thepurplespirit | lana, she/they, 22, bi, libra, mostly dc but some select multifandom, infj-t, coffee addict, probably writing instead of sleeping
── .✦ requests closed for catching up
── .✦ fandoms dc/dcu, marvel, avatar: the last airbender, dexter, scorpion (2014 tv show) more likely to come!
── .✦ readers gender neutral unless specified!
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marvel masterlist | batfamily masterlist | misc character masterlist
warning!! not your thing, don’t interact! block me! most of my works are pg13/gen, and those that are 18+ will say so and cut off before anything 18+ happens
Hii! I adore ur writing and was wondering if you would write a platonic batfam fic with gn!reader coming out as queer? They’re like stressed but ofc everyone accepts them <33
Tysm, and no stress if you can’t!
-💌
p.s, who is your fav DC pairing?
a gift for you <33 ahh that is such a hard question
like... i love dick and kori
tim and kon <3 i like damian/jon's relationship and jason/roy's if we're getting into non-canon and my own interpretations
request 💌 anon a platonic batfam fic with gn!reader coming out as queer? they’re like stressed but ofc everyone accepts them <33
content platonic batfamily & batsibling!reader, queer!reader, coming out, coming-out anxiety, fear of rejection, internalised shame, references to past foster care/an unsafe home environment, brief mentions of violence/vigilantism, emotional distress, crying, discussions of homophobia, protective threats toward hypothetical homophobes
word count 5.4k
dc masterlist | batfamily masterlist
You had faced gunfire with less fear than this.
That was the humiliating part. You had stood on Gotham rooftops while the wind tried to peel you from the stone. You had been held hostage twice, poisoned once, and trapped inside a collapsing warehouse often enough that Jason had started referring to structural damage as your “natural habitat.” You had stitched wounds under flickering bathroom lights. You had lied to police officers, social workers, journalists, and one particularly determined League of Assassins operative without letting your voice shake.
Yet the sentence written in the notes app on your phone made your hands tremble whenever you looked at it.
I’m queer.
Three words. Barely a confession at all. Not in this family.
The Manor had never been a place where heterosexuality was treated as a sacred institution. Dick had dated enough people across enough cities that you were fairly certain he could qualify as an international incident. Tim’s romantic history had its own encrypted folder on the Batcomputer. Steph had once spent twenty minutes explaining the difference between bisexual lighting and ordinary purple lighting while Bruce stood nearby looking as though he had accidentally entered an advanced calculus lecture.
You knew, logically, that none of them would reject you.
Logic was a very small candle against the dark.
Fear was older than reason. It grew teeth in the places where love mattered most.
You had not been born into this family. You had not been raised in the Manor or trained beneath the Cave’s cold white lights. You had arrived through a series of unfortunate events involving a stolen motorcycle, a corrupt foster placement, and the deeply questionable decision to throw a brick at Red Hood while he was pursuing someone else.
Jason still maintained that your aim had been impressive.
Somewhere between then and now, you had become part of them. There had never been an official ceremony. No adoption papers, no declarations. Your toothbrush had appeared beside the others. Alfred had started buying your preferred cereal. Bruce had given you a bedroom without ever calling it permanent, and Dick had begun sending you blurry photographs at impossible hours, accompanied by messages like look at this dog and do you think Bruce knows he sighs like a Victorian widow?
You belonged.
That was precisely why you were terrified. Belonging gave people something to take away.
For three weeks, you carried the words around inside your chest until they became too heavy to breathe beneath. You considered announcing it at dinner, then imagined nine pairs of eyes turning toward you and nearly died on the spot. You thought about sending a message to the family group chat, but Jason and Steph had been arguing through reaction images for six consecutive hours, and you could not bear the possibility of your life-changing confession being buried beneath a poorly cropped picture of Batman with the caption fatherless behaviour.
So you decided to tell them individually.
It felt safer that way.
It was not safer. It merely meant you had to experience the terror repeatedly.
You began with Alfred because Alfred knew everything anyway.
He found you in the kitchen at two in the morning, standing before the open refrigerator without seeing anything inside it. You had been there long enough for the light to begin feeling accusatory.
“Unless the mustard has recently developed hypnotic properties,” Alfred said from behind you, “I suspect you are looking for something that cannot be found on the second shelf.”
You jolted hard enough to strike your elbow against the refrigerator door.
Alfred closed it gently after you withdrew your arm, rescuing the household from your apparently determined attempt to increase its electricity bill. He wore a dressing gown over his pyjamas, silver hair still immaculate despite the hour.
“Couldn’t sleep,” you muttered.
“So I gathered.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That, too, had crossed my mind.”
He filled the kettle without asking whether you wanted tea. Alfred did not ask unnecessary questions. He simply created spaces in which answers could arrive.
You sat at the kitchen island while he moved around you. The familiar clink of china steadied something in your chest. He placed a cup before you, prepared exactly as you liked it, and took the seat opposite.
You curled both hands around the porcelain. “I need to tell you something.”
Alfred’s expression did not change, but his attention settled fully upon you. There was something almost unbearable about being looked at so kindly.
“You are under no obligation to tell me anything before you are ready,” he said.
“I know.”
It emerged too quickly.
The sentence waited behind your teeth. You had rehearsed explanations. You had prepared a small speech about how long you had known, how uncertain you had been, how you were still trying to understand what the word meant for you. Every carefully arranged thought scattered the moment Alfred looked at you.
“I’m queer,” you whispered.
The kitchen did not collapse. No alarms sounded. No hidden mechanism dropped the floor from beneath you.
Alfred only nodded, as though you had handed him something precious and he understood the importance of holding it gently. “Thank you for trusting me.”
Your grip tightened around the cup. “That’s it?”
“I could prepare a lengthier response if you feel the occasion requires one.”
Despite yourself, you laughed. It cracked in the middle and became dangerously close to a sob.
Alfred reached across the island but stopped before touching you.
You nodded.
His hand covered yours, warm and steady.
“My dear,” he said, “there is nothing you could tell me about the honest shape of your heart that would make you less deserving of a home.”
The tears arrived then, sudden and hot.
Alfred did not mention them. He only pushed a folded handkerchief toward you and kept his hand over yours until the tea went cold.
Telling Bruce should have been easier after Alfred. It was not.
Bruce had become your guardian in every way except the legal one, although you suspected the legal one was merely waiting for the correct stack of paperwork to materialise. He was not openly affectionate. He did not say I love you often, or perhaps at all, but he checked the locks on your windows after storms. He remembered which nightmares meant you needed space and which meant you needed someone sitting silently outside your door.
His love was a structure built around you so carefully that you sometimes forgot it was there. Which meant disappointing him felt unthinkable.
You found him in the study the following evening, staring at three case files while pretending he was capable of reading them simultaneously.
“Bruce?”
He looked up immediately. That was the first frightening thing. Bruce did not look up immediately for most people.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
His eyes moved over you, assessing for injury.
“No one’s hurt,” you added.
His shoulders lowered by an almost invisible degree.
You closed the study door behind you. The click seemed impossibly loud.
Bruce gestured toward the chair opposite his desk, but you remained standing. Sitting felt too vulnerable. Standing made you feel as though you could escape if necessary, although escaping from Batman inside his own house was perhaps not a realistic strategy.
“I need to tell you something,” you said.
Bruce folded his hands on the desk. “Okay.”
You stared at the carved edge of the bookcase rather than his face.
“I’m queer.”
Silence followed.
Your stomach dropped.
Bruce was often silent. Silence was practically his native language. You knew this. You had translated his silences before: angry silence, worried silence, planning silence, Jason has placed explosives somewhere on the property again silence.
This one felt endless.
You forced yourself to look at him.
His expression had softened. “Thank you for telling me.”
You waited.
Bruce seemed to realise there was supposed to be more.
“I’m glad you trusted me,” he added. “Nothing about this changes your place here.”
Your breath caught. “I know everyone’s probably fine with it. I know you’re fine with it. I just…”
The sentence tangled.
Bruce stood slowly. He did not approach you until you gave the smallest nod.
“I was scared it might make things different,” you admitted. “Maybe not immediately. Maybe everyone would say the right things, but it would be weird afterwards. Or I’d become the queer member of the family instead of just…”
“You,” Bruce finished.
You nodded.
His jaw tightened, not with anger at you but with the familiar rage he reserved for anything that had hurt one of his children.
“You are not required to reduce yourself to one part so other people can understand you,” he said. “You don’t have to earn your place by being easier to categorise.”
You swallowed.
Bruce’s hand settled against your shoulder.
“You are my family,” he said. “That is not conditional.”
The words struck harder because Bruce did not waste them.
You leaned forward before you could think better of it, pressing your face against his chest. He stiffened for half a second—the traditional Wayne response to spontaneous physical affection—before both arms wrapped around you.
One hand rested carefully against the back of your head.
“I’m proud of you,” he murmured.
You closed your eyes. For once, the shadows in the study felt like shelter instead of something waiting to swallow you.
Dick was next because he had already sent you seven messages asking whether you were all right. He knew you were hiding something. Dick always knew. It was one of his most irritating qualities, surpassed only by his habit of entering rooms through windows when perfectly functional doors existed.
He arrived at the Manor on Saturday morning with pastries from Blüdhaven and found you sitting on the back steps.
“Okay,” he said, lowering himself beside you. “I brought bribery.”
He placed the paper bag between you.
“You don’t know what you’re bribing me for.”
“I’m adaptable.”
You smiled faintly.
Dick nudged the bag toward you. “Croissant?”
You took one mostly so he would stop watching you with those enormous, worried eyes.
For several minutes, you ate in silence. The grounds stretched ahead, silver-green beneath the overcast sky. Gotham’s skyline was hidden beyond the trees, but you could still feel the city there, pulsing like a bruise.
“I’m queer,” you said.
Dick’s face transformed.
Not into shock. Not discomfort.
Joy. It was immediate and brilliant, the emotional equivalent of sunlight breaking through cloud.
“Oh,” he breathed. “Thank you for telling me.” Then his expression grew careful. “Can I hug you?”
You nodded, and he pulled you against him so quickly that the remains of your croissant nearly suffered a tragic death.
Dick’s hugs were not restrained affairs. He hugged with his entire body, as though trying to physically convince you of your own importance.
“I love you,” he said into your hair. “Exactly as you are.”
Your eyes burned. “You’re going to make me cry.”
“Good. I already waterproofed my shirt.”
You laughed against his shoulder.
Dick loosened his hold but did not let go entirely. “Do you want to talk about it? The good stuff, the scary stuff, crushes, labels, lack of labels, dramatic queer awakenings caused by animated villains?”
You pulled back enough to look at him. “That sounds suspiciously specific.”
“This conversation is not about me.”
“You made it about you in under thirty seconds.”
“A personal best.”
The laughter came more easily this time.
Dick squeezed your hands.
“You decide who knows,” he said, gentler now. “You decide when. You don’t owe anyone a performance or an explanation. And if anyone gives you trouble, I’ll handle it.”
“You’ll handle it?”
“I’ll talk to them.”
“That’s not what your face is saying.”
“My face is saying many things. It’s very expressive.”
“It’s saying you’ll throw someone off a roof.”
“A short roof.”
You laughed again, and Dick smiled like that had been his plan all along.
Barbara received the news in the Clock Tower. You had not planned to tell her that day. You had only gone to return a piece of equipment, but she took one look at you and muted the bank of monitors.
“What’s going on?”
You set the grappling unit on her desk. “Everyone keeps asking me that.”
“Probably because you’ve been hovering in doorways like a Victorian ghost.”
