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Summary: You go with him back to Raccoon, where it all began. (Leon Kennedy x reader)
Word Count: 3.1K
[For tagging issues if you have been left off the taglist/tagged when you didn't want to be added to the permanent, please see the taglist pinned post on my blog cover]
Notes: Okay so, yeah. I've been gone for a little, but resident evil nine has me so pumped I think I'll be giving you more Leon fics for a little while as the game comes out. Or that was the plan anyways, and will be the plan depending on my recovery. (i will go back to DC when I get thru my awful backlog of comics to read so I can ensure I'm always writing my best version of the characters).
This was supposed to go out yesterday, but someone stalked me and attacked me on my way home so I spent the night at the police station (only station I intended to be at that night was RPD and playing resi 2) and had no charge on my phone so I couldn't even edit or upload it while I was there, so fuck it y'all get it today instead.
(Does this make me a real fanfic writer that I got this out despite local news reporters now canvassing my street?)
Anyways, there's some swearing in this one, kinda OOC? I was a little rusty and was getting back into the swing of things. Hope I did alright cause I'll be mad if I didn't execute this one right.
RiRi <3
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"You sure about this?" you say, shooting a glance to the figure of Leon beside you. He just grunts in response, eyes focused in front of him and lips pulled downwards. However, after years of working together, you were able to notice the way that his fingers tightened on the steering wheel or the barely noticeable crinkle at the corner of his eyes. His breathing was too deep and too even to be natural, a conscious effort to keep himself calm. You nod and stare back out your window, pretending as always, that you didn’t notice anything.
He hated when you brough it up.
You turn your attention instead to the smooth barrel of your gun, turning it over in your hands. The serial number stared back at you, weapon clean and fully loaded. It was just general military issue from the DSO, nothing like the worn side pistol Leon carried, or the massive weapon he had recently added to his arsenal. That thing made you cover your ears every time he shot it, and you had to wonder how his wrists hadn't broken yet from the recoil.
No, your gun was like you.
Unfamiliar to battle or being in the field, only being pulled out in emergencies. This was a big enough emergency to rip you from your desk next to Hunnigan and take you away from the comfort of your monitors, that you had even volunteered for it. Shiny and almost perfectly conditioned, a fact that made either your status as a desk jockey crystal clear, or mad you look like a gun fanatic. Usually only deployed as a field medic when the situation called for it, you had to calm your shaking breaths to tell yourself that over and over.
This was just another pinch hit op.
Like this was some usual DSO agent extraction, and not the fact that the man next to you was sick, really sick, and they didn't trust him to go in alone. You cast another glance his way, almost hoping to see what he was searching for beyond the windshield, weathered blue eyes focused up front.
"You're staring." he says flat, breaking his gaze for a moment to cast it to you. You hum and break contact, turning your head to look out your own window instead. He must be on edge, you thought to yourself. DSO legend Leon Kennedy was an attentive man, but the reaction speed on him spoke to a deeper unease that sat beneath his skin. You feel your stomach clench tightly, and it was whispered by the other agents paired to work missions with him, if Leon is on edge, you’re already screwed.
your palm is cool against the glass as you watch the night whiz by. "You're distracted." you say back after a moment, deliberating whether it was worth calling him out on.
"I'm not-"
"You are." you say back with a shrug. "And hey, I get it. I know what happened here, in Racoon, what the files say-"
"The files don't know shit." he says, slamming a hand down onto the steering wheel. It makes you jump, eyes flicking back to him again. You take in the hunch of his shoulders and the clench of his jaw. His breathing staggers his chest, deep exhales through his nose as you watch him calm down.
"Sorry." he mumbles gruffly a few breaths later, tossing his head your way and making the silvery blonde hair flop over his eyes, the colour now peppered with the grey kiss of age. The eyes that were normally a piercing blue, now flickering with a hint of regret and a foreign colour of fear. you wave your hand. "It's fine." you sigh with a smile. "I know how it is."
You really didn't.
You had worked with Leon for the past decade, but you had only known him from then on. He was like a bunker when it came to his personal life and if it wasn't for DSO protocol, you doubt you would even know his last name. You knew of his situation from the few redacted files that had been given to you when you first became partnered to assist him, black lines standing out more than the empty spaces. You had to piece information together like a puzzle, but all you walked away with was the fact he was a survivor from the Raccoon City incident, he had been part of the army for some reason the lines blocked out, before he was in Spain, and then scatterings of information on BSAA joint missions. It was like missing every second chapter in a book, trying to make the most of the man that was even more cryptic in person. You were almost embarrassed that he had been given your clean file in exchange, not a single black line to be seen. Graduated from the air force, moved to special forces in England as a medic, then a stint in experimental medical science at Terrasave before transferring to the DSO. A posterchild kind of application, stamped on the front with your smiling ID photo.
In comparison, his photo was taken as if the agent taking it didn’t care about him enough to light him proper, shadows cast over his face in an odd angle. Leon wore a scowl, but you didn’t snicker at it like the others who compared him to a guard dog when they saw it. He just looked tired, lips pulled downwards, and blue eyes that for such a startling colour, lacked any real life or warmth.
The car makes a low groaning noise and you frown, flicking your eyes over to his dashboard. "I thought you fuelled up before we left?" you ask, sitting up straighter. He sighs and taps the display, like that would make the fuel light turn off. "I asked for someone to." he grumbles. "They were supposed to take care of it."
A gloved hand runs through his hair and he exhales heavy through his nose. "There's a gas station up ahead," he says, fingers tightening on the wheel. "We can try to see what we can find."
"If it hasn't been raided already." you say back with a sigh, adjusting your back as it begins to ache in the seat. "You sure what we find will even go nice in this thing?" you tap the door with your knuckle. "I thought these rich cars needed like premium gas or some shit."
Leon chuckles, a dry sound that you honestly hadn't heard from him since the mission in Alcatraz. "Yeah," he drawls and pats the dash. "that's how it normally goes. But beggars can’t be choosers, and I don't feel like getting stranded halfway between hell and nowhere."
You nod along, mumbling a faint "men and their cars," to try and elicit another reaction from him and being rewarded with a slight upturn of his lips.
When you pull into the gas station you notice the hunch of his shoulders returning. He weaves the shiny car between the run down shells of vehicles, new wheels rolling over cracked pavement where nature had begun to take place. You can’t help the frown that tugs at your lips as you step out of the car, slamming the door. Leon rolls his shoulders and flashes the keys at you. "Gonna go check inside, you see if there's anything left in the pumps."
You nod as he shrugs his jacket closer and disappears through the gas station doors, heavy boots crunching on the glass as he steps inside.
There’s a bitter smell in the air, your fingers coating with ash as you test the pumps. A cold wind blows on the back of your neck, hairs prickling in response. You raise your head to inhale, but despite the crisp air, it isn’t satisfying. You knew you were still a few miles off from Raccoon, or what was left of the city anyways, but it was almost like the pain had seeped into the very earth and was radiating outwards from the blast. Birds called far off in the distance, but the trees felt too still. The ground was broken and untouched, time building up in form of the dirt and ash covering all surfaces.
When Leon emerges you shake your head, and he raises a can of gas.
"Found this in the back." he murmurs gruffly as he passes you, but his voice is tight, and his fingers are wrapped tight on the handle.
"Lucky," you say, trying to lighten the crushing atmosphere between the two of you. "Got nothing out of the pumps."
he clicked his tongue. "That was to be expected. This should have enough to get us in and back, but no field trips. Got no leeway for excursions."
You lean against the car as he begins to fill it up, and you study the lines of his face.
He was your rank senior by about three or four years, but age wise it was hard to believe he was only two years older. The deep grooves of his face hardened his features, and you could only imagine what he had gone through that made his frown so prominent. "You're staring again."
He snaps you out of your thoughts, steely eyes meeting yours in an intense gaze. You have to bite your tongue to swallow down a flirty comment to lighten the air, but you have enough sense to know it would probably only irritate his mood further.
"Not much else to stare at." you shrug, still making vain moves to ease his tension. His eyes were far off as he huffed and filled the car, almost hazed as he fought to focus. You bite your lip, looking away and pushing off the car as you see something behind him.
"No way," you smile, hurrying around him. "I used to have this exact jeep when I was younger." you grin, spying a car across from where you've parked. The owner seemed to have left in a hurry, parked haphazardly, tires deflated from age. You rap your fingers on the hood of it, wiping off some dust. "I think this was my first car after I graduated. So many memories." you grin ear to ear, too excited to notice the way Leon's eyes hazed over or the bobbing of his throat. You don't notice when he's set the can down and come behind you until he's called your name, but by that time you've already opened the passenger seat and swung yourself in.
"Just like it used to be." you sigh, brushing dust off the dashboard. You give him a warm smile, giving a teasing wink as your hands fiddle with the middle console. "Hey, someone might have left something useful in here." you grin, lightly joking. "Some poor sucker's loss could be our gain. You never know." you shrug, rifling through papers and napkins. Almost zombie-like, Leon comes to the drivers seat side and swings himself in, car groaning under his weight. You give him a quizzical glance as he breathes out, gloved hands slowly curling around the wheel and squeezing. "You good?" you ask, head tilting as you finish raiding the console, turning tot hr glovebox. "Now, let's see who we have here..." you say, pulling out the faded car registration, an ID card falling out face down to the passenger floor. "Model citizen we have, huh? Had ID and papers ready to go." you try to joke, leaning down to pick up the card. Leon doesn't say anything, just shifts in his seat and tightens his grip.
You pick up the card, flipping it over, and your smile drops. Your stomach flips and churns, and panic runs through your veins. The pounding in your ears makes your tongue feel heavy, and you could swear that the air dropped three degrees around you.
Fuck.
You had fucked up.
The name "Leon S Kennedy' stared back at you, alongside the bright ID photo of a young, blonde boy you had never seen before. You held it in shaking hands, stealing a side glance at the man next to you, who looked hardly anything like the card in your hands.
"I didn't know, I didn’t mean-" you begin to hurriedly apologise, blood chilling in your hands as you numbly hold the card. Leon ignores your apologies, and gently takes the card from you, jaw set and silent. For the few brief moments that your hands touch you could feel the tremble, even through the gloves. His thumb swiped over the image, as if he could erase the boy he saw there, wipe him away like the ash on the car.
"So did I." he murmured softly, and you look to him, head tilted. His eyes meet yours, and your heart pounds. You expect him to scold you, to get angry and leave, and spend the rest of the car ride in silence. Hell, if you weren’t both professionals you would have sworn you would be being left here on your own.
"What?" you ask softly.
"I used to have a jeep when I was younger too."
He lets the words hang in the air, eyes misting over with something you had never seen from him before, before he shifts in the seat and swings himself out. He drops the ID card on the seat, and the guilty feeling roars inside you. Shame burns at the back of your nose, and you have to deeply breathe to not cry in guilt. Tenderly you pick up the card, studying the face in the photo. You could see the resemblance, the hair and the facial structure. The bridge of the nose was the same, although he had lost some of the roundness that clung to his cheeks in his youth.
However, it was the eyes that stood out to you.
The eyes of a boy excited to be in the uniform, whose excitement seemed to sparkle through even when in a photograph. It was a bittersweet feeling as you held the photo, and you studied the rest of his information. "Twenty one." you whispered to yourself, flipping to the back to check the date of the ID.
he had been twenty one.
You slipped the card into your shirt pocket facing inwards, as if you could protect the boy in the photo from the horrors of Raccoon he had already witnessed. Closing the door to the jeep gingerly, you padded back to the Porsche where the older man was waiting, head turned away from you and already buckled in. Silently you sat and buckle yourself, casting a forlorn glance to Leon's old jeep as you pulled out of the station. The car ride was as awkward as you had expected, although there was a faint air of mourning that filled the space between you two, but you had no idea if it was coming from you or him.
You placed a hand over your chest when you finally reached Raccoon, feeling the outline of that card press into your palm. you swallow thickly walking through the rubble of the city that used to be, imagining what it must have been like filled with people, cars bustling down the now destroyed roads. Leon kept his pace in front of you, until coming to a stop at a building half standing.
"Is this it?" you ask quietly, eyes flicking to him. He nodded, jaw ticking as he pressed his palms against the door, breathing deeply, and pushing it forward. A surge of emotions flickered over his face as you both took in the scene in front of you, rubble strewn across what must have been a grand lobby. A statue crumbled and a ceiling caved in, tiles cracked beneath your feet as you step inside. The sense of panic and death swirls around you like a tidal wave, a skeleton in the corner of the lobby making your throat tighten. Sirens ring in the back of your head, the sounds of ghost fire haunting your senses as you try to imagine the carnage of that night.
You place your hand over the card in your pocket again, straightening up to turn to Leon, his head hanging. It was only in that moment it really settled in for you, and the resemblance of that ID card finally struck true. When his eyes met yours, it was like he had shed three decade of pain and hurt, and for just the briefest of moments you could see that young boy trapped there, watching the fires consume the city, living through the terror you could only imagine. His hair seemed lighter and blonder the longer you held his gaze, the harsh lines of his face fading away and his cheeks less hollow. His eyes less harrowed.
You had to take a step back, recoiling slightly under the intensity of the gaze, the quiet pleading. The quiet pain of being shoved away for thirty years. Your throat bobbed and you steeled yourself to come stand beside him, bumping shoulders silently.
"This won't be forever, you know." you murmur, trying to bring him comfort as he goes through the familiar method of checking his weapons and ammunition. He nods, a sad smile playing across his face, and he seems to gain that hard edge back again.
"Gotta end some day, might as well be today." he says tight lipped, before striding ahead, gun drawn as he made for the left staircase. You watch sadly at the autopilot that took over his body, tracing footsteps of his own ghost so deeply imprinted he didn’t even check blind spots properly. When he checked the hallway to his left, you noticed the change in his stance.
Shoulders down, foot forward, textbook gun grip.
