#writingness

[eruditecupid]

okay, so i really need some 20s era bankrobber au with stephanie and cassandra tearing up the town bonnie and clyde style.

tim is their getaway driver who gets far too much enjoyment from souping up the cars they steal.

steph and cass adore each other and half the reason they’ve started up this life of crime is steph was tired of watching cass work herself to exhaustion in her dead end waitress job.

one day, steph bursts in cass’s bedroom, hair in curlers and her eyes wild, full of equally wild ideas of robbing cass’ penny pinching boss.

cass starts laughing, shaking her head; but stephanie bounces onto cassandra’s bed, her eyes earnest and her smile a bewitching slash of red across her face.

and cass knows that she’d follow stephanie anywhere. 

they bend their heads together and start making plans.

tim’s the piano player where cass works and worms his way into their heist plans; he refuses to stick around if cass is leaving. she’s the only decent person at the place.

thus begins their crime spree; they hit up gas stations, small stores, and the occasional country bank.

bruce and jason doggedly trail them from St. Louis and through the Midwest

jason jokes that they’re following the path of Lewis and Clark, only they’re discovering robberies instead of territories.

their partnership is new but they grow closer as they jump from motel to motel; bruce is surprised how easy it is between them, how much jason’s irreverent comments make him grin.

tim notices the FBI-shaped tail they’ve picked up and he throws out a few red herrings. but he’s too caught up in their successful operations to be too terribly paranoid.

this turns out to be a mistake.

bruce is obsessed and he catalogues everything, from the tricked out cars that tim leaves behind, to the designer lipsticks that steph wears, to the guns that cass prefers to carry during stick ups, for all that she rarely uses them.

no, cassandra cain is more likely to execute a high kick to the face with her sensible mary janes than fire a shot. nevertheless, she’s robbed 25 stores and banks so far, and it’s only a matter of time.

and so bruce doubles down and builds up a profile and corners them mid-robbery at a bank in seattle.

the bank’s strategically surrounded, a barrier of police cars out front, and a bunch of plain clothes officers stationed behind the bank, covertly placed in case the three robbers find a way to escape out the back.

it’s tense, with the robbers rapidly realizing they have nowhere to go and the local police overly excited at having caught such high profile criminals.

a shot rings through the air and stephanie goes down, blond curls bouncing. cassandra doesn’t hesitate.

she immediately abandons the bank teller and runs to Stephanie’s downed form. she places stephanie’s head in her lap and fruitlessly begs for stephanie to keep her eyes open.

she’s too late and she knows it.

steph weakly smiles up at her, cups cass’ cheek in her hand, and her eyes flutter as blood spreads red and undeniable across her fashionable blouse.

meanwhile, bruce has wheeled around, looking for the culprit. yelling at the sniper that he hadn’t given the order to shoot, taking the whole squad to task.

bruce is busy terrifying the local police into some semblance of order and so it’s jason that sees cassandra cain start walking toward them, briefcase in hand.

oh sure, bruce notices that she’s started towards them, and he warns the crew of men that there better not be any pot shots taken at her.

but it’s jason that is really looking at her, that sees her eyes, dark and dead and determined above her running mascara.

jason knows he’s got seconds on the clock and so he does the only thing he can.

he sprints toward her as she starts running towards the police cars, tackling her to the ground and setting off the bomb she has in her hands.

bruce whips around, the flames of the blast reflected in his horrified gaze.

“Jason,” he shouts, anguished, starting towards the blast. and an officer holds him back. and a second. and a third.

eventually, there are four full grown men holding him back as he tries to run into the wreckage.

bruce never forgives them. and he never forgets any of their names.

neither does he forget that it’s him who failed to notice the danger in time, that it’s him that failed to prevent his young partner from sacrificing himself.

a promising FBI agent only months into the job. his responsibility.

it’s all his fault.

