Pincushions

You're sitting up in bed, shoulders hunched over your head, shivering despite the July heat. Tears run down your face, pupils blown wide and shaking fingers roughly thread through your hair, pulling at the roots while you mumble something he can't hear.

Immediately, Dick comes into your space. First, he carefully takes your hands away from your head, then he forces you to look at him rather than your locked knees.

You're shaken to the core, downright hysterical, and Dick's brain scrambles to think of all the psychological tricks and techniques he's learned.

"You're okay, you're safe. I'm here, I never left", he rambles fast, but each word is punctuated with factual emphasis. The hazy look in your eyes scares him so bad that he starts to repeat himself louder with an occasional squeeze to your shoulders.

As you whimper, he feels bad for using so much force, but he shoves the regret away when you finally look at him with recognition in your expression.

"Dick?", you call out, voice small and lips trembling.

His hand brushes the stray, messy hair from your face, and presses a chaste kiss on your wet cheek. The tears don't stop.

"It's me. I never left, baby".

Your face crumbles with relief, but your shoulders shake, and a cry escapes you. Dick pulls you in, nestles your crying self into his warmth, forcing your senses to feel him, understand that whatever you saw can't hurt you anymore.

Dick's big arms wrap around your body, and you bury your face deeper into his neck. His shirt is wet, but he couldn't care less. He starts to rub your back with firm and quick strokes, gently hushing your cries. He presses his nose into your hair, kissing wherever he can.

"We're safe. We're safe", he whispers and feels you nod.

"I won't let anything or anyone hurt you", he promises.

🦇 Cassandra Cain:

Fluorescent lights pierce her eyes, and she squints to force the harshness away. Cass studies your face for discomfort, and it's glaringly evident. Your brows are furrowed, lip caught between your teeth. A telltale sign that you're seconds away from crying.

Cass shifts her chair closer, and it squeaks in the small room. Your eyes flicker to the movement. She offers a small smile, "Sorry, Love".

You take in a deep breath, settling your nerves, then look ahead at the wall, ignoring the nurse prepping next to you.

"I'm okay", you lie confidently.

The nurse rips open a packet, and you respond with an aggressive flinch. Cass looks at you tenderly, softness in her brown eyes. Her right arm wraps around your shoulders, fingers press into the fabric of your rolled-up sweater.

"You're great", Cass says, and the nurse nods, agreeing with her, "so brave".

You feel pathetic, somehow worse than a child. At least children have reasons to be afraid of needles and hospitals. You're a grown woman with Batgirl comforting you. There are pros, though, like her reassuring touches and whispers of praise, but it doesn't matter when violence, knives and blood are daily work for her. She's used to so much more; your behaviour should annoy her. Yet, she gazes at you like you're the strongest person she knows.

The numbness of an alcohol pad brings you back into your awful reality, and you have to quickly blink tears blurring your vision. The nurse and the colours of her light blue uniform blend and clear with each blink.

When the familiar needle comes into view, you whimper, eyes immediately squeeze shut. Your grip on Cass's hands turns white, and she presses back even harder. The prick would have you jumping from your skin if it wasn't for Cass's rigid arm weight on you.

Silent tears drop and trail on your cheeks, and Cass feels her heart pull. "A few more minutes".

You nod, biting your lip hard enough to bleed. Cass tsks lowly and moves the hand that's enclosed in yours onto her lap.

After what feels like forever, the nurse speaks up. "Got it. I think one sample will be enough. Good job". She ignores the snot and tears on your face, and you pray she gets a bonus soon. After discarding the trash and packing up, she leaves you two alone to finalise the papers.

Cass gazes at you with so much love it hurts to look at her. Her face crinkles with joy, and she brushes hair off your forehead, then plucks out a tissue to wipe your face with careful hands.

"Proud of you. We did it".

You choke out a soft, muddled laugh.

🦇 Jason Todd:

When he finally returns home, the house is draped in darkness. Blindly, he traces his usual steps, discarding the helmet in the locked drawer and throwing his jacket where the sofa-probably-is. He's just relieved to call it a night and wrap his arms around your body.