Nothing like you had known him to be like in all your years working together, with his theatrics and personalised grip that had deviated so far from fresh academy training.
RPD Officer Leon Kennedy kept his eyes trained forward as he cleared rooms ahead, while you followed behind on his six. He stopped and turned back for a moment, checking to make sure that you were okay, something you followed up with a nod.
He nodded back, and just like that, the ghost of your concealed ID card clocked back in for his first shift all over again.
Except this time, his boots were a little heavier.
his hair was a little grey-er.
His shoulders a little more burdened.
But under the ash and wear of time, he was still that young boy hidden safe in your pocket.
Forever twenty one.
Permanent Taglist
(maybe? idk man its been a rough night please see pinned info post for tagging issues)
@calicocat-ina-tuxedo @cheymidnights @yyiikes @blackhawkfanatic @nightwinggrayson12 @fondavr
@uselessnewt
Hi Lovelies, I'm posting a fic in like- 2 seconds, and I've lost the file that had my permanent tag list. I've got a couple of people who I've been able to recover from scrolling comments in my account, but I know I haven't gotten everyone at all.
Please do not be offended if I do not manage to tag you in the next fic (or if I've incorrectly tagged you and you wanted to be on the 2025 Angstober only!!- I will take no offence just send me a DM to correct me and I'll fix it for you xoxo) , please just comment anything on this post (emoji, sentence, anything) to be added so if I lose my list again (I hope not) I can just look at this post.
I will pin this to the front page of my blog, so it'll be easy to find! A reminder that this will be the permanent taglist, and will go across all genres and fandoms that I write. If down the track I need to manage interests into their own lists I will (I currently only tag angstober separately, but I don't know who is on the permanent and who's just angstober from 2025...).
So, I did take a mini hiatus cause I changed jobs and then moved an entire house in two weeks while working full time, and THEN took my well deserved break!
I WILL be returning in the new year, and I have some special ones planned as a big thanks for the 2025 you all made for me 🥹🥹🥹. Also- the last fic for Angstober was supposed to drop because I scheduled it, but it wasn't until someone asked me about it at Christmas (IRL people found my tumblr and it was horrifying) and they let me know that it hasn't been published for MONTHS. So When I get my work laptop back that has the file, I'll be able to upload it again.
So sorry to those that were waiting on it!
Thank you so much for your kind words and support for all of 2025, and I'm so happy that everyone has liked my works so far. Please stay tuned to see more throughout the year!
Summary: After breaking your heart on the trip to your family farm, you search for answers, while Dick searches for you. (Dick Grayson x fem!reader)
Word Count: 2.2K
Notes: Hi lovelies~! I’m currently ON said trip with family so I am writing this on my phone. I’ve just spent some time editing it (and I thought that I would have both of these done in the airport honestly, but guess who’s now being kicked out of her house cause of landlord? That’s another story for another time but it is why I’ve been so busy). I honestly didn’t mean to do two Dick fics back to back, I just was on the plane and couldn’t remember what character was next or who I just did, all I remembered was the prompt so this is the result.
A part 2 to this fic here (from last angstober)
Anyways, I’ll write the last one out slowly so I still enjoy time with my family, and thank you all for your understanding in me getting out the last couple fics from this challenge.
RiRi <3
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it had been two weeks since you had left the city. Two weeks since you were meant to go back to your cramped apartment, to continue the city life that you had begun carving for yourself. Yet, you couldn’t bring yourself to go back, too scared of seeing what life was going to be like when you walked through those doors and was forced to face the part of yourself that was now missing.
So you didn’t.
You stayed home for a few extra weeks, after being consoled by your parents on the farm. It had been nights sobbing in the arms of your mother, as you sniffled about your heartbreak. It had been the shaky tears as you tried to explain to you or little sister why the man she d been calling he ‘new big brother’ was suddenly gone, and why you were sad. Marcus had closed up again, silently putting the tack he had fitted just for Dick, away in the stables storage shed.
When you were out of sight of the prying eyes of your family, you sobbed with your knees to your chest. Your heart panged and clenched as you sobbed into your pillow, wondering how he could just leave you like that. Hours of sleep were lost as you tried to figure out why he had done it so suddenly, why he had thought those things, what that moment of hesitation that flickered over his eyes had been.
You hated yourself crying under your covers like a schoolgirl, like you had been rejected from your first crush. Tears stained the fabric of your pillowcase, not even the familiar comfort your childhood bedroom enough to pull you out from the twisting of your heart.
So, after a few weeks of the crying, you decided you had enough of the silence. Dick hadn’t texted you once, no call or even an acknowledgement that you had ever been a part of his life. You’d gotten back into your car after days of waiting by the phone, tearfully hugging your siblings goodbye. Your father was resistant to the idea of you leaving again, keeping you close a moment longer as you took your bags to the car.
“You don’t have to go, you know.” He murmurs, kissing you on the forehead gruffly. “I don’t want you going back there to break your heart-“
“Oh, she’ll be fine.” Your mother scolds, coming up to the two of you. “She’s stronger than she looks.”
You give her a watery smile, the cracks in your heart healing just a fraction. “Thanks, mama” you say, throwing yourself into her arms for one last hug. With a smile she pats your back and walks you to your car door, helping you in.
After a lecture on road safety from your father, you were ready to go.
the first couple of hours weren’t that bad on the highway, time flying by fast. It was like the first time you had moved to Gotham, when you were still eager and wide eyed. No gala, no dance or dress, no Dick.
There were very few cars, and your music queued your favourite songs. For those few hours you sang your heart out, beaming as you tapped the rhythm on your steering wheel. You screamed the lyrics and sang loudly, the sun setting through the windows in a beautiful orange and gold.
Yet as the night began to set in ad your playlists began to run empty, the pain in your chest began to flare. Honestly, it had probably started when the song the two of you shared, YOUR song, began to play. You had still sung along, tone bittersweet as your voice faded.
You still remembered when you had showed it to him, lounging at your apartment together. Despite the amount of money he had, he never looked down on visiting your lace.In fact, he came over more to yours than you did to his, due to a lot of nightly visits where he just so ‘happened’ to be in the area.
You had both been cleaning your apartment for the coming week, and as usual you were in your lounge gear singing loudly in the kitchen. Dick looked up from his phone, grin on his face. You knew that glimmer in his eyes the moment you saw it, but you weren’t fast enough to react to him. He had already lunged across the couch and dashed for the kitchen, wrapping his arms around your middle with a laugh.
“Whatcha singing?” He asked with a grin,smiling into the crook of your shoulder.
“Just a favourite from when I was a kid.” You giggle back, looking over your shoulder. “I got all the words wrong, but I loved it anyways.”
His grin widened at that. “Sounds pretty.” He hums, kissing the back of your neck. “Let me join in.”
After he learnt one chorus, he belts into song next to you, freeing you from the hug to go do the dishes. Both of you sang wildly different songs to the same tune, random words spilling from his mouth yet sung with o much incidence you almost believed they were the real lyrics.
As you drove home now, you mumbled those lyrics to yourself as the sun sank deeper. Tears stung at your eyes, and it had only taken a few more minutes before you were sniffling. Wiping your eyes with the back of your sleeve, your tried to ignore the crushing in your chest and the sharp pain that ran through your heart. The nightly thoughts came crashing in, ruining your party to turn it into the nightly tumble with anxiety.
You wondered what he was doing without you, and if he was really talking to Barbara behind your back. If they had been doing this for long,if that was the real reason or not. But why would he lie? You asked yourself that as you held back sobs. Yet you also asked yourself why he’d break up without a proper explanation, and for that, you couldn’t come up with a reason either.
You hated that he was burned into the back of your eyelids, every blink forcing you to see his face. You saw his smile when he woke up in the morning, slow but soft. Or the way his eyes sparkled when he looked at something he loved, the look he used to give you. You could feel the touch of his hands over yours like a ghost, the warmth so close yet so far away.
The way he looked on the farm, the relaxing of his muscles and how he looked so free. The way that he was good with kids, and got along with your siblings like they were his own.
You couldn’t stop the tears that were falling, nor could you stop the sobs that eventually tore from your chest, all demanding the answer to the same question: why?
You cleched your fists on the wheel and sucked in another deep breath, hissing it through your teeth. If you were too scared to go back to your apartment to face the questions there, you’d go to he only place that you knew you would find him. The manor.
So hellbent on getting to your destination, resolve burning in your chest with still coming from trembling lips, you didn’t notice the very familiar car passing by you.
Dick was an idiot.
He knew that, god, he knew that, but he didn’t think he would have made this big of a mistake. The second that Alfred had taken him home to the manor, all he had wanted to do was lick his wounds and sulk in peace. He had broken your heart to keep you safe, to protect you. That’s what he told himself, and what he had repeated to Jason when his younger brother had tossed him over his shoulder onto a training mat.
“Are you fucking serious?” Jason had scoffed, wiping his hand on his pants. His younger brother looked down at him, eyes rows raised like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Are you really going to run with that excuse?”
“It’s not an excuse.”Dick had mumbled, dusting himself off and pushing himself to his feet, only to get knocked back down by another blow from Jason.
“It is, and you know it.” Jason rolls his eyes, frowning. “This is a cop out. Weren’t you going to go over there to tell them who you were at night? Wasn’t that the plan?” He asks, arms crossed over his chest. “Yet here you are, not even fighting back properly and moping about over an issue you created.”
“I’m not moping-“
“Yes, you are.” Jason says pointedly. “You’ve got that look in your eye, the one you get before you lock yourself in your room for a week and take it out on criminals. I also know that it means that you were doing something selfish.” Jason says, eyes narrowing as Dick gathers himself to his feet once more. A hand collides with his chest, but it doesn’t send him crashing back down.
“You’re doing this because you were scared of hurting yourself, not her.” Jason says, hand bunching up the material in his fingers. “You didn’t want the rejection, so you ran away. Honestly, man up sometimes, Dick.” Jason huffs, still mad before letting him go.
Dick wished that it hadn’t taken that conversation for him to see how wrong he had been, and how selfish. He didn’t know what it was going to take for you to forgive him, if you forgave him at all. He couldn’t stop thinking of all the potential scenarios as he raced back to your family farm. His hands were clenched white on the steering wheel, and he hoped to himself that he wasn’t too late to catch you.
He’d tried to go to your apartment, but you weren’t there. Your place had swung open when he used the spare key, everything left exactly where he had left it. The flowers that he was delivering to the door piled up, and his heart grew heavier each night he swung past to see if you had taken them inside.
It had crossed his mind that something horrible might have happened to you, his worst nightmare coming to life. Yet he took a deep breath and checked out all other leads before settling that you must have stayed with your family.
He sighed, running a hand trough his hair as he sped down the highway. He was such an idiot, but he couldn’t stop the fear running through his veins. What if things happened to you when he told you? What if you hated him for the mask he wore? Yet each thought of fear was shaded with the same tinge of guilt, settling over his memories like a filter.
The way that you put it all on the line for him, starting a life in a new city with him at your side. The way that you had so gingerly trusted him with your heart, only asking in return that he didn’t misplace it. Well instead of that, he had pretty much torn it in two with his bare hands.
He tried to bite back the tears that stung at his eyes remembering how you looked dancing round the kitchen, how he could pick out the features of both your mother and father reflected in your face. The same people he had hurt when he broke up with you suddenly, his one decision causing a flow on effect of pain.
He missed your smile when he came late at night,and the sleepy dimples that formed in the early morning, sneaking under the covers and giving you a peck on the lips to go back to sleep. The way that you whole body seemed to light up talking about your passion, and the familiar weight of your hand on the crook of his elbow at galas.
He had realised that you made him feel like Dick again, the Dick he knew he was deep inside. Your gentle hands had managed to gently coax the crying boy inside him to come out, drying his tears and no longer cowering. Like a flower turning towards the warmth of the sun you had tenderly loved him until e loved himself outside of the suit, as a man rather than a vigilante.
But what had he done in return? he’d scorned your sun and accused it of burning too bright, shutting himself down and shutting you out in the process. He had taken your heart,beating softly in his hands, and squeezed it until it screamed under the pressure of his fingers. The had left you sobbing and shattered, something he had felt himself as he cried freely for the first time time in years.
So lost in thoughts he didn’t notice he familiar shade of your cars paint blur past him, his eyes too focused on trying to spot landmarks ahead of him.
He just hoped that he wasn’t too late, and that you’d hear him out.
You just hoped that he’d be honest with you, and that he’d say why he did what he did.
Summary: You and Dick have a fight in your apartment, and smashing your snow globe opens the flood to more arguments. (Dick Grayson x reader)
Word Count: 1.8K
Notes: Hi lovelies~! I'm prepping for an international trip to see my family, so I'm a bit more tired than usual. Nearly there though! thanks for your patience. I'm also changing tomorrows theme so I can put everything on a better Masterlist. However, I might not be able to finish this until the end of the week. I've got an extremely packed schedule, and I think the next big time I'll get to finish the last piece with be in the airport! (If I finish a fic tomorrow, but we shall see!). Thank you all for waiting on me.
many kisses,
RiRi <3
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Dick knew you were going to kill him.
The moment he saw your eyes widen, stopping mid sentence, he felt his stomach hit the floor. He hadn’t meant to be that angry, he hadn’t meant to lose control of the situation like that, but it had spiraled to that point before he could even stop it. He hadn’t even felt it leave his hands, let alone register that it was him that had just broken it. He may as well have just broken your heart. The anger in your voice was derailed, and he watched the emotions play out on your face.
The denial as you stared at the shattered glass on the floor, eyes flicking between his hands and the mess on the wall where it had shattered. First your lip wobbled, and then your eyes grew glossy, swallowing thickly as you held back tears. Then they slipped out, the first tears of the night dropping onto your hands as you bent down to pick up the shards.
“Honey, I-“ Dick started, feet shuffling forward awkwardly as he tried to help, but you slapped his hands away. Your head jerked up to his, eyes filled with tears and lips pulled back in a snarl.
