Batfamily x Vampire!Reader
2.7k words, graphic description of violence and aftermath, use of [y/n]
Winter starts early in Gotham.
It’s cold, but not as cold as it should be. Your friend stands beside you shivering.
“You sure you don’t want my jacket?” You ask, eyebrows raised in concern as you eye her.
“I’m fffine.” She says, teeth chattering. “Aren’t you freezing?”
You shrug and move to peel off your coat anyway. Jen doesn’t protest when you drape it over her shoulders, but she doesn’t move to actually put it on. Her subtle way of declaring she’s against the idea, you suppose.
“You’re gonna get sick.” She mutters as you fix your scarf over your nose.
“I think if anyone should be worried about getting sick it’s you.” You mumble. “Is that your mom’s car?”
Her head snaps up eagerly, and you chuckle to yourself as she darts over to the passenger door.
“Wait!” She yips, turning quickly. “Let me give you a ride!”
“I’m okay!” You call back, “Alfred’s coming for me!”
She hesitates for a moment before climbing into her seat. “You sure you’ll be okay?”
You smile and nod, her mom waves and you wave back. “Call me when you get home okay?”
You watch her drive away for a few seconds before checking your watch. 3:50. The manor’s pretty far from your school, but not 50 minute drive far. You know Alfred, if he hasn’t gotten here yet, it’s more than likely he forgot. Plus, the sun will be setting in an hour or so, if you wait any longer before giving up, you won’t get home before dark. With that in mind, you start the walk home.
It’s pretty rare for Alfred to forget you like this, but with all the chaos going on at home, you can’t really blame him. Especially when you are the direct cause of the entire mess. It’d been a tough year. Senior classes were much harder than you’d anticipated, and you were just a teenager. Stress and anxiety was bound to mess things up once in a while.
Your teachers had all upped their workload at the same time in preparation for the half-way point exams. You’d dedicated all your free time to studying and cramming for the pop quizzes and class competitions. So much so that you’d forgotten your feeding schedule. Unfortunately, it was easy to miss hunger pangs and dismiss them as stress-related stomach cramps. You hadn’t realized you were hungry until it was far too late, and a disoriented walk home from the movies found you face to face with a mugger.
When you’re deep in bloodlust, it's hard to tell what’s what. The entire week before that had been like a plotless nightmare. Filled with migraines and dizziness and nausea. When you came eye to eye with that man, adrenaline in his veins, blood pumping, his heartbeat in your lungs as he demanded your belongings, you blacked out. You woke up three hours later, curled up under a cardboard box in a dumpster. A dumpster that you noted, was nowhere near the alley you last remember being in.
You were pleasantly warm, sleepy, and no longer in any pain, which was all very nice, but the sticky-dry feeling of matted blood drying to your skin and clothes was enough to rouse you. You pulled yourself out, sharp nails retracting into your fingertips as you did.
You kept yourself to the shadows when you transformed, disappearing into a puff of grey smoke and reappearing as an ugly little vampire bat. The first issue was getting back home and getting clean before anyone saw you. The second, perhaps bigger, issue was what the hell happened to the mugger.
Sneaking in was easy. You could practically see their heat signatures through the walls, smell Bruce’s cologne, hear Damian’s pacing. If your senses were right, and they almost always were, there were four people inside the manor. Bruce, Alfred, Damian, and Tim. You flew into the open window of the restroom on the third floor, nearby your bedroom.
You looked even worse than you expected. Your entire body was red, like you’d been dunked in paint, it dried in patches and flaked off into dust when you moved. Despite the clarity of mind and ease of movement that came with fresh blood, you felt sick. There was something thick and fibrous under your nails, pieces of thin pink membrane that clung to your body like a second skin. The sickness was mental, of course, remnants of being human. Your mouth tasted warm in a lovely way and you were a little perturbed at how normal this all was. Your reflection looked monsterous, hair matted with blood, body red, eyes glowing faintly.
You heard the news in the morning. A murder in Newtown, a body ripped to shreds, Gotham News declaring it an animal attack. The damage was done though, the Bats had heard what had happened.