[jurgenronaaz]

Heroes of the New Age

Be warned: I have not edited this at all. This is pure unadulterated writingness. So it’s probably crap. But I FINALLY got inspiration after a depressingly long dry-spell and wanted to get SOMETHING written down. The call went out through the network, messages screaming digitally through the air faster than any wind daemon. In a trailer outside town, shotgun shells were filled with silver. In the Catholic church on the north side, a priest blessed the contents of a metal canister, a ritual normally used with water being modified for napalm. Out in the woods, a group in bright floral-pattern dresses and tie-dye shirts, with long matted hair, sat in a circle and chanted strange words which scorched the tongue and burned the ears. The preacher of the church downtown carefully removed the cross from his office, revealing a cruciform sword behind it that shone like a torch. For millennia, evil had walked among us. Creatures of darkness, madness, and evil sought to prey upon us, beings who exterminated whole towns like an infestation of pests. These creatures had grown cunning over the countless centuries, becoming subtle and crafty, able to hide their existence from us, in hopes of wiping us out for good. But there were some who resisted. The courageous have taken up The Call for as long as there have been voices to call out. The Greeks called them Heroes, great legends who would storm the castle, fight the monsters, and emerge victorious with the head of the beast, rewarded with half the kingdom and the hand of the king’s daughter, often as not. Morons, the lot of ‘em. What many forget of those stories, is how the “Hero” always meets a bitter end. Killed by a jealous lover, avenged by the monster’s mother, no Hero’s story ended happily. The monsters always got their revenge. Eventually, we learned. You don’t go announcing your victory, not if you want to live. Monsters tend to keep in contact, slaying a dragon just meant the local Werewolves would catch on to you and decide you were too dangerous to live. So we got smarter. Went underground, just like the monsters we fight. Churches went from sprawling spires to small local affairs. Knightly orders traded their swords for shotguns, and their horses for motorcycles. Druids really went to ground, only resurfaced in the ‘60s. Alchemists and wizards have barely changed, just lost the robes and went public with most of their knowledge, keeping only the choicest secrets for themselves. There were five of us for this operation. Johnny rode up on his bike, a sawn-off mounted proudly on the side, a “Hell’s Angels” jacket on his back, and a silver cross around his neck. Reverend Jonathan pulled up in his minivan, a Bible in his left hand and a broadsword in his right. Elder Crosby hobbled over with his cane, the old boy was getting on in years but his trusty flamethrower sprayed blessed oil just as well as it did in Vietnam. Celondim Fairfax seemed to materialize as she stepped from the forest in her ratty jeans, tie-dye shirt, flowers braided in her hair, and her dog Fenrir right behind her. The kids of the neighborhood said Crazy Celly’s dog was a wolf, but you know how kids are. Right, often as not. “Johathan” Crosby spoke, “you put that oversized tunin’ fork away ‘fore someone gets hurt” “Elder Crosby” Jonathan nodded respectfully “as I recall this ‘tuning fork’ and I have at least three monsters on you this week” “Oh shut it” the elderly man grumbled, “that Hydra counts as four and you know it, I’m up by one at least!” “Peace, brothers” Celondim spoke up, “there will be time to settle accounts after we’ve dealt with the Beast.” “The nutcase’s right” Johnny spoke up, nonchalantly loading his shotgun, “we’ll talk shop after the spike’s dead.” “Spike” was shorthand among the Vigil for “vampire.” Vigilants like this group had found it was easier to keep their nightly activities secret using nicknames, as the Creatures were ever watchful. Ghouls went by “Tombstones,” and werewolves… well what most of us call werewolves ain’t repeated in polite company. At the same time, our names for ourselves changed. Clerics just quietly assimilated into the priesthood, but kept tabs on each other quietly. Paladin orders became biker gangs with chapters across the country, blessing their weapons and iron horses in barns and machine shops. Thieves got organized, especially in the 20’s, while others discovered a new kind of crime with the advent of the computer. Ghosthunters went public as mediums, and added enough cheesy knick-knacks to not be taken seriously, Psions started putting on stage shows as hypnotists. Rangers had struggled for ages before a group of French urban rangers invented parkour, now they travel the urban jungle just as easily as the forests of old. Bards took to the internet like fish to water, creating art in a thousand varieties and pushing the magic of the word to newfound heights while rejoicing in the creation of music, now easier than ever.

[aoida-blue]

The one thing I absolutely love about writing is how an added word can change a line.

“i’m fine.” He said with a smile.

But then.

