p0m3gr4n1t3

my AO3 profile: p0m3gr4n1t3 my Wattpad profile: p0m3gr4n1t3

Oscar Piastri

Driven to you - OP81 (On Wattpad) - Completed 44/44

summery: Oscar felt in love with a girl with a passion for books and international law at the age of fourteen and never looked back. Cocco felt in love with a boy who loved to race and formula one at the age of fourteen and never looked back. This is their story, sometimes told by those around them and sometimes by themselves

Dick Grayson

story of a not very happy life

summery: At the age of three, his parents decided to join Haly's Circus. At five, he became an older brother. At six, he stopped being an older brother and met death. At eight, he met her again and changed his name. At nine, he became Robin. At fourteen, he killed someone. At sixteen, he stopped being Robin and returned to his roots. At seventeen, he became Nightwing. At eighteen, he became an older brother again, though this time, he didn’t want to. At twenty, he stopped being an older brother for the second time. At twenty-one, he became an older brother for the third time, hoping this time it would be permanent. At twenty-three, one brother came back from the dead and tried to kill the other. At twenty-four, he became everything he didn’t want to become. At twenty-five, everything returned to how it should be, except now everything was wrong. At twenty-seven, everything was finally well—well, as well as things could go.

scars and smiles

summery: Sometimes love is complicated. Sometimes it hurts. Dick Grayson sees Damian and remembers Johnny—the cousin who was a brother, a teacher, a light in a dark world. Damian, trained to kill, sharp and unyielding, hides tenderness beneath a layer of survival instinct. Between violence and compassion, circus tents and graves, Dick finds a way to pass forward the lessons Johnny once taught him: to trust, to laugh, to love without fear. A story of family, legacy, and the quiet threads that bind us across time, loss, and hearts that refuse to break.

Jason Todd

tethered to you

summery: Bruce made him a soldier. Death made him a ghost. But Dick? Dick made him belong. Bruce taught him how to survive the fall. Dick taught him why it was worth climbing back up. They were never the same age, never meant to mirror each other, but they did anyway — one laugh, one heartbeat, one rhythm. Jason doesn’t call anyone else his brother. He doesn’t have to. Dick Grayson was the only one who ever felt like home.

Stephanie Brown

what stays

summery: When Bruce returns, everything resets — the cave, the order, the silence. Stephanie Brown watches the world rebuild itself around her, and wonders if the space she filled was ever really hers. But she keeps going, because Gotham still needs her — and that has to mean something.

Harry Potter

just a child finding his family

summery: Harry knew he shouldn’t be in that room. The one room in the house that seemed untouched by time, where not a speck of dust could be found, where neglect hadn’t yet reached, and which he believed to be exactly as it had been when his godfather was a child. There was something that drew him there, like a fish being pulled from the water. At that moment, he sat there, out of his comfort zone, yet inexplicably drawn to stay. There was something about that room that had lingered in Harry’s thoughts ever since he’d discovered it.

the weakness of lions

summery: Regulus Black always obeyed. Sirius Black always defied. For years, he lived in the shadow of his brother’s fire, silent and dutiful, never daring to fight for himself. But on the night that will claim his life, Regulus chooses defiance over obedience, courage over fear—finally stepping out of Sirius’s shadow, even if it kills him.

legacy of color

summery: When Bruce returns, everything resets — the cave, the order, the silence. Stephanie Brown watches the world rebuild itself around her, and wonders if the space she filled was ever really hers. But she keeps going, because Gotham still needs her — and that has to mean something.

Author's notes: you can also find me on ao3 (here!) and hope you enjoy this job! English is not my native language, so please be kind. love u ⋆˚✿˖°.

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺

At seventeen, Stephanie Brown was still learning what it meant to be part of a story that kept rewriting itself.

She’d thought she knew once. Back when it was just her, Dick, and Damian — the strange little family that lived in the shadow of a secret no one else was allowed to know.

To the world, Batman was still out there. Gotham never noticed the difference. But they did. Every night, every fight, every tired breath carried the weight of pretending the impossible was still possible.

Only they knew the truth — that Bruce was gone. That the cowl was heavier than anyone realized. That they were holding together a myth with their bare hands and borrowed faith.

And somehow, it had worked. For a while, it had almost felt like theirs.

The cave felt colder these days.

Not the kind of cold that came from stone or drafts, but the kind that settled deep in her chest — the kind that whispered she didn’t belong here anymore.

She used to know every sound down here. The hum of the Batcomputer. The soft shuffle of Dick’s boots on the concrete. The quiet muttering of Damian when he thought no one could hear.

Now those sounds were drowned out by the weight of order. Bruce’s order.

Every tool was back in its perfect place. Every file meticulously cataloged. Every patrol scheduled to the minute.

It was efficient. Perfect. And suffocating.

Steph watched him sometimes — Batman again, back in black, a ghost reclaimed by his city. He moved through the space like he’d never been gone, like the world had paused and waited for him to return.

No one seemed to notice how the air had changed. Or maybe they just didn’t care.

She missed the noise. She missed their noise.

