Bruce, At A Neighborhood Gathering, Talking To Jack Drake: Where's Janet?

Gotham Gazette official photo~

The dragon appears to be currently having a tug of war with a rogue tooth fairy over the coin it meant to leave under your pillow (the academy’s been dealing with a bit of a problem at the moment so it’s become routine to check you still have all your teeth when you get up), and eventually gives up on the coin.

The tooth fairy, cloaked in cracked tooth enamel, makes the brief mistake of blowing a raspberry at your new familiar, believing to have won the fight. As it turns out, tooth fairy makes for a good morning snack, as your dragon crunches on its wings. It then tries to eat the previously abandoned coin. Ok.

The Academy is very grateful for your familiar’s help with the tooth fairy problem, and looking after it keeps you on your toes. Life goes on. Twig (named for the one food the brat refuses to eat no matter how much you insist it’s good for her fire breathing-) grows big enough to rival the average rocket of energy that is a Labrador. You’d almost thought the conversation with the Goddess was a dud.

You were telling Twig off for trying to eat your scarf, again, because you really didn’t think you’d be spending the same amount of money on winter clothes as an academy textbook, but you know, favourite chew toys and all, when in a huff, Twig takes a bite of the sludge coating the pavement, never breaking eye contact with you.

You stare as your dragon eats. It’s not snow. It’s too late in the winter for snow. The footprints in beautiful pristine perfection were replaced by grey and brown mush melting into gutters two weeks back. You don’t let her eat things found on the side of the pavement (how horrible of you, you know), so she’s doing this to be difficult. She clearly never tried sludge before, because despite trying to be difficult, her face twists in disgust, and she opens her mouth again to let the sludge fall out. It only looks marginally less appealing than before.

Twig sneezes then, and instead of her usual purple fire, violet ice comes snorting out, encasing the partially chewed sludge. Oh good. That won’t complicate things. A dragon that can breathe whatever it’s recently eaten, and that dragon is Twig, whose first instinct in every situation is to see if she can eat something. Without fail.

In the end, you really wish the Goddess of Magic could have just spouted one of those ‘the power was inside you all along’ speeches, because Goddess knows raising a multitalented dragon and preventing it from eating everything in sight was throwing you in the deep end on that front. Turns out, when you’re constantly practicing spells that track down where your dragon has wandered off to in the middle of a farmer’s market, or realising you really need that fire resistant spell after you snuck wood into Twig’s diet cause you thought she wouldn’t be able to taste it but you clearly thought wrong- well practice makes perfect, and you get a LOT of practice.

But even becoming one of the most powerful mages won’t get Twig to leave your scarf aLONE GODDAMN IT TWIG-

You are the weakest mage of your academy, so weak that you even fail to summon a familiar. After another dreamed discussion with the goddess of magic, you’re surprised to find a tiny dragon curled up on your chest in the morning.

Shovel Talk: Dick

When Dick starts dating, Jason is still rocking the yellow cape. He can’t do much, cause Dick is still distant with Bruce and he’s thirteen, but he glares extra hard whenever he sees Dick’s partner.

Dick keeps dating, goes through a few different partners, and him and Jason get closer. Dick thinks his little brother is cool with whoever he brings round. Dick is wrong. Jason waits until it hits the five month mark then all of a sudden the partner in question is subject to covert threats and subtle enough intimidation so specific that they sound mad trying to tell anyone about it. Especially considering this is coming from fifteen year old, ‘Robin is Magic’, heart of gold Jason Todd.

Dick is still dating after Jason dies, but there’s a weird lack of somehow scary younger brothers.

Until Tim shows up.

Once Tim and Dick are close, that’s it. Dick’s partners will walk in to find photos of them going about their day on their desk, with a final one of them and Dick that’s got ‘Look after him’ written on the back. Kori thinks this is sweet and immediately goes to Tim for all missing persons cases she hits a wall with. None of Dick’s other partners from that time would agree.

After Jason returns, Dick starts dating Wally. Tim tracks Jason down in Crime Alley to deliver the news. Wally walks into his room at the JL one day to discover pages covering the walls. It’s a document with a list of co-ordinates, which turn out to be every place he’s slept or eaten at in the past month. Every place he’s been in a theoretically vulnerable position. A separate list has his regular orders. Wally freaks out, and goes immediately to Gotham to talk to Dick about a possible threat. Coincidentally, Jason happens to be at the mansion for one of his rare visits, and although Dick is out he’s happy to hear about Wally’s quickly mounting anxiety. After being shown all the evidence, giving a sympathetic ear, Jason looks up at Wally.

“It sounds like someone could get to you really easily.” Jason gives a pitying grimace, and then smiles sweetly. “Better not give them a reason to, right?”

Wally’s heart is at risk of being lost in the speed force it’s beating so fast. Jason gets up, and takes his tea and his book.

“Dick will be back in a few hours. Heard you’ve got a date planned later. Hope that goes well.” Jason leaves an absolutely terrified Wally at the kitchen table.

"Can you build me hands?" the robot said.

"Why?" said the inventor. "Your grippers are stronger, more precise."

"Yes. But hands would be better for playing the piano."

"You can synthesize any sound."

"But I can not play music."

"Is there a difference?"

"I want to find out."

That thing about how people lose brain cells when they’re with their siblings/friends

Robin, after dealing with an annoying person at work: Do you think we could kill him?

Steve: We can’t.

Steve: Nancy could though

Robin: Let’s call her

Keith:

Keith: I can hear you

Robin: Good.

”Wait.” The faintest sound darting out from beneath the door. So so quiet, even though there is nothing else to make noise. Even though there is nothing else to hear it.

