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Theta- The largest facility here at Site Pathos; the facility is responsible for Yandere content, the most popular being the From Gold to Mold series.

Yandere Batfamily:

-From Gold to Mold-

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15A 15B

-Out of One Cage and Into Another-

1 2 3 4

-Painted by Icarus-

Act 1: 1 2 3 4

Act 2: 1 2

-Misc-

A/B/O Drabble 2

Alpha- Due to the sensitive nature of the research done here, this facility does not appear on any map data. Anyone wishing to enter Alpha must present ID proving they’re 18 or over.

-Lucky Charm-

1

Lambda- The administration heart of Site Pathos; the complex houses the Legal, HR, and Customer Service departments. Please direct any and all general inquiries to Lambda!

-Asks-

1

Delta- A site no one wants to be sent here; the smallest instillation is responsible for developing and archiving the various miscellaneous projects we come up with, but don’t want to devote an entire facility to.

Roman Reigns x Male Reader (ABO)

“I’m so glad you returned, Fang,” you say to the adventurer sitting next to you in the drawing room of your family’s manor. “I didn’t think culling a goblin settlement in the forest would be difficult for you, but you were gone a week. I hate it when you’re away for so long.”

Fang smiles, the X-shaped scar in the center of his face doing nothing to diminish his handsome features. “I know, my love. I hate being away from you for so long, but my team couldn’t deny a direct request from the king.”

“Yes, you could’ve,” you say, smirking. “And if he had a problem with it, just tell him to take it up with me. I grew up in the castle with his kids, I’m practically his third child! He never would’ve gotten angry if it involved me.”

Fang rolls his eyes, but says nothing and smiles.

Fang, the leader of Halcyon’s S-rank adventurer party, Wolfpack, was sent out into the Forest of Forever to cull a goblin settlement that was getting to be too large, threatening the ecosystem in that part of the forest and the outer edges of Halcyon; normally, C-rank teams are sent out to deal with those settlements, but due to its size and location in the forest, the quest called for a higher ranked team. You had recommended several A-rank teams that you knew of and could vouch for, but the king wanted this dealt with as quickly and as skillfully as possible, so he summoned Fang to the castle and gave him the quest, offering a reward of two-hundred gold coins to completely obliterate the settlement and bring back the goblins’ left ears as proof of completion.

Just then, a small, furry figure comes flying out from out of nowhere and attaches itself to Fang, who laughs.

“And there’s my little flying cub,” he roars, taking the figure into his arms. “I definitely missed you!”

The figure is your pet, Fleece, a rare pixie dragon that while is small, furry, and friendly when compared to most dragon breeds, is still a force to be reckoned with should it ever need to defend itself, capable of unleashing powerful light elemental attacks that can leave weaker foes slain and stronger foes injured and/or incapacitated.

You Painted Fleece into being after Damian got his pets and the urge to have a pet that would love you unconditionally got to be too much. You knew Bruce wouldn’t give you the time of day, let alone a pet (for god’s sake, you still don’t have a phone), so you decided to Paint one into the Canvas and based it off a cute little creature you saw, with an adorable small, furry body that’s soft to the touch, an equally adorable pair of small wings, and two large ears that makes your heart soar whenever you look at her.

You’re broken out of your thoughts when Fang pulls you into his lap, using one arm to hold Fleece and the other to hold you up.

“I spent every moment thinking of both of you. With the two of you, why would I ever want to leave?”

You feel your heart burst at his words. You love Fang with all your heart, not only because of his tall, muscular stature (and he’s only seventeen! You’re looking forward to what an adult Fang looks like!), but because he makes you feel like his world revolves only around you; his skills coupled with his looks make him the center of attention everywhere he goes and people are drawn towards him but so long as you’re nearby, nothing and no one else matters because all his attention is focused solely on you.

No matter how bad your day is, he can always make it a good one.

“Come here, you,” you say, leaning forward to kiss him and he does the same.

Almost there…

Then—

A mechanical chime comes from within your pocket and you freeze before groaning.

“It’s already time for you to go,” Fang asks as you take out the bane for your existence in the Canvas: a pocket watch.

But, it’s no ordinary pocket watch as it keeps time outside the Canvas, helping you know when you need to leave.

It became necessary to Paint it when you got too caught up in a week long birthday celebration the King threw to celebrate the twins’ sixteenth birthdays and you stayed for longer than you should’ve, making you miss breakfast and almost miss going to school; you couldn’t care less about all that, but it gave Alfred a scare that you weren’t feeling well since you were good about being on time and started checking on you on a fairly regular basis, forcing you have to miss entering the Canvas for a few days until he was sure you weren’t sick.

You knew that if anyone in this damn place was going to catch on to you little secret, it’ll be him, so you created the pocket watch to help you never make that mistake again.

Now, while Bruce and his little menagerie may see your abilities as a Painter as some sort of crime, you know the butler would never see you as some sort of freak and treat you badly, but you know he’d never approve you being in here all the time and the moment he found out that you could lose yourself by staying in the Canvas for too long is the moment he tries to take it away from you and you won’t stand for it.

You love Alfred to pieces, really. Hell, he’s the only reason you’ve lasted this long in the Manor of Misery.

But, you love your Maman’s Canvas, too. It’s the only thing that’s given you a reason to get out of bed in the morning and to keep going instead of surrendering. Here, you can live and not just exist like in the outside world.

And it’s the only place you can feel close to her.

If you were forced to choose between Alfred and the Canvas?

…Well, hopefully, it never comes to that.

“I’m afraid so,” you answer tucking the damn watch back into your pocket. “My ‘duties’ call.”