“Don’t touch me. Don’t fucking touch me.” You hissed at him, cradling the glass of the snow globe to your chest. He took a step back, hurt at the tone, but he knew he deserved it.
“Can I please help?” he offers softly, keeping himself rooted to the spot like you were a wild animal, lashing out if he got too close.
“Help with what, Grayson?” you snap back, voice thick. Your fingers trembled, your jaw clenched tightly as you glared at him. “Anything else you want to throw around? Maybe I should offer you all our good glassware while you’re at it.”
Dick knows that you have every right to be mad, but the tone makes irritation prick in his chest once more. “I didn’t mean it.” He sighs back out, eyebrows pinching. “It was an accident, I wasn’t careful-“
“Oh really now?” you say back, straightening up to dump the glass in the bin. “Wow, I never would have guessed.” You snap, poison lacing your tone as you jerk your head to him roughly. “Wouldn’t be the first time, would it?”
The vein pops in his neck as he sucks a breath through his teeth. Here he was trying to apologise, and you were out making this worse.
“Is this because of the accident?” He asks, trying to keep his tone level. If he was any smarter he would keep up his civil and diplomatic outlook, but you were getting under his skin. He loved you for how much you knew him, how you knew what made him tick on a deeper level than anyone else had before, but he also hated it. Hated that you knew exactly what would piss him off, and what topics made him see red more than anything else.
“No.” you huff back, tone brattish as you glare. “I’m talking about in general.”
“Don’t bullshit me.” He snaps back. “I tried to protect you, I really did. I handed you over to the ambulance, we got you to the hospital,” he began listing on his fingers, the rage boiling inside him.
“Dick, stop.” You say, voice wavering as you stand by the bin.
“We got you there as fast as we could, do you know how bad Gotham traffic could be? I made sure that it was safe, hell, Tim was even tracking it to make sure that you got there with enough time.”
“Dick, please-“
“So don’t bring up something that I couldn’t control, because-“
“Dick, stop!” you scream at him, hands clenching. With a gasp you unclench a moment after, eyes wide as you look down at the last few shards of snow globe that had dug into your skin, pricking your palms with dots of red.
“Dick, just shut up.” You say, voice no longer angry. “Just shut up. You have no idea what you’re talking about. You never have.” Your voice is thick with tears, and he can see your chest heave with the force of keeping your sobs inside.
“I don’t know?” he scoffs. “I was there.”
“You mean Nightwing was there.” Your voice tremors as you grit it out. You begin picking the glass from your hand with a wince, glaring at him. “You have no idea what it was like. You told me I was safe, that I was going to be okay-“
“You were-“
“I was shot in the stomach Dick.” You snarl at him. “It was the scariest moment of my life, and you left me.” You sob out, blinking to try and get the tears to go away. “I was in that ambulance alone, and every time I tried to look down all I saw was red. I wanted to hold your hand, have anyone, someone tell me that I was going to be okay.” You heave out, tears flowing freely as you try to wipe them away. It feels like your whole body is shaking, muscles tensed as if that pain in your abdomen came back.
“It hurt so much. There was so much blood, I was so scared, and I just wanted you to be with me.”
He hates the broken expression on your face, and for a moment he softens.
“Darling, I couldn’t leave-“
“Couldn’t leave the other civilians to Bruce and Tim? Couldn’t pass up a press opportunity? While I’m sobbing going into the operating room thinking I’m going to die? But no, I’m sure damage control was worth it. You know who the first person I saw waking up was? Jason.” You snarl at him. “And you know why? Because he said, ‘I should have someone familiar to wake up to’. He brought flowers.” You scoff. “You know who showed up eight hours after that? You. With nothing. No urgency. No worry. I was already out of surgery. I needed my boyfriend.” You hiss. “Not Nightwing.”
Dick hung his head, wiping the back of his hand against his forehead. He wishes he could tell you how worried he had been, how he had snapped at every reporter that tried to get a statement from him, that he had handed over other injured civilians with a little more roughness that intended, because every bone in his body screamed to get to you, but he couldn’t get the words to form.
Bruce hadn’t allowed him to leave, needing him to ensure the culprits were apprehended. That very thing that had caused a shouting match between him and Batman, only cooling off when Alfred inevitably had to step in between. He had been late because he was asking all connections that he could to make sure that your shooter never stepped foot outside a jail cell ever again, even though his shady whisperings in the legal realm could have him and the Wayne name ruined forever.
He had been in the hospital lobby talking to Jason as his brother explained to him the situation, helping him ease his panic so that he didn’t cry when he saw you. Everything that he had done, he had done because he had been so scared of losing you. The fear that you could have died, that you might be fatally injured because he wasn’t fast enough ran through his head and woke him in cold sweats at night, and he’d silently slip from your shared bed to wash his face in the bathroom and catch his breath.
“I thought this,” you nod your head to the pool of water on the floor, silver glitter swirling on the kitchen tiles, “meant something to you. That I meant something to you.”
He looks down dejectedly at where the snow globe he had thrown had smashed, regret clawing its way up from his stomach. You had that snow globe ever since you were child, something that you parents had gotten you for Christmas. Inside you could slip a photo into the base, and you had for years proudly displayed your parents, smiling and happy. The photo was worn, but you had just turned ten and was wrapped up in a big hug, beaming as your parents squished you between them. Your eyes shone with glee, holding up a red wrapped present for the camera, not knowing it would be your last Christmas with them.
“So I can always spend time with them, even when it isn’t Christmas.” You had told him, the year you had added him to your special snow globe.
For your first anniversary you had slipped a photo of the two of you skating together into the other side, smiles wonky and bundled in scarves as you took a selfie in the Gotham City Park. Dick had been over confident in his balancing abilities, and while he could skate in a straight line, he found out rather quickly that he didn’t know how to stop.
You had added his photo, smiling as you kept him tucked next to your parents, like that orb of glass, glitter, and water held your heart in its sphere. The water on the floor seemed to cool off his anger, and the guilt broke free across his face.
“I’m sorry-“ he whispered, stepping forward, but you stepped back. His hand that had been reaching for you faltered as you cradled your bleeding hand to your chest, tears dripping down your nose.
“Honey, you do mean something to me, I swear.” He tries to say, but you scoff through your tears, lips quivering.
“Not enough, apparently.” You rasp out, and his heart shatters seeing you try to force a smile. “Are you ever really Dick Grayson?” you ask shakily. “Or is the real suit Dick Grayson? Because at this point, I can’t tell anymore.” You sob, voice breaking as you turn on your heel to run to your bedroom, the sound of the door slamming echoing throughout your apartment.
With a sigh he runs his hand through his hair, cursing himself. Part of him wants to run to your door and beg for forgiveness, but the stubbornness of his pride holds him back. Instead he kneels down, picking up the soaked photos. The photo of your parents crumbles apart as he picks it up, and his heart tears knowing that he was the one that caused you to lose something so precious. The photo of the two of you skating splits down the middle as he tries to scoop it with his fingers, cutting you and him apart.
Head on the kitchen island he kicks it with his knee, resignation curling in his chest. Maybe he wasn’t the Dick Grayson he thought he was after all. Maybe for once, being Nightwing had caused more harm than he could have imagined, except this time, he had no idea how to fix it.
Summary: Clark keeps you around till the very last moment he can, dreading the words he will have to say. (Clark Kent x reader)
Word Count: 1.8K
Notes: Getting there guys~! I'm going to try and do some double day posts but I promise these are all getting finished. I'm so frustrated I got sick at the last week! arghhh. Anyways, I'm rotating out the marvel fics that are planned for the next two days and will be putting them up on my Marvel Masterlist as a big post, so you can enjoy them all at once!
on another note I liked this fic, warnings for medical/hospital setting and reader death.
RiRi <3
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Clark doesn’t move from his position, eyes towards the ground and elbows on his knees. He doesn’t even flinch when he feels the hands of Louis on his shoulder, trying to console him. His son Jon sits quietly next to him, tucked into his side for comfort. Yet for as much as he loved his family and appreciated them being here, there wasn’t much they could do.
Unless they could take away the beeping of the monitors filling your room, or lift the mask from your face. There was nothing that anyone could do when it had happened, no one that could have pried the rubble of your body in time, except him.
If he had known that you were there.
The day that it had happened he had raced from the Daily Planet, half a mind to sneak into the back alley and to change into his Superman suit. However the hospital had called him as Clark, and if Superman showed up frenzied at your ward it would only make things worse for you. So with great irritation and mounting anxiety, he hailed a cab instead of flying and asked the nurses which room you were in, glasses askew.
There had been an accident at the building you worked in, and that’s all he knew. That’s all that, even months later, he even dared to know. He had avoided all stories related to the case even when it came up or was covered at work. He could easily ask for the situation report as Superman, ask the local PD to give him an in depth investigation as to what happened. Yet he couldn’t even bring himself to fathom the idea, especially when all the media outlets were waiting like vultures to see if you were going to make it or not. Either way, they got their story.
That might have been where some had gotten the idea that Clark didn’t care about what happened to you, or that he wasn’t outwardly expressing it. He knew that it was bad, about the whispers behind his back at the water cooler. With his super hearing he could hear everything that they were saying about him, all the hushed mutterings of how he should be fighting to cover your story, to tell the truth about it.
The only truth was that his hands shook every time he visited your hospital room, holding your fragile ones in his. The truth was that he had kept Louis up at night with his restless pacing that ended up crying in the darkened living room, muffled so that Jon and Connor wouldn’t hear. The late nights at the manor with Bruce, leaning heavily on his friend while he downed glass after glass of scotch from the billionaires cellar, even though he knew it wasn’t even enough to get drunk.
The beeping of the monitors had become your second heartbeat, the tubes down your throat your new set of lungs. Your hair had grown out while you had been asleep, and your skin had lost its healthy glow in favors of a sickly sheen. Every now and then when he visited there would be sweat beading along your forehead, and he’d spend the next few hours gently dabbing it away with one of the hospital cloths, while he told you about his day.
Since you’d been asleep you’d missed Jon’s birthday, something that didn’t go unnoticed by the young boy. However he was old enough to understand that his favourite godparent was in the hospital, and that there was no way they’d make it in time. He’d whisper about his role as Superman, the latest threats that if you were awake you would definitely be scolding him over; yet after a while he couldn’t stand to talk about it anymore, the suit a reminder that even with all his powers he was unable to do anything to help you. He told you about how he and Louis were doing and noticed every time Louis had visited by herself as well, a new vase of flowers by your nightstand with Louis’s handwriting.
He tried to keep telling you the good things, like how Bruce missed you too, and not that the billionaire was currently the sole funder of your hospital room. He couldn’t tell you that Bruce was pulling extra hours as Batman to find any way to speed up your recovery. Neither could he tell you that he had begged hands and knees for anyone in the Justice League to help, putting away his pride and his strength to ask the question no one had the answer to.
Yet everything had come up empty.
There wasn’t a single medication that he had gotten permission for that he hadn’t tried, not a single kind of therapy that had managed to wake you up. He came back every afternoon hoping that something had changed, that you would be sitting up and would turn when he walked through the door, smiling at him and telling him he was late. Yet instead, he was faced with your skin that got more papery and thin the longer you slept, with bags and bruising under your eyes that never seemed to leave.
His parents had come all the way in to Metropolis to see how you were doing, staying for a week while they helped out. He knew that Louis had called them after he’d had too many stressed and angry spells, but he couldn’t help it. The helplessness welled up in him like a geyser, and the smallest things had begun settling him off into a mess of emotions that took the rest of the night to untangle. So while they said they were here to look after you, considering they had half raised you when you were younger, Clark knew that the extra meals in the fridge and folded laundry was them.
You were his childhood best friend, the person who had known him the longest out of anyone else in his life. Together you got scraped knees from falling from high branches, and childhood scars from using the swing tire to swing into the river in summer. You had supported him through his early days of Superman, when the world was still scared of him, and you had been the one to introduce him to Louis, before he realized they worked together. It had only been natural that you attended their wedding, and when Jon was born, you became his godparent.
So he sat there by your bedside like he always did, until Louis whispered to Jon to give them some alone time, and his family left once more. It felt foreign to process that this was happening, that you were lying here motionless on a hospital bed, connected to a million wires that read out your every thought and breath on tiny screens. It felt like only yesterday he was laughing with you at Bruce’s place, your monthly night where you recapped what had been going on in your life. Only recently had you and Bruce gone out on a date after he set the two of you up, a night that had gone surprisingly well.
‘Returning the favour.’ He had thought to himself, proud that both of his friends who had clearly been harbouring feelings for each other had finally done something about it. His heart clenched painfully, tears stinging his eyes as he wished for more seconds, another moment to hold your hand and pray that you would wake up. His fingers found your pulse, slow and steady as if you were only sleeping.
But that was the problem wasn’t it?
You were always asleep, and never opening your eyes. The anxiety had crawled into his throat mor times than he could count, strangling his words as he squeezed your hand hoping you’d squeeze it back.
But it never came.
He could see the doctors outside talking to Louis, and the painful sorrow began to settle in his stomach as he knew what that meant. It was time.
Dragging himself to his feet was a chore, and his body was like lead as he shuffled forward. He met Louis’s eyes through the glass, and the red rimmed eyes of his wife was all he needed to see as she sniffled, shaking her head before she had to cover her mouth and look away.
The door opened a moment after, sliding to let the doctor through as he stepped in. Two nurses were behind him, the air becoming heavier the more people that joined the room. Louis took Jon outside, and Clark was relived. This was too morbid for his son to see, and he was scared for Jon to see the aftermath of his father.
“I’m sorry sir, but today is the day outlined in their written plan.” The doctor says as comforting as he can. “Their level of brain activity is below what they’ve listed as their marker should they fall into a coma for an extended period. Ethically and legally, we have to-“
“I know.”
The words barely make it out of his throat. “can I just say something to them?”