“I do not hover.”
“You absolutely hover.”
You dropped into the chair beside her.
Barbara waited. There was no pressure in it. No expectation. She simply gave you her attention and allowed the silence to belong to you.
“I’m queer,” you said.
Her smile was quiet but immediate. “Thank you for trusting me.”
The familiar words should have become less powerful through repetition. They did not.
Barbara angled her chair toward you. “Who else knows?”
“Alfred, Bruce, Dick.”
“Are they allowed to discuss it with each other?”
You blinked. The question was so practical, so completely Barbara, that some hidden knot in your chest loosened.
“I hadn’t thought about that.”
“You don’t have to decide now. I’m asking because coming out to one person doesn’t automatically give them permission to tell anyone else, even if the people involved are family.”
“I think it’s okay if the family knows. I just want to tell them myself first.”
“Done.”
She turned back toward the keyboard and typed something.
Your stomach lurched. “What are you doing?”
“Updating the family communication protocols.”
“There are coming-out protocols?”
“There are now.”
You leaned over.
On the screen was a new encrypted memo reading: PRIVATE INFORMATION IS NOT YOUR INFORMATION TO SHARE. YES, THIS INCLUDES YOU, RICHARD.
You stared at her.
Barbara’s mouth twitched.
“You included Dick by name.”
“Preventative maintenance.”
You laughed, and she reached out to squeeze your forearm.
“For the record,” she said, “you never have to make yourself smaller to keep this family comfortable. We can make room.”
Jason was the person you feared telling most. Not because you believed he would react badly. Jason had defended queer kids in Crime Alley with a ferocity that bordered on biblical. He had once broken a man’s wrist for shouting a slur at a teenager, then purchased the teenager dinner and spent two hours helping them repair their bicycle.
But Jason’s opinion mattered to you in a way that lived dangerously close to the bone.
He had found you first. Before the Manor. Before the Cave. Before anyone else knew your name, Jason had looked at a furious, terrified kid holding a brick and decided you deserved another chance.
You found him in one of the Manor’s garages, bent over his motorcycle with grease streaked across his hands.
He glanced toward you. “You planning to stand there all day, or are you going to pass me the wrench?”
You passed him the wrong wrench.
Jason looked at it, then at you. “Okay. Who died?”
“No one.”
“Who are we killing?”
“No one.”
He straightened. “That somehow sounds worse.”
You picked at the fraying edge of your sleeve. “I need to tell you something.”
Jason set the wrench aside immediately. His attention sharpened, but his voice remained casual. “Shoot.”
You tried. Nothing emerged.
Jason waited.
You thought of every terrible possibility your mind had manufactured. Jason laughing. Jason looking uncomfortable. Jason treating you differently. Jason deciding he had misunderstood you when he chose to bring you home.
“I’m queer,” you said.
Jason blinked.
Then he looked behind himself.
You frowned. “What are you doing?”
“Checking whether there’s a second part.”
“No.”
“That’s it?”
Your stomach twisted. “Is that not enough?”
“No, no.” He wiped his hands on a rag. “I just thought you were about to tell me you’d joined a cult or started listening to podcasts about cryptocurrency.”
A startled laugh escaped you.
Jason leaned against the workbench. “Kid, I do not care who you date, who you don’t date, what label you use, or whether you decide labels can go screw themselves. You’re you.”
You looked at the concrete floor. “I was scared you’d think I was different.”
Jason’s expression changed. All humour drained from it, leaving something rawer behind.
“You are different,” he said.
Your head snapped up.
He stepped closer. “You’re different from when I found you because you don’t sleep with a weapon under your pillow every night anymore. You’re different because you laugh more. You’re different because you’ve got people now, and you let them have you back.” His voice softened. “Figuring out another piece of yourself doesn’t erase any of that.”
You swallowed hard.
Jason tapped two knuckles lightly against your chin. “And anyone who makes you feel wrong for it gets to have a very educational conversation with Red Hood.”
“You can’t threaten everyone who might be homophobic.”
“Watch me.”
“Jason.”
“I can make a spreadsheet.”
“You hate spreadsheets.”
“That’s how committed I am.”
Your laugh fractured.
Jason opened his arms.
You stepped into them. His embrace was firm, one broad hand pressing between your shoulder blades.
“I’m proud of you,” he said quietly. “And I’m glad you’re here.”
The words settled somewhere deep.
You held on a little tighter.
“So,” Jason added after a moment, “do I get to embarrass you about crushes now?”
“You already do that.”
“Great. No operational changes required.”
Tim was in the Cave, surrounded by six screens and drinking something that smelled less like coffee and more like a laboratory accident.
You sat beside him without speaking. He continued typing for approximately twelve seconds.
Then he stopped.
“You’ve been telling people something.”
Your mouth fell open. “How do you know?”
“Dick hugged you four times during breakfast. Bruce has been staring at everyone like he’s waiting for them to commit a hate crime. Barbara sent a privacy memo, and Jason searched ‘subtle pride gifts that don’t look corporate’ on the shared network.”
You stared at him. “Jason did what?”
“He used private browsing.”
“That clearly worked.”
“No one in this family understands private browsing.”
Tim turned his chair toward you. His expression softened. “You don’t have to tell me because you’ve told the others.”
“I want to.”
“Okay.”
You took a breath.
“I’m queer.”
Tim smiled. It was not a triumphant smile. He did not say he had known or suspected. He did not reach backward through your history and point out evidence as though your identity were a case he had solved.
He only said, “Thank you for choosing to tell me.”
You looked at the screens. “Did you know?”
“I wondered.”
Your shoulders tightened.
Tim noticed instantly.
“But wondering isn’t knowing,” he continued. “And knowing before you’re ready to say something wouldn’t make it mine to name.”
The tension eased.
“I’m still figuring some of it out,” you admitted.
“Good.”
You frowned. “Good?”
“People are allowed to be unfinished. It would be statistically alarming if you had your entire identity completely resolved already.”
“You’re one to talk.”
“I contain multitudes and several untreated sleep disorders.”
You snorted.
Tim nudged his coffee toward you in offering. You smelled it and immediately pushed it back. “That could strip paint.”
“It’s an acquired taste.”
“It’s a chemical weapon.”
“It can be both.”
You sat together while the Cave hummed around you.
After a moment, Tim spoke again. “You know you can tell me if someone makes you uncomfortable, right? Online or at school or anywhere else. Not because I think you can’t handle it. Just because you shouldn’t always have to.”
You glanced at him.
His gaze had returned to the screens, giving you privacy even while offering protection.
“I know,” you said.
Tim nodded.
On the nearest monitor, a new tab appeared.
Pride events Gotham safe verified
You smiled. “Subtle.”
“I learned from Batman.”
“That explains the total lack of subtlety.”
Cass found you before you could find her. You were crossing the upstairs hallway when she stepped from the shadow of an alcove. Other people might have found this alarming.
By Batfamily standards, it was practically a polite greeting.
“You told them,” she said.
You stopped. “Some of them.”
Cass studied your face. “Scared.”
“Less than before.”
She nodded as though this confirmed something.
You had worried most about how to explain it to Cass, not because she would not understand, but because language between you had always worked differently. Cass read truth in shoulders, hands, breath. Words were only one part of every conversation.
“I’m queer,” you said.
Cass smiled. “Good.”
You blinked. “Good?”
“You know more you.”
The simplicity of it struck you harder than any speech could have.
Cass stepped closer.
“Still you,” she said. “Love you.”
Your throat closed. “Love you too.”
She held out her hand.
You took it, and Cass squeezed once. No grand declaration. No questions.
Only her palm against yours, warm and certain.
It was enough.
Steph screamed.
Not in horror.
In excitement.
You had barely finished saying the words before she clapped both hands over her mouth.
“Sorry,” she said through her fingers. “That was too loud.”
“A little.”
“I’m trying to react in a calm, emotionally mature manner.”
“You’re vibrating.”
“I contain joy.”
You were sitting cross-legged on the floor of her room, surrounded by nail polish bottles and three open bags of crisps. Steph lowered her hands.
“Can I be excited?”
The question surprised you.
“What?”
“Some people want coming out to be chill. Some people want balloons and a parade and twelve backup dancers. I don’t want to make it about me being happy if you need it to be quiet.”
Warmth spread through your chest. “You can be excited.”
Steph squealed again, more quietly this time, and threw her arms around you.
“I love you so much,” she announced. “Congratulations on being hot and mysterious.”
“I was already hot and mysterious.”
“True. Congratulations on the expanded lore.”
You laughed into her shoulder.
Steph pulled away and caught both your hands. “Seriously, though. I’m really glad you told me.”
“I was nervous.”
Her expression softened. “You don’t ever have to be nervous about being loved here.”
The words were beautiful enough to hurt.
Then Steph’s eyes narrowed. “Unless you tell me your first queer crush was someone deeply embarrassing.”
“I’m not telling you anything about my crushes.”
“I have truth serum.”
“You have glitter nail polish.”
“It reveals truth spiritually.”
You told Duke on the roof at sunrise. Patrol had ended an hour earlier, but neither of you had gone inside. Gotham unfolded below in bruised purple and gold, the night loosening its grip one street at a time.
Duke sat beside you, legs dangling over the edge.
“I’m queer,” you said.
He looked toward you, then smiled. “Cool.”
“Cool?”
“Very.”
You bumped your shoulder against his. “That’s all?”
Duke considered. “Do you want a speech?”
“Everyone keeps offering speeches.”
“We’re a dramatic family.”
“You’re the least dramatic one.”
“I dress like a traffic signal and fight crime before breakfast.”
“Fair.”
The sun edged over the skyline.
Duke rested his forearms against his knees.
“I’m glad you told me,” he said. “I know saying it can feel like stepping off a roof and hoping someone put a net down.”
You watched the light gather across the city’s windows. “Yeah.”
“There’s a net.”
Your eyes stung.
Duke’s shoulder remained pressed against yours.
“And if the net fails,” he added, “Cass can catch you. She’s terrifyingly fast.”
You laughed.
The sun rose without asking Gotham whether it was ready.
For the first time, you thought perhaps you could do the same.
Damian was last.
Not because you trusted him least. Because he was your younger brother in every way that mattered, and younger siblings possessed a unique ability to devastate you with a single poorly chosen expression.
You found him in the library, sketchbook balanced across his knees. Titus lay at his feet, snoring with the deep satisfaction of a creature who had never questioned whether he belonged somewhere.
Damian looked up. “You have been behaving strangely.”
“That’s rich coming from you.”
“I do not behave strangely. I behave with precision.”
You sat opposite him.
He closed the sketchbook. The gesture made your chest ache. Damian did not close his sketchbook for just anyone.
“I’ve been telling everyone something,” you said.
“I am aware.”
“Of course you are.”
“Brown attempted to conceal a bag labelled ‘Emergency Gay Confetti’ behind her back.”
You covered your face. “She what?”
“She lacks subtlety.”
“She really does.”
Damian waited.
You lowered your hands. “I’m queer.”
His expression remained solemn.
For one terrible heartbeat, you could not read him.
Then Damian set the sketchbook aside and stood. “You believed this would alter my opinion of you.”
It was not a question.
“I was worried.”
His eyebrows drew together. “That was foolish.”
“Thanks.”
“I do not mean that you are foolish.” Damian frowned, visibly dissatisfied with the limitations of language. “I mean that anyone who convinced you love must be withdrawn when you reveal more of yourself is foolish.”
You stared at him.
Damian approached until he stood directly before you.
“You are my sibling,” he said. “I have already decided this. Your identity has no bearing upon the matter.”