“Until we see each other again, my love.” He brings you into a passionate kiss that leaves you feeling like you’re walking on clouds (all his kisses do that to you). “I’ll be counting the seconds.”

It takes all your willpower, but you’re able to pull yourself out for your lover’s embrace and leave the drawing room and enter the hall so you can leave the Canvas without anyone seeing.

When you come to, the all-too familiar sensation of pain greets you and you feel empty inside.

When you first started entering the Canvas on a regular basis, you got depressed because you actually forgot about the pain that comes with being in your actual body; in the Canvas, your body is healthy and whole, capable of anything you put your mind to.

Out here, however?

You can barely see out through your single remaining eye, you can’t stand the sight of your own face, you can’t speak a single word, and you’re in constant pain.

At first, you cried whenever you left the canvas, but you’ve come to embrace it with a sort of hopeless acceptance; the fire took a lot from you and you’re never get any of it back. It’s nothing short of a miracle that your Maman’s Canvas survived so you can pretend, if only for a little while, that you’re not stuck in a fragile shell of a body and that your life isn’t sad and pathetic and that you have friends and family and people who love and care about you.

You stand up from the chair and look around at your atelier; stings of lights hanging above you, tabletops covered in books you “borrowed” from the Wayne library and bought from your favorite bookstore, sewing supplies spread out across the bar, and Canvases you Painted yourself spread around the room.

When you first discovered this room, it was just a place to safely enter the Canvas and hide it from prying eyes, but it became more to you over the years; back home, Maman taught you that the atelier was a special place as it’s where you Paint and store your Canvases, making it important to your identity as a Painter and should be treated with the proper respect.

You started with just cleaning it up, sneaking cleaning supplies away from Alfred’s surplus to dust every surface, sweep and mop the floors, vacuum the rugs, and spray it with air freshener to get rid of that stale smell that clearly had been building up for years.

Then, when you learned that walking all the way back to your room after being in the Canvas for so long was too hard and you started sleeping there instead, you asked Alfred for more pillows and spare blankets and turned one of the leather couches into a makeshift bed.

Overtime, it became more of your room than your actual room as you spend most of your time there, taking stuff from your room and bringing it here for you to enjoy.

Sighing, you leave the room and make your way down to the dining room where the newest addition to Bruce’s brood sits eating breakfast.

Duke Thomas, also known as Signal, Gotham’s only daytime hero and the only meta Batman allows to operate in his city.

“Hey, Y/N,” Duke greets you, mouth full of egg. “Good morning!”

You give him a little smile as you take the seat across from his.

Duke came to live here a little over a week ago after his parents were hospitalized after Joker’s latest escape, victims to his damn psycho laughing gas. You felt for Duke, you really did. His parents may not be dead like your Maman, the people they once were are dead and in their place are two shells with frighteningly wide grins and equally frightening laughs and whose only desire is to kill their own son.

If your Maman was like that? You don’t think you could handle it.

Plus, Duke’s the only one in this damn place (besides Alfred) that treats you like a person and not an inconvenience. He’s also carried on conversations with you (well, he talks and you write your responses, but it still counts).

You told him that you’re into art and he freaked out when you showed him your sketch book (you used it to work on new things to add to the Canvas, but there wasn’t anything in it that would expose your Painter side), talking about how good and lifelike each drawing looked.

You drew a portrait of Signal swinging through Gotham’s skies and gave it to him, claiming the new hero gave you inspiration and wanted to share it with him.

The two of you have become close, making you feel like you have a friend. The only problem you have is that Duke wants to hang out with you, but between his patrols, school, and work with the Bats, he hasn’t cost you too much time from the Canvas.

In fact, you can’t remember the last time you had so much fun being around someone outside the Canvas.

“How’d you sleep,” Duke asks you after he swallows his food.

Good. How about you?

“Great! My bed here is nothing like the one back home. It feels like a cloud.”

You wouldn’t know since you’ve had the same bed since you first came here, but since you spend most of your time in the Canvas, you don’t really care. The Canvas is all you need.

“Good morning, Duke,” Dick exclaims as he enters the dining room, trademark grin etched on his face.

Of course, as soon as he sees you, that grin dampens a bit.

Typical.

“Oh. Hi, Y/N. Nice to see ya. Been doing ok?”

You know he’s trying to be polite, but he could do a better job at hiding his indifference towards you.

Still, you nod, just as eager as him to wrap up this awkward interaction as him.

“Good. Good.” His focus shifts to Duke and his high energy returns. “So, Duke, how do you feel if I drop you off at school today?” He spins his car keys around on his finger. “I always try to take Damian to school whenever I’m here. I used to take Tim, but he got a car for his last birthday, so he drives himself to school.”

Yes, Tim’s sixteenth birthday was met with great fanfare while Alfred was the only one to acknowledge it. He got you a new TV and some games for your Wii that you have set up in your atelier.

“Yeah, sounds cool!” Duke then looks at you and then back at Dick. “Hey, Y/N goes to Gotham Academy, too. He’s riding with us too, right?”

Your heart drops at Duke’s words and you get the feeling Dick’s did too based off the expression he’s making right now. You love Duke for thinking of you. Besides Alfred, he’s the only one in this damn place that acknowledges your existence.

But, years of neglect have taken their toll on your relationship with them. They don’t care for you and you sure as hell don’t care for them. If you had to be in a car with Dick and Damian, there’s a chance you won’t get out alive.

And it’ll probably be Damian who does you in, finishing the job he failed to do two years ago.