When Dick had been Batman, the cave had been alive. Music sometimes. Laughter, if you can believe that. Even the arguments had meant something. Dick and Damian had been constant motion, opposites somehow finding rhythm.

And she’d been the weird little thread tying herself between them — part sister, part friend, part reckless distraction.

Back then, she hadn’t felt like a replacement. She’d just felt… there. Needed, even.

Now, she was back to being Spoiler. The extra piece that didn’t quite fit.

Once, she’d asked Dick what made Bruce different from everyone else.

He’d paused for a long time before answering. “He doesn’t stop,” he’d said quietly. “Not for pain, not for rest. Not even for love.”

She hadn’t understood it then. She thought it was about strength. Dedication. The kind of willpower that made Batman Batman.

But now, she thought maybe Dick had been warning her.

Seventeen wasn’t old enough to carry this kind of loneliness. But Gotham didn’t care how old you were.

Steph could fake confidence better than most adults in masks. She could laugh at her bruises, talk back to gods, and patch herself up with tape and pure spite.

But there were nights — quiet ones, between patrols — when the silence in her tiny apartment felt heavier than armor.

Those were the nights she missed them. The old rhythm. The version of this family that had almost felt like home.

She remembered one night in particular — not even a mission. Just her, Dick, and Damian sitting on the hood of the Batmobile after patrol.

The city lights stretched below like static. Dick had tossed a candy bar at Damian, who’d caught it without looking. “Sugar dulls reflexes,” Damian had said, voice full of disdain. “And moods,” Dick had replied.

Steph had laughed until her sides hurt. And Damian — after a long pause — had smiled. A real one. Small, sharp, fleeting. But real.

It had felt like a victory. Like family.

She’d give anything to have that back.

Now Damian barely spoke to her. He stood straighter when Bruce was around, sharper, colder. Like the walls he’d taken years to lower had been rebuilt overnight.

Sometimes she caught him glancing at her — a flicker of recognition like he wanted to make a sneaky remark with her before he turning away. She wanted to ask if he remembered those nights, the laughter, the quiet warmth.

But she never did.

Because if he didn’t, saying it out loud would make it real.

Tim was back too. That should’ve made her happy.

And it did — kind of. He smiled more than she expected, and sometimes they slipped back into old banter. But there was distance now. He had his own ghosts. His own bruised version of Gotham.

Cass came and went without warning, silent and kind and untouchable. Even Barbara — still her anchor — had grown busier, heavier.

Steph tried not to take it personally when messages went unanswered. People didn’t mean to leave you behind. They just didn’t notice when you stopped keeping up.

The first time Bruce asked her to stay behind from patrol, she nodded like it didn’t sting.

She knew he thought he was being protective. Logical. He didn’t see that it felt like being erased.

Dick had never benched her. He’d trusted her to make mistakes and learn from them. He’d made her feel capable, even when she wasn’t.

Bruce just made her feel young.

Seventeen wasn’t old enough to argue with a legend. 

She still went out, though. Sometimes under the radar, sometimes not.

Spoiler wasn’t built to sit quietly in the dark.

There were rooftops that still remembered her laughter. Alleyways that still echoed her boots. Gotham might’ve forgotten her name, but the city itself — the broken heartbeat of it — hadn’t.

She clung to that.

Because for all the ways the family had shifted, the city was constant. It didn’t care who wore the mask. It just needed someone to show up.

And Steph knew how to do that.

Some nights, she found herself on the same rooftop where Dick used to meet them before patrol.

She’d sit there long after the others had gone, tracing constellations between the cracks in the skyline.

She’d think about how Dick used to say, “We do the job because someone has to — not because it’s fair.”

Before, that sounded tragic. Now it just sounded true.

Maybe belonging wasn’t about being remembered. Maybe it was about showing up, even when no one else did.

There were moments, though — brief and fragile — when she thought she saw something soften in Bruce’s eyes. The faintest flicker of recognition.

Like he saw not the girl who wore someone else’s cape, but the young woman who’d kept fighting when no one asked her to.

He never said it out loud. He never would. But she started to realize that maybe that was enough.

One night, after a long patrol she wasn’t supposed to be on, she came back to the cave hours late.

Bruce was there, of course — always.

He looked up once. Said nothing. Just nodded.

That was it.

A single nod. But it felt like an apology. Or maybe permission.

She smiled all the way home.

The cave still hummed with impossible order — history and weight, silence and duty. But every now and then, Steph could hear something else beneath it.

Her own echo.

The reminder that she had been here, that she was here, that maybe she always would be — even if the family never said it out loud.

She’d carved her place in the cracks, in the laughter they’d forgotten, in the corners of this city that refused to love softly.

And someday, maybe, they’d remember.

But even if they didn’t — she would.

At seventeen, Stephanie Brown was still learning what stayed when everything else changed.

Not the names. Not the missions. Not even the masks.

What stayed was the stubbornness. The heartbeat. The will to keep showing up.

What stayed was her.

