
âYour mother is right, you don't have a choice. Now, where are the hyenasâ Principal Weems said
âThey left,â Wednesday said
âThey left? Just like that?â Principal Weems said
âYes, just like thatâ Wednesday said
Principal Weems sighed heavily. Uncle Fester knew about the plan and helped her to get the hyenas. But Uncle Fester is having fun playing with hyenas in the woods.
â˘âââ˘ââ-â˘
You are setting up for your first day of the club. You are feeling nervous and hope everything will be perfect.
âWhat are you doing here?â You asked
âI came to show support for your new club,â Wednesday said
âThanks,â You said
âHave they stopped bullying you?â Wednesday asked
âYeah, they have stopped. They won't pass near me in the hallways, I think the hyenas scared them for life,â You said
âGood,â Wednesday said
âDo you think doing this club is a bad idea?â You asked
âY/N, it's not stupid. There are people who need a safe space to be themselves and have support, not everyone have supportive parents like us. I still stay and show support,â Wednesday said
A bit later, Agnes, Enid and Pugsley showed up and they wanted to show support. But four new students arrived, and you greeted them. They are transgender and they are happy to have a safe place and not hide. Agnes did have questions and they did answer her questions.
request i'd love a little fic about a gn reader who's powers are the result of forced experiments and as they struggle to control them? sort of like bob from the thunderbolts movie
content platonic batfamily & bob!inspired reader, gn!reader, forced human experimentation, medical abuse, torture, captivity/prolonged confinement, dehumanisation, loss of bodily autonomy, coercive conditioning and command phrases, graphic descriptions of invasive medical procedures, restraint, electrocution, severe pain, blood, dissociation, panic attacks, trauma responses, ptsd symptoms, sensory overload, emotional manipulation, memory intrusion, hallucinations, body horror(?), loss of control, implied child experimentation, references to death/murder, canon-typical violence, claustrophobia, buried-alive imagery, grief, recovery from abuse, hurt/comfort.
word count 9.5k
masterlist
The first thing you remembered was the white. White walls. White floors. White lights bright enough to turn the veins beneath your skin into blue-green rivers. White coats bending over you with their faces hidden behind masks, reducing themselves to pairs of detached eyes and voices that spoke about your body as if you had already left it.
Increase the voltage. Record the cellular response. Subject remains viable.
The word viable had followed you through years you could not properly count. Time did not exist inside the laboratory in mornings or birthdays or changing seasons. It existed in procedures. In the hours between injections. In the number of meals pushed through a slot before the next test. In how long you were permitted to sleep before an alarm dragged you back beneath the lights.
You learned to measure your life in pain because pain was the one thing they never allowed you to forget.
The second thing you remembered was gold. It began beneath your fingernails as a faint glow, delicate enough that you mistook it for a trick of exhaustion. Then it crawled into your palms. It filled the lines of your hands like molten metal poured into the shape of you, spreading up your wrists until every vein shone through your skin.
The scientists celebrated. You screamed.
They increased the voltage. The gold became brighter.
Years laterâor perhaps only months; the laboratory had made those words meaninglessâthe entire facility was burning when Batman found you.
Not burning with flame. Flame would have been ordinary. Flame obeyed rules. This was light without heat, pouring through cracks in the reinforced walls and making the concrete groan like an animal beneath too much weight. The air trembled. Glass hovered in glittering clouds above the shattered observation rooms. Metal doors had folded inward without being touched, crushed by invisible hands until they resembled discarded foil.
You floated in the centre of the containment chamber with your knees drawn toward your chest. The restraints had melted from your wrists. The medical gown hung from your body in scorched strips, though your skin beneath it remained unmarked. Your hair drifted around your face as if you were submerged underwater. Gold blazed beneath your skin, too bright for anyone to look at directly.
Every alarm in the building wailed. You heard nothing but the command.
âRemain still until collection,â you whispered.
The words scraped from a throat ruined by screaming.
âRemain still until collection. Remain still until collection.â
Batman stood on the other side of the ruined glass.
You knew him immediately. The scientists had shown you footage during the behavioural evaluations. Batman crossing rooftops. Batman breaking through windows. Batman standing beside gods and aliens and people who could stop trains with their hands. They had monitored your physical reactions while you watched, searching for fear, admiration, aggression.
Potential threat, one scientist had said. Potential target, another had corrected.
Batman had been an image on a screen then. A black shape designed to make your heart race. In the laboratory, surrounded by the ruins of your cage, he was smaller than you expected. Human. The pointed ears of his cowl nearly brushed a bent support beam as he stepped through the broken wall. He moved slowly, boots crunching over fragments of glass that rose again once his weight left them.
You watched the cape spread behind him.
Your power stirred. The air darkened around the edges.
Batman stopped. His gloved hand rose toward his face.
Every lesson they had forced into you screamed that he was reaching for a weapon. Your body reacted before your mind could. The floor fractured beneath him. A wave of pressure struck the walls. Batmanâs cape snapped violently behind him, though he did not move.
His hand continued upward. He removed the cowl.
The face beneath it was pale, bruised and unhidden. Dark hair fell over his forehead. His eyes were blue. Not detached. Not shielded behind glass. There were lines around them that suggested exhaustion rather than cruelty, though you had learned that cruel people could look tired too.
âMy name is Bruce,â he said.
You stared at him. No one in the laboratory had names. They had titles, identification cards and levels of authorisation. You had memorised the differences between them because it was useful to know who might hit you and who preferred electricity.
Bruce placed the cowl on the ground. âIâm not here to collect you.â
Your knees drew tighter against your chest. âRemain still until collection.â
âNo one is collecting you.â
The gold flickered.
A figure moved behind him, smaller and dressed in red and black. Another mask. Another threat.
Bruce lifted one hand without looking away from you. The figure stopped.
âCan you tell me your name?â he asked.
A number came to your tongue first. You swallowed it. Numbers were useful for organising test subjects. Numbers were printed on doors and wristbands and bags of blood. The scientists had used yours so often that sometimes it had drowned out the softer collection of sounds that belonged to you before them.
Bruce waited.
The building groaned around you. Dust hovered in the air, each particle caught in the distorted gravity of the room.
You told him your name.
Something shifted across his face. Not triumph. Not the bright satisfaction the scientists wore when you completed an exercise correctly.
Recognition.
âAll right,â he said, repeating it carefully. âIâm going to get you out of here.â
The laboratory had told you that people made promises when they wanted obedience.
You knew better than to believe him. Still, when Bruce held out his hand, you lowered yourself slowly until your bare feet touched the ground.
You did not take it. He did not make you.
The world outside the facility was dark. You had forgotten that darkness could exist without becoming dangerous.
Night stretched above the forest, blue-black and vast, broken by more stars than you knew how to count. The sight of them made something inside you ache. You had seen images of the sky, but images were flat things displayed on screens. They had never explained how enormous it was. They had never told you that looking upward could feel like falling.
You stopped at the threshold of the building.
Bruce noticed immediately. The others waited several paces away. A young man in red and black stood with a staff held loosely at his side. A woman dressed in purple watched you with undisguised concern. A taller man wearing a red helmet had removed one of his gloves, though you did not understand why.
Beyond them, the laboratoryâs outer structures smouldered beneath the moon.
âYou donât have to hurry,â Bruce said.
You stared at the sky. âThere is no ceiling.â
The young man in red and black made a small sound, almost a laugh, until the woman elbowed him.
Bruceâs expression tightened. âNo.â
âWhat keeps it up?â
No one answered immediately.