Though Jason slides under the covers and senses immediately that something is wrong. Your frame is curled into itself, as if you're trying to swallow yourself whole. The room is deathly silent and cold, Jason feels the chill in his bones, and it worsens when he realises how the comforter on your shoulders shakes.

You're so entrapped in your bubble that a gasp escapes you as Jason's hand trails over your shoulder. The flinch does not go unnoticed by him; his lips pull into a taunt line. He's never seen you cry before; now he understands why.

Glossy eyes stare at him, wide with worry and what he places as anxiety. One of your hands is wrapped around your stomach, and the other is outstretched, as if an instinct calls to touch him, but you're afraid to follow through.

Jason's body finds yours, his long fingers slip into your palm easily, and he pretends he doesn't hear your hitched breath.

"You're home early", you whisper and take in his expression. He seems real, not a mirage. Your Jason leans closer to you, inch by inch. The blend of green and blue in his eyes grounds you; never break contact.

His soft voice is raspy, "Yeah". His thumb trails a stray tear on your cheek, tenderly grasping the curve of your cheek.

"You're not alone. I'm here". With each promise, he comes closer and closer, bodies tangling until they appear as one. "You don't have to cry alone. I want to see all of you". Jason's never been more intimate about his thoughts.

Fresh tears fall without warning, and despite the burden being stripped away, your chest heaves and shoulders tremble with an onslaught of emotions.

Jason moves to bury your face into his chest and rests his hand at the back of your neck. His chest vibrates with warmth when he speaks.

"You're not alone anymore. I'll carry it with you".

🦇 Stephanie Brown:

"It's so bad, Steph," you cry out, hands splayed over your scribbled notes, "I don't know what I'm doing anymore".

She stands next to your study chair, her blonde hair is dark in the warm lighting of your room. Her glossy lips are pulled into a thin line.

"How long have you been up?" she asks quietly, unwilling to break the thinning peace of your room.

You glance at the clock, and it's almost midnight. 5 hours. You've been at the same equation for 5 hours that could have been spent somewhere productive; you could have finished the chapter. If only you could understand it. You take a shaky breath, at the edge of sanity, head thundering and eyes turning watery after hours of dryness.

Your silence is enough to answer her question. Stephanie moves behind your chair and leans over you to stack up the scattered notes, books and papers.

"Stop that!" you croak out, but there's no real fire. Somehow, you're relieved at her intervention, but the underlying tension doesn't leave. A voice in your mind calls out to you.

Stephanie could have answered the questions with ease. You're too stupid for her.

A muffled sob escapes you, and you bury your face in your hands in embarrassment.

"Hey, hey, now," Stephanie calls out as if she's tending to a scared animal, hands massaging your shoulders, and she's all up in your space. You can smell the citrus of her perfume through your soon-to-clog nose.

"You've been at it since I left for class. Didn't take any break either". Her voice is so gentle, like dew on a leaf; it hums louder than your wracked sobs. She places her hands on your collarbone, pressing your body into her chest. As she looks down at you, her hair pools in your vision, and all you can see is her.

A slight twist in her expression, the pink tint of her lipgloss, worry clear in her crystal eyes that never leave yours. You inhale deeply, giving yourself a moment to actually breathe through the tears, then swallow deeply, trying to regain yourself.

She never lets go, and you never stop staring.

Stephanie's fingers play with your hair, nails scrape your scalp, and you don't even realise she's already shifted her body, angling both of you in the direction of the bed. "Do you wanna take a break?"

You glance at the table, notes stare back at you.

Stephanie catches the movement. "I can nap with you". You nod and slowly get up.

She quickly grasps your hand, giving you a wink.

"We're having ice cream when we wake up".

🦇 Tim Drake:

Tim, or rather Red Robin, has never seen you without your mask. He knows Batgirl has, but that's different. Usually, you're more protective of your civilian identity than Batman himself, but right now, there is no other option than revealing the face underneath. 

"I need to take it off", he grumbles and tries to yank his wrists free from your grip on him. 