And for now — that was enough.

summery: Bruce made him a soldier. Death made him a ghost. But Dick? Dick made him belong. Bruce taught him how to survive the fall. Dick taught him why it was worth climbing back up. They were never the same age, never meant to mirror each other, but they did anyway — one laugh, one heartbeat, one rhythm. Jason doesn’t call anyone else his brother. He doesn’t have to. Dick Grayson was the only one who ever felt like home.

Author's notes: I’ve had this sitting in my drafts for so long, but I could never bring myself to post it. I’m so happy I finally did — this version honestly has me in tears with how well it turned out. I’m just… really, really happy with it. 🥹💖 you can also find me on ao3 (here!) and hope you enjoy this job! English is not my native language, so please be kind. love u ⋆˚✿˖°.

๋࣭ ⭑🕸🦇🕸๋࣭ ⭑๋࣭ ⭑🕸🦇🕸๋࣭ ⭑๋࣭ ⭑🕸🦇🕸๋࣭ ⭑๋࣭ ⭑🕸🦇🕸๋࣭ ⭑

The thing about coming back from the dead is that nobody tells you what to do with all the noise.

Jason had thought dying would be silence — the kind that erases, the kind that means rest. He had pictured it like a book closing, the last page turned, the weight of it final and clean. But death wasn’t silence. It was a pause — a thin membrane between breaths, between heartbeats — and when he broke through it, there was nothing but sound.

A body screaming to exist again. Blood roaring like static in his ears. A heart pounding with someone else’s rhythm. He came back wrong, alive but offbeat, haunted by echoes that didn’t belong to him. Somewhere in the chaos, he swore he heard laughter — soft, familiar, devastatingly kind.

It had sounded like Dick.

He told himself it was memory. That ghosts don’t talk, that echoes fade. But sometimes he wondered if Dick’s voice had been the one thing that pulled him back — a tether too strong to cut, even by death.

He saw Dick again months after his return. The city was gray that day, sky heavy, air thick with rain. He’d braced himself for anger, for that sharp edge of disappointment that used to live in Bruce’s eyes. But what Dick gave him was worse. It wasn’t anger. It was pity — soft, open, raw.

Jason had wanted a fight. He’d wanted something clean and brutal, something to make the ache shut up. Instead, Dick looked at him like he was twelve again — bruised, too small for the weight he carried. It broke something Jason didn’t even realize was still intact.

He told himself he didn’t think about that day anymore. But he did. He always did.

There were nights when Gotham went quiet — a silence so fragile it felt like glass — and Jason found himself on rooftops, staring toward Blüdhaven. He told himself it was habit, that he wasn’t looking for anything. But his eyes always found that faint glow on the horizon, that distant pulse of light, and he thought of Dick — of laughter under streetlights, of steady hands and warmer nights.

He’d always done that — followed the light. Even as a kid, Jason had orbited Dick like gravity. Dick was motion, rhythm, certainty; Jason was raw nerve and unspent fury. But Dick had never made him feel smaller for it. Never made him feel like a stray trying to fit in. Bruce had taken him in. Dick had made him belong.

He remembered the first time Dick called him little brother. It was after patrol, the air thick with sweat and adrenaline. Dick had grinned — careless, bright — and the words slipped out between breaths: Good work, little brother. Jason had rolled his eyes, pretended it didn’t matter, but the words had stuck. They’d rooted deep, a promise he never forgot.

He died still carrying that promise.

It wasn’t Bruce he thought of at the end. It wasn’t the man who trained him, who gave him a name and a mask. It was Dick. The memory of Dick’s hand closing around his wrist mid-leap. The echo of Dick’s voice saying You’ve got this, Little Wing. The rhythm of two shadows moving as one.

He’d believed — foolishly, maybe — that Dick would come for him. That he’d swing out of the smoke like he always did, laughing that ridiculous circus laugh, and pull him free. But the hand never came. The world went white, then black, then gone.

When Jason woke again — years later, body remade, soul scraped thin — that absence was still there. A space where Dick should’ve been.

He told himself he hated him for it. For not saving him. For moving on. For smiling again. But hate was too small a word for what he felt. What lived in his chest was something bigger, messier — grief wearing the shape of love.

He could still feel Dick in his bones. The way he fought, the way he breathed, the way he moved. When Jason fought now, sometimes his body betrayed him — shifting into Dick’s rhythm mid-brawl. He’d slip into it without thinking: the weight distribution, the sweep of an arm, the spin of a kick. Smooth, deliberate, perfect. For a second, he’d feel whole again — two halves, one motion. Then he’d remember he was alone, and the air would rush out of him like a punch to the chest.

He never told anyone about that. It felt sacred. Private. Like betraying a ghost.

He still organizes his gear the way Dick used to, lining things up in neat rows, a small nod to a habit learned years ago in a messy room filled with laughter and late-night training. Sometimes, when he’s tired, he catches himself humming under his breath — not a song, exactly, but a rhythm. One Dick used to drum against the table when they waited for Alfred to serve dinner before going out during the night as Nightwing and Robin.

They were supposed to be different. Dick, the golden son. Jason, the reckless one. But in the quiet corners of the Manor, in the space between missions, they had been the same — two boys who learned to move through the world as one heartbeat. Two halves of the same shadow, growing in opposite directions but tethered to the same center.