The man in the red helmet tilted his head toward the stars. âNothing. Thatâs kind of the point.â
You looked at him. His voice was rough, but there was no mockery in it.
Bruce guided you toward the aircraft waiting beyond the trees. Guided was perhaps the wrong word. He walked several feet ahead so that you could follow without feeling pursued. The others formed a loose shape around you, never close enough to touch.
You made it halfway before the sound of the engine reached you.
The laboratory vanished. The forest became white walls. The aircraft became an examination table. The vibration entered through your feet and travelled into your bones, matching the hum of the machine they used to open your cells and fill them with something that had not belonged there.
Your power exploded outward. Trees bent away from you. The aircraft lifted from the ground, its landing gear tearing furrows through the earth. Everyone shouted at once.
You rose into the air. Gold bled into black. It began at your fingertips, darkness swallowing the light beneath your skin. Your shadow spread across the clearing despite the moon hanging behind you. The shape twisted, stretching too long, rising over your shoulders like another body attempting to unfold from within your own.
The man in the red helmet moved first. He stepped toward you.
âJason,â Bruce warned.
âYeah, I see it.â
Jason removed the helmet and placed it on the ground. A white streak divided his dark hair. A scar cut through one eyebrow. His face was younger than his voice, his jaw clenched hard enough to show the muscle beneath his skin.
He lifted both empty hands.
âItâs just an engine,â he said. âItâs loud. Itâs annoying. Itâs not that machine.â
You could not breathe.
The clearing stretched around you, but you could smell antiseptic. You could taste blood. Somewhere beyond sight, a scientist told you to remain still.
Jasonâs eyes stayed on yours. âI know your bodyâs telling you different,â he continued. âBodies are real dramatic like that. Think they know everything.â
The darkness behind you shuddered.
Your power reached for him. You felt the precise pressure required to break every bone in his body. The knowledge appeared inside you without permission, a calculation written into your nerves. You saw how easily you could lift him. How quickly he would stop breathing.
Jason did not step back.
He should have. You wanted him to.
âTell it no,â he said.
âI canât.â
âYeah, you can.â
The words were too close to the scientists. Your shadow surged.
Jasonâs expression changed. Not fear. Understanding.
âOkay,â he said. âYou canât yet.â
The command inside your head faltered.
Jason lowered himself to sit on the damp ground, legs crossed as if he had chosen the clearing for an evening rest rather than being forced there by a person capable of turning him into ash.
âYou donât have to get in the plane,â he said. âNobodyâs strapping you down. Nobodyâs putting you anywhere.â
The woman in purple sat several feet behind him. The young man with the staff followed. Bruce remained standing, but his hands lowered to his sides. One by one, the surrounding figures made themselves smaller.
The aircraft settled gradually back onto the ground.
You did not remember falling.
You woke beneath another white ceiling.
For a moment, there was only instinct.
The bed disintegrated beneath you. Wood, fabric and metal tore apart before you had fully opened your eyes. The pieces hovered in a violent orbit. The windows rattled. A lamp shot from the bedside table and shattered against the far wall.
You scrambled backwards, though there was nowhere to go.
The room was enormous compared to your cell, decorated in muted blue and dark wood. Heavy curtains framed tall windows. A fireplace sat cold and empty along one wall. Someone had placed books on a shelf and clothes in an open wardrobe.
There were no visible cameras. That frightened you more.
A soft knock sounded at the door.
You stared.
Another knock. Then a voice, measured and calm. âMay I come in?â
You recognised Bruce.
The room remained suspended around you.
âNo.â The answer left your mouth before you could consider whether refusal was permitted.
Bruce did not enter. âAll right.â
You waited for punishment. None came.
Minutes passed. Perhaps longer.
The fragments of the bed lowered onto the carpet.
Bruce remained on the other side of the door.
âThereâs food outside,â he said. âNo one will come in unless you ask.â
His footsteps retreated.
You waited until you could no longer hear them before approaching the door.
A tray sat on the floor. Soup, bread, fruit and a glass of water. No utensils sharp enough to become a weapon. You wondered whether that had been deliberate.
Beside the tray was a piece of paper.
The room is yours. The bathroom door does not lock automatically. The windows can be opened. The house alarm will sound if you leave, but it will not stop you. No one will touch you without permission.
You read the sentences until the letters blurred.
Then you carried the tray into the room and sat on the floor because there was no longer a bed.
You stayed in the bedroom for six days. Bruce replaced the bed on the second day, though not personally. An elderly man named Alfred knocked, introduced himself and asked whether he could enter with two delivery workers.
You told him no. He replied that this was perfectly reasonable and left the mattress outside the door. You dragged it inside with your mind once the corridor was empty.
The mattress remained on the floor.
People visited without entering.
Dick spoke through the door while performing what sounded like increasingly ridiculous impressions of Bruce. You did not respond, but he returned the next day with a deck of cards and explained a game to you from the hallway.
Stephanieâwhom you eventually identified as the woman in purpleâleft brightly coloured socks outside the room because she had decided the provided clothes were âgiving ethically questionable spa retreat.â
Tim, the young man with the staff, did not visit. You occasionally heard his footsteps stop outside before continuing down the corridor.
Jason came at night.
He never knocked. He sat on the other side of the wall and read aloud. The first book was about a sailor hunting a whale, which seemed unnecessarily complicated and full of people making terrible decisions around the ocean. Jason offered sarcastic commentary whenever the narrator wandered away from the story to discuss knots or whale anatomy.
On the fourth night, you opened the door. Jason was sitting with his back against the opposite wall, a paperback held open in one hand. He wore a dark sweatshirt and loose trousers. No armour. No helmet. A faint scar curved around the side of his throat.
He glanced up.
You nearly closed the door.
Jason returned his gaze to the page.
âYouâre right,â he said. âThis guy needs an editor.â
You remained in the doorway. He continued reading.
After several minutes, you lowered yourself to sit inside the room.
The threshold remained between you. Jason did not cross it.
âWhy do you come here?â you asked.
His eyes remained on the book. âCouldnât sleep.â
âThat is not an answer.â
âNo, itâs an answer. Just not the one you wanted.â
Your power stirred faintly beneath your skin, catching on irritation. The lamp above Jason flickered.
He noticed but did not look at it.
âBruce asked you to watch me.â
âBruce asks me to do a lot of things. Builds character when I ignore him.â
âYou are watching me.â
âReading.â
âYou are positioned outside the only exit.â
Jason closed the book around one finger. âYou want me to move?â
You hesitated. âYes.â
He stood immediately. The movement was careful but not exaggerated. He crossed to the far end of the corridor and sat beneath a painting of a stern-looking man with an unfortunate moustache.
âBetter?â
You examined the space between him and the stairs. âYes.â
âGreat. Chapter twelve.â
He reopened the book.
That was the first choice you made in Wayne Manor.
Not an important one. Not heroic.
A distance of several metres.
Still, no one tried to take it from you.
The house was full of people who moved like ghosts.
You began noticing them once you left the room.
Bruce vanished before dawn and returned after midnight, carrying bruises beneath expensive clothing. Dick could enter a room without making the floorboards creak, but often chose to announce himself by singing badly. Tim appeared wherever coffee existed, his hair disordered and his eyes permanently shadowed. Damian walked with the rigid precision of someone who believed the entire world might become a battlefield if he relaxed. Cassandra made almost no sound at all.
Duke was the easiest to see. Something about him seemed to catch light, even in dim rooms. He had a warmth that did not resemble the artificial blaze beneath your skin. His was morning sunlight across a kitchen table. Yours was the centre of a star held together by force.