Clark hates the way that his voice cracks, the steady timbre shuddering with tears. The doctor nods and the medical team step out for a moment. He looks down at you, peaceful yet a shell of yourself and a tear falls onto your skin. He wipes it away with a thumb, holding your hand in his and squeezing softly.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers out, covering his mouth to stop his jagged breaths. “But you can sleep now. I won’t keep you here any longer.” He looks away for a moment to steel himself. “ I understand. Bruce will understand. But just maybe, haunt him a little bit? The manor is big enough, and he could use the company.” He tries to chuckle, but the sound is a hiss through his teeth. “He’s not going to be okay when you go, so look after him for me. Look after yourself, be at peace.”
He sucks in another deep breath, squeezing your hand gently. “Thank you for being my best friend. I’ll see you in our next life.”
You don’t squeeze his hand back as he returns it to your side, pulling the scratchy hospital blanket over you as he tucks you in. That’s all he can manage before his hands shake and he has to leave the room, sounds muffled in his head as he passes the doctor and nurses. He heads straight for Louis who meets his hug halfway, and he lets his tears drip into her hair. His chest hiccups with quiet sobs as Jon hugs his leg, and the persistent beeping that was the metronome of your room turns into a single long tone.
Hi everyone!
Just wanted to pop on to say that while it is Halloween and the challange is over- I will be catching up with the fics that I've missed since I've been sick, so the masterlist will still be completed. Sorry for the wait!
Summary: You're training in the red room, and the winter solider comes to supervise. (Bucky Barnes x fem!reader)
Word Count: 1.8K
Notes: I messed up and deleted the post. GGs to my long winded note so heres the summary cause I'm tried and thirsty and want to move from my computer. Sorry its short. I got better being sick then I wasnt anymore. Still sick. Sick brain write fuzzy. Will write more marvel when I have time to do it properly and write what I'm actually happy with. Love everyone. Goodbye.
RiRi <3
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It was worth it.
You told yourself that as he stalked the trainee agents, sidling up and down the rows you had formed neatly. About fifty young women, eyes forward and hands by sides, each to be moulded into Black Widows. You did your best to keep your eyes forward, ignoring the sweat that wants to bead at your temples. Your throat swallows, constricting harshly as he passes you in silence, hands behind his back as he looks over each and every one of you. You had phased out of the first part of the Widow program, which is why he was here, to find the weak links in the herd. The ones that wouldn’t survive the extra finishing steps.
You hear a sharp bang from somewhere behind you, before you even hear the other girl scream. You hope he doesn’t catch the flinch or the jump of your shoulders, knowing that if he did, it would be your red on the floor next. Done his duty, he returns to the front and nods once to the handler of your division, before leaving the training room as easily as he had came. Forty-nine left.
Thus, started the weeks training with the winter solider.
He had been called in from abroad, an agency collaborative decision to help break down the new recruits that weren’t as pliable. He was broad shouldered and terrifying, black paint circled under his eyes, most likely to stop the glint of his eyes while in the field. It didn’t help that half his face was covered with a dark mask, making his breath rasp each time he commanded them, barking orders in smooth Russian with cold eyes.
You were absolutely terrified of him, and you knew the others were too. Each lesson where you were handed over to him you felt the needle of fear pierce your heart. Each time, you were so close to failing and being the next gunshot to ring out in the red room, but you needed to survive. You had to survive.
Even when it was one on one combat training and you had failed to flip him, his metal arm pulling your own so far back you swore it was about to snap, you had to survive. Swiping at his eyes with your nails gave you an edge to wiggle yourself free and escape that weeks trial, something the girl after you was unable to do.
Forty-two.
You needed to get out, that’s what you told yourself. As you were on your hands and knees, gasping for air after a nasty blow to the stomach.
“Get up.” He calls at you, eyes indifferent yet burning with a smouldering anger. Not at you, or any of the trainees, he could care less about you. It was like he didn’t even know why he was angry, just that he was. There as a glimmer deep in his eyes that you could relate to, but you always looked away before you found out what it was. You weren’t going to risk drawing attention to yourself.
The trainees fall around you, as you struggle further and further to keep up. The training was more brutal than you had imagined, enduring physical pain you could only describe as torture and being given your necessities a reward for your ‘mettle’. You fought and practiced until your limbs had gone numb and knuckles were split red. You danced and refined your reflexes until you thought your hamstrings were going to snap, and at night you stayed up reading over books of study material to keep you alive just one more day.
Unlike the ones that started younger than you, you remembered your family. You remembered your name, even when each shock or punch or poison they gave you tried to wipe it from your memory. You scratched the names of your mother and father into your skin at night, watching as the white lines faded after a moment. You mumbled the name of your older brother under your breath, knowing that your handler could be listening at any moment. You fought to keep everything that you could from your old life.
When you were balancing on the beam, keeping your leg lifted like all the others, you thought of how you used to help your brother tinker in the garage, and the way he’d come to show you all the brilliant inventions he had made just to make you smile. Another girl would lose their balance and a shot would ring out moments later, ignorant to their pleas. Each shot had the chance to bring another tumbling down, and trainees fell like dominoes, all deemed too weak to be a widow.
You had no idea why you had been selected, plucked from your comfortable life, to partake in this hellscape. It was blurry, the instances of your abduction gone in a murky haze. Youd spent countless nights trying to put it together, trying to find out what the missing link was between the moment that you were driving home with your parents, and the moment that you woke up in the red room.
When you were younger you had risked punishment and asked the other girls how they had gotten there, but most had said that their family had died or that they had never knew them. You then learnt the harsh lesson to keep your mouth shut, when you got reported for asking about your old life.
Now, everything you used to own was like a hazy dream, slipping through your fingers every day that the winter solider oversaw your classes. You owned nothing now except the new name that they had tried to force onto you, settling over your old identity like a cage. You had been holding onto it for so long, survived years of it in the back of your mind, a happy memory that sat in the back of your mind and soothed you to sleep.
It was the idea that you might one day get out, that you could make it past all their hurdles and tasks and search for the people that visited your dreams, the ones that hugged you with smiling faces to welcome you home.
And it was the Winter Solider, that had begun to wrench those thoughts away. Every time he sent you sprawling on the mat, or when his metal hand collided with your stomach without mercy, you felt your hold on that memory slip just a little further each time.
You supposed it happened the moment you were sparring a few days ago, the two of you locked in a hold neither was willing to break from first. You were tired, but the adrenaline was keeping you wide awake, muscles primed. It had been a sleepless night for you, murmuring your parents names and writing it into your skin with your nails. A habit you had unfortunately kept for too long, and when he had locked your arm behind your back, the lines were still visible from hours of repetition.
You feel your heart drop through your stomach, dread pooling at the base of your spine, but he doesn’t say anything. Something flickers deep in those eyes of his, deep behind that wall of roaring anger. Recognition. As his gaze flicked up to your terrified one, you swallowed and waited for that next bullet to go right between your eyes.
But it never does.
He breaks the hold first and barks at you to shuffle back into line, and you do. Pulse thudding against your neck you hurry back into place, wondering how you just survived after revealing that you still remembered where you came from.
From that day forward, there was an odd stirring in your chest each time he walked past your row. His eyes would flit to you briefly, but they were uncaring once more. You craved his approval, craving the look you had seen deep in there that day. So consuming, you didn’t realise when you had slowly stopped repeating your family names, your memory routine being interrupted as you thought instead of how you could make that spark come back.
Anything to make him look at you like that again.
Like you were more than a solider for that split second, more than a widow. He had looked at you with something that no one else had, and a way he hadn’t looked at any of the others. You couldn’t help the warming of your cheeks or the tightness in your chest thinking of it, and the rampant thought demanding that you do whatever in your power to own that moment again.
You wondered if the fluttering in your chest was a crush, the way your palms grew sweaty against the grip of your handgun when he leant close to evaluate your aim. The rough timbre of his voice when he ordered your group around, now thinned to about twenty.
Yet the other half of your brain fought against it.
To submit to it was to chose death, and you knew that. You knew that when you were down to the last five from your original fifty, taking your final exams. Handlers were posted outside the doors as you sparred, yet you were focused on trying to take down the soldier that had been acting as your instructor for the last month. Blood ran hot under your skin as your vision swam, dodging his fast swings and the quick strides, his form closing the distance in just a few moments. You had to shake the distracting thoughts from your head, the idea that you had him all to yourself, and the chance to try and get that light to spark again.
The thought persisted as you jabbed for his shoulder, trying to throw him off balance and succeeding. However he throws his leg out and catches your knee, causing you to fall onto him. Breath is knocked from your lungs as you land on top of him, feeling the heat of his body through your palms as you push up.
You stare down at him, the one looking at you indifferently for just a moment, then that gleam in his eyes returns for a moment, like the glow of a candle in a bitter snowstorm. You feel your breath catch in your throat, and you know you should strike him to pass your test. Yet you cent, frozen in place like ice was spreading across your limbs.
Submitting to the feeling meant death. You knew that. Yet it might just be worth it to have something you could call your own for a single moment, as you lower your head down just a little, testing the waters.
There would only be four widows after the next moment, but for one second, you were you. And that was worth everything.
Summary: You and Tim are trapped in the Gotham Library when Mr. Freeze takes it hostage. (Tim Drake x reader)
Word Count: 2.3K
Notes: Hi babes~! I've been feeling good enough to post one a day again for a little bit- but it might change coming up to this weekend! Hopefully I won't stretch toooo long into November if I post like I am, I am only a day or two behind after all! I'm hoping to catch up soon. Anyways, here's another Tim fic, Tim needs more love. I love Tim. warning for character death again (sorry).
kisses~!
RiRi
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“Are you sure you’re okay?” Tim murmurs down to you softly, eyebrows pinched in concern. You nod, eyes closed as you press more into his side.
“I’m fine.” You smile back weakly, but Tim doesn’t believe it. He can see the way that your shoulders shake in the cold, goosebumps raised all along your skin. Your breaths are short and raspy, the puffs of air curling in front of your face on each small exhale. Your eyes are closed, and he watches how your expression shifts from pensive to calm, then to uncomfortable, and back to neutral. He does the most that he can, wrapping his arm around your shoulder tighter and tucking you closer to him, head on his chest.
He peeks out from around the overturned table, scanning the rest of the library. He can see other small groups of students huddled together, hidden behind shelves and tables like you both. In the centre is Freeze, roaring demands and monologue that frankly no one in the university campus cares about.
Why he picked this place to attack, Tim had no idea.
It had been a regular study session for the both of you, finishing up notes from the weeks lecture on Gotham’s architectural history. The class had moved to Tuesday nights for the last semester, meaning that Tim was suddenly unable to make his classes and was left scrambling for an excuse that took him away from class (and your skeptical looks). You were thankfully his saviour once again, going over the material with him and sharing your notes.
The manor had gotten used to your weekly revisions with him, Alfred always welcoming you with a smile when you stopped by and putting the kettle on while you two holed up in the manor library. Jason threw you a hand in greeting anytime he passed through, and after enough close calls, Tim and Alfred had managed to get him to check he wasn’t in his Red Hood gear if he was walking the house. Dick had stopped coming through the windows when he felt bored, using the front door or slipping discreetly from the grandfather clock when he wanted to ‘see what you kids were up to’. Damian was well behaved, curt and short, but well behaved nonetheless. Your presence however had become so regular that when you were sick, the younger man asked if you were simply running late or not.
However, your regular Friday night routine had been carelessly interrupted by the suit wearing villain, sealing the students inside while police sirens blared outside. So instead of finishing up your revision and heading back to the manor to grab a pizza and watch a movie (you had insisted the both of you watch The Goonies this week), you were both huddled together as the temperature plummeted.
A weak cough brings his attention back to you, and his heart breaks. A frown pulls at his lips as you try to nestle further into him, and he wraps his second arm around you as you crawl into his lap. His cheeks burn red as you silently curl up into him, but the worry fights it down. You most likely don’t even know what you’re doing, body on the automatic need to survive.
Frost clung to the stained-glass windows of the library, sharp spikes of ice dangling from the ledges. With each pass of his ray, Freeze added more masses of ice along bookshelves and railings, and everyone inside huddled deeper.
He breathed into his hands and tried to press the palms to your trembling skin, the measly heat not enough the quell the tremoring of your body. You cough into his neck, chest rattling with a wheeze.
“That doesn’t sound good.” He tries to joke with you, but you only manage a small hum back. “You cleared up from that cold only recently, didn’t you?”
You nod, sniffling slightly as you try to get comfortable. Even skin to skin, and with both yours and his jacket wrapped around your shoulders, Tim can’t seem to make the heat stick to your body.
“Last weekend, yeah.” You say, making his frown pull deeper. Worry stirred in his fingertips as he ran them soothing over your back, trying to get you to settle. You’d been sick for a fortnight, and Tim wishes that it wasn’t as frequent as it was.
Ever since Tim had known you since starting university, you’d been sick. You’d be the first in the class to catch the flu, and the last to recover. Anything infectious, you’d pick up in an instant, and as a result, your immune system was subpar. The manor kept backups of your medications just in case you needed them, supplied and paid for by Bruce. They helped you pay for specialist appointments and blood tests, treating you like you were an extension of the Wayne family because at this point? You were.
When you cough again, he tilts his chin to look down at you, smoothing hair back from your forehead. He doesn’t care that you’re drooling a bit of his shirt, your lips chapped, and nose blocked from swollen sinuses. Your eyes are weak and rimmed in red, skin ashy. He notices that your trembling has eased, but that only agitates him further.
Raising two of his own trembling fingers, he winces as another blast of cold ice is sent out somewhere into the library, and the madman continues to rage. He presses them to your neck, cursing as he feels the now sluggish thump of your pulse.
“Hey,” he says soft, nudging you in his hold. “You still awake?”
You nod in his grasp, eyes closed and lashes collecting white frost on their ends.
“I need you to stay awake.” He says urgently, voice hushed. “Can you tell me your name? Tell me your birthday.”