Two years ago, when you first became a vampire, a similar thing happened. You didn’t know what you were then, you thought you could tough out the hunger pains. Wayne Manor was distracted, everyone in a frenzy, no one noticed when you got sick, or when you disappeared. You wandered the slums of Gotham for three days. Pale, sweating, vision so sharp it made you nauseous. No one went up to you, no one asked if you were okay. Your new senses overwhelmed you, your new body screamed in pain. Eventually, a man found you. Ushered you into a warehouse, practically dragged you while your body betrayed itself. Hands tugged at your wrist, your hair, your clothes. It was when that hand grabbed your face, squished your cheeks together painfully, that something snapped.
You came to your senses an hour later. An ocean of blood and bodies staining the ground. You ran.
You woke up stronger the next day. The blood was exactly what your body needed to nourish your new form. To finish adapting to this new life. Your vision was clear, the colors you saw were brighter, the darkness didn’t blind you, you could even see heat signatures if you tried. Your muscles fibers were denser, tightly packed, your bones were stronger, your skin was clear and soft, old scars lightened, injuries faded in hours.
All at the cost of thirty four lives. Not innocent lives, but human lives. Lives you hadn’t even realized you were taking. It perplexed the world, scared it. But eventually it was brushed under the rug the way stuff always is in Gotham. Dark Seid took the blame, and you got better at this new life. Better at hiding, covering up, getting blood without killing. You broke into bloodbanks, used animals, even drugged criminals to poach their blood on occasion. You didn’t kill, you didn’t leave bodies or witnesses. Still, people whispered. You were an urban legend deep in Gotham. The creature in the shadows. Some called you Karma, some called you Fate, some called you The Beast.
The Bats never forgot what happened, it didn’t make sense, it didn’t fit the apparent answers. But it never happened again, so they had no cause to pursue the issue, no reason to spend time pondering a mystery when they had real issues to worry about.
But now it had happened again in Newtown, and you knew Bruce wouldn’t let it go.
And now here you are, walking home. It’s cold, but temperatures don’t really bother you anymore.
4:20. You have half an hour to get home before the sun sets and you’re not even halfway there. You made good time, nearly two miles in thirty minutes, but you live over twenty miles from school. You could run, if you kept yourself at a human pace you could get home in a little over two hours, but sprinting in Gotham while wearing clothes clearly not made for exercise is usually a bad sign. People might think you were running from someone. You decide, instead of running or walking, to catch a train.
At 4:38, you exit Gotham Train Station and hail a cab. Cabs are risky, you never know who’s behind the wheel till you get in, but it’s miles of bridge and forest from here, and there's no way in hell you'll be caught alone in the forest in the dark. You’re lucky, because the person in the driver's seat today is an older gentlewoman who seems as relieved to have you as a passenger as you are to have her as a driver. You get home at 4:49.
The manor is empty, but you can hear the sounds of footsteps and voices in the basement. You stop by the kitchen to get something to chew on. Contrary to popular beliefs, vampires could eat human food. They didn't need to, but it was nice to be human, even if it was only pretend.
You bump into Alfred on the way out.
“Oh! Miss [Y/n]!” He says, a polite smile on his face.
“Hi Alfred.” You smile and nod. Expecting him to sidestep you and move on. He seems like he’s about to, until a thoughtful expression crosses his face.
“When did you get home?” He asks.
“Just now.” You answer, he frowns.
“I was supposed to pick you up tonight.” He says, his words almost sound like a question.
“I took the train and hailed a cab.”
“Ah.” He nods. “I’m terribly sorry miss, I must’ve gotten caught up cleaning.”
“It’s fine, Alfred.” You say and step to the side. You nod at him, and walk away before he can say something else. You can’t really be mad. It’s your fault they’re all so stressed, even if they don’t know that. You try to ignore how he looks at you as you leave.
When you were bitten, you distanced yourself from him, from all of them. Originally it was to give you time to pull yourself together, but as time went on, you never really got back to normal. Sure, you were used to being tucked away, you weren’t a vigilante, nor did you have any interest in being one. You weren’t a part of the family business, and sometimes that meant you weren't at the forefront of their minds. They still cared about you, but they were busy, they had responsibilities, lives of their own, complexes and complexities you could hardly understand. It didn’t mean they cared about you less, it just meant that you weren’t always a part of their world.