The first time Duke looked at you, he winced.
You recoiled.
âIâm sorry,â he said quickly. âItâs notâyouâre not hurting me.â
âYou looked away.â
âBecause youâre bright.â
You glanced at your hands. They appeared normal.
Duke seemed to realise the problem.
âI can see light differently,â he explained. âMetahuman thing. Youâve gotâŚâ He paused, searching for words that would not frighten you. âA lot going on.â
You waited for him to call Bruce. Instead, Duke tilted his head.
âThereâs gold around most of you,â he said. âA little red by your chest. Blue at the back of your head. The dark stuff is mostly around your hands.â
Your fingers curled into your palms. âWhat does that mean?â
âI donât know yet.â
The honesty unsettled you. Scientists always had answers. Even when their answers were wrong, they delivered them with the confidence of people who knew uncertainty only happened to someone else.
âIs it dangerous?â
Duke looked directly at you. âDoes it feel dangerous?â
You did not know.
That became the problem. Your body no longer belonged to ordinary sensation. Hunger could feel like heat behind your eyes. Exhaustion could make the furniture drift. Anger accumulated inside your jaw until your teeth glowed. Fear often arrived as nothing at all, an empty quiet that preceded catastrophic destruction.
The laboratory had demanded results, not understanding.Â
The Batfamily attempted to teach you the difference. Their first attempt was disastrous.
Bruce constructed a training chamber beneath the house. The walls were reinforced with layers of steel, composite plating and materials he refused to name. Sensors tracked your pulse, temperature, neurological activity and energy output. He explained each device. He asked permission before attaching anything to your body.
You agreed because agreement was what people wanted when they phrased commands politely.
The session began with small objects.
A wooden block placed on a table.
âLift it,â Bruce said. The block rose. âRotate it.â You rotated it. âSet it down.â You set it down.
Bruce placed another block beside the first.
Then five. Then ten.
The instructions continued.
Lift. Turn. Hold. Release.
Your breathing grew shallow.
The chamber disappeared behind white light.
Bruce asked you to lift a metal sphere. You heard increase the voltage.
The sphere crumpled.
âStop,â Bruce said. Your power interpreted the word as another command.
Every object in the chamber shot upward.
Bruce moved toward the control panel. A mechanical barrier began descending between you. It was a safety measure. You understood that somewhere beneath the panic.
Your body understood only containment.
The gold beneath your skin turned black. The chamber lights died. Something unfolded behind you.
It had no face, yet you felt it open its eyes.
Bruce activated the emergency barrier.
You tore it apart. The reinforced metal peeled away from the ceiling and slammed into the wall. Alarms erupted. Your power spread through the Cave, catching at every machine, every weapon, every vast piece of stone above you.
For one terrible moment, you felt the entire Manor. Its foundations. Its beams. The fragile human bodies moving within it. You could have lifted the house from the earth. You could have crushed everyone inside.
Then a hand struck the emergency release beside the chamber door.
Damian entered. He wore training clothes, a wooden sword strapped across his back. His expression was hard, focused.
âControl yourself,â he commanded.
The words hit you harder than any weapon.
You were back beneath the lights. A scientist stood over you as your body convulsed against the restraints.
Control yourself.
You cannot be useful in this condition.
Control yourself.
You screamed.
Darkness swallowed the chamber.
Damian disappeared inside it.
You saw his fear. Not as an expression. As a place. A child knelt in a stone room with blood on his hands while voices circled him, correcting his posture. A sword trembled between fingers too small to hold it. A woman watched from above, beautiful and distant. A man dressed as a bat turned away again and again.
You had no desire to see these things. Your power fed them to you.
Damian drew his sword. The blade passed through the darkness without touching you.
His movements slowed.
The child in the memory raised his own weapon. You felt Damian understand.
He lowered the sword.
The nightmares continued around him. His motherâs disappointment. His grandfatherâs approval. Bruceâs silence. The graves of people Damian had not saved and the bodies of people he had once been taught to consider irrelevant.
Damianâs face had gone bloodless. Still, he placed the sword on the ground.
âI was wrong,â he said. Your scream fractured into breath. âI should not have ordered you.â
The darkness rippled.
Damianâs eyes lifted toward the shape towering behind you. âYou are not required to master this for my comfort.â
The chamber returned in pieces. Bruce stood beyond the ruined barrier. Dick had arrived beside him. Jason was attempting to force his way past while Tim held one arm across his chest.
Damian remained inside.
âWould you like me to leave?â he asked.
No one had ever asked you that during an episode.
You nodded. Damian backed out of the chamber without turning away.
The darkness collapsed.
You hit the floor.
For three days afterwards, you refused to speak to anyone.
Bruce did not attempt another training session.
Damian left a folded piece of paper outside your bedroom. You stared at it for several hours before opening it.
My methods were drawn from experiences I should not have imposed upon you. Discipline kept me alive, but survival is not proof that a method was kind. I will not issue another command regarding your body. I apologise.
There was no request for forgiveness.
Beneath the note sat a sketchbook and a set of pencils.
You found Damian in the library that evening. He sat beneath a lamp with a book open in front of him. A large dog slept across his feet. A small grey cat occupied the back of his chair, tail curled beside his ear.
Both animals looked toward you.
The dog stood. You froze.
âTitus,â Damian said quietly.
The dog did not stop. He approached with his tail moving cautiously from side to side, then pressed his enormous head against your hip.
Your hands lifted, uncertain. âWhy is he doing that?â
âHe wants you to pet him.â
The concept seemed suspiciously simple.
You placed your palm against Titusâs head. The dog sighed.
Gold flickered beneath your skin.
Neither animal reacted.
The cat leapt from Damianâs chair onto the table, crossed the books and climbed onto your shoulder with complete disregard for personal boundaries.
You stared at Damian.
His mouth curved almost imperceptibly. âThey possess excellent judgement.â
âYour cat is standing on me.â
âYes.â
âShould you remove him?â
âNo. He has made his decision.â
The cat began purring beside your ear.
You sat opposite Damian. The sketchbook remained between your hands.
âDo you draw?â you asked.
âI do.â
âWhat?â
âWhatever interests me.â
You looked down at the blank page.
Damian closed his book. âMay I show you?â
You nodded.
He opened another sketchbook and turned it around. The pages contained studies of the Manor grounds, Gotham rooftops, Titus sleeping in impossible positions and the hands of various family members. Bruceâs were scarred and square. Dickâs were long-fingered, caught in motion. Jasonâs held the spine of a book. Cassandraâs rested lightly against a ballet barre.
Damian turned another page. You recognised yourself.
The drawing showed you in the training chamber, though not as you had appeared in the recording Bruce later offered to destroy. Damian had drawn the dark shape rising behind you, vast and inhuman, but its body curved around your smaller figure. Protecting you.
You swallowed. âThat is not what happened.â
âIt is what I observed.â
âIt tried to hurt you.â
âIt perceived me as a threat.â
âIt showed me things.â
Damianâs fingers tightened against the edge of the page. âYes.â
âI did not choose to see them.â
âI know.â
You touched the graphite darkness surrounding the drawn version of your body. âWhy did you make it look like that?â
âBecause monsters do not shield their vulnerable parts.â
The answer sat inside you, warm and painful.
No one in the laboratory had considered the darkness a shield. They had called it a secondary state. A catastrophic response. An asset with unacceptable volatility.
Damian had looked at it once and seen something trying, however terribly, to keep you alive.