“Well, he has his own way of getting to school,” Dick stutters. “Besides, we use that time to talk about… private stuff. You know, personal things.”

You try not to cringe at how badly Dick’s trying not to reveal their little secret. It’s also very clear that he doesn’t want you in the car because they actually do have brotherly moments during the ride and he doesn’t see you as a brother.

In the six years you’ve lived here, you’ve seen Dick be the model big brother to everyone here, especially to Damian. He talks to them, keeps their secrets, picks them up when they fall down, crack jokes with them, and lets them know he’s there for them if they ever need someone.

But he’s never done that to you.

He tries to avoid you just as much as you try to avoid him and everyone else in this place and whenever you two do bump into each other, he gives you awkward greetings, asks empty generic questions, and quickly excuses himself.

You don’t care, though. Let him try to keep this marry band of misfits together when Bruce ultimately screws up for the umpteenth time. You have your family in the Canvas. You don’t need any of them. The Canvas is all you need.

“Besides, he likes his way of getting to school, don’t you, Y/N,” Dick asks, looking to you to back him up.

You resist the urge to roll your eye and turn to Duke, your whiteboard in hand.

It’s fine, Duke. Go with them. I’ll be fine.

“But—“

You point at your board to emphasize your point and he looks like he wants to argue, but ultimately concedes to you and agrees to ride with Dick and the others.

You two finish breakfast and head up to your rooms to get ready for the day. While Dick always takes the Duke and Damian to school, Alfred drives you himself on his way into town so he can run errands.

As you get ready to leave your room, book bag in hand, you briefly consider faking sick in order to avoid going to school so you can stay and enter the Canvas. You’ve been having a hard time dragging yourself away from it and when you’re not in it, you’re thinking about when you’ll be able to go back. It’s gotten to the point where you’re constantly checking the clock to see how long you have to wait to delve back into the Canvas.

You’ve almost cried when you’re in the last stretch of your last period and you’re so close to feeling joy again, but it feels like time is slowing down to make every second feel like an eternity.

You hear your Maman’s words echoing in your head, warning you about the toll delving into her Canvas so may times and staying for so long, but you shrug them off.

The Canvas is the only joy you have in this tragedy you call your life. Out here, you just exist. Confined in a broken body and surrounded by people who have made it clear they couldn’t care less if you die or not.

But in the Canvas, you can truly live. You have your Maman and you can have the time that was stolen from you. You have a boyfriend who loves you and you love him. You have friends who want to be around you and think you’re the best.

But you aren’t going to lose yourself. The Canvas is just helping you deal with this hell you’re trapped in. Once you turn eighteen, you can go back to Goodsprings and things will be better. You’ll be able to put all this behind you and never have to see Gotham or any of the Waynes ever again.

Besides, if you fake being sick, Alfred will make it a point to check on you multiple times during the day and if he finds you out of bed, he’ll go nuclear and tear the house apart to find you.

And if he finds the Canvas and learns of your Painter abilities?

It’s not worth the risk. You can’t afford to do anything that will cost you the Canvas, so decide to suck it up and go to school.

You meet Alfred down in the garage and get into his car and he begins the drive to Gotham Academy.

“Master Y/N,” he says at the halfway point. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

You can tall by his tone this is something very important, so you sit up and give the butler your undivided attention.

“Master Bruce is concerned about my workload and is insisting I take the week off. He’s already arranged for me to travel to Britain for the duration of my vacation.”

Your heart drops at those words. Yes, if there’s anyone that deserves a vacation, it’s Alfred. The man does so much and puts up with even more.but, he’s the only one that makes sure you have something to eat. The only one that makes sure you get to school on time. The only one that keeps the others at bay.

If he leaves, even if only for a week…

It’s fine. You need a break. And it’s only for a week.

“Perhaps I should talk to your father, make it clear that I can’t be away for so long.”

You shake your head at his statement. You hate the thought of being alone with them, but you owe Alfred a lot and you would never forgive yourself if you kept him from being able to get away from this city of the damned and get some R&R.

“If you think you’ll be ok, I’ll leave this afternoon. I’ll make sure to leave you plenty of meals for you to heat up while I’m gone.”

The Waynes always eat way before you do due to their nighttime activities (the official excuse is because they like to turn in early for the night, so they have an early dinner), so when you have your dinner, you sit in the dining room and eat by yourself.

You prefer it this way. You keep all interactions with them to a minimal and the thought of you having to sit with all of them at a table makes you sick.

Of course, they’d never acknowledge you, talking to each other, laughing, joking, and arguing and making it clear that you’re not and will never be a part of their little family.

But you don’t care. You’re invited to dine at the Citadel every night and sit next to the Royal Family, discussing current events and laughing at inside jokes other nobles will never be privy to.

The Canvas is all you need.

The car comes to a stop in front of the school and you get ready to get out.

“Maybe you can get close to your father and siblings while I’m gone?”

You cringe at him calling them that.

Bruce Wayne isn’t your Papa. He’s never treated you like he treats the others and he’s never given you any sign he sees you as a son.

As for the others? You have no tie to them besides Damian and even then, you refuse to address the fact that the two of you share DNA. If you could, you’d rip out the parts of you that came from Bruce and give them back to him, making it clear that you renounce any connection you have to the man.

You just tell Alfred bye and that you hope he has fun on his vacation before getting out of his car and heading into the building.

You love Alfred and you know he loves you, but you also know he loves the others, as well. You know the man became a father figure to Bruce after his parents were killed, Dick and Jason were have been around a lot longer than you, and the others are close to the man in ways you can never hope to be.