Your eyes burned. “You decided?”
“Father’s reluctance to complete the appropriate legal documentation is irrelevant.”
A wet laugh escaped you.
Damian hesitated, then opened his arms with the stiff dignity of someone offering a treaty between hostile nations.
You hugged him. He held you tightly.
“You entrusted me with something precious,” he said near your shoulder. “I will not mishandle it.”
You closed your eyes. “Thanks, Dami.”
“Furthermore, if anyone responds with cruelty, I will—”
“You are not allowed to stab anyone.”
“I had not finished.”
“You were going to say stab.”
“I may have intended to propose several options.”
“No swords.”
“Tt.”
By Sunday, everyone knew. You had expected relief to feel like emptiness—the absence of fear, a room after someone removed all the furniture.
Instead, it felt full. Every conversation had left something behind. Alfred’s steady certainty. Bruce’s hand on your shoulder. Dick’s arms around you. Barbara’s careful questions. Jason’s fierce devotion. Tim’s refusal to turn your identity into a deduction. Cass’ simple love. Steph’s joy. Duke’s quiet net. Damian’s solemn promise.
You woke late that morning, exhausted by the strange emotional labour of telling the truth.
The Manor was suspiciously quiet.
Silence in Wayne Manor was rarely peaceful. It usually meant someone was hiding an injury, a crime, or an exotic animal from Bruce.
You dressed and went downstairs.
No one occupied the kitchen. The study was empty. The drawing room was empty. Even the Cave appeared abandoned except for a sticky note on the Batcomputer.
Dining room. Wear shoes. —B
You stared at it.
Bruce’s notes had never inspired confidence.
When you reached the dining room, the doors were closed.
Muffled arguing came from the other side.
“You cannot simply add another layer of icing.”
“You can always add another layer of icing.”
“The cake is listing, Brown.”
“It has personality.”
“It has structural damage.”
“Jason said that gives it character.”
“Jason is banned from engineering.”
You opened the doors.
The arguing stopped. Everyone turned toward you.
The dining room had been transformed. Not into a glittering spectacle, exactly. There were no strangers, no cameras, no grand public declaration. Barbara would never have permitted it, and Bruce appeared to have confiscated most of Steph’s confetti.
Instead, strings of warm lights crossed the ceiling. Small paper stars had been hung between them, each hand-painted in different colours. Flowers sat along the table—some arranged perfectly by Alfred, others clearly shoved into vases by people whose skills leaned more toward vigilantism than floristry.
A banner hung across the far wall.
NO MASKS REQUIRED
The lettering was uneven. Dick had drawn tiny hearts around the edges. Damian had crossed out several of them. Steph had drawn them back. Jason had added a red helmet wearing a rainbow cape. Tim had included a QR code in the bottom corner.
You pointed at it. “What does that lead to?”
“A secure digital archive of support resources, local community groups, legal information, and media recommendations,” Tim said.
Steph leaned toward you. “I added a playlist.”
“She added four playlists,” Barbara corrected.
On the table sat the leaning cake.
In bright icing, it read: CONGRATULATIONS ON BEING EVEN MORE YOU
The word even had been squeezed between the others in a different colour.
“Jason changed the wording,” Dick explained.
“The original said ‘Congratulations on Coming Out,’” Jason said. “Sounded like we were congratulating them for exiting a building.”
“You are aware the phrase has more than one meaning,” Damian said.
“I stand by the edit.”
Bruce stood near the head of the table, holding a small wrapped box. He looked deeply uncomfortable with being the centre of attention, despite not currently being the centre of attention.
“This isn’t because we think your identity requires a ceremony,” he said. “Or because you need to celebrate before you’re ready.”
Dick smiled. “We just wanted you to know that being yourself is never something this family will merely tolerate.”
“It is to be celebrated,” Alfred finished.
Your vision blurred.
“Oh,” you whispered.
Steph’s face crumpled. “Are those good tears? Please say they’re good tears. Alfred made me surrender the confetti cannon, and I need a win.”
“You had a confetti cannon?” Bruce asked sharply.
“No.”
Barbara sighed. “She has three.”
You laughed through the tears.
Bruce approached and handed you the box.
Inside was a key.
You looked up.
“It’s for the Manor,” he said.
“I already have a key.”
“That one was temporary.”
You stared at the small piece of metal resting in your palm.
The new key had been engraved.
On one side was your name.
On the other were the words: YOU HAVE A HOME HERE.
Your breath broke.
Bruce’s expression softened. “This one isn’t temporary.”
Dick reached you first. Then Steph. Jason complained that they were crushing you before joining the hug anyway. Duke wrapped his arms around the entire group. Tim attempted to protect the cake while simultaneously participating. Cass slipped between everyone with impossible ease and pressed her cheek against your shoulder.
Damian stood outside the chaos, arms folded.
You extended one hand toward him. He sighed dramatically before allowing himself to be pulled in.
Alfred remained nearby, smiling.
Barbara watched from the edge with suspiciously bright eyes until Dick stretched out an arm and dragged her chair into the circle.
Bruce was last. He looked at the pile of limbs, hair, and poorly regulated emotion with the wary expression of a man approaching an unstable explosive device.
“Bruce,” you said.
He stepped forward.
The family opened around him. Then he was there too, one arm around you, the other bracing Dick before the entire group could topple into the cake.
You stood at the centre of them, held from every direction.
Weeks ago, you had imagined coming out as stepping into a spotlight beneath which every flaw could be examined. You had imagined the truth making you strange, exposed, solitary.
Instead, it had brought you here.
Not newly loved. Not loved despite anything. Simply given the chance to see the love that had already been waiting.
Later, the cake collapsed.
Steph set off one of the confetti cannons. Jason accused Tim of making the playlist too depressing. Damian complained that the rainbow bandana placed around Titus’ neck was undignified, although he took fourteen photographs. Dick cried openly during a speech he had promised would be “super casual.” Bruce pretended not to notice when you slipped the engraved key onto the chain around your neck.
The celebration was loud, chaotic, and slightly hazardous.
It was perfect.
That evening, when the lights had dimmed and everyone had scattered across the Manor, you stood before the hallway mirror.
Nothing about your reflection had changed. Your face was the same. Your body was the same. The old scars and tired eyes and stubborn curve of your mouth remained exactly where they had always been.
But the key rested against your chest.
Beyond the mirror, photographs lined the wall: galas, birthdays, missions, holidays, accidental disasters. In more recent frames, you stood among them.
Sometimes in the centre. Sometimes at the edge.
Always there.
You touched the key.
Upstairs, Jason shouted that someone had changed his contact name to Pride and Prejudice. Tim denied involvement too quickly. Steph began laughing. Damian demanded everyone lower their voices while somehow becoming the loudest person in the house.
request anon please please please platonic parental jason x teen gn reader? 🥹🤲
content platonic! jason todd & teen!gn!reader, found family, accidental child acquisition (love this ao3 tag), hurt/comfort, child neglect, adoption, light angst, implied physical abuse by a guardian, bruising, food insecurity, homelessness/unstable housing, gun violence, knife violence, vigilante violence, criminal activity, nightmares, trauma responses, fear of abandonment, references to jason's death/childhood abuse, social services & custody proceedings, reader's mum is dead
word count 6.5k
dc masterlist | jason masterlist
The first thing Jason noticed about you was that you had absolutely no sense of self-preservation. The second was that, somehow, it worked.
He had been tracking Hector Webster for three weeks by then, following the trail of stolen weapons from the docks to a string of abandoned warehouses along the east side of Gotham. Webster was not particularly clever, but he was slippery in the way desperate men often were, willing to sacrifice anyone standing nearby if it bought him five more minutes of freedom. Jason had almost caught him twice already. Both times, Webster had thrown one of his own men into the line of fire and vanished into the maze of alleyways before Jason could finish dealing with the collateral damage.
Tonight was supposed to be different. Tonight, Jason had Webster cornered between a condemned apartment block and the crumbling back wall of a laundromat that had not been open since before Batman had adopted his third Robin. The alley was narrow, slick with rain, and lit by the weak electric buzz of a single flickering sign. Webster’s men were unconscious behind him. Webster himself was bleeding from the mouth and breathing hard, one hand clamped around a knife while the other pawed uselessly at the brick wall as if he could dig his way through it.
Jason raised one of his guns. “Drop it.”
Webster laughed, but there was panic caught beneath it. “You don’t shoot people anymore.”
“Who told you that?”
“The Bat.”
“Batman also says to pull my punches. Doesn’t mean I listen.”
Webster’s grip tightened on the knife.
Jason saw the shift in his shoulders a second before he lunged. He stepped sideways, caught Webster’s wrist and twisted, but the rain made everything slick. Webster slammed his forehead into Jason’s helmet. The impact rang through the reinforced casing, not enough to hurt but enough to break his grip. Webster came at him again, faster than Jason had expected, the knife scraping across the armour over his ribs.
Jason drove an elbow into his jaw. Webster stumbled, recovered, and reached inside his coat.
Jason moved for the gun at his thigh.
Then something bright red came flying out of the darkness and struck Webster squarely in the side of the head.
Webster froze. Jason froze.
The object bounced off the wall and landed in a puddle. It was a can of tomato soup.
“What the—”
“Hey, discount Dracula!”
The voice came from above them.
Jason looked up.
You were sitting on the fire escape three floors overhead, one leg hooked through the railing, your soaked hood pulled low over your face. You could not have been older than fifteen. Sixteen at a stretch. You had one hand wrapped around the rusted metal bars and the other digging around inside a plastic grocery bag.
Webster stared at you.
You pulled out a second tin. “I’m talking to you, Nosferatu.”
“Kid,” Jason said carefully, “now is a really bad time to—”
You threw the second can.
Webster ducked this one, but the distraction was enough. Jason crossed the distance between them, caught Webster by the collar and drove him into the wall hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs. The gun inside Webster’s coat clattered onto the pavement. Jason kicked it away, swept Webster’s legs from under him, and pinned him face down in the rain.
It was over in less than five seconds.
Webster groaned. Jason zip-tied his wrists.
Above them, the fire escape creaked.
Jason looked up just in time to see you swing one leg over the railing.
“Don’t,” he said. You paused. “Seriously. Stay there.”
You looked down at him, then at the fire escape ladder hanging nearly twelve feet above the ground. “I got up here fine.”
“Congratulations. Stay there.”
Webster cursed beneath him. Jason tightened the zip tie until the man hissed, then opened a comm channel to report the location to Oracle. He did not mention you. Not yet. He had learned a long time ago that the moment he told the family there was an unsupervised civilian kid in the middle of an active crime scene, the comms would become unusable.
He waited until he heard distant sirens before hauling Webster toward the alley entrance. By the time he came back, you had ignored him completely and climbed down.
Of course you had.
You were standing beside the abandoned soup cans, inspecting one for damage as if you had not just interrupted an armed confrontation between a crime lord and Gotham’s most heavily armed vigilante.
Jason stopped in front of you.
Up close, you looked younger. Not in the face, exactly. There was a sharpness around your eyes that did not belong to someone your age, the wary calculation of a kid who had learned to read rooms before entering them. But your hoodie sleeves swallowed your hands, and one of your shoelaces had been replaced with a piece of yellow string. Rainwater ran from your hood onto your nose.
You put the dented can back into the bag.
Jason folded his arms.
“What,” he asked, “was that?”
You shrugged. “Soup.”
“I know it was soup.”
“Then why’d you ask?”
Jason stared at you through the white lenses of his helmet. You stared back.
Somewhere in the distance, a police siren wailed.
“You threw canned goods at an armed criminal.”