Recovery did not occur gracefully. You broke seventeen glasses in your first month at the Manor, most of them during breakfast. You woke suspended against the ceiling often enough that Alfred began leaving pillows across the floor. You accidentally threw Tim into a bookshelf when he approached from behind, though he insisted the greater crime was the destruction of a first-edition technical manual.
You apologised for three days. Tim accepted on the first and became increasingly distressed by the continued apologies. On the fourth, he placed a small bracelet on the kitchen table between you.
You stared at it.
âI made this,â he said, then immediately looked uncomfortable. âNot for restraint. It doesnât inhibit anything.â
Your shoulders remained tense.
Tim rubbed the back of his neck. âIt monitors environmental changes. Gravity, electromagnetic fields, temperature. It vibrates before your powers become visible.â
âYou made a device to monitor me.â
The words emerged colder than intended. Tim went still.
Around you, the kitchen seemed to hold its breath.
âI made it to help you recognise the early signs,â he said. âBut youâre right.â
He took the bracelet from the table.
That evening, you found a folder outside your room.
Inside were hundreds of pages. Medical records. Diagrams. Reconstructed notes from the laboratory. Photographs taken while you were unconscious. Security footage transcriptions. Calculations written in Timâs cramped handwriting.
He knew what they had done to you. Perhaps not all of it, but more than you knew yourself.
Your body began to glow.
You found him in the Cave. Tim sat before the largest computer, deleting files. Lines of data vanished from the screens one by one.
âWhat are you doing?â
He turned. His face looked exhausted. âDestroying my copies.â
âYou watched the recordings.â
âYes.â
âYou saw themââ
âYes.â
The darkness gathered at your feet.
Tim did not approach.
âI thought I was helping,â he said. âThe organisation still has people out there. I wanted names, procedures, weaknesses in their system. I wanted enough information to make sure they could never do it again.â
âYou looked at me the way they did.â
âI know.â The agreement stole your angerâs momentum. Timâs voice broke slightly. âI didnât mean to. That doesnât make it better.â
One screen remained active. It displayed an image from a procedure you could not remember. Your body lay restrained beneath white light, chest opened by an incision that had already begun healing around surgical instruments.
Tim reached toward the keyboard.
âWait.â
His hand stopped.
You stared at the image. The person on the table looked dead. No. Worse than dead. Objects could not be dead. They could only be broken, repaired or discarded.
âWas I awake?â you asked.
Timâs silence answered.
You pressed one hand against your sternum.
There was no scar. Your body had erased the evidence.
âDo you want me to delete it?â Tim asked.
You wanted the image gone. You wanted every record burned. Every piece of proof reduced to ash so that no one could ever look at your suffering again.
You also wanted to know. The desires tore at each other.
âGive me the files,â you said. Tim nodded. âAll of them.â
âYes.â
âAnd do not keep copies.â
âI wonât.â
âIf I decide to destroy them, you do not stop me.â
âI wonât.â
The darkness retreated by an inch.
Tim copied the remaining files onto an isolated drive. He placed it in your palm.
The device was tiny. Your whole captivity fit inside something smaller than your hand.
âIâm sorry,â he said.
You closed your fingers around it. âI know.â
Trust did not repair itself in that moment.
It returned by fragments. Tim began asking questions instead of presenting answers. Would you like to know what he had discovered about your regeneration? Did you want the laboratory maps? Could he examine the bracelet again if you remained present?
You said no often. Every refusal made the next yes easier.
Eventually, you allowed him to finish the bracelet.
The first time it vibrated, you were in the sitting room with Dick. He had decided you needed to understand card games, though his rules appeared to change whenever he started losing. You held three cards in your hand and suspected at least two were useless.
The bracelet pulsed once against your wrist.
You froze.Â
Dickâs smile disappeared. âWhat is it?â
âI donât know.â
âOkay.â
The lights brightened. Your cards lifted from your fingers.
Dick set his own hand facedown. âCan you feel anything?â
You searched your body. At first, there was only confusion. Then pressure behind your eyes.
âMy head.â
âPain?â
âNo. Full.â
âFull of what?â
You looked toward the window. Rain struck the glass in hard silver lines. Thunder rolled beyond the grounds.
The pressure increased. âSound.â
Dick nodded. âToo much sound?â
You listened. Rain. Wind. The ticking clock. A television in another room. Alfred moving dishes in the kitchen. Tim typing below the house. Damian turning a page in the library. Bruceâs heartbeat in his study. All of it entered you at once.
âI can hear everything.â
Dick rose, slowly enough not to startle you. âBalcony or somewhere quiet?â
The question was simple. Not stop or continue. Not control yourself.
A choice.
âQuiet.â
Dick led you to a small storage room in the centre of the house, windowless and lined with thick walls. He turned off the overhead light and sat against the door.
You lowered yourself onto the floor. The sounds remained.
Dick began speaking. Not instructions. A story. He told you about the time Jason had replaced every photograph in the Manor with badly edited pictures of Bruce smiling. He described Alfred discovering the prank and pretending not to notice for six weeks because Bruce was too stubborn to mention it first.
Your breathing slowed. The house became quieter.
When you emerged, the storm had passed.
Dick beamed as if you had achieved something miraculous.
You had done nothing except notice. It felt miraculous anyway.
Jason taught you that control did not always mean gentleness.
There were days when anger entered you like a blade. You would wake furious without understanding why. The fabric against your skin felt unbearable. Every voice scraped against your nerves. The gold inside you churned, seeking a direction.
Bruce suggested meditation. You shattered a chair.
Jason found you standing over the pieces. âFeel better?â
âNo.â
âYeah, chairs are weak. Barely counts.â
You looked at him suspiciously. He tossed you a jacket.
An hour later, you stood inside an abandoned warehouse beyond Gothamâs industrial district. The building had been cleared for demolition. Broken windows lined the walls. Concrete pillars rose into darkness, coated in decades of dust.
Jason gestured broadly. âGo nuts.â
You stared at him. âThat is not safe.â
âNeither is bottling it up until you accidentally launch the Manor into orbit.â
âWhat am I supposed to do?â
âWhatever you want.â
No one had ever given you destruction without assigning a target.
You lifted one hand.Â
A concrete wall exploded. Dust flooded the warehouse.
Jason coughed into his sleeve. âOkay. Great start. Maybe warn me next time.â
You destroyed everything.
Not the city. Not a person. Not yourself.
Walls. Steel beams. Abandoned machinery. You tore the roof away and sent it spinning into the empty yard. You crushed concrete into powder, then compressed the powder into gleaming black stone.
Jason watched from a safe distance.
When the fury finally burned itself out, you sank onto the cracked floor. Your skin had begun healing around fissures of gold. Regeneration pulled painfully beneath the surface, cells knitting themselves too quickly.
Jason approached with a bag over one shoulder. He handed you a bottle of water and something wrapped in foil.
âWhat is it?â
âSandwich.â
âWhy?â
âBecause you just levelled a building.â
You ate.
Jason sat beside you, close enough that your shoulders almost touched.
âMy body hurts,â you admitted.
âI figured.â
âIt heals.â
âDoesnât mean it doesnât hurt.â
The scientists had said pain was irrelevant when no permanent damage remained.
Jason seemed to hear the thought in your silence. He opened the bag again and produced a thick sweatshirt.
âArms up.â You stiffened. Jason paused. âOr you can put it on yourself.â
You took the sweatshirt. The fabric was warm.