He listens tensely as you babble, voice slurred as you process his question and half heartedly respond. He reaches for his phone at his side, that he had been keeping hidden under a small pile of books in case Freeze came to ensure no one had hidden a device from him or his henchmen.
On the home screen read Dick’s last message of, “We’re on our way. Hold tight.”, something that had been sent more than twenty minutes ago. The temperature was plunging dangerously close to the sub zero’s, but it wouldn’t have surprised Tim if it had dipped into them already.
He could feel his heart thumping rapidly, trying to keep him warm and his blood flowing. The trembling was almost impossible to stop, teeth chattering and jaw quivering as you tucked yourself under his chin. His fingers were numb and stiff, clumsy as he tried to type back a secret response.
“Please hurry. They’re not doing well. I need a medic.”
He clicks it off once its sent, cursing whatever was taking Dick and the others that long to arrive. He takes in your bluish tinge, the colour that had begun to seep into your lips. Your breathing that had shortened dramatically, and the way you just rested against him like a living corpse, body no longer even shivering to try and warm yourself up.
“Stay with me, okay?” he croaks out, and he hates the crack in his voice. He grips you tighter, and you don’t complain. He glances around at other groups of students, panic gnawing at him when he sees how quickly you’re going downhill compared to the rest of them.
“I need you to stay awake, I need you to pull through, okay?” he whispers into the top of your head, biting his lip as tears begin to well up. He wished he had his suit, wished that he was on the outside trying to find a way to get to you, because at least he would have the power to do something. Except he wasn’t Red Robin right now, perched on some rooftop and trying to find an access point. He was just Tim Drake, a hostage.
However badly he wants to cry, he bites it all back down. Especially when you hum softly against his neck, movements stiff.
“Tim, ’m cold.” You slur out. He nods, tightening his arms like that would do anything.
“I know, sweetheart. I know.” He soothes. He’s now unsure if the trembling in his hands is because of you, or the cold. Your pulse is unsteady when he checks it again, beating out of time in slow drags, instead of the lively pulses he was searching for.
“I’m so tired.”
Panic shoots through his body, and he feels himself seize up. “No, no, no- you stay awake, okay? You stay awake.” He presses his lips to your forehead, and the temperature difference makes his heart hurt.
“But I’m so tired.” You mumble back, and he can feel the way your breathing slows against his neck. He wants to scream. He wants to cry. He wants to yell at freeze to make him realise that in demanding Batman show up, that people were dying as a result, getting caught in the crossfire. That he was losing you.
He doesn’t know how long he sat there, how many times he pleaded desperately for you to stay with him, to stay awake. His fingers were numb from the cold and the number of texts he had begun to spam both Bruce and Dick with, finishing with, “Please help. Please hurry. Please. I’m scared.”
Because he was.
He was scared of losing his Friday nights with you, curled up watching a movie. He was scared of losing the only person happy to see him in class, the person he felt normal around. He was scared of losing the civilian that had such a bright personality that even the manor felt normal, rather than a front for the Batcave below it. He could only imagine what his life would be like without you, what all of their lives would be like without you. So, he pleaded into your hair, tears held back behind shut eyelids, whispering prayers like he could keep you here by sheer will.
But when you whimpered out again, voice barely a whisper but filled with so much pain and struggle, his heart broke.
“I’m so tired. I want to go to bed.”
He flinches as another jet of ice shoots near the both of you, freezing the table you had been leaning against and sending the temperature further down. He closes his eyes, not wanting to look at you like this, to remember the sunny person he had loved, yet never realised how much until now.
“It’s okay.” He whispers back, throat closing up. “You can go to sleep now. It’s gonna be okay.” He says as he gently runs his hands over your hair in soothing strokes.
“Promise?”
Tim nods. “I promise. I got you, I’m here. I got you.”
“Okay.” You breathe out weakly. “Goodnight.”
He keeps his eyes shut, voice trembling with the force not to cry as he feels the breath against his neck slow till he couldn’t feel it, where you seem to sag just a little extra against him. He didn’t need to feel against your neck to know that your pulse had thudded to a halt.
Yet he didn’t let you go. He kept himself curled around you, your body pulled to his chest and eyes screwed shut as he repeated a mantra to himself. ‘It was going to be okay, it was going to be okay, it was going to be okay- ‘
“Tim?”
His eyes flutter open and he’s aware of someone calling his name, of someone in front of him. Eyelashes prying themselves apart from the frost, he sees the crouched figure of Nightwing in front of him, shielded from view behind the table.
“Dick?” he says in a hushed whimper, not caring if he said his older brother’s real name. “Is it- “
“It’s over. We got him. Everyone else is already out, didn’t you hear the police?”
Tim shook his head, only now registering the empty library around him. “Dick, we need to get help.” He croaks, lips trembling. “I need an ambulance, we need to, I need to, I can’t- I couldn’t- “
Dick watches mournfully as his younger sibling trembles in front of him, your body clutched to him like you’d break away. When Tim meets Dick’s mask, he feels the tears finally slip forth, hot tears blurring his vision as he sees the boots of Batman. He feels the pressure of your body slip away from him as the Batman kneels, hands oddly gentle as he gently pries Tim off.
“No, no- “Tim cries out, but Nightwing intercepts him as Bruce carefully pulls your body out of his arms. He collides with the warmth of Dick’s chest, the warmth he was unable to give to you, and sobs. He cries and cries, ignoring the gentle shushing and gloved hands running circles on his back. He doesn’t even hear the murmured apologies of Dick above him as he tries to calm him down from his hysterics, while Bruce carefully carries you outside to the ambulance, bundled in his arms.
“They went easy. No pain.” Dick tries to assure, keeping his younger brother close as to avoid the swarm of cameras outside that would no doubt love to prey off his grief. Tim doesn’t care, shaking as he gets the pain he’d been too afraid to show you off his chest, flowing like a dam.
“Please help-“Tim still sobs, clutching the smooth surface of the suit, and Dick’s expression breaks in pity. But you had gone to sleep too early for them to have been able to help, and as the gloved hand of the Batman pulls the white sheet up over your head outside, Dick knew it was a sleep you’d never be waking up from.
Summary: You beg to be Robin for a night, and when Batman allows it, who is Jason to deny? (Jason Todd x reader)
Word Count: 2.6K
Notes: Guess who stepped in a pile of glass barefoot and had to fix it and patch herself up despite hating blood. THIS AUTHOR. I will be writing a comfort fic over this cause IM THE AUTHOR IM ALLOWED TO DO THIS, so when it is finished it will be linked here too -> (I hate glass) . Anyways, This fic just reminded me that I have Part 2 of last years "The Call" just lying about somewhere on my desktop that I should put up. I think I remembered people liking that one? correct me if I'm wrong and I should put another part 2 up first.
Anyways- warning for character death in this one.
mwah!
RiRi
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“No means no.”
Jasons voice is gruff as he calls out to you on the other side of the apartment, busying his hands with a dishcloth. The fabric is tight between his knuckles as he wipes down the dishes, trying to count each wipe and distract himself from the twitching of his jaw. He can hear your footsteps come closer from the living room, but he doesn’t want to turn around. How could he? When you just asked him to let him join you on patrol. He knew better than to let you come, he knew the dangers and while you thought you did, you didn’t. So what if you knew martial arts and had a black belt? He’d seen seventeen year olds with a black belt too, so what made you think that it was enough to come. What if you got hurt? Or if you got lost down the back alley of Gotham? You didn’t know how to ride a bike, so if he had to tell you to run, would you really even be able to escape? You weren’t Dick, or Tim, or Cass, who he knew he wouldn’t have to worry about in the field. You weren’t Roy, or Artemis, or-
You were just you.
That was the thought that crossed his head as he felt your arms wrap around his middle, your forehead pressing into his back. You’re silent but he can still feel you smile through the fabric of his T-shirt, and his shoulders relax. He sighs, continuing his chores. You had seen him come home bruised and bloodied, dripping red all over your throw pillows and on your favourite towels. You’d patched him in the late nights, seeing the white lines of scars that criss crossed his arms, and the mottling yellow patchwork of skin under the suit. You knew of every sleepless night due to nightmares, skin slick with sweat and blood cold in his veins.
So why oh why had you asked him with eager eyes if you could go out with him on patrol?
“I’m sorry,” he sighs out, shaking his head and putting the cup he was drying down. He spins in your arms to tug you closer, looking down into your face. “But it’s still a no.”
You pout, resting your chin on his chest. “I promise I’ll be safe. It doesn’t have to be anything big. I just-“
“You just?” he cuts you off, eyebrows raised. “What could possibly be worth throwing yourself into danger for?”
“you.” You answer back simply, shrugging as if it was the easiest thing in the world. His ears go red and he scoffs, trying to be abrasive while the red dusts his cheeks.
“Yeah, well, you’re gonna need a better reason than that.” He says, letting a hint of a smile flash across his face as he turns briefly to put away the cup in his hand. You go silent for a moment, and he stills.
You never passed up an opportunity to be a smartass, and you would never let him have the last word. He turned right back around, eyes narrowing at your sheepish form.
“What have you done.” He says sternly, raising an eyebrow as the muscles that had previously begun to unwind from his domestic chores, snapped rigid again.
“I might have asked Bruce.” You say, eyes flitting anywhere but his face. Jasons eyebrows climb into his hairline from how hard he raises them, and he cant help the exhale that erupts from his chest.
“You went over my head?” he asks, fists clenching. “After I told you I wouldn’t take you out? What did he say?”
You look up at him, and the expression on your face isn’t one that makes him confident.
“He said yes.” You shrug at him, smiling hesitantly when he barks out a laugh.
“God, you really had me on the wire for a moment.” He says, shaking his head. “Bruce? Really? He really said yes? Never in a million years.”
You stare at him awkward and deadpan, and the smile slips from him. “You’re serious aren’t you.”
“Maybe. Yes.” You say with your hands on your hips, when he sighs and puts his head in his hands.
“How did you even manage that?”
“I asked until he gave in.” you shrug, sitting on the counter like it was nothing that you had just gone and asked to be a vigilante one evening. “I promised if he gave me one night as Robin, I’d never bother him about it again.”
“And he bought that?”
“Immediately.” You nod.
He sighs, mood shattered for the night, but what could he do? You’d gone over his head, and now that you had talked to Bruce he couldn’t stop you even if you tried. He cursed Bruce for caving, for letting you feel so emboldened that you wanted to take on the monsters that laid in the night. Yet who was he to let you go out alone?
“We leave in twenty.” He grumbles, throwing the tea towel on the kitchen bench. “So be dressed, make sure your face is covered properly. You stick to me the whole night, got it?”
Your eyes sparkle, and he hates that you’re so excited about this. “Really? I can go with you? What about Batman?”
“I’ll handle Bruce.” He waves it off, fingers already itchy for his phone so he could yell at the Bat and ask him what the hell he was thinking. “He can take Tim out tonight instead, or Duke. Damian can pout in the cave, I’ll take ‘Robin’ with me.”
With a hug you bound away to get dressed like this was just some costume party. When you were finally out of earshot, running for your shared bedroom, he let the dial tone for the Batcave ring out.
Just what had he gotten you both into?
Much more than he had expected, that was for certain.
The taste of dirty alleyway water filled his mouth as he pitched forward, hands skinning themselves as he caught his own fall. He didn’t let the sting in his palms stop him though, using his momentum to roll forward and kick his leg back into his assailants knee, the thug collapsing as Jason hears a sickening crack.
He looks over to you, dealing with your own attacker, metal pipe pressing into your neck as the man tries to strangle you. He runs over but by the time he reaches you, the man is splayed on the floor where you’ve flipped him. You grin up at him from under the domino mask, and he cant help but smile and tuck some hair behind your ear.
He hated to admit it, but he liked you in those colours. The mantle of Robin had passed from hand to hand so many times that he wasn’t able to say outright that those were his colours, but god he liked to think so. It had been so long since he had seen anyone other than the demon spawn in the red, green, and yellow, much less smiling in it. You were so thrilled, something he noted with both amusement and sour concern. He supposed it had to do something with the way that your eyes reflected what his used to be, the excited rocking on the balls of your feet muscle memory to his own. When you smiled and nodded at him it was like looking at his ghost, a hazy outline that clung to you like the suit.
For the second time that night his shoulders dropped, eyes so lost in memory of you. Maybe it was the way the moonlight carved patterns on your face, or reflected the shimmer in your eyes. So lost in his adoration of you, the momentary lowering of his guard, he doesn’t see your eyes widen or your mouth move. He doesn’t see the man come up behind him or the pipe in his hands, but he certainly felt it as it cracked across his skull and knocked his vision to black.
The next thing he remembered, was hearing the ragged breaths of your sob next to him. The sound snapped him out of whatever half haze he was in, zeroing in on your sounds. He turned his head, opening his eyes to try and figure out where the both of you were. All he could register is that he was on his side, cold night air needling in through his veins, and he was in what seemed to be an abandoned warehouse. You were only a shuffle away from him, also on your side as you sniffled.
The guards watched him as he shuffled closer to you, his arms and legs bound with zip ties, but they didn’t stop him. They just stood silently watching the entrances.
“Hey, look at me.” He says soft, murmuring just loud enough for you to hear. You turn over to face him, “Ja-Red Hood?” you croak out soft.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m here.” He says as soothing as he can, taking in your appearance, You have a broken nose trickling blood into your lips, and a cut above your left eyebrow that was being more dramatic than what it had to be. There was a bruise blooming on your chin, an ugly yellow and purple tinge.
If he had been more stern. This wouldn’t have happened. If he had yelled at Bruce just that bit more, if he had put his foot down, then this wouldn’t have happened. If Bruce hadn’t been stupid and let you, someone who was still a civilian with a day job play Robin for the night, you wouldn’t be lying here with tears and blood on your face.
That was his life, not yours.
Something he was starkly reminded of the moment your kidnapper walked through the door, dress shoes shined and coattails fluttering behind him.