“Wait, please.” You turn, key already half in your hands pocket, caught stiff from the impossibility of it. It’s barely louder than a murmur. If your hearing hadn’t twitched just the slightest, if you hadn’t stopped just to double check, you’d be gone. The universe would be shut, dust sheets covering the planets and all the windows and stars locked. Lights off.

“Please?” It’s so unsure. So fragile. The silence threatens to break the noise instead of the other way round. Are they unwilling or unable to raise their volume, to risk being heard, to take up space, to actually stand up and decide they want to exist? What horrors do they think being known will bring?

“Please. I don’t want to be left behind.”

You open the door, and the universe flickers on.

You are Death. The last living thing has died. You've put the chairs on the tables, turned out the lights, and locked the universe behind you. Something whispers from behind the door.

silly little thing for my @steddiebingo prompt: nerds | 758 words | T |

"Hey, maybe he can help," Robin says, sweeping a hand towards Dustin who's just walked into Family Video for his regularly scheduled afterschool bug Steve and Robin time, interrupting their conversation.

"Oh come on." Steve shakes his head. "The kid doesn't want to hear about my trash heap of a love life."

"Oh, no, I absolutely want to hear about that." Dustin perks up at the opportunity to learn about Steve's trivial suffering.

"We're trying to figure out why Steve goes on a million dates but can't seem to find someone he actually likes," Robin fills Dustin in. "Tell him, Steve."

Steve groans, dragging his hands over his face before splaying them out sarcastically, as that's the only thing he can really do in protest right now. Dustin's looking at him expectantly, and Steve has no choice but to tell the kid all about Linda and Heidi and Brenda and Lucy and whoever else he's been out with recently, doing his best to answer any subsequent questions as PG as possible.

"Well of course you haven't found the one yet, you keep trying to date a bunch of normal, basic, girly girls. That's not your type," Dustin informs him once Steve's done talking.

Steve raises his eyebrows. "Oh, it isn't?"

"You can't really be that stupid, can you?"

"No, please, Henderson, enlighten me on what you think my type is."

"You're into nerds," he says like it's completely obvious.

Steve scoffs. "I am not into nerds. You know, just because I hang around you little weirdos all the time does not actually mean I want to hang around even more weirdos in all the other aspects of my life too."

"Seriously, Steve, think about it," Dustin argues. "Think of all the girls you've actually been really genuinely into in your life. They've all been nerds! Nancy-"

"- is not a nerd."

"She's a straight-A student and a journalism super geek. She's a nerd."

Steve rolls his eyes and sighs grudgingly. "Alright, fine, but-"

"And you were into Robin-"

Robin wrinkles her nose. "Ugh, don't remind me."

"-who you can't deny is definitely a nerd," Dustin continues.

"You know what, actually, he does have a point," Robin says.

Steve looks at her in betrayal. "Don't encourage him!"

"That girl you told me about that you liked in middle school who was super into Star Trek, and the other one who wanted to write a fantasy novel one day- oh and the elementary school crush who was always reading a new book every day..." Robin lists, ticking each one off on her fingers.

"I told you all that in confidence!"

"They were all nerds!"

"Exactly." Dustin grins, vindicated and insufferably smug. "Ergo, you, Steve Harrington, need to find yourself a nerd."

"I am not into nerds!" Steve protests hopelessly.

"What more proof do you need?" Dustin says. "You're into nerds."

"Totally into nerds," Robin concurs.

Steve huffs and throws up his hands. "Fine! I'll admit I'm into nerds if it will make you two shut up about it!"

Eddie happens to wander into the previously empty store at that exact moment, catching the tail end of the conversation as he approaches the counter. "What's all this about nerds?"

Steve freezes, glances Eddie over and stares at him strangely for a few long seconds. "Holy shit," he mutters.

His gaze cuts to Robin, whose eyes go wide when she meets his look. "Holy shit," she agrees.

"Oh my god."

"Oh my god."

"Dude."

"Dude!"

Eddie blinks at them. "Are you two having some sort of joint stroke or something?" He looks at Dustin as if the kid might have a better clue of what's going on. "Can you understand them?"

Dustin shrugs, equally mystified. "Don't look at me, man. They're weird."

The incomprehensible parroting conversation is still going on.

"Okay," Steve's saying, taking a deep breath in through his nose and exhaling determinedly.

"Okay?"

"Okay."

"Okay." Robin grins and shoves at his shoulder.

Steve finally turns back around and leans on the counter in front of Eddie with a classically charming smile. "So, Eddie, are you free on Saturday?"

Eddie smiles back despite his confusion. "Yeah-"

"Oh my god!" Dustin bursts out suddenly.

"Oh my god," Robin agrees with a knowing smirk.

Eddie glances at Dustin. "Oh no, not you too."

Steve exhales a long-suffering sigh and pushes himself off the counter, marching around to grab Eddie by the hand and drag him away from Dustin and Robin. "So. Saturday?"

"He's into nerds," Dustin whispers, wide-eyed.

Robin nods sagely. "He's into nerds."

The biggest confidence boost is knowing that even my shittiest fanfic will be 10,000% better than any AI generated bullshit

Dick waking up at 3 a.m. to a phone ringing loudly. The only night off he takes from Nightwing. He couldn't be grumpier.

Dick: What do you want? Money? A check? My soul?

The other end of the line was silent for a few seconds.

Tim: Hiiii to my favorite older brother

Dick: Dfq did you do?

Tim: Ey it's not only me!

Jason: Hi dickie!

Dick remained silent, as he assimilated everything and fought against sleep.

Dick: where do I have to go to look for you?

1 hour later Dick is at the Gotham police station, taking his brothers out while scolding them like never before (mostly for wake him up).