Sometimes you wonder about that though. It’s easy to tell yourself you're part of the family, it’s easy for them to say you are, but when it comes down to it, when the answer is more than yes or no, could you really say you were?
You could go days without seeing any of them, they were always so busy, you knew that. Even when one of them could finally be convinced to take a break, it would be selfish of you to demand that that precious time be spent with you, especially when you were so boring, so uninteresting. You couldn’t demand their time, especially when you didn’t need it. Not like how the others need it, not like how Damian needed their love, like how Tim needed their patience, like how Dick needed their time, like how Cass needed their care. You didn’t have issues like Jason, you didn’t need somewhere to stay like Duke. You were just there. You were simple, easy.
But none of that was really true anymore, was it? You did have an issue, you did need time, care, patience. You needed someone to look at you and tell you you weren’t a monster. That it was okay to cry over your kills, that you weren’t bad for doing what you needed to to survive. But you never had any of that before, so how could you ask for it now? When it requires coming clean, putting a bigger burden on them, explaining that you’ve been lying for two years. How could you ask for that?
You learned on your own, did everything on your own. You learned to be okay, be content, to find love in your friends, to find patience in yourself. And you’re okay now, sometimes. It never solved the original issue, but you could ignore it until you felt better. You could cry at night and feel pretty in the morning, you could wrap your arms around your head to drown out the pounding and wrap your arms around yourself to love what no one else will. What you’ve convinced yourself no one else will.
You’re okay being here, even if there are nights you wish you weren’t sometimes. Even if some nights you wish you weren’t anywhere.
Breathe out. Don’t give control to your pain. Look at the walls when you walk to your room, appreciate the architecture, think of something bigger than yourself. Look at the paintings on the walls, think of your ancestors and the lives they lived. Bump into your father on the third floor.
His hands land on your arms to steady you. It’s instinctive on his part, you didn’t stumble at all. Too balanced with your inhumane body.
“You’re cold.” He murmurs, eyebrows furrowed when he makes eye contact. His voice is deep, you haven’t heard it in a while.
“Just came in.” You say. He stares at you for a while. You can almost see the cogs turning in his brain, remembering who you are maybe, or realizing he hasn’t seen you in awhile, or something else you can’t figure out.
“Where’s your coat?” He asks, his palms rubbing up and down your arms. It’s a gesture meant to be fatherly, you think. You don’t see him much anymore so the gesture is just awkward, but the rare attention gives you pause. You don’t know how to talk to him, you realize. Besides the one-off family dinner once a month, you almost never see him, even at those dinners, if he tries to talk to you, it's awkward. He hesitates when he asks how your day was. Asks about friends like he's questioning if you even have them. Asks about grades like it actually matters to him. You realize this might be the first time he’s talked to you without a reason in over a year.
“Gave it to a friend.” You murmur, torn between making eye contact and avoiding it. “She was cold.”
“Oh.” He breathes, then takes a step back like he just realized he may be crowding you. “..thats.. nice.” He hesitates. “But you could’ve gotten sick. You shouldn’t do that next time.” He straightens. Like he’s remembered he’s your father and can be authoritative. He doesn’t know how to talk to you, you realize. He doesn’t know you. You stare at him for a moment. For no reason at all, your eyes start burning.
“Okay.” You say, voice weak. “I won’t do it again.”
Looking at him like this is overwhelming. He’s just a few feet in front of you, tall and elegant and imposing. You think he’s as lost as you are. You think you might be scared of him.
“Did you eat dinner?” He asks after a moment.
You stare at him, mouth open like you’re going to say something, but you hesitate. Does he care? Is he going to ask you to eat with him? Did you eat?
He looks at you like he doesn’t believe you, but he nods anyway.
“Alright.” He says slowly.
“I.. I think I’m gonna go to bed.” You mutter, he nods.
“Right.. good night [Y/n]” He says.
“Night, Bruce.” You say quietly and pad off.
He turns around when he realizes what you’ve said, but you’ve already disappeared into your room.
When did you start calling him that?