Jason sometimes wonders if Bruce ever saw it — how alike they were, how much they blurred into each other when no one was watching. The same sharp wit, the same reckless loyalty, the same unspoken understanding. Bruce had trained soldiers. But he’d raised two people as the same one.

Now, when Jason moves through Gotham, he can still feel it — that tether stretching between them, unseen but unbroken. He likes to imagine Dick feels it too. Maybe he’s out there on his own rooftop, eyes tilted toward Gotham, thinking about the boy who once mirrored his every step.

Probably not. Dick was good at moving forward. He always had been. But Jason… Jason carried everything.

Sometimes, he thinks that’s what brothers are for — to carry the weight the other can’t.

He remembers Dick’s voice. Not the one that said his name in anger or disbelief after he came back, but the one from before: soft, steady, endless. You did good, Little Wing. He remembers the way Dick’s hand steadied him after every fall. The way Dick laughed — bright, stupid, contagious — when Jason tried too hard and tripped over his own feet. The way he never made Jason feel like a replacement, but a partner.

Dick had been the first person to see Jason not as a second Robin, but as Jason — even before Bruce or Alfred. That’s why it hurt so much when everything fell apart. Because it wasn’t just losing a mentor, or a team, or a life. It was losing the one person who had ever made him feel real. It was losing a brother, losing a family.

The city hums below him now — neon and noise, life moving on. Jason leans back on the rooftop, the wind brushing against his armor, and lets the memories come. He can almost hear the sound of Dick landing beside him — soft, balanced, effortless.

He doesn’t need to open his eyes to see it. He knows exactly what it would look like: the easy grin, the quiet warmth, the unspoken understanding.

They don’t need words. They never did.

Jason drags a gloved hand across the edge of his helmet, tracing the dents and the scars on his neck. Each one a memory, each one a mark of survival. He thinks of the nights they trained, of the rhythm they built together, of the life they shared that no one else could touch.

Bruce’s love had saved him once. But Dick’s love had taught him how to live.

There are things Bruce will never understand about them — about the way they were built not as mentor and student, not even as brothers, but as halves of the same story. Dick, the first light in the dark; Jason, the flame that burned too bright, too fast.

Jason doesn’t call anyone else his brother. Not Tim. Not Damian. Not any of them. They’re Bruce’s family. Dick is his.

And maybe that’s enough.

On nights when Gotham feels smaller, Jason can almost sense him — out there in Blüdhaven, moving across his own rooftops, laughing into the wind. Two sons of the same shadow, breathing the same air, carrying the same ghosts.

They don’t need to speak. They don’t need to meet. The bond holds, even now.

Jason exhales, smoke curling like memory into the night. His gloved fingers trace the dents on his helmet — each one a scar, each one a story.

Some bonds don’t need words. Some loves don’t need saving. Some brothers don’t need to share blood — only rhythm.

Dick Grayson was his brother. His twin in every way that mattered. The other half of a story that death couldn’t finish.

And that — that was enough.

summary: Tonks grew up never knowing her mother’s family — only their ghosts. Her reflection carried the face of a woman she’d never met, a name she’d never spoken, and a curse she refused to inherit. From childhood to war, this is the story of how Nymphadora Tonks learned to live — and die — in defiance of her bloodline.

Author's notes: you can also find me on ao3 (here!) and hope you enjoy this job! English is not my native language, so please be kind. love u ⋆˚✿˖°.

⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡

Nymphadora Tonks grew up in a house that had no portraits. No family crest, no Black family tapestry, no ancestral faces watching from the walls.

Her mother, Andromeda, had burned every trace of that lineage long before Tonks was born. What remained was silence — a silence heavy with the ghosts of names Tonks wasn’t supposed to ask about.

But children are curious, and Tonks had eyes that saw everything.

Once, when she was four, she caught her mother staring at her with a look that wasn’t quite sorrow and wasn’t quite love — something more complicated.

“Mummy?” Tonks asked. “Do I look like you?”

Andromeda blinked, startled. Then she smiled, brushing a curl from her daughter’s forehead. “You look like yourself, Dora. That’s the best thing to look like.”

But that night, after Tonks went to bed, Andromeda sat alone by the fire, tracing her finger through the ash where she had once burned a photograph.

Three girls — Bellatrix, Andromeda, Narcissa. The eldest laughing, dark-eyed and fierce. The middle quiet, uncertain. The youngest elegant, already cold.

Andromeda had burned it to free herself, but memory never burned clean.

Tonks first heard the name Bellatrix Lestrange when she was nine.

Her parents thought she was asleep, but she’d learned to listen through the floorboards.

“…they’ve confirmed it,” her father was saying softly. “The Lestranges. All of them. They got the Longbottoms. The worst of them was your sister.”

Andromeda’s breath hitched audibly. “She always worshipped him. I just never thought—”

“Barty Crouch’s son was there with her and the Lestranges” Ted continued, his voice heavy. “If that’s what happens to boys half her age, I can’t imagine what she’s become.”

Silence. Then Andromeda, barely a whisper: “She’ll never die there. Not Bellatrix. Not my sister”

The word sister echoed in Tonks’s chest like a spell gone wrong. Sister.