âYour power isnât bad because it wants somewhere to go,â he said. âYou just need places that arenât people.â
âWhat if I cannot choose?â
âThen we keep practising before it gets that far.â
âAnd if it does?â
Jason looked across the wrecked warehouse. âThen we come get you.â
The statement was delivered with such certainty that you almost believed him.
Cassandra was the only one who knew when you had left yourself.
You could speak, walk and complete tasks while your mind floated somewhere distant. The laboratory had rewarded this ability. Dissociation made you cooperative. A body could obey more easily when the person inside it had gone silent.
The family often missed it. Cass never did.
She found you one morning standing in the kitchen with a mug held between both hands.
Coffee spilled across the floor. The mug was empty. You continued tilting it.
Cass stepped into your line of sight. You looked through her.
She lifted one hand, palm visible. No threat. Your body recognised the gesture before you did.
Cass breathed in. She breathed out. You mirrored her.
Her movements remained slow, not because she feared startling an animal but because she understood that every sudden motion could become a command.
Cass pointed to herself. âCass.â
She pointed to you.
Your mouth opened.
Nothing came.
She repeated your name.
Not urgently. An offering.
Your fingers loosened. The mug fell.
Cass caught it before it hit the ground.
You returned to yourself with a gasp. The kitchen was too bright. The spilled coffee smelled bitter. Cass stood in front of you, holding the mug.
âWhat happened?â
âGone,â she said.
âWhere?â
Cass touched two fingers lightly to her own temple.
You understood. âI did not know.â
âI know.â
âDid I hurt anyone?â
âNo.â
The answer made your knees weak.
Cass lowered herself with you when you sat on the floor.
âHuman?â you asked.
It was not the question you intended. Cass considered it anyway.
Then she placed your hand against the centre of her chest. Her heartbeat tapped steadily beneath your palm.
âChoice,â she said.
Your own heart began matching its rhythm.
Duke helped you name the colours. Gold meant power, but not emotion. Red appeared when your body felt threatened. Blue collected around the back of your skull when you were overwhelmed. Silver flickered through your hands when you were curious. Black was not anger, as Bruce had assumed. Black was absence.
âIt shows up when you stop feeling,â Duke explained.
You sat together on the roof of Wayne Manor as dawn softened the sky. He wore a heavy coat. You had discovered that cold no longer affected you in the same way, though you still liked the weight of fabric around your shoulders.
âSo the darkness comes when I feel nothing.â
âNot exactly.â Duke watched the first edge of sun appear beyond the trees. âI think it comes when youâre feeling too much to stay present.â
You looked at your hands. A faint gold shimmered beneath them.
âCan you see it now?â
âGold. Some blue.â
âWhat does blue mean?â
âWeâre figuring it out.â
The phrase had become familiar.
Not a failure of knowledge. A promise that you were permitted to be unfinished.
Steph taught you that terror could coexist with ridiculousness. She refused to call the dark manifestation by the laboratoryâs designation, which appeared in the records as VOID RESPONSE PHENOMENON.
âThat sounds like a rejected prog-rock album,â she announced during a family meeting.
Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose. âIt is the terminology used by the organisation.â
âThe organisation also thought vivisecting people was a reasonable Tuesday activity. Their branding privileges are revoked.â
Steph began suggesting alternatives.
The Gloom Goblin. Traumazilla. The Goth Upgrade. Bruce vetoed that one on principle.
You eventually chose Eclipse. The name frightened you less. An eclipse was not the destruction of the sun. It was only a shadow passing in front of it.
The family learned.
Bruce removed the locked protocols from your room. Tim gave you access to every system monitoring your energy. Damian asked before beginning training. Dick stopped trying to make sadness disappear. Jason redirected anger without feeding it. Duke told you what he saw but allowed you to decide whether you needed help. Cass taught everyone the signs of dissociation. Steph interrupted every conversation that started treating you like a weapon instead of a participant.
It was not perfect.
Bruce still watched too closely. Tim sometimes forgot questions could feel like examinations. Damianâs concern hardened into criticism when he was frightened. Dick joked at the wrong moments. Jason disappeared when his own memories became too heavy. Duke exhausted himself trying to catch every change in your light. Cass struggled to express fear before it turned into action. Steph occasionally made choices for you while defending your right to choose.
They were a family. Families, you learned, were people repeatedly hurting one another in smaller ways than the world had hurt them, then trying to become better before the wounds became permanent.
You began to belong to them so gradually that you did not notice until the organisation returned.
It happened during dinner. Alfred had prepared enough food for twice the number of people seated around the table, which Jason insisted was because half the family behaved like starving wolves. Bruce was reading a message beneath the table. Damian was pretending not to feed Titus. Stephanie had stolen food from Timâs plate three times without him noticing.
You sat between Duke and Cass.
The television in the adjacent sitting room turned on. No one had touched it.
Static filled the screen. Every light in the Manor flickered.
Bruce stood.
The television displayed a white room.
Your fork fell from your hand.
A masked figure appeared on the screen. The mask was featureless except for a narrow black lens across the eyes. You knew that mask. Director Olsen had worn it during high-risk procedures.
He was supposed to be dead.
Bruce had shown you the records. Olsen had vanished after the laboratory collapse, presumed killed beneath several tonnes of reinforced concrete.
The figure tilted his head.
âSubject,â he said.
The word entered your body like a key.
Jason overturned his chair. Tim lunged toward the control system.
The screen multiplied. Every computer, phone and security display in the Manor showed the same white room.
Director Olsen spoke a sequence of numbers. Your number.
You clamped both hands over your ears. The sound did not come from outside. It was already inside you.
âRemain still until collection.â
The gold vanished. Black spread beneath your skin.
Cass reached you first, stopping just beyond armâs length. Her palms were open.
You could not see her. The dining room became the laboratory. Your family became silhouettes behind reinforced glass.
Olsen continued speaking. âThreat response authorised.â
Your body rose from the floor. The table split down the centre.
Bruce shouted an evacuation order. The word order struck the conditioning buried in your nervous system.
Eclipse unfolded.
Darkness erupted through Wayne Manor. It did not merely extinguish light. It consumed dimension. Walls stretched into impossible distances. The ceiling disappeared. Black tendrils poured from your shadow and climbed through the house, wrapping around every person they touched.
The family vanished into their worst memories. Bruce stood in Crime Alley. Pearls bounced across wet pavement. He was eight years old again, too small to hold his motherâs hand and his fatherâs body at the same time. The gunshot repeated. Every time he turned, another alley opened, another child knelt beside another pair of bodies.
Dick fell forever. The circus lights spun above him. His parentsâ hands slipped from the trapeze. He reached for them but his arms remained too short, his fingers closing around empty air as their bodies struck the ground again and again.
Jason woke inside a coffin. Earth pressed against his mouth. His fingernails tore away as he clawed upward. Laughter filtered through the soil, bright and terrible. A crowbar struck somewhere in the dark.
Tim sat alone before the Batcomputer while every screen displayed a different death he had failed to prevent. Bruce. Kon. Steph. His father. Himself. Calculations covered the walls, each ending with the same conclusion. Too late.
Damian held a sword over a kneeling child. His grandfather commanded him to strike. His mother watched. Bruce stood behind them, silent. Every refusal made the childâs face change into someone Damian loved.
Duke stood beneath a blackened sun while Gotham disappeared street by street. His light poured from his hands and died before reaching anyone.
Stephanie watched doors close. Bruce telling her she was not ready. Tim choosing someone else. Her father laughing. Every room in the Manor emptying when she entered.
