QwertyNerd's Rambles

"Do you know anything you definitely wanna do before bed, or do you want a few suggestions to pick from again?" he offers. "Like, just if you want, I mean."

". . . uh," Lynn says, pausing in the hall and glancing back over his shoulder at him awkwardly. Billy really hopes he's not being a helicopter parent, however being a helicopter parent actually, like . . . works, he guesses. ". . . I don't know."

"Okay," Billy says agreeably. "I can tell you what I, uh—used to do, usually? Like—when I actually had a bedtime and stuff, I mean."

Definitely "lights out" is a different thing from "bedtime", and definitely the streets were nothing like either of those and since he's become Captain Marvel it's gotten even more different than that, but like—he'd had one before, is all.

"Uh . . . okay," Lynn says slowly, half-turning towards him again. "What was that?"

"Well, aside from getting changed and picking a book, mostly it was just brushing my teeth and hair and washing my face," Billy admits sheepishly. "And a bath every other night, usually. Though your hair's pretty short, so I dunno if you really need to brush it? I mean, I didn't even do it most of the time, just my mom always brushed hers before bed and she always said it was relaxing, so I thought maybe it'd help you, uh . . . relax? Though it probably wouldn't take long enough to do to really be relaxing, I guess. I dunno, mine's pretty short too, but you could ask Tawky what he thinks about it?"

". . . uh," Lynn says, frowning oddly. It's kinda hard to tell if he's confused or if he's annoyed. "Why?"

"Oh, I just mean he's got a ton of fur and fluff all over, so he'd just have a better idea than me," Billy explains as he gestures at his own hair, because maybe that was unclear? "And like, his tail and whiskers and all too. Though I don't think he actually brushes his whiskers, I don't think that's really a thing for cats. Uh. Tigers?"

". . ." Lynn says, just staring blankly at him. Or, uh . . . doesn't say, Billy guesses.

"Anyway, you can just brush your teeth and maybe wash your face if you wanna?" he suggests. "I dunno if Kryptonians need skincare, really, but it can't hurt. And maybe just ask Tawky about the brushing?"

". . . do you mean I should brush . . . Uncle Tawky's fur before bed," Lynn asks slowly, frowning a little deeper.

"Oh!" Billy says in surprise, brightening at that suggestion. Because, like, it's really great that Lynn feels comfortable making suggestions, and also it's really great that Lynn's still trying to figure out how to be nice to Tawky. Like—Tawky's really easy to get along with, obviously, Tawky's great, but Billy's still just really glad that they're getting along this well. "That'd be really nice of you, Lynn! Tawky likes to look good but he has trouble holding the brush himself, so that'd actually be super-thoughtful. Opposable thumbs and all, you know how it is."

It definitely does save a lot of magic if Tawky doesn't have to keep turning into different shapes every time he wants to smooth his fur or clothes or just neaten himself up in general. And also means no thousand-pound tigers in the apartment. Or, uh, a fifteen hundred-pound saber-toothed tiger.

Billy's pretty sure that saber-toothed tigers didn't even get that big, actually, but Tawky definitely does not care. Which is kinda funny 'cuz Tawky definitely does care how much Thomas Edison sucked compared to Nikola Tesla, but also being able to drop fifteen hundred pounds of magical saber-toothed tiger on bad guys has been really useful, like, so many times, so Billy's not gonna argue.

Fifteen hundred pounds of magical saber-toothed tiger definitely isn't gonna be able to fit in the bathroom, though, so yeah.

"Uh . . . sure," Lynn says, and Billy beams at him.

"Great!" he says.

Lynn just stares blankly at him again, then turns away abruptly and goes back to the living room to grab Tawky off the table and bring him back with him. He holds him kind of awkwardly, but only mostly like a chokehold. That's maybe just because he's still holding the book in one hand, but technically still an improvement, Billy figures. Like, still counts!

Lynn takes Tawky into the bathroom in the hall, then frowns kind of perplexedly for a minute before putting opening the tiny little bathroom closet and setting the book on top of the rolled-up towels sitting on one of the shelves inside. Billy has no idea why the towels aren't just folded, but . . . okay, he guesses? Like . . . that's something that whoever set up the apartment did.

. . . it's really weird thinking of Batman rolling up towels and folding the corners in all nicely, but mostly Billy just doesn't wanna check for a brand name, after the pajama-trauma. The pajama-trauma is too real.