You know he wishes that the others would treat you like one of them and welcome you into the fold. That’s why he’s so tight-lipped when you complain about them. He loves you and them.

You understand his way of thinking, but that doesn’t mean you have to accept or like it.

Alfred can continue believing in the delusion that one day Bruce will get his head out of his ass and apologize for the way he’s treated you all these years and embrace you as his son and that the others will follow suit and treat you like their brother until the sun explodes, but if it hasn’t happened yet, it never will.

They don’t like you and you sure as hell don’t like them.

You don’t care.

The Canvas is all you need.

Today’s no different than the ones that came before it. You keep your head down, keep to yourself, and try not to look at the clock too much to see how much longer you have to wait until you can go back to the manor and return to the Canvas.

As you sat in class, your mind drifts to Alfred being on vacation and how it might be a blessing in disguise.

With him gone, you can enter the Canvas the moment you get back to the manor and stay as much as you want. No more having to talk to him to avoid being suspicious, no more losing time that could be spent in the Canvas down in the dining room because Alfred won’t let you eat in your room, no more having to wait until he goes down to the Batcave for the night so you sneak away into your atelier.

You’ll miss him, but there’s some good in this. With him gone, you can run straight to your atelier, enter the Canvas, and stay in there until late at night so you can get some actual sleep.

You look up at the clock to see only three minutes have passed since you last looked at it.

Damn it.

The only class you can say you look forward to is art class.

It’s in the middle of the day, so the morning urge to get back in the Canvas has subsided and it’s too early for the afternoon urge to hit you. It’s also the only class where time feels like it flows normally, so you’re not constantly checking the clock to see how long you have to wait until you can finally feel alive again.

Plus, you get to show off your artisan skills that comes with being a Painter, which is always a plus. Here, your fellow classmates are in awe at how detailed and lifelike your drawings and paintings are and say how their work will never compare to yours.

“Mr. Lutece,” Mr. Holloway, the art teacher, says as you walk through the door. “Have you given any thought about what we discussed the other day?”

Right, he was so taken back by your latest work that he was practically begging you to join the school’s art club. He said how he’s never had seen anyone as talented as you and how few of its members can even come close to your level of skill. Of course, he tried to entice you with the mention of how many art schools and college art programs look at their members’ work and offer scholarships to get the artists to attend their schools.

If you have no interest in any of that. Truth be told, you don’t have any goals beyond graduating from here and reaching eighteen so you can leave Gotham and the Waynes behind and try to reclaim what little life you can.

You’ll figure out what you’ll do with your life when you get there and you can live off the insurance money until you figure it out.

Plus, joining the art club will mean having to spend more time here. Time that could be spent in the Canvas.

No thank you.

I did. I appreciate the offer and your faith in my skills, but I just don’t have the time to spend in the club. I’m sorry, but I have to decline.

“I understand. If you ever change your mind, I’ll be more than happy to have you. I think you’ll give Damian Wayne a run for his money.”

That’s right, you remember seeing Damian painting around the manor and even a few of his pieces in the art classroom; he favors his pets for his subjects, but there’s been a few instances where he’s painting landscapes of Gotham and a mountainous area you can only guess is where the League of Assassins has its headquarters. You can admit he has some skill, but you can tell he paints to prove his superiority to those around him.

He paints with the need to prove something while you paint with the need to create. That, coupled with your Painter heritage, makes you the his better. And it makes you giddy inside at the thought of the little demon shit seething at the thought of someone being better than him at something he’s passionate about.

“Well, I hope I can persuade you to join the art contest we’ll be having this Friday. I really think it’ll be good for you to show your work to others.”

You want to decline, but taking part may buy you some time so you’re not caught by any of the others at the manor. Plus, it may be fun, so what the hell, why not?

Sure, I’ll sign up.

“That’s wonderful! I think you should enter your last assignment. Not only was it so realistic, but it makes us all think about our Dark Knight.”

The last assignment he gave was paintings on Gotham’s heroes. While others did recreations of photos they found online, you painted something original: you painted Bruce in his cowl sewed directly onto his body and made up of human skin and a skull on each shoulder and made the white lenses that make up his eyes look angry and sad at the same time.

When asked, you said it was clear Batman became Batman because he lost someone he was close, most likely his parents, due to Gotham’s many criminals and he now carries them with him in more ways than one and that being Batman is his only focus in life that it’s become his true identity and whoever is under the cowl no longer exists.

While some were a little creeped out by how real the skin cowl looked, you earned a lot of praise from your classmates for your skill with a brush and giving them a new way of seeing the Dark Knight.

Of course, they had no way of knowing that your depiction of him is 100% accurate because you live under the man’s roof, but you’re in no hurry to tell them that. In fact, you’d rather not acknowledge it at all. You also have no intention of telling them that your portrait wasn’t some attempt to honor or see the Dark Knight in a special light, but to insult him. Everyone, even the Waynes, may think that Batman is Bruce’s secret identity, but the truth is the opposite; you’ve seen just how obsessed the man gets with trying to solve every mystery, defeat every villain, and stop every scheme and how it’s infected every part of his life. In your opinion, Bruce Wayne did die in that alley all those years ago and it may have taken a while, Batman sprouted from his corpse and the sad part is that not even Alfred seems to be aware of it.

It doesn’t matter to you. If Bruce wants to parade around Gotham every night and fight its collection of psychos until he’s old and gray or someone finally kills him, that’s fine by you. All that matters to you is the Canvas and making it to your eighteenth birthday so you can finally get out of this hellhole.

After getting the rest of the details on the contest from Mr. Holloway, you collect your latest work from the back of the room so you can place it on an easel and resume working on it.