“You were losing.”
“I was not losing.”
“He had a knife.”
“I have guns.”
“You weren’t using them.”
“I was making a choice.”
“You were taking ages.”
Jason inhaled slowly. This, he thought, was probably how Bruce felt every time one of them had been a teenager. The realisation did not inspire sympathy. It mostly inspired the urge to go back in time and apologise to exactly no one.
“What’s your name?”
Your shoulders tightened.
There it was. Not fear, exactly. More like a door slamming shut.
Jason changed tactics. “Fine. Don’t tell me. How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Nineteen.”
“You are getting worse at this.”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Kid.”
You looked away.
The flickering laundromat sign painted one side of your face an unsteady blue. There was a bruise along your jaw, yellowing at the edges. Too old to have come from tonight. Jason’s attention dropped to the plastic bag. Four cans of soup, a packet of stale crackers, two cereal bars and a bruised apple.
No umbrella. No coat. No phone visible.
He looked at the time displayed inside his helmet. Two seventeen in the morning.
“Why are you out here?”
“Shopping.”
“At two in the morning.”
“The shop’s open twenty-four hours.”
“Where’s your adult?”
You laughed, and the sound was so humourless that Jason felt something cold settle behind his ribs. “My adult?”
“Parent. Guardian. Older sibling. Whoever’s meant to be making sure you’re not wandering around Crime Alley in the middle of the night, throwing groceries at gun smugglers.”
“No one asked you to make sure.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
You shifted the bag to your other hand. “Can I go?”
Jason looked at the bruise again. Then at the worn soles of your trainers. Then at the packet of crackers visible through the thin plastic.
“Where do you live?” Your face closed completely. “Yeah,” Jason murmured. “Thought so.”
“I have somewhere.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“You made it my business when you joined my fight.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You could’ve been shot.”
“But I wasn’t.”
“You could have been.”
“But I wasn’t.”
“That doesn’t make it smart.”
“It worked.”
Jason had to resist the sudden, powerful urge to pick you up by the back of your hoodie and carry you somewhere safe by force.
It was not an unfamiliar urge. He had grown up in Gotham. He knew how the city made children sharp at the edges. It taught them to steal before it taught them algebra, taught them which footsteps to run from and which shop owners would look the other way when they slipped a sandwich beneath an oversized coat. Gotham raised its children like weapons and then acted surprised when they came out dangerous.
Jason had been one of them.
Maybe that was why you irritated him so immediately. You stood like he used to stand, balanced on the balls of your feet, ready to bolt. You answered questions with questions and wore bravado like body armour. Even the soup had been stolen. He could see the security sticker half-peeled from the bottom of one can.
“Did you take those?”
Your grip tightened on the bag.
Jason sighed. “I’m not a cop.”
“You’re wearing a helmet and carrying guns.”
“Not traditionally part of the uniform.”
“You beat people up.”
“Cops don’t have exclusive rights to that.”
For the first time, your mouth twitched. It vanished quickly, but Jason saw it.
He reached slowly into one of the pouches at his belt.
You flinched.
It was small. Barely there. A quick movement of your shoulders and a single step backwards, but Jason felt it like a blow.
He stopped. Then he pulled out a wrapped protein bar and held it toward you.
You eyed it suspiciously. “What?”
“You look hungry.”
“I’m not.”
Your stomach growled loudly enough that even the rain could not cover it.
Jason looked pointedly at your abdomen. You glared at him.
“Traitor,” you muttered.
He almost laughed.
Almost.
“Take it.”
“I don’t need charity.”
“It’s not charity. It’s payment.”
“For what?”
“The soup.”
“You didn’t buy the soup.”
“Neither did you.”
You stared at each other.
Then you snatched the protein bar from his hand.
Jason decided not to comment on the speed with which you opened it.
He waited until you had taken three bites before speaking again. “Where you going?”
“Home.”
“And where’s that?”
“Around.”
“That’s not a place.”
“It is in Gotham.”
Unfortunately, you had him there.
Jason glanced toward the mouth of the alley. The sirens were louder now. Webster would be collected soon, along with the men Jason had left unconscious near the warehouse. He should leave before the police arrived. He also could not leave you here.
“You’re coming with me.”
You nearly choked. “No.”
“Wasn’t asking.”
“Pretty sure that’s kidnapping.”
“Pretty sure you’re a minor out after curfew with stolen food and a bruise on your face.”
“So?”
“So either I walk you home, or you come somewhere warm while we figure out who’s supposed to be looking after you.”
“No.”
“You already said that.”
“I meant it both times.”
Jason stepped forward. You stepped back.
He stopped again. There was something in your face now that had not been there before. Real fear. Quiet, controlled, but unmistakable. Your hand curled around the half-eaten protein bar until the wrapper crackled.
Jason knew that expression. He had seen it in mirrors.
He lowered his voice. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“That’s what people say.”
“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “It is.”
Rain tapped steadily against the helmet.
Jason looked at the alley around them, at the black windows overhead and the overflowing rubbish bags piled near the kerb. There were a dozen ways to force the issue. He could call Batman. He could call social services anonymously. He could follow you without your knowledge, find out where you slept and investigate from there.
Every option felt like a trap closing around you. So Jason reached up and removed his helmet.
Cold rain struck his face immediately.
You stared. Most civilians knew Red Hood’s face was hidden for a reason. Even with the domino mask beneath the helmet, the gesture meant something. It was vulnerability, or as close as Jason Todd tended to get while standing in an alley at two in the morning.
“My name’s Jason,” he said.
Your eyes flicked over his face, pausing at the white streak in his hair and the scar cut through one eyebrow. “That your real name?”
“Yeah.”
“Why would you tell me?”
“Because I’m asking you to trust me for the next ten minutes.”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
“That makes two of us.”
“You’re a vigilante.”
“You threw soup at a gunman.”
“He looked annoying.”
“He was annoying.”
That almost-smile appeared again.
Jason held out the helmet.
You stared at it. “What?”
“Hold this.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s expensive.”
“That does not answer my question.”
“It’ll keep your hands busy while you decide whether you’re going to run.”
You hesitated, then took it.
The helmet looked too large in your arms.
Jason turned his back on you. It was a calculated risk. You could run. You could drop the helmet and vanish into the dark. You could hit him with it, though he doubted you would get much out of the attempt.
He took two steps toward the alley mouth.
Behind him, your shoes scraped against the pavement.
Not away.
Closer.
Jason did not let himself react.
“My bike’s around the corner,” he said. “I’ve got a place ten minutes from here. Food, heat, clean towels. You stay until the rain lets up. Then you can decide what happens next.”
“Just for the rain?”
“Just for the rain.”
“And you’re not calling anyone?”
“Not without telling you first.”
“That’s not the same as no.”
“No,” Jason agreed. “It isn’t.”
You were silent for several seconds.
Then you handed him the helmet. “Your head’s weirdly big.”
Jason put it back on. “Get on the bike.”
His safehouse was not designed for guests.
It was barely designed for him. There was one bedroom, a narrow bathroom, a kitchen with mismatched cupboards and a living room dominated by weapons cases disguised as cheap furniture. Books had colonised every available surface. A leather jacket hung over the back of the sofa. Three mugs sat beside the sink, though Jason lived alone and had no idea how all three had become dirty.
You stopped just inside the doorway.
Jason locked it behind you, then immediately stepped away so you would not feel blocked in.
“Bathroom’s there,” he said. “Towels under the sink. I’ll find you something dry.”
You stayed where you were. Water dripped from your clothes onto the floorboards.
Jason pulled off his helmet and set it on the kitchen counter. “You can keep your shoes on.”
“I wasn’t going to take them off.”
“Great. Saves us both time.”
He went into the bedroom and found an old T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants with a drawstring. They would drown you, but they were dry. When he came back, you had moved exactly three feet farther into the room.
You were looking at the books. “Those yours?”
“No, I broke into someone else’s apartment to use their shower.”
“You’re sarcastic.”
“So are you.”
“I’m charming.”
“You threw soup at a man.”
“That was charming.”
Jason handed you the clothes. You took them carefully.
His eyes caught on the bruise along your jaw again. “What happened there?”
You touched it automatically, then dropped your hand. “Fell.”
“Into a fist?”
“Into a door.”
“Someone open it into you?”
Your expression sharpened. “Bathroom, you said?”
Jason’s jaw tightened, but he pointed down the hall.
You disappeared inside and locked the door. He heard the lock click twice.
Jason stood in the middle of the living room for a long moment.
Then he pulled out his phone.
He did not call Bruce. That would turn one frightened kid into a family emergency. Dick would start making gentle eyes. Tim would quietly run a background check on every missing teenager in Gotham. Damian would pretend not to care while preparing a list of suitable weapons for self-defence. Bruce would arrive in the Batmobile and somehow make everything ten times more intimidating simply by standing there.
Instead, Jason texted Oracle.
Need a discreet search. No alerts.
Her reply came almost immediately.
Age? Name?
Teen. No name yet. Found near Park Row. Bruise. Hungry. Says they have somewhere to live.
Three dots appeared.
Then:
That sentence has never once ended well.
No kidding.
Get me something to work with.
Jason looked toward the bathroom.
The shower had not started.
He crossed the living room and stopped outside the door. “You okay?”
Silence.
“Kid?”
“I’m changing.”
“The shower works.”
“I know.”
Another pause.
Jason leaned against the wall, careful not to touch the door. “You don’t have to use it.”
“I know.”
“You can just change and come out.”
“I know.”
He recognised the brittle edge in your voice. Too many choices could be their own kind of threat when you were used to having none.
“I’m making food,” he said. “Any allergies?”
“No.”
“Anything you hate?”
“No.”
“That’s statistically unlikely.”
“I don’t care.”
Jason pushed away from the wall. “Grilled cheese it is.”
“You said food.”
“Keep talking and I’ll burn yours.”
He heard something suspiciously like a laugh from behind the door. It was small, muffled quickly, but it loosened something in his chest.
By the time you came out, the sandwiches were done and a pan of soup was warming on the stove. Tomato, because Jason enjoyed irony and because it was the only kind he had in the cupboard.
You had rolled the sweatpants four times at the waist. The T-shirt reached halfway down your thighs. Your wet clothes were clutched against your chest.
Jason pointed toward a chair near the radiator. “Put those there.”
You did, but only after checking the pockets. Then you sat at the table and stared at the plate he placed in front of you.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Then eat.”
You picked up half the sandwich.
Jason turned away under the pretence of checking the soup. In the reflection of the microwave door, he watched you take one cautious bite, then another, then eat the entire half in less than a minute.
He poured the soup into two bowls.
“You live alone?” you asked.
“Mostly.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means people ignore my boundaries.”
“Family?”
Jason set a bowl in front of you. “Unfortunately.”
You looked around the apartment again. “They know you do this?”
Jason waited until you had eaten enough that your shoulders had begun to lower. “What’s your name?”
You kept your eyes on the bowl. He did not push.
After nearly a minute, you told him.
Your voice was quiet, as if the name itself was something precious you were not used to handing over.
Jason repeated it once.
You looked up sharply. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You said it weird.”
“I said it normally.”
“You said it like you were going to remember.”
Jason leaned back in his chair. “Usually how names work.”
Your gaze dropped again.
Jason texted Oracle beneath the table. He gave her your first name, approximate age and location. It was not much. Gotham had thousands of teenagers, and too many of them were unaccounted for.
Still, Oracle was Oracle. The reply came twelve minutes later, while you were scraping the last of the soup from the bowl.