That night, she stood before her mirror, staring at her reflection — dark eyes, black curls, a mouth that could twist into mischief or fury. She didn’t know Bellatrix, had never met her, but something in that whispered name made her blood run cold.

“I’m not her,” Tonks said to the mirror. Her voice trembled, but the words felt right. “I’m not.”

The air seemed to hum. And then, before her eyes, her reflection changed — the black curls bleeding into color, shifting until her hair was the shade of sunset.

That was the first time Nymphadora Tonks used her magic. Not to transform. To defy.

Andromeda never told Tonks that she looked like Bellatrix. But sometimes, when Tonks laughed — head thrown back, eyes bright — her mother would pause.

She remembered another girl who used to laugh like that. Bellatrix at sixteen, her hand in Andromeda’s as they hid from their tutors in the orchard behind Grimmauld Place.

“Someday,” Bellatrix had said, eyes wild with conviction, “I’ll show them. The world will know the name Bellatrix Black.”

Andromeda had laughed then. She hadn’t understood what her sister meant.

Decades later, she did.

Still, she never flinched when she looked at her daughter. Because where Bellatrix’s eyes had burned with pride, Tonks’s burned with kindness. The same flame — but a different fire.

At Hogwarts, Tonks remade herself. She refused to let anyone call her Nymphadora — the name felt too soft, too feminine, too old-world. Too Black.

Just Tonks. Simple, loud, and hers.

The Sorting Hat barely brushed her head before shouting Hufflepuff! And she grinned — because Hufflepuff wasn’t what anyone expected from a girl with Black blood.

She grew fast into her powers. Her friends adored her for her metamorphmagus tricks, but they never guessed why she first learned them. Every color she wore was a shield. Every ridiculous hair shade was rebellion.

She dyed herself bright enough to drown out the shadow she’d inherited.

Still, sometimes when she caught her reflection in the Great Lake at night, she saw something flicker — a face too sharp, eyes too dark. The past looking back.

When Tonks joined the Auror Office, Andromeda cried — not from fear, but from pride. Her daughter had chosen the hardest path possible: to fight for justice in a world that might still doubt her.

“Do you know what they’ll say?” Ted asked gently.

“Yeah,” Tonks had grinned, snapping her bubblegum. “They’ll say, ‘Here comes the one who’s going to make Bellatrix Lestrange look like an amateur.’”

Ted had laughed. But Andromeda’s heart clenched. Because she remembered how often Bellatrix used to say the same thing — about her own enemies.

Tonks worked twice as hard as anyone else. She chased leads in the rain, came home with bruises, laughed it all off. But deep down, she knew she was proving something — not to the Ministry, not to her family, but to the echo of a woman she’d never met.

When Voldemort returned, the name Lestrange filled the newspapers again. Tonks stared at the headlines — “DEATH EATERS ESCAPE AZKABAN” — and for a long time, she couldn’t breathe.

Bellatrix was free. Her mother’s sister. Her own blood.

For days afterward, she couldn’t bring herself to change her hair. Every time she looked in the mirror, she saw a ghost staring back — dark, triumphant, alive.

It was Remus who finally made her smile again. Quiet, gentle, stubborn Remus. He loved her not for her colors, but for the way she wore them like armor.

“You don’t have to hide behind pink hair,” he’d said once.

She smiled sadly. “I’m not hiding. I’m fighting.”

The night was chaos and screams and rain. Tonks fought like her wand was an extension of her heartbeat — swift, furious, unrelenting. She’d come for Remus, but fate had other plans.

Through the storm of curses, she saw her. Bellatrix Lestrange — hair wild, eyes alight, laughter echoing across the Great Hall.

For a moment, it was like looking into a mirror warped by time and cruelty.

Bellatrix saw her too and grinned. “Well, look at you,” she purred. “Little Nymphadora. I was wondering when you’d come find your true family.”

“I already have one,” Tonks shouted. Her wand burned hot in her hand.

“Really?” Bellatrix tilted her head. “How disappointing. I would’ve taught you everything.”

Tonks’s heart pounded. “You already did,” she said. “You taught me who not to become.”

Their spells collided — sparks of red and gold and green exploding like fireworks in the shattered hall. Tonks moved fast, faster than she ever had, but Bellatrix was older, crueler, more precise.

One flash. One heartbeat. And then silence.

Bellatrix stood over her niece, breathing hard, hair clinging to her face. She might have said something — a curse, a taunt — but it didn’t matter. Because moments later, Molly Weasley’s roar split the hall, and Bellatrix Lestrange fell.

After the war, Andromeda found herself alone in the quiet of her cottage.

On her mantelpiece stood two photographs. One: three sisters in white summer dresses, laughing. The other: her daughter, bright-haired and smiling, holding her baby boy.

She placed them side by side.

“I lost a sister to darkness,” she whispered, “but I gained a daughter who turned that darkness into light.”

The fire crackled softly. For a moment, she thought she saw the photograph shimmer — her daughter’s hair darkening, her smile softening — and then turning pink again, bright and alive.

Andromeda closed her eyes.