It’s a portrait of you and your Maman, how you both would look like had the fire not happened, killing her and disfiguring you.

As you paint, you can’t help but think thoughts that have plagued you these last couple years.

I wish I died with her.

Lately, you’ve had a hard time functioning in the outside world. Maman would tell you it’s because you spend too much time in her Canvas, but you know that it’s because this existence doesn’t even begin to compare to the life you have in the Canvas. In there, you don’t have to carry the agonizing pain of your frail body or the soul crushing loneliness. You can live carefree and without pain.

Unlike here.

And in the canvas, she’s there. You can have the time that was stolen from you.

You look up at the clock and see you still have about four hours left.

Guess art class is starting to lose its magic.

You really need the Canvas now.

Finally, the last bell of the day rings and you can finally go back to the manor and re-enter the Canvas. And with Alfred gone, you don’t have to talk to him or eat a snack or do your homework right away.

Might as well find some good out of this.

But, with Alfred gone, you’ll have to find your own way home. Thankfully, Gotham Academy isn’t too far from the manor, so you’re able to walk there in under an hour. You know that Alfred would scold you for doing something “so dangerous,” but being in a car with any of the Waynes is dangerous to your health, so you decided that walking was the safer option.

Besides, you’re in Bristol, one of the few “safe” places in Gotham. The chances of something happening to you is low (for a place like Gotham).

Unfortunately, getting to the front gate is only half the journey. The Wayne Estate takes up several blocks, meaning you have to walk even more just to get to the front door. Needless to say, you’re exhausted and dripping in sweat by the time you reach the manor.

You walk in and once you hear multiple voices coming from the other room, you get your second wind and book it up the stairs and don’t stop until you reach your atelier and with each step you take, you feel the anticipation start to build up and threaten to burst out of you. You’ve never been able to re-enter the Canvas this early after coming home from school due to Alfred insisting on giving you an after-school snack and having you do your homework in the kitchen. He said it was because he wanted to make sure you got your schoolwork done, but you could tell he’s worried about you spending so much time alone on the other side of the manor, not knowing what you’re really doing.

You enter your atelier and you feel all the hardships of the day start to melt away. This is what you’ve been waiting for all day and now that you’re here, none of that matters. You get situated in your chair, focus at the Canvas before you, and allow the paint to cover your eyes and your mind begin to slip away from your body.

Your last thought being how a night out with Fang sounds just the thing you need.

When you emerge, it’s pitch black outside, meaning you’ve been in the Canvas for hours.

You wanted to stay the whole night uninterrupted, but you could tell your body needed food and if you want to stay in the Canvas for as long as you want tonight, you need something to eat and knowing Alfred, he no doubt prepared a mountain of meals ready to be heated up so everyone in the manor won’t starve in his absence.

One of the first things you learned about the Waynes is that for how powerful they look in their vigilante costumes, they’re pretty pathetic out of it.

Well, maybe “pathetic” isn’t the right word (even though it’s the word you’d like to go with).

It’s just that they excel in things that take others lifetimes to master, like detective work, combat, computer science, languages, and the like.

But when it comes to domestic chores like laundry, cooking, and cleaning? Hopeless, every last one of them.

Hell, Bruce has a lifetime ban in the kitchen of his own house. Last time he attempted to cook something, the damn idiot burnt the water he was supposed to boil.

Alfred showed you the ropes of housework and you helped him with his chores in exchange for $20 per chore. He told you it was because he wanted to teach you good habits, but you know it was so you could have some pocket money since Bruce doesn’t give you an allowance on account of not remembering you exist. The money helped you buys books and other things that gave you inspiration on things to add to the Canvas over the years, so you’re not complaining.

You look at the clock you keep in your atelier and see that it’s 10:46, well past the time the Bats start prowling around the city, so you should be able to go down to the kitchen without the fear of bumping into anyone, find and heat up whatever meal Alfred set aside for you, wolf it down, and be back in the Canvas in about ten minutes.

You manage to navigate the dark halls of the manor and enter the kitchen where, after poking around for a few minutes, you find one of many meals Alfred prepared since no one in this damn place is capable of anything domestic.

You throw it in the microwave and set it for a minute in a half, which should be just long enough to get it hot, but not long enough to cost anymore precious time that you could be spending in the Canvas.

“Hey.”

You feel your heart stop at the sound of a voice you weren’t expecting and when you turn around, it begins to beat again when you see it’s only Duke.

Right, it’s nighttime. He only patrols during the day. Of course he’d be here.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” he says, giving you an apologetic smile. “You’re finally eating, huh? I stopped by your room to see if you wanted to eat together, but you never answered. I figured you must’ve been asleep or something.”

You freeze at his words.

He stopped by your room? Someone besides Alfred knows where your room is?

You open your mouth to speak, but you remember that you’re in the outside world. Meaning you have one crappy eye, a disfigured face, and no voice. And you forgot to bring your board, so you can’t communicate.

This has been happening a lot. After spending so much time in the Canvas and being able to see the world with two eyes and speak with your own voice, you’ve started to forget that you can’t do that.

“Oh, here. You can use my phone to type what you wanna say.” He hands you his phone with his notes app open. “Hey, why don’t you have your own phone?”

That would require Wayne to remember me and I don’t see that happening anytime soon. I can’t even remember the last time I talked to him.

It’s true, it’s probably been a year or almost a year since Bruce said anything to you and that was probably something in passing. Or maybe he was asking you to leave the room. You can’t remember.

“Oh. Well, that leads me to my next question: why does everyone here treat you like you’re some big secret or something? Like, I asked about you and they all acted weird about it.”