“I’m fine.” He said with a vacant smile.

Language, I occasionally love you.

[eruditecupid]

i love the trope of accidentally moving in together. like whoops the villain of the week has torched my place of residence looks like i’m shacking up with you for the time being. 

and i love thinking about it with my favorite two doofuses.

like, mr freeze has set off a localized ice storm and it just so happens to have buried dick’s apartment in several feet of snow and he is so not dealing with that on two hours of sleep.

so he winds up in jason’s humble abode (well, one of his many safehouses. same thing) and jason’s like jfc dick maybe you shouldn’t have left your window open but dick’s brought food from his favorite thai place so he may as well wait until tomorrow to kick him out.

fast forward to a few weeks later and somehow there’s closet space for both nightwing’s uniforms and his dazzlingly multi-print shirts and three types of crocky crunch cereal boxes in the cupboard.

somehow jay’s doing laundry for two and the both of them spend late late after dinner time on kitchen duty; jason washes the dishes and dick wipes them dry with a fuzzy hell’s kitchen themed tea towel (bc jason loves that show). 

dick sings pop songs in the shower like a dork and jason mockingly joins in but somehow it becomes always becomes a competitive duet that only ends when either the old lady downstairs starts knocking on the celing with a broom or the teenagers next door start clapping. or vice versa. it depends on the song choice and their performance that day.  

suddenly jay’s hair smells like dick’s carefully selected coconut & hibiscus brand of shampoo.

jason picks up an identical electric toothbrush (in blue) for dick since dick keeps losing his charger and this way they can just share his. 

dick stops by with fresh produce and strawberries from the farmer’s market since he knows jay loves both fresh fruit and loves supporting growers.

it is not a full day in this household if SOMEBODY isn’t tackled for the remote.

some days it’s a playful tussle and some mandatory noogie-ing from dick’s end. most days it devolves into a full blown wrestling match with the broken furniture to show for it.

dick throwing on jay’s shirts and sweats because they’re comfy and why not. 

jason being a bit stymied about this development at first but he’s too caffeine deprived at the time for much introspection and he doesn’t bother taking the time to examine the feeling later on. 

dick walking in on jason and gladys (the nice old lady downstairs) having an actual tea party (he was wondering if jason ever used that tea set of if it was just there for the aesthetic).

jason glare promises many painful things if dick decides to comment but dick pays no mind and cheerfully plops down, greeting gladys and grabbing one of the snickerdoodles she’s brought while simultaneously holding a teacup for jason to pour into.

jason does so grudgingly and their tea is surprisingly nice up until jason walks gladys out and down to her apartment where she compliments him on having netted a nice young man and jason turns like 12 different shades of red.

dick hanging up posters of big tops in their shared space and an elephant throw on the back of the couch.

leaving a poster of a circus top hat up for half a day before he realized there was a clown in the corner and it promptly found it’s way into the nearest waist basin. 

BOTH of them in the supermarket arguing over what type of dish soap to use bc dick picked up the first one he saw and jason’s like whAT this is clearly an inferior product and is TWICE as much as generic. we’re not all made of money, rich boy. 

and dick’s just like ‘will it wash our dishes? yes i think so. geez, get over it. you’d think we were buying a gift for the queen or something.” 

a lady in the supermarket patting jason on the shoulder sympathetically and tells him her husband is the same way.

their place becoming infested with roaches and for some reason they don’t move but actually stick through the process of picking out the right insecticide and weighing the advantages of non-toxic vs toxic, and  wondering whether non-toxic  would even be effective in making a dent in the roach invasion. 

and jason is severely wigged out by the roaches and so dick wakes up more than once to a shrill scream (manly yell, jason will tell you) and springs to action, escrima at the ready, only to find a jason with a huge boot in hand and a somewhat murderous glint in his eye. 

look i could go on and on about accidental domesticity but long story short these goobers are living in domestic bliss and are OBLIVIOUS.

and it’s not until they wind up kissing in the bed they’ve both been sleeping in for weeks or months or something (bc it’s just silly to have dick throwing his back out on the sad excuse for a couch) that they have a lightbulb moment. 