Possible match. Fifteen. School absence issues. Lives with maternal aunt. Mother deceased. Father not listed. Welfare reports made twice, closed after home visits.
Jason read the message twice.
Any details?
Aunt has prior charges for possession and assault. Current address is six blocks from where you found them.
His stomach turned cold.
You noticed. “What?”
Jason placed his phone face-down. “Your aunt know you’re out?”
The spoon stopped halfway to your mouth.
There it was.
Confirmation.
You set it down carefully. “You said you weren’t calling anyone.”
“I didn’t.”
“How do you know about my aunt?”
“I have a friend who’s good with computers.”
“You looked me up.”
“I needed to know if someone was searching for you.”
“No one’s searching for me.”
The words came out too quickly.
Jason felt anger flare behind his ribs, sudden and familiar. Not at you. Never at you. At the aunt who had not noticed you were gone. At the social workers who had visited and found whatever performance your guardian offered convincing enough to close the file. At Gotham, which had been swallowing children for longer than either of you had been alive.
He kept his voice steady. “How long have you been out tonight?”
You stood.
The chair legs scraped harshly against the floor.
“I’m leaving.”
“Your clothes are soaked.”
“I don’t care.”
“It’s still raining.”
“I said I’m leaving.”
Jason rose, but kept the table between you. “I’m not stopping you.”
You froze.
He hated the surprise on your face.
Jason nodded toward the radiator. “Take your clothes. Keep mine if you want. There’s more food in the cupboard.”
You did not move.
“But,” he continued, “I need you to answer one question first.”
“No.”
“You can lie if you want.”
Your eyes narrowed.
“Is your aunt the person who gave you that bruise?”
The apartment became very quiet.
Outside, tyres hissed over wet pavement.
You looked toward the door.
Jason knew the answer before you spoke.
“She didn’t mean to.”
His hands curled into fists at his sides. He forced them open.
“What happened?”
“She was drunk.”
“That’s not an excuse.”
“I know.”
“Has it happened before?”
You crossed your arms tightly.
Jason softened his voice. “You can lie.”
Your mouth trembled. You looked furious about it.
“She gets mad,” you said. “Sometimes.”
“How often is sometimes?”
“She’s not always bad.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“She took me in.”
“That doesn’t mean she gets to hurt you.”
“You don’t know her.”
“No,” Jason said. “I know you’re fifteen, you’re out at two in the morning buying food you can’t afford, and you flinched when I reached for my belt. I know there are bruises on your face and nobody has called to ask where you are.”
You swallowed hard. “She’ll be better tomorrow.”
Jason had said things like that once.
Not those exact words. But close enough.
His father would be calmer tomorrow. His mother would wake up tomorrow. The electricity would come back tomorrow. Someone would notice tomorrow. Batman would save the city tomorrow. Tomorrow was a dangerous promise. It kept kids alive, sometimes. It also kept them in places that were killing them.
Jason moved around the table slowly and sat on the edge of the sofa, lowering himself until he was no longer towering over you.
“You can stay here tonight.”
Your chin lifted. “You said until the rain stopped.”
“I lied.”
“You’re bad at trust.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because if I told you I wanted you to stay before, you would’ve run.”
You glanced toward the door again.
Jason followed your gaze. “You can still go.”
“Why would you let me?”
“Because trapping you won’t make you feel safe.”
Something in your expression cracked. It was not dramatic. You did not collapse or start sobbing. You simply looked suddenly, terribly tired.
“I don’t have anywhere else,” you whispered.
Jason’s anger went quiet.
Not gone. Never gone. But sharpened into something useful.
“You do tonight.”
You slept on the sofa. Jason did not sleep at all.
He gave you the bedroom first. You refused. He offered to take the sofa. You refused that too, glaring at him as if the suggestion itself was suspicious. Eventually, he found a spare blanket in the cupboard and left it folded beside you.
You waited until he had gone into the bedroom before pulling it over yourself.
Jason left the door open.
He sat on the edge of the mattress with both guns disassembled across his knees, cleaning each piece with methodical care while listening to the apartment settle. Pipes knocked in the walls. The refrigerator hummed. Rain tapped against the window.
At three forty-two, he heard your breathing finally deepen.
At four fifteen, you startled awake.
Jason was in the living room before you could get your feet beneath you.
You were sitting upright, one hand clamped over your mouth, eyes wide and unfocused.
He stopped several feet away. “Nightmare?”
You stared at him. “Where am I?”
“My place.”
Your breathing came too fast.
“Jason,” he said. “My name’s Jason. We met in the alley. You insulted my head.”
Recognition returned slowly.
You lowered your hand. “Sorry.”
“For what?”
“Waking you.”
“I was awake.”
“That’s worse.”
“Probably.”
You looked toward the window. “Is it morning?”
“Not yet.”
You drew your knees beneath the blanket.
Jason sat on the floor with his back against the opposite wall.
“Do you always do that?” you asked.
“Do what?”
“Wake up when someone else does.”
Jason considered lying. “Mostly.”
“Why?”
“Same reason you do.”
You stared at him for a long moment.
Then you looked away.
Neither of you said anything else.
By sunrise, you were asleep again.
Jason made pancakes.
He had no idea why. He usually drank coffee and called it breakfast, occasionally adding toast when Alfred’s voice in the back of his mind became particularly judgmental. But pancakes felt like the sort of thing an adult was supposed to make for a kid who had woken from a nightmare in a strange apartment.
The first batch burned. The second looked diseased.
The third was acceptable if viewed from a distance.
You shuffled into the kitchen wearing his shirt and rubbing one eye. “What happened?”
“Breakfast.”
“Did it fight back?”
“Sit down.”
You sat.
Jason placed a plate in front of you.
You poked one pancake with a fork. “It moved.”
“It did not.”
“I saw it.”
“Eat your haunted pancake.”
You took a bite. Your face did something complicated.
“That bad?”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m trying to be polite.”
“You threw soup at a criminal yesterday.”
“I contain multitudes.”
Jason poured you a glass of orange juice.
You watched him over the rim. “What happens now?”
There it was. The question he had been avoiding since four in the morning.
Jason leaned against the counter. “Now, you tell me what you want.”
“What I want?”
“Yeah.”
“Adults don’t usually ask that.”
“Most adults are idiots.”
You looked down at the pancakes. “I can’t go back.”
Relief and fury moved through him in equal measure. “Okay.”
Your head lifted. “Okay?”
“Okay. You don’t go back.”
“What about my stuff?”
“I’ll get it.”
“She’ll be there.”
“That sounds like her problem.”
“You can’t just break into her flat.”
“I don’t break into places.”
“You’re a vigilante.”
“I enter creatively.”
A small smile tugged at your mouth.
Then it disappeared.
“Where am I supposed to go?”
Jason had options.
Not good ones. He could contact child services and hope the third report succeeded where the first two had failed. He could call Bruce and let Wayne money carve a clean, legal path through Gotham’s bureaucracy. He could ask Dick, who had somehow become the family expert in frightened teenagers despite still behaving like one whenever cereal was involved. He could reach out to Leslie Thompkins, who would understand immediately and ask fewer intrusive questions than anyone else.
All of those options involved handing you over. Jason found that he did not want to.
The realisation arrived whole and inconvenient.
He had known you for less than twelve hours. You had insulted him repeatedly, stolen soup and bled rainwater over his floor. You were wary, stubborn and reckless enough to involve yourself in a gunfight because a stranger in a red helmet looked like he might need help.
Jason understood you. That was the problem.
He knew what happened to kids like you when adults passed them from hand to hand, each promising safety and none willing to stay when safety became difficult. He knew the careful silence of unfamiliar homes. He knew what it felt like to keep your shoes beside the bed in case you needed to run.
“You can stay here,” he said.
You went still.
“For now,” Jason added quickly. “Until we sort something permanent.”
“You don’t know me.”
“You saved my life.”
“You said you weren’t losing.”
“I was being dramatic.”
“You had guns.”
“He had an ugly coat. Could’ve gone either way.”
You studied his face as if searching for the trick.
Jason let you.
“What do you get?” you asked.
“Headaches, probably.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“People don’t just let someone stay.”
“Someone did for me.”
The words slipped out before he could stop them.
You glanced around the apartment again, at the books and the second-hand furniture and the helmet resting on the counter.
“Batman?”
Jason grimaced. “Unfortunately.”
Your eyes widened. “You’re one of his?”
“Don’t phrase it like that.”
“You’re Robin.”
“I was Robin.”
“No way.”
“Lower your voice.”
“You’re one of the Robins.”
“I’m reconsidering the offer.”
“Which one?”
“The best-looking one.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down.”
Jason stared.
You smiled properly for the first time.
It transformed your face. The bruise was still there. So were the shadows beneath your eyes. But for one brief second, you looked your age.
Jason felt something in his chest give way.
“Finish breakfast,” he muttered.
“You’re bad at pancakes.”
“You can go back to your aunt.”
The smile vanished.
Jason’s stomach dropped.
“Hey,” he said immediately. “No. That was a joke. A bad one.”
You pushed the plate away.
Jason crossed the kitchen and crouched beside the chair. “I’m sorry.”
Your jaw tightened.
“I’m not sending you back.”
“You don’t have to keep saying it.”
“I think I do.”
You looked at him then.
Jason held your gaze.
“I’m not sending you back,” he repeated. “Not today. Not tomorrow. Not when you get annoying, which I’m guessing will be frequently. Not when this gets complicated.”
“You don’t know how complicated.”
“Kid, my family tree looks like a conspiracy board.”
Despite yourself, your mouth twitched.
Jason rested his forearms on his knees.
“I’m not promising it’ll be easy,” he said. “There’ll be social workers. Paperwork. Questions. We’ll need help from people I trust. You might hate some of it.”
“I already hate most things.”
“Great. You’ll fit in.”
You looked down at your hands. “Can I keep the shirt?”
Jason glanced at the faded university logo across your chest. “It’s my favourite.”
“You have six others.”
“How do you know?”
“I looked in the wardrobe.”
“You went through my stuff?”
“I was checking for hidden cameras.”
Jason closed his eyes. “You’re going to be a nightmare.”
“You said I could stay.”
“Yeah,” he said.
The word came out softer than he intended. You heard it anyway.
The legal process took months.
Bruce tried to make it take weeks.
Jason nearly shot him when he suggested moving you to the manor “temporarily,” not because the manor was unsafe but because you had chosen Jason’s cramped safehouse. You had begun leaving your shoes beside the door instead of beside the sofa. Your toothbrush sat in a chipped mug in the bathroom. Your schoolbooks spread across the kitchen table every evening, pushing Jason’s weapons-cleaning supplies onto the counter.
Moving you again, even somewhere larger and grander, would have felt like proving every fear you carried correct.
So Bruce funded a lawyer. Barbara untangled old reports. Leslie documented the bruises, the malnutrition and the history you revealed in careful pieces. Dick brought groceries without making a big deal of it. Tim set up a laptop for school and pretended not to notice when you slept with it under the bed for the first week. Damian informed you that throwing soup was an inefficient combat technique, then spent an entire afternoon teaching you how to use a weighted training baton.
Jason established rules. You hated all of them.
No patrols. No leaving after ten without telling him. No stealing unless survival depended on it, and even then, call him first. School attendance was non-negotiable. No weapons in bed.
The last rule was added after he discovered a kitchen knife beneath your pillow.
You shouted. He shouted louder.
You told him he was not your father.
The words landed between you like broken glass.
Jason went silent.
So did you.
Your anger collapsed immediately, leaving terror behind.
You looked toward the door.
Jason saw it. The expectation. The certainty that you had finally pushed too far, that he would decide you were not worth the trouble and send you away.