You roll your eye. Because I was dumped here after losing my Maman in the fire. And because I’m not like them. They’re “special” and I’m not. I’m just here because Wayne got her pregnant and he had to take me in. You and Alfred are the only ones to treat me like a person and not an inconvenience or annoyance.

Duke reads your message and goes to open his mouth to respond, but you take the phone to type another one.

How did you know where my room is, anyway? Alfred’s the only one to ever visit me.

“Alfred told me where your room is. He asked if I could look out for you while he’s gone. I knew I hadn’t seen your room in the family wing, but I didn’t know you were on the other side of the manor.”

Alfred asked him to babysit you? Why? Does he know something?

…Does he know about the Canvas?

I don’t need you to babysit me!

Duke tries to respond, but you storm out of the room, no longer caring about your meal. He calls out to you, wanting to keep talking, but you ignore him.

You don’t need Alfred setting you up with a babysitter and you don’t need Duke to “look out for you.”

You just need the Canvas.

You make it back to your atelier back in record time and after making sure you weren’t followed and barricaded the door just to be sure, you re-enter the Canvas.

“What’s wrong, mon petit,” your Maman asks you as you hug her from behind.

“I just need a hug,” you say. “It’s been one of those days.”

She returns the hug. “You’ve been having ‘those days’ quite a bit, lately. I know you put on a brave face and act like nothing’s bothering you, but I can tell it’s taking its toll on you. Is there something I can do to help you?”

You don’t say anything.

How can you tell her it’s because of your problems in the outside world? She’s a Painted copy of your Maman, the moment you reveal the truth, she won’t be her anymore. All the time you’ve spent together and the memories you created over the last eleven years.

There’s also the possibility that she may try to force you to leave the Canvas when she realizes that you’re spending too much time in here and you can’t risk that happening.

“You know, I still remember the day you were born. No matter how long ago it was or how big you get, I’ll still see you as the beautiful baby I held in my arms. I knew that you would smile the brightest smile. That you would cry iridescent tears. That you would be strong and survive whatever life threw at you. Even as a baby, I could tell you would make your mark on the world and find people to call your own and that you would shine as their guiding light.”

You feel your eyes begin to fall from your eyes and she kisses you on your forehead.

“I’m so proud of the young man you’ve become, Y/N. I love you more than I have words for.”

“I love you too, Maman.”

It’s in this moment that you vow that you’ll do whatever it takes to protect the Canvas, no matter what. Here, you can still have your Maman with you. The life that was stolen from you. The time that you’ll never have in the outside world.

The Canvas is the only thing that matters.

Tag List

You started Gotham Academy a week after you entered the Canvas and you weren’t surprised that Alfred was the one to drop you off and even less surprised than that when Bruce wasn’t even at the manor to see you off, some meeting at Wayne Tower being more important than helping you get settled in a new school.

Like the rest of the city, Gotham Academy’s architecture is gothic, making you feel scared and on edge as you enter the building with gargoyles looming over you. The school may have electricity, running water, and all the other modern amenities, but it felt like someone plucked it out of the Dark Ages and plopped it here in the modern age based off how old the stone walls looked and the cracks that you know have been there for years.

This school is meant for the children of the city’s elite and while you wear the uniform as you walk the halls of the school, you don’t belong here. Bruce Wayne may be your “father,” but you were raised like the rest of the commoners they look down on; you didn’t get to spend your summer vacations at some fancy tropical resort, or eat fancy foreign foods every night, or have a private driver take you wherever you wanted whenever you wanted.

Plus, it’s quite clear that man doesn’t see you as a son, just a responsibility he got stuck with.

You don’t belong in this place. You know it. And most importantly, your schoolmates do, too.

Like Alfred said, you’re not in normal classes with the rest of the students in your grade. Since you can’t speak and can barely see out of your remaining eye, you’re in a class for those with different needs. Mrs. Lannister is very nice and patient with you, always willing to print things out for you so you don’t have to strain your eye to see the notes on the board or take extra time to explain things for you since Gotham Academy’s curriculum is way different from your Goodsprings Elementary.

You’re shielded from the majority of the students for most of the day, but it’s when you’re coming in the mornings, or heading to the cafeteria for lunch, or leaving the school to meet Alfred that you’re reminded that you’re an outsider here.

Fortunately, no one’s tried to do anything to you physically, but you can hear them mocking you as you pass them. They make fun of you for the left side of your face being burned and say you must be the next Two Face (you had to look up the man to understand the jab, but when you did, it hurt to know people are saying you’re going to be one of Gotham’s freaks).

And you didn’t find any friends in your classmates. Even with one condition or another making them unsuitable to be in normal classes with the rest of the students, they banded together and rallied against you.

It didn’t matter if some of them were slow or handicapped, your classmates were raised rich and you were raised a commoner. You weren’t one of them and they made that clear when no one volunteered to be your partner for classwork or moved their desks away from you.

Of course, Tim attended Gotham Academy, but just as he made no effort to help you that night at the manor, he made no effort to help you adapt to your new school. It was there you learned that Tim is the heir to the Drake family, one of the richest and most influential families in Gotham and one of the few that could get near the oh-so mighty Wayne family in terms of wealth and influence.

Tim’s parents, Jack and Janet Drake, had died during one of their many trips around the world, leaving Tim the sole surviving member and heir to the Drake fortune and the family manor and business.

You would sympathize with him, but seeing as he doesn’t seem too broken up about it and the fact that he’s a massive jerk, you choose not to.