“Hello, Birdie.” The man smirks, clicking his gloved fingers. Jason snarls at him, the masked clowns guarding the door coming to hoist both of you to your knees.
“Been a long time since I’ve seen the red, green, and gold like this.” The joker drawls, peering down at your bowed head as he walks past. He hopes that you can see the small hand gestures he sends you from his hands behind his back, signaling for you to leave your mask on. You nod once, more focused on keeping your trembling to yourself.
“Been a while since I’ve seen a new recruit leave the nest.” The villain muses, sitting cross legged on the nearby wooden table. “Of course, I’ve been feeling nostalgic lately.” The smile that is sent his way sends a sickening jolt to his stomach, red painted smile stretching obscenely. “Has Batsy gotten a new bird already?” Joker pouts, lying dramatically back on the table. “How terrible! Tragic actually, I was hoping I would get to play with that other young boy. So stoic and emotionless, I was hoping I would get to see that one break first.” He taunts, voice filled with twisted satisfaction, like he couldn’t help but feel overjoyed at imagining it. He hops off the table, standing in front of Jason and blocking his vision of you.
“oh well.” He sighs, stopping his theatrical crying. “Guess one is as good as any.”
With another click of his fingers the henchmen grip hair at the root of your scalp, pulling it upwards as you cry out. Jason’s face is gripped between spider-like fingers, digits sending a twisted and disgusted jolt into his stomach. Even though they only grip the smooth surface of his mask, his teeth bear with the urge to bite his hand away, to lash out against the hand of his killer now cradling him with false sympathy.
“Go to hell.” He snaps out, twisting his wrists just enough to press his distress signal in his glove. He feels it pulse three times to signal that his message was received, and he just hoped that he would be able to hold until someone else got here.
“Well I just might,” the Joker says, dropping his face roughly. “Although between you and me, only one of us has ever seen it.” The laugh he lets out is shrill and maniacal, eyes wide.
“Ah, you crack me up.” The Joker says, wiping away a fake tear. “I’m actually thrilled that you’re here, you see…” he trails off, clapping his hands dramatically and a thug brings over a gun on a purple velvet pillow. The Joker spins it on his finger, polishing it off with a cloth until the weapon glints dangerously in the moonlight.
“You’ve made me a touch sentimental as of late.” Joker hums. Beady eyes settling back onto Jason. “Been so long since our little anniversary, I was beginning to crave a reunion. What are we, a week out? I hope you brought the flowers, I’ve arranged our date.” The man leers in his face, eyes peeled so far back it was if he didn’t have eyelids.
The sound of a bullet sliding into the chamber catches his attention, and the distressed noise you make as the click echoes in the warehouse. “I’ve been feeling like hunting some birds lately, know any good spots?”
Jason is well aware of the gun now pointed in front of his face, drawn back for only a second as Joker spins the chamber of the gaudy weapon.
“I’m not scared.” He grits out, despite his pulse thudding a thousand miles a minute and the desperate screaming in the back of his mind for Batman to hurry up. The Joker’s smile splits wider, lipstick smeared teeth glinting as the trigger depresses.
Click.
Jason sighs involuntarily, swallowing thickly as he spared. The panic that comes right back as Joker turns on his heel and points the gun directly at you, your eyes now wide and flicking to him in terror. He struggles, but the guards keep him pinned on his knees, held back from you.
“If you want to relive the anniversary, do it to me.” He snaps, aware his voice is panicked and breathy. The Joker seems to delight in his tone, cocking his head to the side as Jason continues. “Leave them out of it.”
You meet his eyes, desperate and terrified. “Red-“
“You’ll be okay, just breathe. It’s okay.” He says reassuringly, making you relax as the gun is pointed at you.
The Joker watches the interaction before he pouts, grin returning seconds later. “Oh, but why would I go for you?” he hisses in delight, “That gun was more so a courtesy. After all, I told you before. What good is reliving it if I don’t kill a Robin.”
With a flourish the revolver is thrown to the side, and he reaches for something in his jacket. All Jason can hear is the scream of panic you let out, your eyes widening behind the domino mask as he calls for you, hollering out ‘ROBIN’ like you were actually the suit you were wearing. The smoother, more modern gun is pulled and within a second your eyes flick to his, terrified, like you were looking for his reassurance that everything was going to be okay-
BANG.
The noise rings in his head like an echo, firing constantly as his eyes focus on the pool of blood slowly growing on the floor, a red river carrying dampening bits of colourful confetti.
Summary: You and Clark meet up for weekly dinners after bumping into each other. (Clark Kent x reader)
Word Count: 2.5K
Notes: Thank you to everyone for being patient with me as I take some time to recover! I am feeling a bit better and am able to put out somewhat more decent fics, but will still be taking it slow. I hope that you enjoy this one, and sorry for the delays as I get better, I appreciate your patience with me so much. <333
Happy crying!
RiRi xoxox
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“I’m sorry, are you alright?”
That was the first thing that he had ever said to you, heart pounding in his chest as you were knocked to the pavement below him. You rub your forehead with the back of your hand, dusting off your knees before you collect your things again. Other pedestrians glanced at the two of you, noses crinkling and faces lined in curiosity, before they melted back into the rushing stream of the Metropolis footpath.
Clark had gotten used to the ebb and flow of the city, the hustle and bustle as people weaved in and around each other. School children on their way to class and homeroom, businessmen shouting into their phones as they hurried to board meetings, and accountants pushing past with their briefcases. He was used to the mothers with their strollers, and the dog walkers with six excitable pups on the ends of straining leashes. The afternoon rush of people getting out of school and work, funneling to the train station and the bus stops.
The first time he had experienced the city heartbeat after moving to Metropolis, he had been caught in the current and tossed back and forth. He had been too slow for the joggers behind him, too nervous about which way to step when the cyclists came though. He had bounced against the chests of office workers, apologizing profusely as they ran to clock in. He had stopped elderly people on their morning walk countless times, asking for directions to the Daily Planet.
Now he was an expert, a living vessel of the city’s veins, a face in the crowd. A face that all the hundreds of people around him didn’t recognize, hidden safely under his black rimmed glasses.
Until now.
The moment he sees your eyes widen, hand freezing before it can touch his outstretched one, he knew. The way your lashes fluttered in recognition, the hitch he can hear in your breath, despite how small it was. You knew.
“Super-?“
He quickly takes your hand, jerking you upright with a clumsy speed. To anyone else, the red crawling up his neck and across the tips of his ears would have just been embarrassment from knocking you over, for causing you to drop your things on your way to wherever you need to be.
He looks around, quickly grabbing the crook of your elbow with a polite smile and drags you out of the current. You follow along, where he pulls you into a quiet side street and rounds the corner into the dead end.
“Please don’t say it out loud.” He says quietly, realizing he was gripping your arm too tight and relaxing. “Sorry about that- I’m just not used to people, you know, recognizing me-“ He tries to explain, worry gnawing at his bones that you would bolt, that he would lose you in the flow of the city and then his cover would be blown to smithereens.
You just cross your arms, head tilting as you take him in up and down. “Are you telling me no one knows?” you ask, confused. He gives you an equally confused stare, relaxing as you make no sign of running.
“I mean, yes?” he says back hesitantly. “How did you recognize me?”
“No way.” You shake your head. “You’re just…wearing glasses.” You say deadpan. “But your face shape is the same, your hair is the same, except for the you know,” you mime twirling hair in front of your face. “The little curl. But otherwise, you look exactly like the guy on TV. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that? Are you telling me no one has even said you guys looks similar?”
He stares at you, equal parts stunned and embarrassed. “I mean, n-no…” he stammers awkwardly, shifting from foot to foot. “No ones really noticed before. This is my secret identity, it’s- “
“it’s just glasses.” You cut in.
“Well, I know,” he defends. “But it works. No one has ever suspected me really or looked at me differently. You’re the first to ever pick me out of a crowd.”
You stare at him for a moment, before breaking out into a laugh. “I tell ya,”You shake your head. “It’s my first day in Metropolis, and I could tell the moment I caught sight of you.”
He grins, shoulders relaxing. “Well, if you’re new here and looking for a friend, you can never have too many.” He smiles softly, watching as your eyes light up.
“Really?” you smile, brightening visibly. He nods.
“If you’d like. I can show you around the city some weekend. Have you finished moving in?”
You chuckle awkwardly. “I’ve got all my furniture yet to arrive; it’s coming this weekend. Had some delays moving from Coast City.” You say sheepishly, but he waves a hand.
“Would you like a hand moving in? I’m free this weekend, I can give you a tour after. You’ll get the hang of it, I promise.”
“I assume this is on the premise I keep this identity a secret?” You grin at him, hands in pockets. He winces with a smile.
“That would be preferred, yes please.”
With a promise to keep his identity a secret and an eager exchange of information, Clark saved your number and new address into his phone. He waved to you as he stepped back into the city stream, feet hurrying twice as fast to make it to work on time. Except this time, his feet flew a little faster, and he had something to look forward to on the weekend.
Time had flown and soon Clark had gone from helping you to move in, to meeting up with you every Tuesday at the diner next to your apartment building. You helped him out occasionally with work issues, while drinking milkshakes and crowding so far into his side to read his laptop screen, that his heart beat extra hard. He listened to you over burgers as you explained why you left Coast City, unable to stand the constant reminder of ‘the incident’, or the undead that came back for the living.
It had gotten so regular that the staff knew your orders, kitchen already grilling the moment you walked through the door, and your drinks on the table in your regular booth the moment you sat down. Week after week he looked forward to the moment he could see you for a meal, talk about your lives and work like he wasn’t Superman. Like he wasn’t just the guy in the suit, the savior of tomorrow, or any other gilded names that the media had given him.
He got to rant about things at work, your eyes glimmering in recognition as you both yelled about the experiences with stupid people. He thought his heart was going to jump out of his throat every time that you laughed at something he said, or when you looked down to your fingers when your faces got too close sharing phone screens. He didn’t have to be Superman when he was with you, he got to just be Clark.
There was no one calling him to the Tower to help with the Justice League, no galactic threat needing his attention at the time. He had no meetings with mayors or politicians, no other reason for him to be anywhere else on a Tuesday evening, except to be with you. He silenced every phone call Jimmy sent his way, after one too many calls about cats in trees and fires where first responders had already arrived. He had let the Tower know to only call him away for actual emergencies, after Barry had called a meeting to discuss administration details (something Bruce was not happy about, considering he had left Red Robin in charge of Gotham for the night believing the call to be an emergency). He wanted to be present in the moment, to put away the little stuff where people didn’t need Superman, because right now you needed Clark.
You were the same, flying through every week to get to see Clark again. From the first moment you had bumped into him, hands shielding your face from the sun and lips already spilling apologies to whoever you had bumped into. When you had seen him, face the same as the one plastered on half of the Metropolis billboards, you had frozen. It was one little pair of glasses that had separated him from the sea of people surging past you, a current that had swept you off your feet and into him.
You drove home, excited to see him for dinner every Tuesday. You had told yourself that you were just friends with the reporter, good friends at that. That had to be the reason why you made sur to freshen up extra before meeting him each time, or that your palms got clammy when he was near. It was in a friendly way that you bumped shoulders with him or leant on him when you walked. Completely platonic the way you stumbled over your words or thought he was cute when he blushed, or when he was flustered, or when he was passionate.
So, when Clark tells you that he has something important to talk to you about when you meet up that evening, your stomach drops through the ground. Panic whirls around in your head as you buckle your seatbelt, hands griping your steering wheel a little too tight. What could it possibly be? Is the question that bounces around in your head like the DVD logo, fingers flexing as you exhale a deep breath. Truth being told, you had some suspicions. However, you didn’t want your heart to get ahead of itself, thudding hard in the hopes that he was going to confess.
You weren’t sure if you had been reading into the signs, if that the redness in his cheeks and the way he had started avoiding eye contact was in fact, not the signs that he reciprocated your crush. That he was just shy, the man you knew as Clark definitely a lot quieter than the Superman image he projected. That flutter in your heart had turned into a whole swarm of butterflies, but you reigned them in.
It was the cold shot of fear that settled in your stomach and stopped you from being too excited. The fear that maybe he was calling you to tell you that he thought you should stop hanging out together. Had you done something wrong? Had you crossed a line somewhere in your weekly meet ups, and hadn’t realized? That fear course through your veins as the light turned green and you pressed your foot down onto the pedal, car rolling forward just as you heard the blaring of a horn.
On the other side of the city Clark sat in your booth, fingers twiddling anxiously. He had arrived a little earlier than usual, set up in your regular spot with your food already on its way, and your drinks already dripping condensation onto the counter. Except this time there was a bouquet of flowers in the middle, wrapped in red, blue, and yellow paper. He thought it was fitting, but he did have the worry that you would consider it a bit vain of him. He checked his watch every few minutes, sweat beading at him temple as he arranged the flowers with shaky hands, panic swirling in his chest as he fiddled with the arrangement, wanting to get it just right.
He rehearsed his lines in his head, telling himself how simple it was going to be. Welcome them as usual. Show them the flowers. Ask them to sit down. Ask if they’d like to make this week’s dinner a proper date. With an irritated sigh he picked up his phone, the small rectangle that had been buzzing constantly for the last few minutes. Irritation bubbled under his skin, stress piling higher at the idea that there was something that would drag him away from your dinner. Scanning the text from Jimmy he caught the words ‘two car collision’ and ‘police on scene’, and sighed, turning off the device and pocketing it. The police were there, and they could deal with it. He ignored the wailing of sirens going past as he sat, back straight, in your booth, sun settling further and further below the horizon until it came time for the diner to close, and the waitress escorted him out with a pitying smile. He held the flowers in his hand, shoulders slumped, switching his phone back on.
The flowers dropped to the pavement.
The streets of Metropolis were like veins in a heart, the people pumping blood around the city and giving it life. That is what Clark had told himself once, an image that had stuck in his head and he had never shaken.