You push him backwards, but the action presses on your bleeding wound on your stomach, and you cough, the taste of iron fills your mouth. It's bad. It's never this bad. You blame your temporary partner and glare at him, though it's useless because he can't see your expressions. You chose a full cover mask to match the theme of your suit, but it's not similar to the Robins. A red mask covers your entire face with black lines that accentuate it to match your suit and shadowed holes for sight.

"Easy for you to say when you're not the one stripping", you wheeze. "Pervert".

The white blanks of his mask squint as he sneers at you. "Don't be disgusting. I need to assess your state, and unfortunately, your eyes would tell me a lot about your concussion". 

He snaps your loosening grip off to press against the makeshift gauze as red bleeds through. He had torn a section of his cape to wrap around you; it's oddly intimate. You ignore the thought.

You tsk at him wordlessly. There's blood dripping from your forehead, baby hairs cling desperately to your skin, but it's not about privacy anymore. You, unfortunately, trust Red Robin with your life. 

But if he sees the steady stream of tears cascading down your face, he's never going to let it go, and there are only a few bruises your ego can bear.

His gloved hand trails behind your head, scanning for bumps and the buckle of your mask. You can hear static erupting from his ear-com, but he ignores it. 

One final attempt claws at you, and you gather your bearings to speak up, but it hurts so much. You end up wheezing out a small, "Please".

His touch pauses, his own mask creases with how hard he frowns. Then he whispers, and your heart breaks.

"I'm sorry".

Your mask falls slack on your lap, and slowly your eyes come up to look at him, for the first time. Tim feels his breath hitch, and you wait for the laughter. A snicker or a wink of a smile. 

"Oh", he says softly. 

He pulls back his hand to press at his ear, "Oracle, back up stat". Then, he leans closer to you, sees his reflection in your wet eyes. 

You sniff and turn away.

"Hey, it's okay. You fell from a whole building. I'd be sobbing too", he comforts.

"I'm just crying", you wail out through your choked sobs. He puts his hands up in surrender. 

Then one hand slides into yours, and you squeeze it. He settles next to you, and you exploit it by shifting your weight on him, head pressed against his shoulder, and sigh softly. The pain feels less intense with his stable demeanour by your side.

You feel vibrations as he speaks.

"I still have to check for ya know".

"Shut up for now".

🦇 Damian Wayne:

When he sees tears slipping from your eyes, he's not sure of what to do, but he knows it's imperative to do something. Anything that would soothe the frown on your face.

His hand trails across the bed and slips into yours, interwining the fingers, then squeezing them to urge you to speak between the hiccups.

"It doesn't make sense", you speak softly, choking back on tears, "I never told you because you won't understand".

The confession makes your chest ache and forces a shuddering cough out of you.

Damian moves closer and ignores how much your words hurt. It's his fault for not disclosing his past to you. He thought he was protecting you from his familial trauma, unaware that you were suffering through something similar.

The bed creaks as his face leans towards yours. His dark hair brushes against your forehead, and you can't find the strength to look into those honest eyes.

Damian has never felt more useless.

He pulls back slightly to place a tender kiss on your forehead, and his free hand reaches upwards to caress under your eyes.

"Help me understand", he pleads, voice rough with longing.

His green eyes never leave you; they scan your rapidly shifting expressions and the shake in your shoulders.

"Take a deep breath", Damian urges. Slowly, he inhales deeply and exhales. You force yourself to mimic his movements, and he continues the action for several minutes until the hiccups and shaking cease.

His warm thumb rubs your palm, grounding you in the moment, and your head falls onto his shoulder.

"She's so awful, Dami", you whimper.

Damian shifts to accommodate you and pulls you closer so you can properly nestle into his neck, and he places a chaste kiss on your satly cheek.

"Mothers are often...", he trails off, attempting to search for an appropriate word, "difficult to understand. Their actions are fiercely unpredictable, even if they come out of affection, we struggle to see how they reflect it".

He feels you nod based on your movement and sighs at how you're finally reacting and speaking up. If he has to reveal his past to console you, so be it. Damian realises that to be a part of your world, he has to share his with you.

"I'm here, Love. Let me in".