For whatever reason, Bruce decided to take him in and if Tim wasn’t popular before due to his family’s status, he is now due to him being an honorary member of the Wayne Family.

Maybe you could’ve turned things around for you if you had told everyone you’re a Wayne, but you’re really not. You may be ten, but you know that being related to someone doesn’t always make you family; until very recently, Bruce wasn’t in your life and that now he is, you barely see him despite that fact that you’re living with him.

So if he doesn’t want to see you as family, then you won’t see him as family either.

Besides, you’re something far better than a Wayne: a Lutece, the last of a prominent line of Painters and the final Painter in existence. Not only can you create masterpieces of art, but you can create entire worlds where you can stretch the boundaries of creation and the only limit to your worlds is your imagination.

So let Tim have all the attention. Chances are he’s like most of the other students here, riding the coattails of their parents or grandparents who actually did something worth anything and act like their names really mean anything.

You can Paint Canvases! You can create entire worlds that could defy the laws of reality as people know them! When was the last time Bruce Wayne did anything amazing like that?

But that didn’t mean that your time at school didn’t get to you and you had no one to lean on besides Alfred when things got too much for you when you were back at the manor. When you got back, you always did your homework right away so that when everyone disappeared after dinner (you know there’s something big going on here, but no one will tell you!), you can sneak into your atelier and enter the Canvas and spend some time with Maman and Paint more of your world.

You were really happy when Friday came and you were able to spend almost the entire night in the Canvas. You know Maman would’ve never wanted you staying in a Canvas for so long at your age, but after your first week in that nightmare, you think you’re due some extended time in the Canvas.

It was a month after Tim started living at the manor when Bruce formalized Tim’s adoption, making him Tim Drake-Wayne, and Dick started coming by the manor on a regular basis to be a good big brother.

Sure, you’re proud to be a Lutece and wouldn’t give up your ability to Paint for anything, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt to see Tim getting all sorts of attention everywhere he went because he was now a Wayne or watching from a window as Dick takes him out for ice cream or go to the arcade.

You were here first. You’re Bruce Wayne’s biological son. What makes him so much better than you?

What makes him so much more worthy of love than you?

What really hurt was watching Tim grow close to Bruce and the final nail in the coffin was when Bruce put his hand on Tim’s shoulder after school one day and telling him how proud he was of Tim and call him “son.”

Alfred did his best to comfort you when he saw how upset you were, but there was nothing the man could do or say that would make you feel better. After you faked falling asleep in his arms and he left your room, you rushed to your atelier and entered the Canvas and remained there for most of the night.

If you couldn’t have a family in the real world, you would have one in the Canvas.

You expanded the Canvas, turning the small village into a bustling town full of people and overlooking everything was the Citadel, a castle that could rival your Maman’s (of course, you had to look up castles in a book you “borrowed” from the manor’s library but you made it your own) and within it lived King Magnus Regis, the most noble and wisest ruler the land has ever seen.

You and your Maman were nobles of House Lutece, providing solutions to the kingdom’s problems and helping fund expansion projects. It was thanks to you that the kingdom had expanded the way it did.

As such, you grew close to the Royal Family, which was good for both of you since the king had lost his wife due to a sudden illness that had swept through the kingdom, leaving him to care for his two children, Rex and Raina Regis, alone.

Since the two royal heirs were close in age to you, your Maman would bring you to the castle to play with them while she and the king discussed business and you became very close to the two royals and it wasn’t before long that the king started treating you like you were his own son. As the city expanded further and became more prosperous, House Lutece became the Royal Family’s most trusted ally and most treasured friend, with many forgetting that you and your Maman were only friends of the Royal Family and not a part of it.

If Bruce didn’t want to be your father and Dick and Tim didn’t want to be your brothers, you’ll make your own.

It was then you realized that the city needed a proper name and after looking through several more books you “borrowed” from the library, you discovered the perfect name.

Halcyon.

A word that refers to a past time that was idyllically happy or peaceful.

Pretty fitting for a city in a Canvas that was Painted by your Maman. Here, you can get back the time and live the life with her that was stolen from you. And you’re make sure Halcyon is nothing like Gotham; instead of being dark, oppressive, and dangerous, Halcyon will be bright, open, and safe.

It was about three months after Tim was adopted by Bruce that you figured out the secret that everyone in this place was keeping from you.

Bruce Wayne is Batman, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, and Tim Drake is the third Robin after the second one, Jason Todd, died after being murdered by the Joker.

No one told the secret, of course, you had to figure it out on your own.

Well, it didn’t take much to figure it out. You were suspicious that Bruce and Tim always disappeared around sunset, which is normally when Batman and Robin appeared on patrol, but your suspicion grew when you saw Dick in the morning when you knew he wasn’t there the night before.

But the last piece of evidence came from their own mouths. Whether it’s because they’re too used to not walking on eggshells when they’re at the manor or simply because you don’t register on their radar, you have no idea, but you do know is when the three of them were talking about patrol routes, stakeouts, criminal activities, and Arkham escapes, they talked as if they knew more than they should about things like that.

And when the Penguin was busted trying to steal paintings from the Gotham Museum of Fine Arts after overhearing a conversation between Bruce and Tim about the man the day before, you knew you finally cracked the case.

But your discovery meant nothing to you.

If these three want to sneak around at night in Halloween costumes beating up thugs and psychopaths, they were free to do so. You have no desire to join their little super secret club and go toe-to-toe with the likes of Joker or the Falcones. Besides, you may be miserable here, but this is the only place you have left to go to, so if you go blabbing the identity of Gotham’s Dark Knight, you’re most likely going to be thrown in an orphanage when Bruce gets thrown in prison or flees (because there’s no way he’d take you with him when he’s chased out of town), and you’re pretty sure that Gotham’s orphanages are as horrible as the rest of the city.