[eruditecupid]

little ones climbing bruce and jason like jungle gyms bc they are all big and beefy and sturdy and so clearly designed perfectly for this purpose. 

bruce and jason stoically continuing their conversations with no regard for the fact that they have two kids swinging from each arm, another trying to scale their back like everest and still another teeny tot twisting a hand in their hair as a handhold as the kid determinedly tries to traverse the length from one broad shoulder to the other. 

[eruditecupid]

okay so i literally may never finish my 80s!au with robin!jason and discowing!dick being awkward turtles and circling each other and trying to find common ground through while thoroughly ignoring the elephant in the room that is the robin mantle and bruce’s affections. 

or the other elephant in the room that is that is robin!jason’s crush on his predecessor.

so what do they talk about?

well, there is much ado about dick’s atrocious eating habits that coincides quite nicely with jason’s tendency to stress bake and jason makes a habit of co-opting dick’s unused kitchen for his baking needs when he’s mad at bruce. 

obviously he can’t use the manor’s kitchen. that’s alfred’s domain. 

and so jason does wind up in dick’s kitchen on the odd weekend and at odd hours of the day some weekdays and jason makes disparaging sounds about the contents of dick’s fridge and spice rack and so always has to bring his own collection in order to make anything halfway decent. 

and maybe dick lets jason use the kitchen and listens to him vent.

and maybe jason starts leaving dick little nutritious snacks or meals with random notes, saying things like:

“Who the hell is Clark, and why do the creepy laser-eyed robot penguins that Penguin sicced on us make B think of him?!”

and maybe dick buries his head in his head, his shoulders shaking with laughter as he tries not to choke on the israeli couscous he’s just stuffed into his mouth as roy slaps him on the back, trying to peer over his shoulder to read the note.

and maybe the next weekend they take a trip over to metropolis and make a stop by the daily planet to greet a clark who’s happy to see them. 

and maybe their relationship grows from there.

and they’re not brothers, not yet. but they’re something. they share a legacy, and they share a bruce and a batgirl and a love for ridiculous puns. 

and then maybe jason dies.

(ahahaha. i laugh, i laugh only because i want to cry. it hurts me too).

[eruditecupid]

jason todd is absolutely an angry crier. he feels so MUCH and it just all spills over. .

as robin it was especially obvious and frustrating. red hood’s got that big ol’ hood so in general nobody can see when he gets all teary eyed.

but even with the robin mask his lil round cheeked face would get all screwed up and his voice would wobble so it was OBVIOUS. sure yeah, sometimes gangsters and thugs would snicker but then they’d get kicked in the nads by a teary eyed boy wonder so let’s see who’s crying in the end hmmm.

the rogues were quicker to catch on that jay bawling his eyes out was a sign that you should be backing AWAY rather than heckling him for a few sniffles.

ivy stopped impugning his manliness for the crying when he lit up practically the whole of robinson park with some kerosene, a lighter, and a roll of old film. 

then she started impugning his manliness for being a ignorant man-sized blight upon mother earth with little talent but for destroying HER natural resources.

ivy’s grudge turning personal and self-righteous rather than casually antagonistic and dismissive was actually something of a point of pride for jason.

but yeah it was embarassing for lil robin jay and so terrible for his street cred to be turning on the waterworks every time he took exception to the filth coming out of some asshole’s mouth. how are these asswipes on the street supposed to take him seriously if his whole face is turning red and he’s crying his eyes out.

it won’t MATTER how many times he causes explosions or knocks heads together or even takes down big bads if his lips are wobbling and his eyes streaming as he does it. 

NOBODY’s going to take him seriously. 

i mean just imagine a 4 foot nothing little ragamuffin putting his fists up boxer fashion, his face beet-red and his nose all scrunched up as he sniffles.

it’s NOT intimidating. 

and bruce just hovers around in the background like a goober. he has zero clue how to handle the crying. dick didn’t cry like THIS.

he tries awkward shoulder pats and jason just rolls his eyes at him and casually wipes his runny nose on his arm. 