“She looked like you, Bella,” she murmured. “But she lived like me and for that I am eternally grateful".

summery: Sometimes love is complicated. Sometimes it hurts. Dick Grayson sees Damian and remembers Johnny—the cousin who was a brother, a teacher, a light in a dark world. Damian, trained to kill, sharp and unyielding, hides tenderness beneath a layer of survival instinct. Between violence and compassion, circus tents and graves, Dick finds a way to pass forward the lessons Johnny once taught him: to trust, to laugh, to love without fear. A story of family, legacy, and the quiet threads that bind us across time, loss, and hearts that refuse to break.

Author's notes: you can also find me on ao3 (here!) and hope you enjoy this job! English is not my native language, so please be kind. love u ⋆˚✿˖°.

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆🎪⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆🎪⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆🎪⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆

Sometimes Dick hated his younger brother—his son in everything but blood. He hated him even though he loved him with every fiber of his being. He hated him, though he knew it was wrong. He hated him because Damian reminded him so much of someone else that, at times, when he looked at him, he saw his cousin.

His cousin, who had been like an older brother, the one he now tried to emulate with his own brothers. His older cousin, who had taught him to play in the circus without getting hurt, guiding him through every acrobatic trick as if he were balancing not just bodies, but trust. His cousin, who, whenever Dick scraped his knees, would sneak a caramel toffee from Aranya Curca’s stash—the circus clairvoyant—just to give it to him, so they could eat it together in secret, hidden away in Mister Haly’s trailer. Those quiet acts of kindness had woven the early years of Dick’s life into something magical, fragile, and unforgettable.

His cousin, who had once been his whole world. Who now rested underground, with Dick’s parents and his own, in the dark cemetery of Gotham. Johnny, named after Dick’s father, John—just as Dick himself had been named after his uncle Richard—because for a long time the two brothers had been the only things they could rely on. They had named their sons after the one constant that would never abandon them: their brother. And the cousins, like their namesakes, were bound so tightly that they could have faced the world alone—Richard and John against the world. For one pair, always; for the other, no longer.

Dick’s heart ached with that recognition. He loved Damian, yes, but in him he saw echoes of Johnny, the warmth he had lost and could never reclaim. And that made his love heavy, tangled with grief, guilt, and impossible longing. He wondered if Damian, in some quiet corner of his own mind, carried traces of Johnny too—the patience, the laughter, the inexplicable gentleness in the middle of a world that expected cruelty.

Damian didn’t even resemble him that much. The black hair and pale eyes helped, of course, but it wasn’t appearances that mattered—it was something deeper, in the way he moved through the world, measured it, and measured those around him. The resemblance was in spirit, not in face.

On the surface, a former child-assassin and a teenage acrobat who now lay buried had almost nothing in common. And yet, the connection was undeniable. Johnny had been the one to teach his cousin kindness, to temper the harshness of circus life with compassion. He had taught him to care for the creatures in cages, to tend to Zitka with patience few adults possessed. Animals never betrayed him. Animals never lied. Animals never abandoned him.

And wasn’t Damian the same? Beneath the sharp tongue and the blood-soaked legacy, wasn’t there the same instinct? The same quiet preference for the company of beasts over men? Damian, too, could be ruthless with the world, yet reveal tenderness to those who deserved it—the creatures no one else cared to notice.

Dick could see it clearly: the thread connecting them. Two boys, worlds apart in origin and fate, yet alike in how they loved what others overlooked. And in that, he found a flicker of comfort—a fragile understanding that, despite the violence and cruelty of the world, some things—the gentle things—could survive.

Violence had always been part of their worlds—Johnny’s, Damian’s, and Dick’s alike. It wasn’t incidental; it was a constant, a teacher that never let them forget its lessons. For Johnny and Dick, growing up among circus folk meant more than acrobatics and bright lights. Nights in cramped trailers, half the year spent in vardos, moving from town to town, never truly welcome anywhere. Every stop came with stares, whispered slurs, fists of locals who didn’t want them there. Children fought children, and sometimes grown men raised hands against boys barely old enough to defend themselves. In that world, you either learned to fight back—or learned to charm your way out of danger before fists ever flew.

Dick had learned both—and perhaps that was where his quicksilver charm was born, out of necessity as much as nature. Survival. Johnny had been the first to teach him, showing him how to hold himself, how to take a punch, how to give one back. And when fists weren’t enough, he taught him wit. A well-timed joke, a practiced smile—tools to smooth over danger just long enough to keep the circus safe. Violence and charm: two sides of the same coin, weapons he carried long after.

Damian’s world had been no kinder. His violence wasn’t born of prejudice from the outside but bred into him by the League from the moment he could walk. Violence was his language, his lesson, his inheritance. Where Dick had learned to talk before he fought, Damian had learned to kill before he spoke. And yet the lesson was the same: the world would not accept you unless you proved yourself, unless you carved your place with fists or blood.

It was in that cruel symmetry that Dick saw the thread connecting Damian to Johnny—and to himself. All three had been taught, in different ways, that violence was both the question and the answer, the threat and the solution. And perhaps that was why Dick could never fully hate Damian. Beneath the anger, beneath the training, Damian was just another boy, shaped by a world that had left him no gentler choice.