Seriously, why do any pajamas costs that much? Why do any clothes cost that much?

Billy is definitely not gonna be checking the towels, yeah.

Catherine tears her eyes away from the pup and the alpha—tears her heart in half, tears it into something ragged and twisted and painful—and then ducks back behind the wall and takes a rough gulp of air and tries to . . . tries to . . .

She's given some other pup something that should only ever have been Jason's, but she's already given it. She's already given it, so . . . so she needs to—she needs to—

She squeezes her eyes shut for one more long, awful moment, and then she buries her face against the bricks and digs her nails into the bricks and . . . and . . .

And she winds her grip through—through some other pup's pup-bond to her, and . . . and she lets them . . . lets them . . .

She lets them know she's here.

Catherine hears the alpha's pup yelp, and hears a rush of fumbling, clattering motion from down the street, and feels—

The alpha's pup tears down the street towards her, and she feels it. The alpha shouts something, but—but it's the pup that's all she can feel right now.

Catherine screws her eyes shut tighter, just for a moment, and holds back everything that's bitter and ugly and bleeding inside her and keeps it all away from the raw, fresh edges of the new pup-bond that's been burned into her mind. That's not the kind of thing she can let into a pup-bond. Not the kind of thing anyone should ever let into a pup-bond.

There's an alpha she doesn't know and an alpha's pup she doesn't know, and she doesn't know what that alpha is going to do to her, and she'll never see Jason again.

The alpha's pup bolts around the corner and skitters to a stop on the cobblestones and gravel, and Catherine forces her eyes back open and turns her face just enough away from the wall to actually . . . actually see them.

And scent them, now.

And then she stares, because the alpha's pup is . . .

There's a teenager standing frozen in front of her. He's short and slender, though still bigger than her, his skin just a little dark and his hair just shy of pitch black, and he's wearing a bright yellow cloak and a short ruby red tunic over a slightly longer emerald green one, and is also wearing emerald green gloves and boots, and a . . . and a . . .

And a mask. One just over his eyes in that same emerald green, and with shining whited-out lenses reflecting from it. Catherine can't smell his pheromones at all; only hints of scent-obscuring oils and perfumes that are barely even discernible from the night air.

He's . . .

". . . oh," he says, and stares at her. His eyes are so wide that she can tell even behind the mask covering them.

She can't smell his pheromones at all and can't see what he looks like behind that mask—can't even tell what species he might be, past the oils and perfumes and mask and cloak—but her omega knows him.

He's not—not Catherine's pup, not—not her Jason, not her one and only, not the only one who ever should've been—but . . . but he's . . .

But her omega thinks he is.

And he's Robin, too.

He's Robin, so that means . . . so that means his sire must be . . .

Catherine feels dizzy, and doesn't know if it's with relief or terror.

The Bat—the Bat doesn't—everyone knows that the Bat doesn't kill. Doesn't hurt anyone who doesn't deserve it.

Or everyone says that the Bat doesn't do that, at least.

Catherine doesn't know what he'll do now either way, because the Bat also doesn't let anyone see his face or catch his scent or know his name, and she just made a dam-bond with his pup.

She doesn't even know if this is better than the alternative; doesn't know if this is better than any alternative. Doesn't even know . . .

Doesn't even know this pup's face or name.

". . . daj?" Robin repeats as he leans in towards her, and sounds—not feral, but . . . but maybe not fully there either. She doesn't know the word, still. But of course she knows the word, still.

There's no way she couldn't.

Catherine remembers how he'd wailed, when she'd shoved her terror through her bond to Jason. He must've—Robin must've felt it too, some spillover or aftershock or bleedthrough, and even without the empathy bond from direct contact to reinforce it, he'd been . . . affected. He'd been . . .

He'd been afraid, and wanted her to catch him.

Wanted his—mother to catch him.

She doesn't want to be cruel to him. Doesn't mean to be cruel to him. Whatever the Bat is like, everyone knows Robin is . . . is . . .

She doesn't want to be cruel to him, but it's taking everything in her not to despise the sight of him: the feeling of some other pup where only Jason should've ever been; should ever be.

So she doesn't want to be cruel to him, but she doesn't know how she could be anything else.

“That’s easy in your mind?” Tim asks, and Kon rolls his eyes.

“We have one timeline, Rob, even counting the bits where it’s shittily stapled together from a few different ones,” he says. “There are infinite-ass fucking alternate realities out there.”