Cass stood in a room filled with bodies. Words surrounded her, incomprehensible and accusing. She moved through every death she had caused, every death she had failed to prevent, her hands stained no matter how often she washed them.
Eclipse fed. You were trapped at its centre. The laboratory held you beneath white light.
Director Olsen stood beside the table.
âYou see?â he asked. âAttachment creates instability.â
You could hear the family screaming beyond the walls. âStop.â
âYou were designed to expose weakness.â
âStop.â
âThreat response authorised.â
Your power tightened around them.
You felt eight human hearts. Bruceâs slowing beneath the weight of grief. Dickâs racing with the endless fall. Jasonâs stuttering in the coffin. Timâs skipping as panic overtook calculation. Damianâs hard and furious. Dukeâs burning itself empty. Stephâs breaking beneath abandonment. Cassâ steady despite the bodies.
You could crush them. Olsen wanted you to. A weapon obeyed.
Outside the Eclipse, Batman opened his eyes. Bruce remained kneeling in the alley, but he understood that it was not real. The knowledge did not make the grief less sharp. His motherâs pearls still rolled past his hand. His fatherâs blood still warmed the pavement.Â
He had built contingencies for this. A sonic pulse calibrated to your altered nervous system. A compound designed to disrupt the cellular reaction. Satellite weapons capable of striking the Manor with enough force to incapacitate even you.
The controls waited inside his gauntlet.
Bruce looked at the child kneeling beside the bodies. Then he removed the gauntlet.
The alley trembled.
âYou are frightened,â he said.
The child looked up. The face was yours.
âYou are not cruel.â
The vision shattered.
Bruce stood in the dining room, though the darkness remained thick around him. He could barely see your silhouette.
He stepped forward.
Eclipse struck him with another memory. Jasonâs broken body in Ethiopia.
Bruce staggered.
He continued.
Dick understood next. He stopped reaching for his parents. The fall continued around him, but he closed his eyes and remembered the first time you had laughed during flight training. You had hovered stiffly above the Cave while Dick swung in reckless circles around you, calling instructions that became progressively less useful.
At some point, you had tried to imitate him.
You spun upside down. Your startled laughter had lifted every tool from the workbenches.
Dick held onto that sound. The circus dissolved.
He found Bruce moving through the dark.
âNot alone,â Dick said, though he did not know whether you could hear.
Jason remained inside the coffin.
He knew this nightmare. He knew the smell of blood and damp wood. He knew the agony in his hands. He knew the certainty that no one was coming.
The earth pressed tighter. Jason stopped digging.
âFine,â he rasped into the dark. âThen Iâll stay.â
The coffin lid shifted. Not upward.
Inward.
He saw you curled beside him, knees against your chest, repeating a command beneath your breath.
Remain still until collection.
Jason turned onto his side despite the impossible lack of space.
âBad news,â he said. âIâm incredibly stubborn.â
Your eyes opened.
The coffin broke apart.
Jason emerged in the dining room on his knees, blood beneath nails that were not actually damaged.
Tim attempted to solve the nightmare. He traced the code through the screens. Identified the transmission source. Calculated the frequency disrupting your brain. Every answer multiplied into ten more failures.
The screens showed the family dying. Too late.
Tim closed his eyes. He remembered the bracelet. The first vibration. The pressure behind your eyes. The relief on your face when you realised the sensation had a name.
The solution had not been the device. It had been recognition.
Tim began speaking.
âYou hate pears,â he said. The screens flickered. âYou pretend you donât, because Alfred keeps buying them.â The calculations vanished one line at a time. âYou sleep on the floor when youâre upset, even though thereâs a bed. You like the blue mug with the crack in the handle. You read the endings of books first and somehow think that isnât a crime.â
A doorway appeared.
Tim stepped through it.
Damian lowered the sword. The child kneeling before him looked up with your face. His grandfather repeated the command.
Strike.
Damian dropped the weapon. âNo.â
The walls shook. âYou will obey.â
âNo.â
The childâs face became Bruceâs. Dickâs. Jasonâs. Yours.
Damian knelt.
âI was taught that control required obedience,â he said. âI was wrong.â
The sword disappeared. Titus appeared beside him, tail wagging.
Damian placed one hand on the dogâs head. The nightmare opened.
Duke stood beneath the black sun until he understood that the darkness was not consuming his light. It was hiding from it.
He stopped trying to burn through. Instead, he reduced his power to the smallest glow he could create. A single point of warmth.
âHere,â he said.
The dark shifted toward him.
Steph kicked open a door. Another closed. She kicked that one open too.
The empty rooms repeated. Everyone left. Everyone always left.
Steph stopped chasing them.
âYeah, okay,â she said to the void. âAbandonment issues. Very original. You know whatâs actually scarier?â
The darkness paused.
âBruceâs taste in furniture.â
A laugh echoed somewhere beyond the rooms. Small. Broken.
Yours.
Steph followed it.
Cass moved through bodies. She did not deny them. She touched each face. Acknowledged each wound.
Then she found you lying among them, dark power pouring from your mouth and eyes.
You looked at her.
âMonster,â you said.
Cass shook her head.
You lifted blood-covered hands. Cass placed her own palms against them.
âChoice,â she said.
The bodies vanished.
One by one, the Batfamily entered the centre of the Eclipse.
Olsen stood beside your restraint table. His mask turned toward them.
âThreats identified,â he said.
Your power rose.
Bruce stopped several feet away. No one wore a mask now.
Dick stood at his shoulder. Jason remained slightly ahead of Tim. Damianâs hands were empty. Duke carried a small glow in his palm. Stephâs face was pale with fear she did not attempt to hide. Cass breathed slowly.
âYou need to leave,â you said. Your voice came from everywhere.
Jason shook his head. âNope.â
âI will hurt you.â
âYou might,â Bruce said.
The honesty pierced deeper than reassurance.
Olsen reached for the controls. âAttachment creates instability.â
Tim looked toward the masked figure. âHe isnât real.â
âHe is.â
âThe memory is real,â Tim corrected. âThe command is real. He isnât here.â
Outside the Manor, far beneath Gotham, the actual Director Olsen watched through a network of stolen cameras.
Tim could not see him. Still, the distinction mattered. The figure beside you was not the man. It was everything he had placed inside your head.
Olsen pressed a button. Pain tore through your body.
Eclipse screamed.
The darkness surged toward the family.
Bruce did not activate a contingency. Dick did not run. Jason stepped in front of Tim. Damian braced himself beside Cass. Dukeâs light went out. Steph cried out.
Every face in front of you was afraid. Not of a hypothetical disaster. Of you.
Steph met your eyes. âIâm scared,â she said. Eclipse shuddered. âBut Iâm still here.â
Dick stepped closer. âSo am I.â
âWe all are,â Duke said.
Olsen increased the signal.
You screamed as your cells ignited.
The restraint table became real beneath you. Metal closed around your wrists. White coats filled the room.
Jason climbed onto the platform. The scientists passed through him like smoke.
He reached toward you, then stopped before touching.
âHand?â he asked.
You stared. The restraints tightened.
âHand?â Jason repeated.
A choice.
You opened your fingers.
Jason took them. His palm was scarred and warm.
The laboratory flickered.
Cass approached your other side.
She held out her hand. You took it.
Damian sat on the floor where you could see him. Duke rekindled the small light. Tim continued listing ordinary things.
âYou steal Dickâs cereal.â
âEveryone steals my cereal,â Dick protested.
âYou sit with Alfred while he makes bread,â Tim continued. âYou know every hidden passage in the east wing. You like thunderstorms now as long as the windows are open.â
âYou broke my favourite mug,â Steph added.