It was something that he mournfully told himself the next day, as he began his regular walk to work.
The metaphor had made him feel good, giving everyone a purpose in his city, no matter how small. He skillfully dodged the salesmen running for the morning train, politely declined flyers being passed out on the street. The heart of the city beat and carried him along, not caring if his heart was heavy or that he had stayed up all night crying. The veins demanded lifeblood, indifferent to the fact that he had been on the phone to his mother just hours ago this morning, sobbing like a schoolboy as he told her how the pain felt, as he asked her tearfully what to do. The faces of the mothers and dog walkers blurred together, faces of the children and the office workers blank and determined as everyone continued in the great big cycle of the city. He stumbled, feet dragging each step and getting comments from other pedestrians as he slowed.
When he stood still it was like clogging an artery, people parting around him and casting curious looks, but not lingering on him for too long before they were swept back up into the business of their lives. He stared back out into the faceless crowd, the crowd that you had picked him out of on your first day.
The same tides that had swept you to him were the same tides that had swept you away, far further than he could ever reach. The only person that had seen him both as Superman and Clark, seeing past his flimsy disguise with a single sideways glance.
He looked down at his shoes, pavement swimming below him with a sheen of tears. You had seen him, who had been trying to just be Clark with you, to be the best person he could be for you. The person who didn’t need Clark last night but had needed Superman instead.
Summary: You became infected from a mission, and Hal's silence on a decision speaks more than words. (Hal Jordan x reader)
Word Count: 3.3K
Notes: Hi lovelies~! A day late and will be taking it a bit slower while I get better and recover from this fatigue spell (Working two jobs and still writing every day? Rough on the soul, man). I hope everyone can be patient, and I'm grateful for all the messages I received, I really appreciate you all. If I forgot anything, please let me know!
Happy crying!
RiRi <3 💋
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“Get your hands off me!” you scream, thrashing as you shake off the hands of Bruce and Diana, glaring at the rest of the League in the meeting room. Clark closes it behind you, locking it subtly.
“Honey, please-“Hal starts, but like a wild animal you whirl on him.
“You did this!” you screech, pointing an accusing finger at him. “This is all your fault. If you hadn’t corrupted them, if you had just kept your mouth shut- “
Bruce cuts you off with a harsh bark of your name, your real name, and not your moniker. You still glare at Hal with an angry fire in your eyes, even as they pull you back from him.
He hates seeing you like this, hair a mess and eyes wild. Theres a streak of dirt on your cheek, likely from the last mission, and his heart clenches. You had been missing for the last week, and Hal had thought he had everything under control, why wouldn’t he?
He had thought you were back in your shared apartment when he had finished the paperwork for the last mission, having to do extra reports so he had a copy to take back to Oa.
It had been a grueling mission, one that had required everyone working out of Metropolis, for the time being. You and he had spent sleepless nights trying to curb the growing rate of infections spreading through the population, while Bruce and Martian tried to find a cure for the sudden onslaught of madness. You had been teleporting groups of people into quarantine bays until your legs were ready to give out, and he let you rest for moments at a time on his shoulder, while he kept up glowing green fields around the sanitized buildings.
Finally, the infection had been dealt with thanks to a cure that Martian had been able to create. Yet the Justice League didn’t celebrate when the walls finally came down, and the people were able to freely roam the streets once more. The death toll had been too high in the city, the virus working too rapidly to stop completely with their cure. Within hours symptoms began showing, a sign that it was already too late.
They had all tried to pry Superman away from the infected ward, people still breathing but with no hope of recovery. Not that they really had any power over the Kryptonian, it took Batman’s logic and a hushed discussion to finally bring the Superman away from the doors, silent and with his head hung.
Hal could imagine the horror that Superman must have faced seeing his people like that, images of the Coast City incident forcefully flashing to the forefront of his mind. Yet that horror was overshadowed tenfold when he came home that night. That instead of seeing you washing up and relaxing after a tireless week of managing galactic infections, he had found you choking in the living room, rolling around on the carpet clutching your throat as the purple rash began creeping up from your chest.
You gasped and spluttered, fingers digging into his suit when he fought to pry your hands away from your neck. “Honey, stop-“ Hal said desperately, finally freeing your hands and keeling on one of your palms to keep it away from your throat, pinning the other one above your head. If you weren’t dying in front of his eyes he might have said something flirtatious, but all he could do was form a glowing green mask over his face as he pleaded with you. You weren’t just gasping for air, you were choking yourself, fingermarks dug into the side of your throat.
“We have to call Batman, honey, we have to get you to a quarantine-“ he tried to plead, hand already going to his phone and pulling up the Tower contact on emergency speed dial.
Yet you wiggled out from under him, surprising him at the inhumane strength you suddenly possessed. Stumbling for the door, still in your ripped and torn super suit, he scrambled to his feet to follow you. “Stay back-“ you choke out with what little air you had, and then you were gone.
His hand clutches at the air, at the sparks that were left behind when you teleported away. Not wasting another moment he stepped outside the apartment, sealing it tight and marking it for contamination.
“We might have a problem.” He breathes into the call as soon as it clicks live. Batman and him talk for a few moments before patching everyone else in, but Hal can’t focus on the urgent chatter as they make plans. He instead stares out at the glittering lights of the city and just wonders where on earth you could be.
It was that chatter that followed him the next day, and the next, and the next, as they failed to find you. Hal just sat at the table, head in his hands. He just wanted to know if you were okay. If you were alive. While others talked about what you might have done, how far you might have carried the infection, he just wanted to know how long it would be until he had you in his arms again. The cocky smile was wiped off his face in favour of a permanent frown, the sparkle in his eye traded for eye bags and a desperateness as he searched the glaring monitors. Night in and night out he scoured the web, pouring over security camera footages and sending a distress signal to John asking him for a favour. His head pounded constantly, migraine rattling permanently around in his skull. It didn’t matter that Martian brought him tea at night, worried for his health, or that Diana had to remind him to eat or even move from his spot on the monitor.
He had to find you.
So when Bats had called into the comms that he had found you and that Supes was bringing you in, he all but ran for the doors. Feet flying so fast the chair he was on clattered to the ground, he ran to where the crackly tower static told him you were going to be. But when his feet finally arrived to the sealed meeting room, mask strapped over his face, this isn’t what he had wanted to see.
“Let go of me!” you screamed, struggling and thrashing with wild eyes, scratching at the ‘S’ on Superman’s suit like you could reach flesh if you tried hard enough. Bruce had cuffed you with the dampening restraints, and he could see the sparks flicker at your wrists while you tried to teleport away. You bucked and jumped and pulled, gnashing your teeth.
Hals heart felt like it had jumped into his throat as he took you in, stepping further into the light. He ignored the pitying looks of Barry from the sidelines, or the way Martian looked away from the tragic scene.
Now standing in front of him once more he searched your eyes, lips indecisive of which question to ask you first. Yet he couldn’t get a sound out, too focused on the hatred burning in your eyes, mottling their usual colour.
“I can’t believe you’d rat me out.” You hiss, eyes ablaze. The accusation in your tone stabbed him deep, and he couldn’t help but step back. “Did you tell them where to find me? That was our spot, our secret-“
Hal had given them a list of your favourite places of course, including the park where the both of you went for dates, when you wanted to be like normal couples. You had both agreed to keep it a secret between the two of you, the little willow tree by the pond. It may have been childish, but the joy it had brought the both of you to pretend you worked office jobs, that you were simply any other couple to onlookers, had been immeasurable.
“Our second life lives in this secret spot.” You had grinned at him one time, sun shining down on the two of you through the long leaves of the willow. “I’m too embarrassed to admit this to anyone else, that we do this, you know?” you laughed sheepishly.
“So lets keep it a secret. Promise?” you grinned up at him, with radiance that made a smile split his own face. He leant down, lips brushing yours to seal the deal.
“I didn’t have a choice.” Hal protested, eyebrows pinching together as he pleaded with you. His arms wave, fingers itching to bring you closer, to hug you and kiss you like he had under the willow that day. “We needed to find you, I needed to know that you were safe, to cure you-“
“Cure me?” you laugh, except it wasn’t the usual timbre that he loved echoing the halls of your home. It was cruel and bitter, a foreign sound coming from your mouth. “What do you possibly think you could do to cure me? I don’t need fixing, Hal.” You spat out. “In fact, I’ve never felt better.”
The cackle that you let out made everyone in the room flinch, especially when it was laced with a familiar tinge of mania that made your voice sound hoarse and croaky. Hal tried to not let his lips tremble despite the fear that coursed through his body, and his ring flashes in warning.
The purple tinge had settled down your arms and hands, climbing across your neck and digging violently into the bags of your eyes. You looked like you hadn’t slept in days, skin bloodied and raw from constant scratching. Your fingers still tried to pick at your skin, struggling against the bindings to reach any patch you could find. Your bloodshot eyes darted around the meeting room, lips chapped and bitten as you pulled the skin between your teeth.
“Hal, they’re not in good shape.” Superman says quietly, pulling him away out of earshot of you. You still snarled and thrashed in, almost as if Hal didn’t exist the moment he got out of your line of sight. The other man sighs, putting a hand on his shoulder as he comes to stand next to him. “Martian is doing his best to try and find a better cure, but-“
“The cure from before didn’t work?” he whispers back harshly, panic gripping his heart in its cold fingers. Superman just shakes his head, while you mock and berate Diana with manic babble behind them. “They were too infected when we got to them. You even saw in Metropolis, it didn’t work as soon as symptoms started. And when you called us they had already presented signs. Not to mention their absence for a week…” Superman sighs out, hand running through his hair.
Hal just shakes his head pinching the bridge of his nose as his teeth grind. “Well, what if we just give it to them anyways?” he says desperately, dread building a leaden ball in his stomach. Supes looks at him pitifully, a gaze that makes Hal want to scream. He didn’t need pity, he didn’t need the sympathy. That look meant that everything wasn’t fine, and everything was fine, it was going to be okay-
“Hal,” the man says firmly again, a waver in his own voice. “We tried, but it only managed to reduce their symptoms to what you see now, and even larger doses proved ineffective. It just makes it recede for a bit, clears the brain fog and stops if from taking over them fully, but we don’t know how to reverse it.”
“Yet.” Hal cuts in, swallowing the ball in his throat. Clarks eyes are tense however, jaw set tight.
“We aren’t sure if there’s a cure, Hal.” He says softly. He tries to soften the blow, but the way that the Green Lantern breaks in front of him, hidden behind his smile, is enough to tell him that he had failed in his mission.
“Well, what can we do? We have to do something. You have to. They’re your friend.” Hal asks, adverting his eyes, leaving out the silent ‘and my partner’ his lips ache to say. His pride didn’t let him cry in front of Clark, despite the comfort of the other man. They all said it like it was something final, something they had all discussed before he had come. As he looked around at each of them pleadingly, wondering just how they could throw away you, their friend like that. How they could turn so quickly, eyes full of distrust and lined with exhaustion, staring at you like you were some kind of monster. The same people that were at your wedding now looking like your funeral couldn’t come any faster.
He tried to blink away the tears, to turn his face, but he couldn’t help the memories that floated through his mind. He knew he should turn around, not face you front on, but he couldn’t. Not when he remembered how breathtaking you looked on your wedding day, and he swept you off your feet. How his breath had caught in his chest the first time he had seen you in the Justice League being introduced to everyone. How could he look at you infected like that, what it felt like only yesterday he was wiping sweaty palms on his suit, the voice of Barry rattling around in his head telling him that you’d never go out with him? The same day he caught you leaving and nervously asked you out, cheering to himself when you said yes? When every mission you’d gone on together, every time that you had saved his ass, was still on permanent replay in his mind?
So he refused to look at you, until the stoic face of Batman was no longer getting the reaction you wanted to see. “Hal,” you say sternly, eyes flickering between mania and recognition as they met his. “Tell them to release me. I’m a member of the Justice League, god damn it! Tell them they’re being crazy.” You snap. Hals shoulders sag as he flicks his eyes up to Bruce.
The rash begins spreading once more, and you break out into a sweat. It was like with each purple tendril that branded itself across your skin, he lost a bit of you more and more.
“I can’t, baby. I wish I could but-“
“cant or wont?” you snap. You body hums with a kind of hostility that makes the hairs on the back of his neck raise, feeling like prey trapped against the wall.
“Cant.” He stresses again, tone pleading while everyone watches on. He takes hesitant steps towards you, reaching a hand up to stroke your cheek but you snap at his fingers, eyes wild as you try to bite him.
“Hal, I don’t think we can-“Diana starts, but Hal shakes his head.
“No, no, they’re still in there. We can’t. I wont.” He protests, fists shaking by his side. He promised to be your rock. Your everything. Your support system, but here he was, eyes of his coworkers, your coworkers, asking him silently to do the one thing he never thought he’d have to. He turns his face, grateful for the mask not letting them see the tremble in his lips or the burning in his eyes.
When he saw the look Batman gave him, the sad glint in his eyes and the small nod, almost like confirming the terrified voice rattling around in his head, he knew. He knew what they wanted to do, what they must have decided was the next logical step, and his heart sunk through the floor like he’d been punched in the gut.
You seem to catch on a moment later, watching the horrified way he deflated, writhing in your bonds once more. “You wouldn’t dare, Hal.” You screech, eyes wild as your fingers claw at your bonds and skin, anything you can reach. “After all we’ve been through? Youd really do that to me? To me?”
Hal shakes his head like it’ll help him escape the screams coming from you, or hide himself from the overly critical gaze of everyone else in the room. “Darling, I’m sorry-“ he tries to say, voice choked as you snap at his encroaching hands again.
“Hal, we have to.” Bruce says, stepping forward. “We can’t stop this. I’m sorry. We have to use the contingency plan. It’s the only way.”
His voice is stern but there’s a softness under it, like Bruce himself is pained at the idea of having to do it. Hal flicks his eyes to you, his darling, his beloved, his everything, and suddenly he doesn’t see the person he had loved anymore.