He sat down at the kitchen table.
“No,” he said. You remained standing. “I’m not your father.”
Your face crumpled.
Jason continued before you could speak. “But I am the guy who checks whether you ate lunch. I’m the guy who picks you up from school when you get suspended for punching some little punk who deserved it but still shouldn’t have been punched on school property.”
“He made fun of your helmet.”
“I know. His criticism lacked nuance.”
A wet laugh escaped you.
Jason’s throat tightened. “I’m the guy who leaves the hall light on because you hate waking up in the dark,” he said. “I’m the guy who knows you pretend not to like the marshmallows in hot chocolate and steal them out of my mug when you think I’m not looking. I’m the guy who’s going to keep showing up.”
You wiped your face with the sleeve of your hoodie.
Jason pointed toward the chair opposite him.
After a moment, you sat.
“The knife makes you feel safe,” he said. You nodded. “Okay. We’ll find something else.”
“You said no weapons.”
“I said no weapons in bed. We can put a lock on your door. Alarm on the window. Panic button beside the mattress.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You won’t take the knife?”
“I’m taking the knife.” Your shoulders tensed. “And replacing it with something less likely to stab you when you roll over.”
You glared at him through tears.
Jason held out his hand.
It took almost a full minute before you placed the knife in his palm.
He closed his fingers around the handle.
“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” he said.
“I wasn’t trying to.”
“I know.”
That night, Jason installed three locks, a window sensor and an emergency button connected directly to his phone.
You slept through until morning.
The adoption papers arrived on a Thursday.
Jason pretended it was not adoption at first.
“Permanent guardianship,” he corrected whenever Dick used the word.
Dick smiled in a way Jason found deeply irritating. “You’re adopting them.”
“It says guardianship.”
“You’re buying them school uniforms.”
“They need clothes.”
“You went to a parent-teacher conference.”
“Their maths teacher has it out for them.”
“They set fire to a worksheet.”
“It was algebra. I understood the impulse.”
“You packed them lunch in a little box.”
“It was the only clean container.”
“It had a note inside.”
Jason threatened to throw Dick off the roof.
The hearing was small. Bruce attended in an expensive suit that made the courthouse staff nervous. Leslie sat beside him. Barbara watched remotely because an emergency at the clock tower kept her away, though she sent seventeen messages before noon. Tim brought coffee. Damian brought a knife as a gift and seemed genuinely offended when the security guard confiscated it.
You sat beside Jason in clothes Alfred had helped choose, your knee bouncing beneath the table.
Jason placed one hand over it.
You went still.
“You okay?” he murmured.
“What if they say no?”
“They won’t.”
“What if they do?”
“Then we appeal.”
“And if that doesn’t work?”
“We appeal again.”
“And if—”
“Kid.”
You looked at him.
Jason leaned closer. “You’re coming home with me today.”
The word home caught in the air.
You swallowed. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
The judge asked questions.
Jason answered most of them badly. Yes, he had stable employment, though explaining the source of Red Hood’s income required creative phrasing and significant intervention from Bruce’s lawyer. Yes, the apartment met safety requirements, now that the weapons had been moved into locked storage. Yes, he understood the responsibilities involved in caring for a teenager.
That question almost made him laugh. He had been caring for you for months. He knew which cereal you liked and which nightmares left you unable to speak. He knew you studied better with music playing, that you hated socks with seams, that you became quiet before you became angry and angry before you became afraid. He knew the exact sound your key made in the lock and how long to wait before checking on you after a bad day.
He knew you.
You knew him too. You knew his nightmares made him pace. You knew he forgot to eat when cases became difficult. You knew the scars along his shoulders ached before storms and that he secretly liked the ridiculous patterned socks Alfred bought him every Christmas. You knew when to talk and when to sit nearby without saying anything.
The judge looked between you.
Then she signed the papers.
Outside the courthouse, you stood on the steps clutching the folder against your chest. The city moved around you. Cars passed. People hurried along the pavement. Somewhere nearby, a street vendor shouted about hot dogs.
Jason shoved his hands into his jacket pockets.
“So,” he said.
“So.”
“You’re stuck with me.”
You nodded. “Tragic.”
“Devastating.”
“You want lunch?”
“Can we get soup?”
Jason looked at you. Your expression was perfectly innocent.
“Absolutely not.”
“It’s sentimental.”
“It was a weapon.”
“It was our first bonding activity.”
“You assaulted a man with tinned tomatoes.”
“I saved your life.”
“You distracted him.”
“Heroically.”
Jason started down the steps. You followed.
At the bottom, you caught the sleeve of his jacket.
He stopped.
You did not look at him. “Can I call you something?”
His heart stumbled.
Jason kept his voice light. “Depends. If it’s Old Man, I’m leaving you here.”
“Not that.”
You tightened your grip on his sleeve.
Jason waited.
The city seemed to quiet around you, though he knew it had not. Gotham was never quiet. It breathed in sirens and shouted conversations, in footsteps against cracked pavement and the distant rumble of trains beneath the streets.
You looked up.
“Dad?”
Jason forgot how to speak.
Your face changed immediately. “You don’t have to—”
“Yeah,” he said, too quickly.
You blinked.
Jason cleared his throat. “Yeah. You can.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
Neither of you moved.
Then you stepped forward and wrapped your arms around him.
Jason stood rigid for half a second.
After that, he folded himself around you. One hand cradled the back of your head. The other pressed between your shoulder blades. You buried your face against his jacket, and Jason held on with a carefulness that hurt.
He had been many things in his life.
A street kid. A thief. A Robin. A corpse. A weapon. A warning. A son who did not know how to forgive his father.
He had never expected to become someone’s safe place. But here you were, holding him as if he was.
Jason closed his eyes.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured.
You clung tighter. “I know.”
That night, he left the hall light on.
Not because you needed it anymore. Because somewhere along the way, it had become a promise.
There would always be a light waiting when you came home.
So this one is the Hunter X Hunter gang with Horohoro!reader
Horohoro is from Shaman King it I dont expect you to have seen it or even read the manga but if you have Netflix the reboot anime is in there (Shaman King Flowers is a different thing so please dont confuse the two)
hi, i have not a clue about this fandom so i dont think i can write ;( i have looked through all your messages so any i dont reply to i will likely be doing!
Feel free to veto this request if it goes against the rules, I wasn't entirely sure if it would? I was wondering if we could maybe get a reader inspired by like, Travis Phelps from Sally face, where they were raised a mega Christian and have internalized homophobia due to it. Working through that, especially when they get a crush on Tim and Dick?
hi! i have not a clue about this fandom so im not sure i could write! for future reference tho im good with the premise!
AHHHH I LOVE YOU WORK SM RAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA it's so peak!!!!!!
Would like to request a fic about the Batfamily with Selina if she had a protégé and he was just some petty thief she took in who's like an honorary younger sibling in the batfam <333 TAKE YOUR TIME OFC
request would like to request a fic about the batfamily with aelina if she had a protégé and they were just some petty thief she took in who's like an honorary younger sibling in the batfam <333
content platonic batfam x gn!reader, selina's protege!reader, thief!reader, found family, hurt/comfort, abandonment issues, near death experience, injiry recovery, canon-typical violence, explosions, fire, building collapse, temporary entrapment, near-fall, minor injuries, cracked ribs, blood, references to homelessness, childhood neglect, implied past trauma, criminal activity, theft, reckless self-endangerment
word count 5.1k
masterlist
The first thing you ever stole from Selina Kyle was her wallet.
It had not been a particularly good attempt. You had been fourteen, hungry enough that the city seemed made entirely of things you could not afford, and angry enough that getting caught had felt like a problem for the future version of you. Gotham had been drowning beneath an autumn storm. Water ran through the gutters in black rivers, carrying cigarette ends and oil-slick rainbows towards drains already choking on dead leaves.
Selina had been wearing a coat worth more than everything you owned combined. You had seen the flash of expensive leather beneath the half-buttoned fabric. You had seen the careless way the wallet sat near the top of her handbag, almost exposed, almost begging.
You had not seen the amusement in her eyes when you bumped into her.
Your fingers slipped into the bag.
Her hand closed around your wrist.
“Cute,” she had said.
You had twisted, kicked, and very nearly bitten her. That had made her laugh.
It had been the first warm sound anyone had directed at you in months.
Selina had taken her wallet back, bought you dinner and asked no questions until you had finished eating. Then she had asked the right ones. Where did you sleep? Who was looking for you? How long had you been alone? Did you always telegraph your movements so badly, or had the rain made you sloppy?
You had lied about everything except the last answer.
The rain had not made you sloppy. You had simply never been taught properly.
Selina corrected that.
Years later, crouched beside her on the ledge of a jewellery exchange in Gotham’s Diamond District, you thought about how much had changed since then. Your gloves were better now. Your balance was precise. Your breathing barely stirred the rain clinging to the collar of your suit. Below you, traffic crawled through the streets, headlights smeared into pale ribbons by the water.
Selina glanced sideways. “You’re brooding.”
“I’m observing.”
“You’re wearing a mask and staring dramatically into the middle distance.”
“It’s how Batman observes.”
“Yes, and when he does it, it’s brooding.”
A gravelled voice came through your earpiece. “I can hear you.”
Selina smiled. “I know.”
You bit the inside of your cheek to keep from laughing.
Across the street, Batman occupied the shadow of a stone gargoyle. Even after years of knowing Bruce, you sometimes forgot he was there until he moved. It was one of the few skills Selina had never managed to teach you. You could vanish from security guards, gangsters and most of the Gotham Police Department, but Batman always seemed to sense where you were.
Selina claimed it was because he had the migratory instincts of a particularly anxious bat. Bruce claimed nothing.
Tonight’s job was supposed to be simple. A private security company called Halberd Solutions had been transporting stolen antiquities through Gotham, using legitimate jewellery shipments as cover. Selina had discovered the operation after several pieces belonging to an old friend appeared in an underground auction catalogue. Batman had traced the shipments. Oracle had found the exchange’s hidden sublevels.
The plan was to get in, photograph the inventory, place trackers on anything scheduled to move and leave before Halberd realised its operation had been compromised.
No fighting. No improvising. No stealing.
Bruce had looked directly at both you and Selina when he said the last part.
It was frankly insulting. You had not stolen anything from an active crime scene in nearly six months. The sapphire cufflinks in your apartment did not count. The Penguin had not been wearing them at the time.
“Positions,” Oracle said through the comms. “Nightwing and Signal are covering the eastern exits. Red Hood is watching the loading bay. Robin and Spoiler have the roof. Orphan is already inside.”
“Of course she is,” you murmured.
A soft click answered through the comms. Cass’ version of laughter.
Selina rose smoothly, grappling line already in hand. “Ready, kitten?”
You had outgrown the nickname years ago. Selina continued using it because she knew it made you scowl. “After you, old lady.”
Selina gasped as if wounded, then stepped backwards off the roof.
You followed.
The descent was clean. The glass cutter made barely a sound against the skylight, and the security loop Tim had installed gave you exactly thirty-seven seconds to slip through before the internal camera feed resumed.
You landed inside a dark office.
Selina touched two fingers to her lips and pointed towards the door.
Footsteps passed in the corridor beyond.
You waited. The guard moved on.
Selina picked the lock in four seconds. You could do it in three, but only because she had once made you practise until your fingertips bled and then informed you that blood left forensic evidence.
The lower floors were quiet. Too quiet, perhaps, but Gotham trained its children to distrust stillness. Silence was rarely safety. It was the breath before a fist came down.