âIt was already cracked.â
âThat crack had character.â
The restraints loosened.
Olsen shouted the command again. Bruce walked through him.
The memory distorted around Bruceâs body.
He stood beside the table and looked down at you.
Not the subject. Not the weapon.
You.
âWhat do you want?â he asked.
No one had asked that when your power was at its worst.
The answer seemed impossible.
You wanted the pain to stop. You wanted the family safe. You wanted Olsen dead. You wanted the laboratory erased so completely that history itself forgot it had existed.Â
You wanted breakfast in the kitchen. Jason reading badly written novels in the corridor. Damian pretending his cat did not choose you over him. Dick cheating at cards. Tim explaining devices you did not understand. Duke naming colours. Steph making the darkness ridiculous. Cassâ heartbeat beneath your hand. Bruce knocking and waiting outside the door.
âI want to stay,â you whispered.
Olsen activated the command.
You turned toward him. The masked figure stood at the centre of the white room, one hand raised as if your body still belonged to him.
Power gathered inside you. Enough to erase him. Enough to tear through memory and distance, follow the signal to its source and reduce the real Director Olsen to particles too small to bury.
The path opened in your mind.
You saw him beneath Gotham. You saw the machinery around him. You saw his heartbeat.
Eclipse wanted to strike. For once, you understood what it was trying to do.
It was not evil. It was terrified. It had been born beneath white lights, shaped from every moment you could not escape. It had learned that protection meant destruction because no one had ever shown it another way.
You released Jasonâs hand. His fingers tightened instinctively, then opened when you pulled away.
You rose from the table. The restraints fell through your body.
Olsen stepped backwards. âYou were created to obey.â
âNo,â you said. Gold appeared beneath the darkness. Thin veins of light spread across Eclipseâs vast form. The shadow towering behind you curved inward, no longer a creature unfolding to attack but wings folding around something precious. âI was created because you hurt me.â The white room cracked. âThat is not the same thing.â
Olsenâs mask split down the centre.
You reached into the signal connecting you to him. You could feel every command pathway, every piece of conditioning reinforced through pain. The structures had been built into your nervous system like chains.
You did not break them. Breaking was what they had taught you.
Instead, you let them go.
The commands passed through you.
Remain still. Threat response authorised. Return for collection.
They became only words.
Olsenâs image dissolved. The Eclipse collapsed. Darkness rushed inward, pouring through your skin. The Manor returned around you in flashes of broken furniture, cracked walls and shattered windows.
The family stood in the ruins of the dining room.
You hovered above them. Gold blazed through every vein.
For one second, fear flickered across Bruceâs face. Then you lowered yourself to the floor.
Your knees buckled.
Eight people moved at once.
You threw up both hands.
They stopped. Even now. Even after surviving the inside of your mind, they stopped because you asked.
You looked at Jason. âHand?â
He crossed the distance and placed his hand in yours. Cass joined him.
The others approached slowly. No one embraced you. Not until you leaned first.
Then the family closed around you.
Not a restraint. Not containment.
A shape with space to leave.
Bruceâs hand settled lightly against the back of your head. Dickâs arm crossed your shoulders. Steph pressed her forehead against your sleeve. Dukeâs warmth steadied one side of you. Damian knelt close enough that Titus pushed between you both. Tim sat on the ruined floor, still breathing too quickly. Jasonâs fingers remained locked with yours. Cassâ pulse beat against your wrist.
You did not know how long you stayed there.
The Manor creaked around you. Somewhere, water poured from a broken pipe. Alfred entered the dining room, surveyed the devastation and sighed with the profound exhaustion of a man whose family had once again weaponised the architecture.
âI assume,â he said, âthat no one will object to sandwiches.â
A laugh escaped you. It hurt.
You laughed again.
Months later, the laboratory beneath Gotham became a garden.
It had not been your idea. Duke suggested light would reach the lower chambers if enough of the concrete was removed. Damian researched plants capable of growing in damaged soil. Tim designed a filtration system to strip the remaining chemicals from the groundwater. Stephanie painted over the white walls in colours so bright Bruce briefly appeared offended on behalf of architecture. Dick suspended strings of lights across the exposed beams. Jason demolished the containment cells personally.
Cass planted the first seed.
Bruce transferred ownership of the site to a charitable trust supporting metahumans affected by experimentation. There were lawyers, government hearings and arguments about security. There were still people who believed you should be contained.
The family handled the arguments. You handled the garden.
On the first warm day of spring, you stood where the examination chamber had once been.
Sunlight poured through the open roof. Real sunlight. It touched your face without burning. Plants climbed the remaining walls. Flowers grew between cracks in the floor. The old restraint table had been melted down and reshaped into benches.
Children ran between them. Some had visible powers. A little girl with crystal growing across her arms crouched beside the flowers. A boy whose feet did not touch the ground attempted to climb a tree despite already floating above its lowest branch.
None of them wore numbers.
Bruce stood near the entrance, speaking to one of the foundation workers. Dick chased the floating boy before he could reach the roof. Jason sat on a bench reading aloud to three children who were not listening. Tim adjusted a sensor in the irrigation system. Damian showed the crystal-skinned girl how to support the stem of a damaged flower. Duke stood in the sunlight, radiant in ways only you could see. Stephanie had started a paint fight. Cass sat quietly beside a child overwhelmed by the noise.
You watched them.
The gold beneath your skin warmed.
Duke glanced across the garden.
âWhat colour?â you called.
He studied you. âGold,â he said. âBlue. A little silver.â
âNo black?â
âSome.â
Your chest tightened.
Duke smiled. âItâs not bad.â
The darkness no longer frightened him.
It still frightened you sometimes. There were nights when Eclipse stirred beneath your dreams. Days when a mechanical hum could send you back to the table. Moments when anger arrived too quickly and power answered before thought.
Recovery had not transformed you into someone untouched. It had made you someone capable of returning.
You looked down at your hands. Gold shone along your palms. A shadow moved beneath it, soft as cloud cover. An eclipse was not the end of the sun. Only proof that even light could be obscured without disappearing.
Behind you, Jason shouted as Steph threw paint across the back of his jacket. Dick nearly dropped the floating child because he was laughing. Damian objected to the use of gardening equipment as ammunition. Tim began calculating the cost of the cleanup until Cass smeared yellow paint across his cheek.
Bruce looked toward you.
He did not ask whether you were stable. He did not examine the light beneath your skin. He only lifted one hand, a quiet invitation to join them.
You crossed the garden.
No ceiling above you. Nothing keeping the sky in place. Nothing keeping you there except choice.
If you feel lonely, I could be lonely with you | Kara Zor-El
MASTERLISTÂ |Â AO3
Relationship(s):Â Kara Zor-El x gn!reader (platonic or romantic)
Summary:Â Just one look.
Warnings:Â Allusion to Kara's drinking problem. (Let me know if I need to add any)
Word count:Â 0.6k
(A/N: Just a quick thing I wrote today! This is based on my many peaceful, slightly lonely mornings at a coffee shop before I go to work. Forgive the self-indulgence! As always, requests are open!)
Clarkâs been worried about Kara. Earth is supposed to be her home but she leaves any chance she gets. Now that she speaks English and is familiar enough with Metropolis, she should be able to go out and slowly but surely build a life for herself as best she can. But, she hasnât. Not yet. She sees how much it pains him. Itâs almost as much as it pains her.