They were all people shaped by their environments, molded by circumstances that left marks deeper than any scar. Guarded, sharp-edged, distant—yet for the few they deemed worthy, tender, loyal, alive with warmth. A heart of gold hidden inside a basket of thorns. Love and trust were never freely given—they were earned, and once given, unshakable.

Always ready to fight for what they believed in, they carried justice like a banner, but not the kind the world expected. It was their own vision of right and wrong, carried with precision and obsession. To some, that made them dangerous. To others, heroes. To Dick, it simply made them the same: three souls who had survived, endured, and chosen to fight back on their own terms.

And yet, despite seeing so much of Johnny in Damian—the patience, the laughter, the quiet kindness beneath the hardness—Dick knew he could not simply stand back. He could not let Damian live under the weight of his own lessons alone. Watching him reminded him too painfully of what he had lost, but it also reminded him of what he could give.

So Dick took it upon himself to teach Damian what Johnny had once taught him: how to enjoy life, to find small moments of light even in the darkness. How to laugh without fear, to trust without immediately calculating betrayal. How to care deeply and openly, even when the world had taught him that love could be a weapon or a weakness.

In those quiet lessons, Dick saw a spark of something familiar in Damian’s eyes—the same spark that had once shone in Johnny. He remembered Johnny guiding him through life with gentle nudges and stubborn encouragement, teaching him to hold the world lightly even as he fought it with every ounce of strength. And now, in teaching Damian, Dick felt that same cycle of care and guidance: a torch being passed, a legacy of love, resilience, and courage.

He could see it in Damian when he smiled at a small kindness, when he hesitated before acting cruelly, when he lingered with the animals, feeling their trust and companionship. It was all so fragile, yet so alive. And Dick promised himself, silently, fiercely, that he would guard that spark, nurture it, and help it grow—just as Johnny had once done for him.

Because that was what family did. That was what love did. And even in a world shaped by violence, cruelty, and loss, it was possible to pass light forward. To teach a boy that life could be beautiful, that trust could be given, and that love—love was never something to be feared.

And so, with every lesson, every laugh shared, every small act of care, Dick quietly carried Johnny with him, passing the torch not only to Damian, but to the future he hoped Damian would claim—a life lived fully, without fear, and with all the love that family could offer.

summery: Regulus Black always obeyed. Sirius Black always defied. For years, he lived in the shadow of his brother’s fire, silent and dutiful, never daring to fight for himself. But on the night that will claim his life, Regulus chooses defiance over obedience, courage over fear—finally stepping out of Sirius’s shadow, even if it kills him.

Author's notes: you can also find me on ao3 (here!) and hope you enjoy this job! English is not my native language, so please be kind. love u ⋆˚✿˖°.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The cave exhaled a damp, cold breath that clung to his skin. The stone walls glistened with moisture, and the green water of the basin shivered faintly as though it were alive. Beneath its surface, pale forms writhed, searching for the warmth of life that would soon belong to them. Regulus Black felt the weight of every choice he had ever made pressing down on him, crushing his chest, rattling his bones.

His hands shook violently as they hovered over the goblet, trembling as though the mere act of touching it might undo him. He should be afraid. He should run, crawl back up the cave, hide behind the rules and obedience that had kept him alive all these years. But he would not.

Sirius.

The name rose unbidden in his mind, burning sharper than any fear. Two years older, untouchable, untamed. Sirius had always called him weak. Weak for listening, weak for obeying, weak for bending to a family that demanded perfection. Regulus had hated him for it, resented him for the freedom he had been too cautious to take.

And yet.

He had loved him. He had always loved him, even when it hurt. Even when Sirius had left him behind for James Potter, choosing another brother over him, leaving Regulus to shoulder the Black legacy alone. That love burned now, brighter than any potion could, mingled with the sharp sting of betrayal and longing.

The Sorting came first, a memory etched into his bones. He had not seen Sirius’s Sorting Hat moment with his own eyes. He had only heard the screams afterward. Mother’s voice, sharp and piercing, shattered the Great Hall: A Black in Gryffindor? Her fury rumbled through the air, impossible to ignore. Father had tried to intervene, his deep tone attempting to calm her, but her rage surged on. And Sirius had sat across the hall, tall, confident, smiling with a sort of wild certainty that nothing in the world could touch him. Mischief, defiance, pride. Freedom. All the things Regulus had craved, none of which he had ever claimed for himself.

The Sorting Hat had pressed against his scalp when it was his turn, whispering, probing: Clever, ambitious, afraid of being left behind…Regulus had flinched at the accusation it spoke aloud in his mind. Slytherin will keep you safe.

Safe. A word that had always felt like a cage. He had wanted to be near Sirius, to sit beside him, to follow him. But Slytherin had claimed him, and with it, the first weight of isolation pressed into his chest. And Sirius… Sirius had watched him from across the hall, a flash of disappointment crossing his face before he turned away. The flicker had burned itself into Regulus’s memory like a brand.