Cass appeared as you reached the service stairwell, emerging from the dark so suddenly that you almost struck her.
She caught your wrist before you could.
“Rude,” you whispered.
Cass smiled and released you.
“Clear,” she signed.
You answered with one hand. “Show-off.”
Her smile widened.
The three of you descended together.
You had learned Batfamily sign language in pieces. Cass had taught you how to speak in movement. Dick had taught you the alphabet by signing increasingly terrible jokes across the Cave. Jason had taught you insults. Damian had insisted that Jason’s additions were neither official nor grammatically correct, which only made them more useful.
You had never been formally inducted into the family. There had been no ceremony, no declaration, no framed photograph placed on a mantel. You did not live at Wayne Manor, although there was always a bedroom prepared for you. You did not wear a bat on your chest. You were not a Wayne.
You were Selina’s.
That was how everyone had first understood you. Selina’s protégé. Selina’s stray. Selina’s shadow, trailing her across Gotham’s rooftops with sharp eyes and sharper fingers.
Over time, however, the distinctions had blurred. Dick began texting you memes at impossible hours. Jason started leaving books at your apartment and pretending he had forgotten them. Tim called when he needed someone to break into his own office because he had misplaced his access card. Steph dragged you shopping. Duke saved you a seat at movie nights. Cass sometimes appeared beside you without warning and stayed for hours in comfortable silence.
Damian referred to you as an adequate criminal. From him, it was practically a sonnet.
Bruce kept medical supplies calibrated to your measurements in the Cave. Alfred kept your preferred tea in the pantry.
Still, there were nights when you looked around the Cave and felt like a guest who had remained so long that everyone had become too polite to ask when you were leaving.
You knew how temporary kindness could be. You knew better than to mistake an unlocked window for ownership.
The hidden sublevel lay beneath the building’s main vault. Tim killed the alarms while Selina opened the mechanical locks, muttering appreciatively at the craftsmanship.
“You sound like Jason talking about guns,” you whispered.
Selina looked offended. “My interests are much more refined.”
“You once spent forty minutes explaining the emotional significance of a diamond.”
“It was a historically important diamond.”
“You called it misunderstood.”
“It was.”
Cass signed for you both to stop talking.
The final door opened onto a warehouse larger than the building above should have physically contained.
Rows of reinforced crates stretched beneath white fluorescent lights. Sculptures stood wrapped in grey cloth. Paintings sat locked within climate-controlled cases. Gold icons, ceremonial blades and fragments of ancient stone rested beside modern weapons and stacks of unregistered currency.
Selina went still.
You knew that stillness. It was not the graceful pause of a predator. It was the moment anger turned cold enough to become useful.
“Running serial numbers now,” Barbara said. “Several match items stolen during the evacuations after the Narrows flooding. Others were reported destroyed.”
“They stole from disaster zones,” you said.
The words came out harsher than intended.
During your first winter with Selina, there had been a fire in the building where the two of you were staying. Not one of her better apartments, she always insisted, but it had been the first place you had begun to think of as home. While tenants crowded on the pavement and watched smoke swallow their lives, thieves had picked through the rooms the firefighters had cleared.
They had taken the only photograph you still possessed from before Gotham swallowed you whole.
You had searched every pawnshop in the East End. You never found it.
“Catalogue everything,” Bruce said. “No one touches the inventory beyond placing trackers.”
You stared at a tray of jewellery recovered from somewhere people had already lost too much.
“No stealing,” you said bitterly. “Right.”
Selina’s hand brushed your shoulder. It was brief but deliberate.
“Evidence first,” she said quietly. “Then we take it all back.”
That was something she had taught you, too. Wanting justice did not mean grabbing blindly. Sometimes you needed patience. Sometimes the cleanest theft was the one no one realised had happened until everything they had built collapsed around them.
You began photographing crates.
For five minutes, the operation remained perfectly quiet.
Then every light in the warehouse turned red. Steel shutters slammed over the exits. A mechanical voice announced, “Security breach detected.”
“Oracle?” Bruce demanded.
“I didn’t trigger it,” Barbara replied. “Someone isolated the internal system. I’m locked out.”
Armed guards poured from concealed doors between the crates. So much for no fighting.
Cass moved first. She crossed the floor like spilled ink, silent and impossible to contain. One guard raised his weapon. Cass struck his wrist, throat and knee before he could pull the trigger.
Selina’s whip cracked through the red light.
You ducked beneath the swing of a baton, drove your elbow into the attacker’s ribs and used his momentum to send him shoulder-first into a crate.
“Multiple hostiles moving towards the sublevel,” Duke reported.
“Loading bay’s sealed,” Jason said. Gunfire sounded faintly through his comm. “And these guys have military hardware.”
“Non-lethal,” Bruce warned.
“Rubber rounds, ‘Dad.’” A pause. “Mostly.”
You disarmed another guard and kicked the weapon beneath a shelving unit.
The training Selina had given you was designed around avoidance. Be somewhere else before the hit arrived. Redirect weight. Exploit arrogance. Never fight strength with strength when speed, gravity and a conveniently placed staircase existed.
The Batfamily had expanded that education.
Dick taught you how to fall without breaking. Jason taught you how to keep moving after you did. Tim taught you to identify the pattern in a room. Cass taught you that the body confessed before the mouth did. Bruce taught you that every exit mattered, especially the ones behind you.
Now every exit was sealed.
“Charges on the northern wall,” Tim said. “They’re not trying to trap us.”
The floor vibrated.
Realisation arrived with a sickening lurch.
“They’re destroying the evidence,” you said.
Explosions tore through the far side of the warehouse. The shockwave lifted you from your feet.
You hit the ground hard enough that your vision went white.
Sound vanished, replaced by a high, needling whine. Dust billowed between the crates. Somewhere nearby, stone cracked and metal screamed as part of the ceiling collapsed.
You rolled onto your side, coughing.
Selina lay several metres away.
She pushed herself upright, blood streaking one temple.
Cass was already moving towards her.
“I’m fine,” Selina said, though you could barely hear her through the ringing in your ears. “Kitten?”
“Alive.”
“Good.”
The red emergency lights flickered. Fire climbed one of the shelving units.
“Structural integrity is failing,” Barbara warned. “Everyone needs to evacuate.”
“The shutters are reinforced,” Bruce said. “Nightwing?”
“Working on it.”
You looked across the warehouse. Several guards had fled through the concealed passages. Others were unconscious or trapped by debris. Beyond them, close to where the explosions had begun, a section of the floor had collapsed into darkness.
A hand clung to the broken edge. One of the guards.
He was young. Younger than you had expected beneath the helmet, perhaps barely twenty. His other arm hung uselessly. Concrete crumbled beneath his fingers.
“Help!” he shouted.
Everyone else was moving towards the western exit, where Dick and Duke were cutting through the shutter from outside.
You moved in the opposite direction.
Selina caught your arm. “No.”
“He’s falling.”
“The fire is spreading.”
You looked at the guard. For one horrible second, you were fourteen again, standing in an alley with rainwater inside your shoes and no one coming back for you.
“He’s falling,” you repeated.
Selina’s grip tightened.
Then she released you.
“Cass,” she ordered.
But Cass was pinned behind a fallen beam, helping two other guards escape the smoke.
You ran alone.
The damaged floor shifted beneath your boots. Every instinct screamed at you to turn back. Survival had once been the only prayer you knew. Get out. Get away. Take what you can carry and leave everything else behind.
The guard’s fingers slipped.
You threw yourself forward and caught his wrist.
His weight nearly dragged you over the edge.
Your ribs struck broken concrete. Pain flared through your chest.
“I’ve got you,” you gasped.
The guard stared up at you through the smoke. “You’re one of them.”
“Brilliant observation.”
The floor cracked. You reached for leverage and found none.
The guard was too heavy. Your shoulder burned. Somewhere behind you, Selina shouted your name—not your codename, not kitten, but the name you had given her years ago between frightened bites of stolen food.
A grappling line snapped around your waist.
The sudden tension hauled you backwards.
Another line caught the guard.
Jason landed on the tilted concrete beside you, one boot braced against a broken support.
“On three,” he said.
The helmet disguised his voice, but not the fury beneath it.
Together, you pulled.
The guard cleared the ledge just as the remaining section of floor collapsed.
Jason shoved him towards safety. Then he turned on you.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
“He needed help.”
“You almost went down with him.”
“But I didn’t.”
The ceiling groaned.
Jason grabbed the back of your suit. “This discussion is getting a sequel.”
He dragged you through the smoke towards the opening Dick and Duke had cut into the shutter.
Selina and Cass were already outside the warehouse. Tim crouched beside the disabled security panel, blood dripping from his nose while he forced the emergency systems online. Damian and Steph covered the corridor.
“Move!” Dick shouted.
The family spilled into the stairwell seconds before another explosion swallowed the sublevel.
The climb blurred into heat, dust and aching lungs. Bruce appeared halfway up, cape torn along one side, and took Selina’s weight without asking when her steps faltered.
She complained. He ignored her.
You made it outside as the first fire engines screamed around the corner. Rain struck your face.
You bent forward with your hands on your knees, breathing in cold air so sharply it hurt.
The others gathered beneath the awning of a closed bank. Smoke rose behind them. Red and blue emergency lights flashed over black armour and tired faces.
Everyone was alive. The evidence might not be. It should have felt like enough.
Instead, you became abruptly aware that every member of the family was looking at you.
Jason removed his helmet. His hair was damp with sweat and rain, the white streak plastered against his forehead.
“What?” you asked.
“What?” he echoed. “You nearly threw yourself into a flaming pit.”
“I was helping someone.”
“You can help people without reenacting the end of an action movie.”
“The line wasn’t part of my plan.”
“Great. Glad the plan only included the flaming pit.”
“Enough,” Bruce said.
Jason’s mouth snapped shut. That was almost more alarming than the shouting.
Bruce stepped closer. The rain slid from the pointed ears of his cowl. “Are you injured?”
“No.”
Cass touched your side. Pain shot through your ribs.
You flinched.
Cass looked at Bruce.
“Bruised,” she signed. “Maybe cracked.”
“Traitor,” you muttered.
Cass patted your cheek.
Selina folded her arms. “You disobeyed a direct instruction.”
Your stomach tightened. “I know.”
“You endangered yourself.”
“I know.”
“You entered an unstable blast zone without backup.”
“I know.”
There it was. The old familiar certainty. You had made the wrong choice. You had become inconvenient. The door had been open, but that did not mean you had ever owned a key.
Selina had taken you in because she saw something salvageable. The Batfamily tolerated you because she loved you. You had always known there would be a line. Too reckless. Too criminal. Too angry. Too much work.
You had crossed it.
You straightened despite the pain in your ribs.
“I’ll give back the comm,” you said.
Silence fell.
Dick blinked. “The what?”
“The comm. And the access card for the Cave. I know the emergency codes changed last month, but I haven’t written them down anywhere.” You removed the small device from your ear before your hands could begin shaking. “The suit’s mine, unless Bruce wants the armour plating back. Selina paid for most of it.”
Jason stared at you.
Tim slowly rose from beside the ambulance where a paramedic had been checking his face. “Why would you give back your access card?”
“Because I broke protocol.”
Steph’s eyebrows climbed. “I break protocol twice before breakfast.”
“Three times if she hasn’t had coffee,” Duke added.
“This is different.”
“How?” Dick asked.
You looked towards Selina.
Her face had become unreadable. You hated when she did that. She had taught you to read lies in the corners of mouths, fear in shoulders, intention in the smallest shift of a wrist. She remained the one person who could close herself so completely that you found nothing.