She figures itâs worth placating him this once, so she decides to go to a coffee shop he recommended. This is her way of making an effort, not just for him but for herself. She doesnât share Clarkâs enthusiasm for this planet, but itâs as good a place as any to call home, if only she spent enough time there.
Itâs a block away from The Daily Planet. Itâs where Clark and his coworkers go sometimes. The breakroom has a perfectly functional coffee machine, sure, but itâs nice to get out of the office every now and then, he tells her.
As she steps inside, she recognises that itâs exactly the kind of place Clark would love, probably. She still doesnât know him all that well. Either way, with the wooden floors, the brick walls and the mismatched, worn-out chairs that somehow seem cohesive, thereâs a humble warmth to it that reminds her of him.
Looking up at the menu on the wall behind the counter, she has no idea what to order. As far as coffee goes, sheâs tried black coffee with an ungodly serving of sugar â the Lois special. In the spirit of getting out there and trying new things, she picks a drink from the board at random. A âmochaâ, which she mispronounces, but the barista isnât unkind about it. They smile at her as they hand her the steaming cup.
Kara takes a seat at an empty table. She glances around. Itâs a weekday, late in the morning. Itâs busy, but quiet, too. Everyoneâs typing away on a laptop or thumbing through a book. Some people chat. But, each table is like its own solitary pocket of existence. No one but her looks away from what theyâre doing. She may as well not be there. Itâs peaceful yet lonely to go undetected like this. It might be handy were she laying low at a shady dive bar. If only she were out-of-her-mind wasted, Kara thinks, she wouldnât be aware of the fact that sheâs completely on her own in this place. She hasnât brought anything with her, so all she can do is sit and sip her drink.
At first, you blend in with everyone else. You sit alone in the corner. Your attention is fixed on the book in your hands, until itâs not. You pause, shift in your seat and raise your cup to your lips. As you glance around the room, as though youâre searching for no one in particular, your eyes land on Kara.
Before you get a chance to look away, she meets your gaze. It should be weird and awkward. Thatâs what you both anticipate in the first split second â that it will be little more than an unfortunate, short exchange. But, the longer the eye contact lingers, the more comfortable it becomes. Youâve never met, yet thereâs something familiar about you. Perhaps itâs that youâre united in being alone. She doesnât quite understand it but she feels that she understands you from just watching you from afar.
She offers you a small smile. You smile back.
Youâve not spoken a word to her, and yet itâs the most connected to anyone sheâs felt in a long time.
Summary: A frantic knocking on your door from your friend Bear leads to a realisation about what happened to your best friend Nikki, and an irreversible choice.
Note: Warning for the plot and themes of Obsession.
Nikki had been one of your best friends for as long as you'd known. Growing up together and being side by side.
Nothing could get between you both, even with the additions to your friend group if people from work. It worked, at least for a bit.
But, sometimes friendships faded. Work colleagues who were great was grand, but Nikki had said to you how she wanted to move on.
She'd told you. Of course she had. You were best friend.
The others didn't fully know yet, but they would - especially as her two weeks had just gone in.
So, she was getting ready to say via a small hangout after work.
Then...things changed.
Nikki had started to date Bear - someone who was akin to a younger brother to her.
But, ok, you could go with that.
You gave him the good old best friend talk, only for her to snap at you, telling you that he was taking so much care of her and being perfect.
You went with it, but gave Bear a look, you knew something was up.
Things spiraled from there, which led to now.
"(Your name)!" Bear called, thrashing at your door, "let me in. Let me in! LET ME THE FUCK IN, PLEASE!"
You opened the door, never having heard Bear be so scared before.
He barged in.
"Look - uh, fuck, ok...listen," he grabbed your arms, tight, "I need you to do something for me, ok?"
He shook you, "please (your name)!"
"Bear!" you shouted, "what the fuck did you do?"
He paused, panting for a second before looking away from you, hands leaving your arm. Then, he brought something out of his pocket.
A One Wish Willow.
"Bear," you said, voice having a barely heard shake as it changed to a stern tone, "what the fuck is that?"
"Ok. Ok, this -" he said, holding it up, "this is going to sound crazy...but...it --"
"It works..." you whispered, eyes shining a bit.
"Exactly it --" he then paused, "wait...wait, you knew about them?"
You nodded, eyes still on the object, then looked back up at him, "I almost bought one - once, a long time ago."
"...Why?"
"Nik and I had a fight," you said, "I thought I was gonna lose her. So I thought about it, and I --" you then looked up at him.
It finally dawned on you.
When you looked back up at him, he knew as well.
You backed away. He came towards you - and a hand went up.
He stopped, then took another - holding it out.
You flinched, as if you'd been burnt.
"(Your name), please..."
"Fuck you," you snapped.
He went towards you again, you went up your stairs, still facing him.
He was now at the bottom of them, "I just - I just need you to make a wish. Just one --"
"You only get one, you fucking psycho!"
"I know!" he yelled, "(your name), if I could take it back, I would. I would, I promise, and --"
"For her, or for yourself?"
He looked up at you - your figure having gone further up the stairs, now looking down at him from the top of them - and asked for you to repeat the question.
"For her...or, for you?" your voice had gone numb - no emotion, despite the tears in your eyes.
"Uh -"
"You hesitated."
He knew he had, yet he still came up the stairs.
You faced each other at the top.
"You wanted to use it to keep her as your friend," his voice softened.
"You used it to make her fall in love with you," yours hardened.
"(your name), I am begging you," he even got on his hands and knees, "please, please just make a fucking wish making everything go back to normal."
You took the box, opening it and heard it make a sound.
"Ok. Ok," he stood up, "thank you so, so, so, so, much. Ok, now, repeat after -"
"I wish -"
"Wait, no -"
" - that myself and my best friend never knew Bear, and that I can help her get a happy ending once he's no longer here -"
"WAIT!"
You snapped it.
You blacked out, and came back in a sort of fuzz. You were at the top of your stairs.
Why were you there? And what were you holding?
Your phone went off. Nikki.
"(Your name)!" She screamed into the phone, sobbing and barely able to get any words out, "(your name), you have to - you have to - help --"
You drove like a maniac - probably racking up some points on your license that would go soon, but you made it to a place you didn't recognise.
You opened the door, seeing Nikki in the middle, sobbing - with two bodies on the floor.
"(your name)..." she croaked out, running to you and throwing herself into your arms.
You ignored the blood coating you, and just held her as she sobbed.
"Oh my god, Ian...Sarah...I don't - I don't..." she vomited. You held back her hair.
"Hey," you said, leaning down so she could see you - you knocked your forehead into her own, "we're going to get out of this. That dude, the one over there," you pointed to the boy around your age in the middle of the room, "he did this. Ok? Not you. I promise. We'll sort it."
"How do you know?" she asked meekly.
You smiled, eyes shining with tears for your best friend, "I can call in some favours."
She was shaken, but she still followed you. By the time neighbours of that place had left, you were long gone.
Nikki sobbed the whole time to your place. You opened the door, and she shakily followed you in.
You let her take the bed, with yourself taking the couch.
When you woke up, she was sat beside it, hand in your own.
"Thanks for coming to get me."
"You're home now," you said, "you're safe. That psychopath is gone."
"But...Ian and Sarah..."
"That dickhead...what's his name?"
"Bear...I think - it's fuzzy."
You ran your thumb over her hand, "memories can be when going through trauma."
"I wish I could forget it. I mean, like, honour them in some way, but forget...this, you know?"
"Yeah, I know. Hey,"
She turned to look at you, "what?" she asked, voice starting to sound like the Nikki you knew.