The light in your eyes had faded, replaced with a madness he had never seen on anyone else before. Your skin was sunken and papery, voice hoarse and cruel. When he met your gaze again, it was like the person he knew had already slipped away, replaced with a beast thrashing in its cage.
“Hal.” You screamed, battling against Dianas grip. “Hal, you can’t, you can’t do that. “you snarl, eyes darting around.
“I agree that it might be for the best.” Diana says, looking down at you sadly as you in her grip.
“Me too.” Says Barry sheepishly. Hal flicks his gaze to his best friend, heart breaking in his eyes.
“You wouldn’t dare.” You snarl at them, teeth gnashing as you dart your eyes around wildly. “Tell them Hal.” You grit out, ignoring the way your pulse races against your throat.
But he doesn’t. His mouth is sealed shut with a clenched jaw, and he looks down. He cant say anything, even as you scream for Hal to tell them to let you go, to talk sense into them. He cant even look at you, there in front of him, even as Bruce drags you kicking and screaming away.
When that doesn’t work you change your tone, eyes filling with tears as you reach for him. “Hal, please.” You cry. “Hal, please. No. No, no, no, no, no, no. I don’t wanna die Hal. Hal please, I don’t wanna die.” You sob, fat tears rolling down your rash covered cheeks, rasping like you were an avid smoker.
“Is that you talking, or the infection?” he asks, head hung and hair limp in front of his face. The voices of you and of the team swirl into a sickening mix in his head, but he’s too tired to be able to push it away. His thoughts too sluggish and pained to make any sense.
He bites his tongue, heart aching as he turns his back on you, staying silent as you thrash and beg behind him. When that doesn’t work to grab his attention, the façade falls and your lips pull back into a snarl.
“I’ll kill you!” you scream as Bruce and Diana haul you away, before you break into maniacal laughter. When you were gone down the hall, Hal sinks to his knees, forehead pressing against the cool of the floor.
He doesn’t feel the comforting hand of Superman on his back. He doesn’t hear anything that Barry says to him, or the hands trying to lift under his elbows to bring him to his feet. He was just focused on the ache in his arms, the pain of knowing that spot was where you were supposed to be.
And he had said nothing, because what was there even left to say?
I'm unfortunately feeling really sick tonight. I have a draft of today's work- but I'm not happy with it. It's a concept that I actually am keen to do, so I'll upload it when I can tomorrow. I'm really sorry if I've let anyone down, I just don't want to give you guys half assed work when I know I could deliver quality fics instead. I'm going to do my best to not get too far behind, and I'm sorry if anyone is disappointed.
I promise to not stray too far, and this will be the first time I've ever taken a break in Angstober history. I just really really don't want this fic to be published in it's current state- you all deserve more! (don't worry, I'm super frustrated at myself too for not posting tonight.)
Hope everyone is having a lovely evening in the meantime, and I hope you have all enjoyed the fics so far.
Summary: If it takes changing himself to give you the world, Jason would. (Jason Todd x reader)
Word Count: 2.3K
Notes: Hi lovelies~! Just wanted to apologise it is so late, but I am super struggling with exhaustion and fatigue at the moment. I really don't want to have to take a break during Angstober when we are so close, but I might have to soon. I will see! I'll do my very best to keep pumping fics out for you all. I have taken the liberty of changing today's fic again from one that I had origianlly planned. I'm super sorry again for doing this, but when I am so worn down it's easier to write for characters I know and guarantee a higher chance of a fic than to do a character I'm getting used to and flopping the concept. I want to do them when I have the actual time to invest properly!
Other than that, love you all and hope you enjoy.
Happy crying!
RiRi <3 💋
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“I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”
Were the nine little words that stopped his heart one evening, as you both laid in bed together. He looked down at you with a mixture of surprise and cold-blooded shock, lips pulling into a frown. You still had your head resting on his arm like a pillow, a hand still holding the sheet up over both of you, but your eyes wouldn’t meet his. Turning on his side, he propped himself up, shaking his hair loose as he tried to comprehend what you were saying.
“What do you mean?” he asks, the quiver not setting into his voice even though it wants to. You just shrug, as if what he was asking you was what you wanted for dinner, and not a full-blown potential break up.
“I just…I’m really tired, Jay.” You said softly, tracing his chest through the sheet. Usually the action was soothing, feeling your fingers splay against his skin like that. Now it felt like a hot brand scaring down his middle, tracing lines of cruel fire. “I’m really tired of pretending like we’re normal, you know?”
For the first time that night you look up at him, eyes misty. He softens the hard line of his jaw, reigns back the accusation burning in his eyes and sighs softly. “We can be normal.” He whispers, pressing his lips to the top of your head so you can’t see the fear in his eyes. “I promise you. I can make this normal for us.”
“Let’s give it a month and see how we go.” you hum softly, burying into his arm again silently. He held you for the rest of the night, staring up at the ceiling, unsure if that meant you were going to stay. The morning had been tense for you both, but you had still kissed him soft on the lips before you left for work, had whispered for him to have a good night when he went on patrol later that evening, and he nodded and smiled like his entire world hadn’t almost been ripped apart hours earlier.
If he had to tell a therapist, he would tell them that the incident that night was probably where the obsession with the idea of ‘fixing’ everything began. Ever since that night he had been determined to become the man you needed, no, the man you deserved. He had treated it like some kind of wakeup call, the cold water splashed in his face to show him where he was failing as a boyfriend.
So, he had dyed his hair. In the bathroom with cheap rubber gloves, painting the white streak in his hair black and staining his hairline. It had been odd, washing it out and looking at himself in the mirror, still expecting to see the streak front and center in his reflection. Yet as he turned his head, running his hand through the patch before roughing it with the towel, he could get used to it. Hopefully the garish reminder that he had come back from the dead would be erased from your memory as easily as he had erased it from his body.
Yet when you had only hummed in acknowledgement that night coming home from work, his hesitant and wobbly smile vanished. When you ruffled his hair he felt a twinge in his heart, but the usual affection you did it with was gone. So logically, he assumed he needed to do more.
This next thing he did to be more normal for you, was hide his scars. Hours had been poured into online shopping for makeup, the bathroom bin filling with tubes of concealer as he tried to find one the right shade, pairing it with whatever powder he could find that didn’t make it glaring obvious he was hiding it. Shirt off in the mirror, his eyes were laser focused in as he painted over every white line. Powder coated his skin in soft layers, until even the jagged ‘J’ on his cheek had smoothed out.
He had looked at himself in the mirror and wondered If this is what he would have looked like if he had never been hurt by the Joker. If he had never been brought back to life like some ghoulish monster, would he look like this by your side? Hair dark and streak free, skin smooth.
There would be no calluses on his hands, rough and worn from fighting criminals. There would be no blisters on his heels or under his chin where his helmet rubbed, places he imagines you would leave bites instead. His suits wouldn’t have to hide bruises and yellow marks from repeated beatings, and you wouldn’t be up in the late hours of the night patching him up.
However, when you came home, your fingers brushing against his cheek and feeling the soft powder under your fingertips, you only smiled a little.
“It looks nice.” You smile, eyes soft. “Do you like it?”
He tries to keep the smile up; tries to stop the harsh way he has to swallow. “Y-yeah,” he stammers out as you brush past him, dropping your bag on the counter as you head to the bedroom. He stands there, feeling like an imposter in his new reflection as he watches you go. Tears burn in the back of his eyes but he presses his fingers to his eyes tightly and shakes the tears away.
If this wasn’t enough to stop the timer on the relationship ending, it just meant he had to try harder. Sitting at the kitchen counter he put his head in his hands, finally letting the fat tears fall into the skin of his palms. His shoulders shook, fear rising up in him like a snake.
What was he going to do?
So, he did everything that he could.
He left the Outlaws, to the shock horror and confused “HUH?” of Roy following him out of the home base, ignoring Artemis as she called out after the roar of his bike. He pulled out of the patrol shifts with Batman, opting to only patrol in your area in Upper Gotham. It was met with the surprised eyebrow raise of Bruce and the concerned teasing of Dick, while Damian only gave him a suspicious shrug. The real shocked expressions came when he picked up a daytime job as a deliveryman for the Wayne Couriers.
He wasn’t made for the salaryman’s life, he knew that much. Knew he wouldn’t look good in a suit every day pushing pencils and entering data onto spreadsheets. So, he took the next best thing that didn’t make him feel like fully imploding inside.
He liked being out in the streets still, vigilance never waning even when he drove the truck down the streets. He kept his eyes out every back alley and dark corner that he passed, fingers clenched tight on the steering wheel and wishing he had his bike back. He got to use his body still, getting to feel things with his hands as he loaded and unloaded his deliveries each day.
The sharp corners of the cardboard dug into his fingers, but he told himself it was better than the barrel of a gun. For you. The lighter days stung his eyes and his body ached more in the mornings getting dressed in his uniform than it had ever been recovering from a thrashing, but he told himself it would all be worth it. That this new life he built for you, he was building for you, would make everything all better. You wanted normalcy? He would bring it to you on a silver platter.
So, when it came to the last day on the clock he drove home with his heart in his throat, sweat beading on his hairline. He gripped the wheel and took a deep breath, hoping that you would see just how much he loved you, just how much he could change into a better man, a man that deserved you.
Meanwhile, you were sobbing into your sleeve as you packed your bags.
You were in your shared apartment, counting out your things to make sure you hadn’t left a trace of yourself behind. A photo of you and Jason sat on top of your last duffle, tears covering the glass and distorting the image of the two of you smiling in Gotham Park. The ring he had made for you was looped around your neck, beaten silver rubbed worn from anxious fiddling.
You had cried softly on your side the first time he came to you with his hair dyed, anxious smile full of that boyish innocence you loved, as he asked you how it looked. You had to bite back your smile and temper your words, heart clenching as he removed that piece of himself for you. You bit your tongue to stop yourself from telling him he didn’t need to dye it, that you loved playing with those soft strands when he had fallen asleep, but you didn’t.
When he came to meet you at the door, skin airbrushed smoothly and the ‘J’ hidden on his cheek, you had gasped softly to himself. You saw the way his eyes shined, the way he lit up searching for your approval, and the way that he deflated when you touched his cheek almost clinically, like you were inspecting his work. You had felt a shot through the heart having a shower that night, seeing the bin full of concealer tubes and makeup wipes.
But you didn’t say anything.
Jason packed away every little thing that had made him Jason, put his bike in storage, got a regular day job like any other civilian, and like that the man you loved was fading. You saw the toll that it took on him to repress that part of his life, for him to parade and pretend to be normal, full of fake smiles and eager kisses.
And it killed you.
Because it was those very things about him that made you fall in love with him in the first place. You loved pushing the white strands out of his face when he slept, finally getting to see him relaxed for once. You loved tracing his scars and the lines of his skin, the way he shuddered under your touch. It was a sign of how strong he had been, how hard he had fought to survive.
You loved that he was out there at night protecting people, loved the way that even under his tough exterior he cared more than anyone else on those rooftops, keeping an eye out for people who had started out in the Gotham slums just like him.
Keeping an eye out for people like you.
Agents of the shadows, the League of Shadows to be exact. Your mission had been simple, get in and out of Gotham, stay for a year and leave with what you had gathered. You had deliberately run into Red Hood, hoping to play the distressed civilian part and get close with the family to get information from Bruce about the underworking’s of Gotham, keeping tabs on the vigilantes that worked the streets of the city.
You meant to get close, yes, but not in bed with one. Yet you couldn’t help it, your heart had just pulled you to him and in moments you were wrapped up in his sheets and his arms, and for a moment you forgot what you were. You forgot about your mission and the reason you even came to this city, about the organization that bore you, trained you and clothed you. The organization that now put your loyalty to the test and called you back.
When you had whispered and wished for some normalcy, you had never imagined in a million years that he would take it onto himself. Not for a second did he stop to think that maybe you were the problem. You had tried to do anything the entire month to stall your return to the league. You were too scared to ask for Jason’s help. What would he say when he found out that your relationship had been a lie? That originally you only got with him in order to keep tabs on the goings of Gotham? How would he react to you revealing that you were well and truly in love with him, and that it wasn’t a lie?
You shook those thoughts out of your head, hands fumbling to pack yourself up and to disappear into the night like you were planning. Your mind kept flashing back to the note you had received a week prior, after you had hit all dead ends on ways for you to stay in Gotham.
There will be agents on the outskirts to assist in your removal. Do not be late. - T
You knew that there was a twist in those words, a dagger hidden underneath them. You either left with the League tonight, or you were removed in the less pleasant manner. Tears streaking down your face, you pull his pillow to you one last time, letting the fat tears drip into the fabric. You inhaled the scent of him, the last reminder you could take without the League getting suspicious.
Then you were gone.
There was no one to greet him when he came home that evening, hanging his keys on the hook by the door. His fingers ached and his throat swallowed harshly, calling out. “Honey? I’m home.”
Except there was no answer back, no trace of you left in the apartment.
oh my GOSH listen is so good ik you did it for angstober but do you think you’ll make a part 2??? i LOVE your writing and i LOVE a blubbering dick grayson
Listen is going on the long long list of fics I need to do a part 2 for, yes! I'm going to go back and do some much needed part 2's from last year (sorry for making y'all wait, my guilt is crazy) but it's def there!
As well as everyone who has sent in requests, I will be getting to those after angstober! I have some from LAST YEAR that came in that I never saw? Is that a tumblr glitch? (some veteran help me out here). I got the notif yesterday but it was dated wayyyyyy back to earlier this year but I hadnt ever seen it before.
Anyways, I will do some follow ups and won't leave you hanging forever (I hope).
Much love, and thank you so much for your support!
Loves me not broke ma heart first thing in the morning 💔😭
I hope when the second part comes out it heals those wounds 🙂↕️(but I can't make any promises, I just tend to make them sadder but I will try). Thank you so much for your support for this fic!