“i’m okay, old man.” he says. “no need to get all mushy on me.”

jay’ll sometimes take advantage and badger the boss for chili dogs bc with his eyelashes all clumped together and tear tracks down his cheeks bruce will be a panicked mess and will give him ANYTHiNG.

you want chili dogs, chum? here, i bought you a whole franchise of restaurants that sell them.

and jason he just. sighs. 

leads bruce over to his favorite stand in the city. pays a dollar for that sweet bit of nitrate filled heaven. extolls the virtues of a well cooked decently priced chili dogs from a long-standing food cart that’s a staple of the city at this point. straddles a gargoyle and gently chides bruce, telling him not to be such a tourist.

bruce just heaves a sigh of relief that the tears have stopped leaking from the corners of jason’s eyes, listens with amusement to jay’s chatter, and tentatively takes a bite of the grease soaked chili dog that he’s been staring at with suspicion. 

[eruditecupid]

batman has a first aid kit so well stocked it would make an EMT jealous. 

he has bandages of every shape and size for a myriad of purposes: butterfly bandages, adhesive and elastic bandages, sterile gauze, eye pads, israeli bandages, etc.

you know what bruce finds himself to be short on?

your every day bandaid found in every medicine cabinet from Wayne Manor through the Diamond District and down to the ramshackle apartments in the Narrows.

after a shaving cut he ends up grumpily digging through his elite, fully stocked first aid kit to no avail; splints and calamine lotion and multi-color pain killer pills  end up strewn every which way.

robin!dick comes bouncing up and wipes that cut down with a quick swab then slaps a bandaid onto bruce’s profusely bleeding chin, surveys bruce seriously for a moment and gravely pronounces him “all better.”

bruce glances at himself in the mirror across the room, the bright red and blue colors of a superman bandaid visible even from a distance.

“thank you, dick” bruce says, equally grave, and only the tiniest bit pained.

dick gives bruce a mega-watt grin and bounces off.

thoughts about superman bandaids and overenthusiastic wards fly out of his head as his league communicator chirps and in a blur of movement he’s into the batsuit and ready for transport in the cave in an impressive sub-10 minute timeframe.

batman throws over his shoulder a reminder to dick to complete his algebra homework as he’s beamed up to the watchtower.

“finally...you’re here, bats,” the flash says upon his arrival. “whoa, what’sthatonyourface.” flash exclaims in a barely incomprehensible string of words.

bruce resists the urge for his hand to fly up to his face and the superman bandaid he knows is prominently displayed on his chin. 

instead, he holds the flash’s gaze and tells him, matter-of-fact “it’s a bandaid,” in a voice that’s dry as dust, with just the tiniest hint of “obviously-it’s-a bandaid-you-unobservant-jabbering-speedball-with-an-unfortunate-motor-mouth” in his voice.

“oooookay then.” flash says, holding his hands up.

“well, anyway, we’ve got maxima who’s amassing an army off the coast of south america. apparently, she has plans to take advantage of venezuela’s political instability to set up her own rule.”

here flash paused to shrug, “I mean, you’d have thought she’d have got the message that tyrannical government is not the way to big blue’s heart, but i’m no expert on the villainous female mind.”

great. a superman villain. just what bruce needed.

batman’s contemplating slowly ripping off the bandaid now, but then the rest of the league starts filing into the room and he knows the moment for action has passed.

during the briefing, wonder woman and green arrow shoot him sly sidelong glances and green lantern can’t refrain from making asinine comments.

superman’s face remains impressively business-like if not for the fact that his eyes were twinkling in a way that bruce had formerly ascribed to a literary convention that portrayed amusement, and NOT something that actually occurred on a real-life person’s face.

in the back of his mind, after considerations of their battle formation and plan of attack, he’s idly trying to determine if the twinkling is an alien thing or a farmboy thing. 

once they’ve deployed, and after they’ve soundly rounded up and defeated up maxima’s army, superman floats by with a struggling, tied up maxima who’s no doubt spewing some impressive invectives in her native tongue.

“so...do you mind if I ask?” superman says, waving a hand at his own chin, his unobtrusive manner fooling absolutely nobody.

“robin” bruce grunts.

superman’s lips twitch faster than human eyes than catch and batman glares at him suspiciously.

“understood,” superman says levelly as he nods at batman and begins flying toward the league holding cells. he just barely manages to refrain from bursting into laughter.