The memory twisted seamlessly into another. The night Sirius left. Past midnight, the house alive with shouting. Mother’s voice shrill, father’s deep rumble attempting restraint, and Sirius shouting louder, furious and defiant: “I hate this family! I’m not your son! I’ll never be what you want!”

Regulus had crept into the hall, trembling, bare feet cold on the floorboards. He had watched, heart hammering, as Sirius stormed down the stairs, hair disheveled, eyes blazing with fire. Then Sirius had seen him, for just a heartbeat. A flicker of tenderness, almost recognition. Almost. And then he was gone. Door slamming, finality ringing through the house.

He had hated him.

And he had loved him.

The goblet pressed to his lips. The potion burned as it slid down his throat, searing fire twisting through his chest and stomach. He gagged, coughed, convulsed. His body shook uncontrollably, but he forced himself to swallow again and again. Each gulp stripped away the boy who had obeyed, hidden, survived. Each gulp left something new: a trembling, fragile, burning courage.

Too afraid, Reggie? Too weak?

The voice was sharp, mocking, and it broke him a little, though it also steadied him. Sirius. Or the memory of him. Or the longing he had imagined as real. He could not tell the difference.

The Inferi beneath the water stirred, hands clawing at the surface. He could smell them now, a cold, putrid stench of decay. His skin crawled as they reached toward him, pale, endless, relentless.

Another memory rose, suffocating him. His first Death Eater meeting. He had been sixteen. The Dark Mark burned against his skin like a curse, like a brand of shame he could not escape. He had believed he was strong, that he was serving his family, his legacy, his house.

But he had been terrified. Every nerve screaming. Every muscle frozen. The faces around him loyal but hollow. The weight of fear disguised as strength. And he had realized, finally, that survival alone was never strength. Obedience was never courage. Weakness had been his constant companion.

He forced himself upright, trembling so violently he nearly fell into the basin. Another swallow of the potion, fire clawing down his throat, and Sirius’s voice returned.

Do it, Reggie. You’re stronger than you think. Don’t be weak. Not now.

He gasped, tears stinging his eyes, saliva and potion dripping down his chin. Every muscle in his body screamed to run, to hide, to cling to life. But he did not. For the first time, he would not.

Sirius’s voice softened, almost tender now: I’m proud of you, Reggie. I always wanted you to be brave.

Regulus trembled. He had never been brave. He had hated, feared, obeyed, hidden. He had wanted Sirius’s approval, and in wanting it, he had always felt himself fail. But now, with death pressing in, he realized he could be brave — not for anyone else, not for his family, not even for Sirius, but for himself.

The Inferi surged, hands closing around him. The water rose, dragging him down, cold seeping into his bones. He screamed, a raw, jagged sound of terror and triumph intertwined. But he did not fight, did not flinch. He could almost see Sirius at his side, smirking, daring him, proud and furious all at once.

He thought of every loss: youth, innocence, the brother who had chosen another over him, the family that demanded perfection, the life he had been forced to obey. Each memory pressed down like stones in his chest. But with the final gulp, the fire of the potion burned it away. Pain, regret, and guilt burned into clarity. Courage had finally come.

I tried, Sirius, he whispered. I tried to be brave. I tried to be like you.

His body convulsed violently, every nerve afire, but his mind cleared, singular, focused. Choice. Freedom. Love. Hate. Every emotion he had felt for Sirius, every moment he had wished for a connection, every grudge, every longing, every impossible wish—it all converged.

The Inferi’s cold hands closed on him. He gasped, tasted iron and fear and salt. Darkness pressed into his lungs. His heartbeat roared. And he smiled, small, wild, fleeting. For once, he was not weak. For once, he had chosen.

He had chosen to act. To feel. To be brave. To love, even in anger, even in grief, even in abandonment.

He had chosen Sirius.

Even if it carried him to the grave.

And as the water claimed him, as cold and inevitability wrapped around his body, Regulus Black felt something he had never known in life: peace. Not safety, not obedience, not approval—just the raw, terrible, beautiful freedom of courage.

Even in death, he had chosen.

summery: At the age of three, his parents decided to join Haly's Circus. At five, he became an older brother. At six, he stopped being an older brother and met death. At eight, he met her again and changed his name. At nine, he became Robin. At fourteen, he killed someone. At sixteen, he stopped being Robin and returned to his roots. At seventeen, he became Nightwing. At eighteen, he became an older brother again, though this time, he didn’t want to. At twenty, he stopped being an older brother for the second time. At twenty-one, he became an older brother for the third time, hoping this time it would be permanent. At twenty-three, one brother came back from the dead and tried to kill the other. At twenty-four, he became everything he didn’t want to become. At twenty-five, everything returned to how it should be, except now everything was wrong. At twenty-seven, everything was finally well—well, as well as things could go.

Author's notes: you can also find me on ao3 (here!) and hope you enjoy this job! English is not my native language, so please be kind. love u ⋆˚✿˖°. And personally I am not Romani so I did a lot of research before writing this, but if something is wrong don't be afraid to said it to me and I will try to fix it.

chapter one : childhood

chapter two: adolescence

chapter three: adulthood