“I’m not one of you,” you said.
The words sounded pathetic once they were outside your mouth.
You pressed on anyway.
“I know I’ve been around for a while, and everyone’s been kind, but I’m here because of Selina. I’m not a Robin. I’m not a Bat. I’m barely even a vigilante. I was a thief she found digging through her bag.”
“You were an appallingly bad thief,” Selina said.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
You held the comm out towards Bruce. “I understand.”
Bruce looked at the device. He did not take it.
“No,” he said.
Your hand remained outstretched. “No?”
“No.”
“You can’t just say no.”
“He does that a lot,” Dick said. “It’s one of his least charming qualities.”
Bruce ignored him. “You broke protocol,” he said. “That requires review and additional training. It does not mean you are being removed from the family.”
The rain seemed to become louder.
“I didn’t say family.”
“You didn’t have to.”
You glanced at Selina again. This time, her expression was not closed.
It was heartbroken.
“Oh, kitten,” she murmured.
You hated the softness more than anger.
Anger you knew how to defend against.
Selina crossed the distance between you and placed both hands around your outstretched fist, enclosing the comm between your palms. “I did not teach you to be this foolish.”
“Technically, most of my bad habits predate you.”
“I took in a child who stole because they were hungry.” Her voice sharpened. “I trained you because Gotham would have eaten you alive if I hadn’t. I kept you because I loved you. None of that was charity.”
Your throat closed.
Selina tilted your chin up. “And they do not love you because I instructed them to.”
Dick stepped closer first. He always did.
“Selina couldn’t make us do anything,” he said. “She can barely make Bruce communicate.”
Bruce’s mouth tightened.
“She didn’t make me teach you how to do a quadruple somersault.”
“You didn’t teach me. You dared me to try it from a water tower.”
“And you nailed the landing.”
“I broke two fingers.”
Dick smiled. “Memories.”
Jason shoved his helmet beneath one arm. “She didn’t make me give you a key to my place.”
“You said it was because I kept breaking in.”
“Yeah, and now you can break in more efficiently.”
Tim wiped the blood from beneath his nose. “You are listed as an emergency contact on several of my medical forms.”
You stared at him. “Why?”
“You answer your phone.”
“That is the saddest thing you’ve ever said,” Steph told him.
“It’s practical.”
Steph turned to you. “You helped me dye my hair in the Manor bathroom at two in the morning.”
“You stained the sink purple.”
“We stained the sink purple. That kind of bond is legally binding.”
Duke nodded solemnly. “I’m pretty sure Alfred considers it a blood oath.”
“Alfred considers it the reason neither of you is permitted to purchase permanent dye without supervision,” Bruce said.
You looked at Duke. “He knows?”
“He always knows.”
Cass reached for your hand. Her fingers threaded through yours.
“Sibling,” she signed with her free hand.
The motion was simple. Certain.
Your eyes burned.
Damian stood slightly apart from the others, arms crossed over his chest. Rain darkened his hair and dripped from the edge of his domino mask.
You expected a lecture. Instead, he said, “You are irritating, reckless and excessively influenced by Todd.”
“Hey,” Jason protested.
Damian continued as though he had not spoken. “You invade my personal space, steal food from my plate and have repeatedly encouraged Titus to ignore commands.”
“He deserves autonomy.”
“He is a dog.”
“A dog with dreams.”
Damian’s glare faltered around the edges. “You are also,” he said stiffly, “the only person aside from Pennyworth whom I permit to touch my sketchbooks without prior approval.”
Steph made a strangled sound.
Damian drew himself up. “Do not make this unbearable, Brown.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it.”
She was already reaching for her phone.
Damian pointed at you. “My point is that your presence is no longer dependent upon my father’s associate.”
Selina placed a hand over her heart. “Associate? That’s cold, even for you.”
“You broke into the Cave last Tuesday.”
“I was invited.”
“You entered through the ventilation system.”
“The door lacked drama.”
Bruce exhaled through his nose.
It might have been a sigh. It might have been the closest Batman came to screaming.
You looked down at the comm still trapped between your hands and Selina’s.
“I don’t have your name,” you said quietly.
Bruce answered. “Neither does Barbara.”
“Bruce,” Dick warned.
“What? It’s legally accurate.”
“Not helping.”
“You do not need my name to belong here,” Bruce said. His voice lowered, losing some of Batman’s gravel. “You do not need a symbol. You do not need to live at the Manor. You do not need to become someone different from who you are.”
“Though fewer unauthorised thefts would be appreciated,” Tim added.
“The cufflinks were ugly,” you said.
“That is not a legal defence.”
“It should be.”
Bruce looked at the comm once more. “Keep it.”
You closed your fingers around the device. “And the access card?”
“You need it for training.”
Your relief was immediate and humiliating.
Jason noticed. Of course he did.
His anger softened into something far more dangerous.
“C’mere,” he said.
“No.”
“You nearly fell into a hole.”
“And I’m being brave about it.”
“You’re shaking.”
“It’s raining.”
Jason opened one arm. You held out for perhaps two seconds before stepping into him.
His embrace was careful of your injured ribs but otherwise crushing. His jacket smelled like smoke, wet leather and gunpowder. Familiar things. Safe things.
Dick joined from the side. Then Steph. Duke complained that someone had stepped on his boot. Tim muttered that group hugs were inefficient while making no effort to leave. Cass remained attached to your hand. Damian protested when Selina pulled him in by the cape.
Bruce stood outside the mess, as though he had somehow convinced himself that nobody had noticed him edging closer. Selina caught his gauntlet and dragged him into the circle.
“This is undignified,” Damian said from somewhere near your shoulder.
“You’re hugging back,” Steph replied.
“I am attempting to escape.”
“Sure, little man.”
“I will end you.”
“There he is.”
You laughed. It hurt your ribs. It hurt your throat. It broke loose from somewhere deep inside you, somewhere that had been locked since you were fourteen and cold and convinced that needing anyone was the same as handing them a weapon.
The family pressed closer around you.
Not because Selina had asked them. Not because you had earned enough points or saved enough lives or become good enough to deserve a place among them.
They held you because they wanted to. Because somewhere between the first stolen wallet and the thousandth rooftop argument, you had become theirs.
Not property. Never that.
Something chosen. Something kept.
Later, after the fire was controlled and Halberd’s surviving records were recovered from an external server, everyone returned to the Cave.
Alfred took one look at the soot covering the group and banished everyone from the upstairs rooms until they had showered.
He examined your ribs personally.
“Two fractures,” he announced.
“I’ve had worse.”
“This is not a competition.”
“Jason acts like it is.”
“Master Jason is a terrible influence.”
“Thank you,” Jason called from the next cot.
“That was not praise, Master Jason.”
Bruce reviewed the mission footage while you sat wrapped in a blanket, sipping tea beneath Alfred’s supervision.
Your mistakes were listed. So were Selina’s, Jason’s, Tim’s and Bruce’s.
No one was spared. No one was singled out.
When the review ended, Bruce assigned you additional extraction drills with Cass and Dick. Then he handed you a small black case.
You frowned at it. “What’s this?”
“Open it,” he said.
Inside was a new Cave access card.
Your old one had been temporary, plain except for a serial number. This one had your chosen emblem embossed across the front—not a bat and not Selina’s cat, but the small symbol you had once sketched absent-mindedly on the edge of a mission report.
Beneath it was your name.
Not your legal name.
The one you had selected for yourself. The one the family used when they called you over the comms. The one that belonged to nobody else.
You ran your thumb over the lettering. “Is this because I nearly handed the other one back?”
“It was already being made,” Bruce said.
Tim glanced up from the computer. “He approved the design three weeks ago.”
Bruce gave him a look.
“What?” Tim asked. “They deserve accurate context.”
You looked at Bruce. He shifted his attention towards the computer screens with suspicious intensity.
“Thank you,” you said.
He nodded once. “You’re welcome.”
Selina leaned over your shoulder to inspect the card. “Very official.”
“Jealous?”
“Of the bat-themed bunker credentials? Hardly.”
“You asked for one last year.”
“I wanted to see if he would give me one.”
“You used mine.”
“You should choose a more difficult code.”
“It was my birthday.”
“Exactly.”
Alfred appeared beside you carrying a tray of sandwiches.
“Your room has been prepared,” he said.
You glanced towards him. “My room?”
“The blue room beside Miss Cassandra’s.”
“I thought that was a guest room.”
Alfred’s expression was gentler than the rain.
“No,” he said. “It is yours.”
Something in your chest shifted.
Not breaking. Settling.
That night, you slept at Wayne Manor.
Your ribs ached. The storm continued beyond the windows, rain whispering against the old glass and wind moving through the trees. The room remained unfamiliar in small ways. The sheets were too soft. The ceiling was too high. There were no neighbouring arguments bleeding through thin apartment walls.
But your books sat on one shelf. Clothes you had forgotten during previous stays occupied the wardrobe. A framed photograph stood on the bedside table. It had been taken at the previous Christmas. Everyone was crowded into the shot, most of them looking in different directions. Dick had his eyes closed. Jason was holding up two fingers behind Tim’s head. Steph was laughing. Cass leaned against your side. Damian appeared personally offended by the existence of cameras.
Selina stood behind you with one hand on your shoulder. Bruce stood behind her.
You picked up the photograph. On the back, someone had written in black ink: Stop stealing the silverware. We know it’s you.
Below it, in different handwriting: It’s Steph.
Then: Traitor.
Then: The forks are accounted for. Three dessert spoons remain missing. —A.P.
At the bottom, Damian had added: Return them, thief.
You smiled and placed the photograph back.
The dessert spoons were in your apartment. You had been planning to return them eventually. Probably.
A knock sounded at the door.
Before you could answer, Dick poked his head inside. “Movie night. You coming?”
“I have broken ribs.”
“We picked something boring. You’ll be asleep in twenty minutes.”
“Tim chose it, didn’t he?”
“Documentary about the evolution of forensic soil analysis.”
You considered this. “Tempting.”
Dick opened the door wider.
Behind him stood nearly the entire family.
Jason carried blankets. Duke held popcorn. Steph had somehow acquired three bags of sweets despite Alfred’s ban on eating in the bedrooms. Cass waved. Tim held his laptop. Damian had Titus at his side and looked as though he had been forced there under threat of death.
Selina slipped past them all and climbed onto the foot of your bed.
“You heard the invalid,” she said. “They can’t move.”
“I can move.”
“Too late. We live here now.”
Bruce appeared at the end of the hallway. He surveyed the crowd blocking the doorway. “There is a screening room downstairs.”
“They have broken ribs,” Dick said.
“So?”
“So we’re bringing the screening room to them.”
“You are not moving the projector.”
Tim looked down at the compact projector in his hands.
Bruce closed his eyes.
A minute later, everyone had invaded the room.
The documentary lasted eight minutes before Steph changed it to an action film. Damian criticised every fight scene. Jason threw popcorn at him. Titus rested his enormous head across your ankles. Cass curled against one side of you, Selina against the other.
Bruce remained in the armchair near the door, pretending to read case files.
You caught him watching the room more than once.
Outside, Gotham spread beneath the storm, all sharp edges and hungry streets. It had taken plenty from you. Your childhood. Your certainty. Every soft thing you had once believed could survive without being guarded.
Yet Gotham had given you Selina. Selina had given you a home. And somewhere along the way, without permission or ceremony, you had stolen an entire family.
Or perhaps they had stolen you. For once, you did not care who deserved the credit.
Some things were worth taking. Some things were worth keeping. And some things, once they had found you, refused to let you go.
