#a-canceled-stamp

[dragonpyre]

One of my pieces for the @batfam-big-bang! I got to work with the lovely A_Canceled_Stamp on their piece Turning Blue. I love hurting Jason ❤️

Commission info / ko-fi

[bonesbuckleup]

Omg not me remembering I also have a bunch of atla wips from 2020…we love to see similar coping mechanism 🤝 xD

So…about that Captured AU? 👀

Nothing quite says 'spring/summer 2020' like an intense and sudden atla relapse amiright.

Anyway. The Captured AU.

Immediately after the failed invasion, Sokka ends up separated from the group and gets captured. Since he's been ID'd as the idea guy behind the invasion plan, he gets sent to Boiling Rock prison and has, as the poet's say, A Bad Time since Azula wants answers about where the Avatar is. Unknown to Sokka, Zuko's defected and comes across Aang, who has doubled-back to see if he can track down where Sokka ended up. Zuko and Aang end up staging the jail break to save Sokka as Zuko's initial 'joining the Gaang' adventure. Guest stars Suki and Hakoda are also along for the ride, along with soon-to-be-defectors Mai and Ty Lee, with angst for everyone all around.

In the snip below, Azula just got done with questioning Sokka, with Hakoda there to put pressure on both of them, and Sokka's given a fake location for Aang et al, and as a "reward" they're given a couple of minutes alone.

Under a cut because it's a lil long:

Hakoda’s launching himself forward before the door is fully closed, falling to his knees in front of Sokka and reaching out for him. Sokka can’t help it. The reaction is out of his control--the pulling back, the curl in on himself, the small and afraid whine that works out of his throat. But Hakoda’s hands cup Sokka’s face gently, thumbs moving over Sokka’s cheeks. That hurts more, somehow, than the pain his body had braced for by someone moving so closely so quickly. Hakoda says, “Sokka--”

“It’s okay,” Sokka whispers. His voice shakes. “It’s okay. I didn’t--Aang’s--”

Hakoda shushes him, another swipe of his thumbs. Sokka leans into the touch. “They’ll be listening,” Hakoda says, voice wavering as much as Sokka’s. “But that’s good. You did a good thing.”

Hakoda’s crying and not trying to hide it. Sokka can’t talk around the sudden lump in his throat. Hakoda lets go of Sokka’s face to put one hand on Sokka’s arm, the other to the back of Sokka’s neck, pulling him into a loose hug, careful not to jostle any hurting places. Sokka drops his head to his dad’s shoulder and tries to get his breathing in order. 

“You’re doing so well,” says Hakoda. 

Which is wrong. Sokka isn’t doing well at all. He’s been left behind and caputred and messed everything up, just like he messed up the invasion. Just like he messes up everything. They’re both going to die here because Sokka wasn’t smart enough, fast enough, good enough, and he can’t talk around that knot in his throat, not even to apologize for messing all of this up so badly, all because he thought he could handle this when he can’t.

“I’m so proud,” Hakoda says, and Sokka wants to ask why.

[babblingbookends]

Reverse!Robins where Damian and Tim bond 😩🙏

This was the third rewrite for this prompt. I've reversed Dick and Damian only; for the purposes of this fic, Damian is Batman after Bruce “died” and Tim is his Robin. Tim became Robin after Jason’s canonical death. Tim is roughly 17-ish, and Damian is roughly a decade-ish older. (Comic time, who knows how old anyone is anyway?) Hope you like this!

-

There were many irritating sounds in the world but none of them were quite as annoying as the sound of someone sucking up the last drops of a milkshake through their straw.

“It’s empty, Timothy,” Damian grit out. Tim gave him a little sideways look and somehow sucked louder.

“Do you think that’s funny?” Damian demanded. A little smirk crept onto Tim’s face and he nodded.

Damian pursed his lips, pinching his smile back. It *was* a little funny.

“It won’t be so amusing when I do this,” Damian said. In a fluid move, he reached over, pulled the plastic cup out of Tim’s hand, and tossed it up so that it flipped over in midair and landed perfectly upside-down on top of Tim’s head. Tim’s mouth dropped open, the straw falling out of his mouth and the movement sending the cup tilting off his head and almost falling off the side of the building three stories down to the street below. Damian reached out and caught it, setting it on the ledge beside him.

“You got ice cream in my hair!” Tim yelped, glaring in mock outrage.

“It was three drips,” Damian said, amused. He handed Tim a baby wipe, which only made Tim glare harder. “You’re fine.”

Tim, scowling, wiped away the ice cream. “That was kinda cool,” he admitted begrudgingly a moment later.

Damian laughed and ruffled Tim’s hair. “High praise,” he teased. Tim swatted his hand away.

“Father did that to me, one of the first times we got milkshakes together,” Damian said, and then shut his mouth so fast his teeth clacked together. He swallowed. It was difficult for him to speak of his father, but lately he’d found himself blurting out things he remembered about him, his mouth moving before his brain could stop him.

He remembered the night well, actually; it had been one of the first times they’d worked well together. Finally, they had started to learn each others’ movements, anticipating where the other would need them when. It had been a good night, an *easy* night compared to the first, disastrous times they’d gone out together as Batman and Robin, both of them trying to be the leader instead of acting as equal partners. That night was the first time they’d cracked the code. Bruce had yelled “jump!” and Damian had jumped without questioning; Damian had said “Batman, duck!” and Batman had ducked without hesitation. It had felt good, and it had been the first time Damian had a taste of what things could be like with his father.

“Huh,” Tim said thoughtfully.

“What?” Damian prompted, when Tim didn’t elaborate.

“It’s just that B and I never went for milkshakes.”

“Oh.”

“I guess our thing was ice cream cones,” Tim said with a shrug. “You remember that guy on fifth, with the cart? We’d always go there and I’d get a vanilla ice cream cone with sprinkles and he’d get an ice cream sandwich.”

“Alfred refused to let him have them in the house,” Damian said. “He always said they were unhealthy but really it was that he was addicted to them too.”

“Like father like son, I guess,” Tim said.

They both fell silent. What Tim was thinking about, Damian couldn’t be certain. Maybe Jack; maybe Bruce. It wasn’t fair that someone as young as Tim should lose a father twice over.

“Do you miss him?” Damian asked impulsively. Again, his mouth running before his head. His old teachers would be disappointed, but his childhood teachers weren’t here. He was a man now, anyway, beholden only to himself and responsible for the teenage boy beside him. Tim was tilting his head in the way he always did when he was thinking, and Damian was glad that no one had trained the habit out of him.

“Who, B?” Tim said. “Yeah. Sometimes I think… maybe he’s still out there. Y’know?”

“Yes,” Damian said. Sometimes he still reached for the wrong suit; sometimes he still felt the urge to go to the passenger side instead of the driver’s side of the Batmobile. “I know.”

Another moment of silence, and Damian stood up, shaking out his cape. It was entirely too nice of a night for such maudlin thoughts. He picked up their trash and shoved it into a brown paper bag.

“Race you back to the Batmobile?” he asked. Tim immediately and without fanfare bounced to his feet and took off at a sprint.

“No fair with the head start!” Damian said, but he laughed and took off after his Robin.