“. . . technically accurate, but your logic still sucks and Wonder Girl was right to back Impulse’s metaphorical horse,” Tim says, eyeing him dubiously. “At least you could’ve narrowed it down by checking the ‘easy’ option first.” 

“Yeah, that’s what Bart’s doing, duh,” Kon says. Tim . . . pauses. 

“. . . what's Cassie doing right now, Kon?” he asks suspiciously.

“Don’t worry about it, man,” Kon says, waving him off with his free arm before wrapping it back around Ellie again. “But also you might have to start carrying an obol or two in the future, just FYI.” 

“A what?” Tim asks incredulously. 

“Did I not just say ‘don’t worry about it, man’?” Kon snorts, rolling his eyes again too. “Geez, do you just not listen when I talk?”

“Did Lex make you too?” Ellie asks hesitantly, biting his lip uncertainly.

“Technically there was some involvement there, yeah,” Kon says, looking briefly resigned. Ellie frowns, ducking his head for a moment, and then leans in and cups a hand against Kon’s ear the same way Bernard did against Tim’s a minute ago, which Tim reflexively finds cute as hell. He’s not sure if Ellie actually picked that gesture up from Bernard, but there’s definitely a nonzero chance, so it’s–

“Is he a nicer daddy here?” Ellie whispers into Kon’s ear. Tim instantly feels nauseous, and Kon’s expression tightens. Tim tries to figure out how to tip Kon off to the minefield here without trotting out all of Ellie’s trauma without his permission again, because that is not a habit he wants to form, and–“Like–if he–if he lets other people touch you too. Or–is he nicer when he does?”

Kon turns green, and Tim feels nauseous. 

Especially nauseous because it apparently hasn’t occurred to Ellie that Kon doesn’t have anything to do with Lex Luthor–because it apparently hasn’t occurred to Ellie that a version of him could exist in the same reality as a version of Lex Luthor and not be stuck with the bastard. 

Tim is definitely, definitely not letting anyone call him Ellie’s dad. At least not right now, anyway.

“He’s not nice at all. Not the same kind of bastard as yours sounds like, but still a fucking bastard who only ever wanted to use me,” Kon says, which–well, it wasn’t really subtle what Ellie’d meant by that, Tim thinks. “So he’s definitely not my dad. My dad’s way better than Lex ever coulda been.” 

“. . . is Superman . . .?” Ellie trails off, looking nervous, and Kon just shakes his head. 

“Naw, Big Blue is more like, my big bro, y’know?” he clarifies, and does it light and easy and like nothing about this conversation is awful at all. Tim really wishes he knew how to sound like that right now, but also really wishes no one had to put the effort into sounding like that right now. “My dad’s–uh, well, I’ll tell you about him later, alright? No offense, Tim’s boyfriend.” 

“None taken, yeah, I didn’t even know you had a dad, so this is probably already more information than you wanted me to have,” Bernard says, half-wincing. “Uh–sorry?” 

“It’s fine, dude, you’re Tim-vetted,” Kon replies with a shrug. “I mean if I was that worried about it I woulda just told Ellie we’d talk later from the start, yeah?”

“Technically I was not Tim-vetted, as you recall,” Bernard points out, bless his dumbass “couldn’t quit while he was ahead if his life depended on it” heart. “Batman seemed pretty pissed at me for knowing the whole Robin thing and just, like, not mentioning it for . . . like, seven or eight years, I guess? And Spoiler was just mad I figured it out at all, don’t ask me why.” 

“Batman was extremely pissed, yeah,” Jason confirms, sounding extremely pleased about that. Tim just stares blankly at Bernard, because–wait, what? 

“Sorry, you figured out I was Robin in high school?” he asks disbelievingly.

“It was not particularly subtle, babe,” Bernard replies half-apologetically, wincing a little bit again. “Just always kinda figured it was rude to push you on it. Which, well, if you’ll recall I also did not ever push you on any of your dating-related interests so like, it kinda just all rolled in under one thing for me at the time, I guess? So I dunno, once we met up again and started dating and all I just figured you’d tell me when you were, you know–ready. Which uh . . . clearly you were not, so sorry about that, but yeah, again, seventy-six hours’ worth of extenuating circumstances on my end. Well I actually snapped around hour fifty-two but–anyway. Uh–you’re not mad about that, are you?”

“. . . it’s fine,” Tim says while viciously beating back the rabid need to go for the contingency ring.