Plus, you’re pretty sure that when people find out that you’re Bruce Wayne’s son, you’re going to have a bullseye on your back that not even a Stormtrooper couldn’t miss.

So, the Waynes’ secret is safe with you if only to protect yourself.

But, it still hurt to watch the three enjoy being around each other as they told stories about their patrols, cracked jokes about Gotham’s villains, and helped one another with a case.

In response, you created the Adventure’s Guild in Halcyon and joined it. If they get to have fun saving the day, then you get to be a hero in the Canvas, but where they battled thugs and psychopaths, you battle bandits and mythical monsters.

It was a year after your Maman’s death that Cassandra came to live at the manor.

It was already a rough day for you as this would be a full year that you didn’t have her in your life anymore and got stuck in this godforsaken place. If Bruce was aware of what today was, he didn’t show it, but you really doubted he even had a clue.

Thankfully, Alfred did, so he made a large breakfast buffet with all the foods Maman did on Sundays and asked if you had any stories about her.

Now, you had plenty of stories, but almost all of them involved being in a Canvas, and as much as you appreciate Alfred being there for you when Bruce fell short, you didn’t trust the butler enough to tell him your secret of being a Painter (mostly because you were afraid of him wanting to take the Canvas from you and that’s one thing you can never let happen), so you told him some of your non-Canvas related stories and changed the Canvas ones to make it sound like the two of you spent a lot of time in your old atelier (which you technically did since your bodies remained there, but your minds were in your own Canvases).

“It sounds you inherited her skill with the brush, Master Y/N. If you want to get back into painting, I’d be more than happy to pick up some art supplies for you.”

That made you think.

You lost all your Canvases in the fire. If Alfred’s serious about getting you some supplies, you might be able to persuade him into buying you some canvases that you can turn into living ones. You’re not going to abandon Maman’s Canvas, but you know she’d want you to make your own so you can express yourself and not be constrained by what you think she’d Paint (plus, you know she’d want you to spend time in other Canvases as delving into the same Canvas over and over for too long can speed up becoming lost in it).

It was then that Bruce entered the dining room, a pale teenage girl with inky black hair by his side.

“Alfred, this is Cassandra,” the man says, not even glancing in your direction. “She’ll be staying with us.”

Another one? Tim hasn’t been a Wayne for a full year and he was already adding another one to his ranks?

You look over at Bruce’s newest addition and for once, you really wish you didn’t have the senses and intuition of a Painter.

You have no idea where Bruce found this girl, but you know for sure it wasn’t an orphanage or on the street. This girl is the definition of a wolf in sheep’s clothing; she looks as if she’s hunting something and she doesn’t walk so much as she does prowl and while she looks calm, you can tell that at a moment’s notice, she can do a total 180 and be ready to hurt someone. Badly.

Then she looks at you and you freeze, your breath catching in your lungs and your blood going cold. You know she’s not like the T-Rex from Jurassic Park (at least in appearance), but there’s a part of you that for whatever reason believes that if you’re completely still, she won’t see you.

What are the chances her sight is also based off movement?

She looks you over top to bottom before moving on and you’re able to breathe again. While she was looking at you, you could feel like she wasn’t just looking at you, but through you as well; like the rest of her actions, her look wasn’t just to see you, but analyze you, as if she was looking for potential dangers and weaknesses in you.

That girl isn’t human, that’s for sure. She’s a predator. You’re happy that your room is on the opposite side of the manor as the family wing since you go to your new atelier whenever you want, but now you’re really glad because now you’ll be nowhere near that… thing while you’re asleep.

You just hope Bruce keeps her on a leash.

After Bruce stole Alfred from you to discuss arrangements for Cass, you ran to your atelier and entered the Canvas, wanting to put as much distance between yourself and Bruce’s “daughter” as possible.

It was then when you revived the Plushlings from your first Canvas, but giving them a little more lore so they would blend into Halcyon. As far as the rest of the city knows, House Lutece created the race of stuffed animals with magic fabric and stuffing.

The Plushlings were quickly accepted by Halcyon, especially the children. People often visited Plushling Village to hire them for odd jobs in exchange for fine fabrics and sewing supplies, which the Plushlings used in construction, medicine, and to make children (a Maman and a Papa Plushing used pieces of their own fabric and stuffing to make their children).

The first ever Plushling became your best friend and you gave him the name Buddy.

You now have a best friend. That helped make the first anniversary of your Maman’s death a little bearable.

It was a few days after your eleventh birthday when Stephanie joined Bruce’s brood.

You turned ten a few days after the fire, but after being burned and losing your Maman, you were in no mood to celebrate, but Alfred made it clear that this year, your birthday would be acknowledged. Of course, Bruce was busy with “work,” now if that meant as Bruce Wayne or as Batman, you had no idea, but you didn’t really care if he wasn’t there.

Alfred was there and that was all that mattered.

The butler surprised you with a shopping trip after returning Tim and Cass to the manor after school, buying you a bunch of books, clothes, toys, and art supplies with a trip to an ice cream shop in the middle of your little shopping spree.

When you returned to the manor and put all your new things in your room, it just dawned on you just how empty your room was. You lost everything after the fire and have been spending so much time in the Canvas that you never really noticed that you never really tried to make this room your own. If anything, you’ve kinda turned your atelier into your room by spending so much time there.

Later, Alfred placed a cake in front of you and said that he had invited Bruce, Dick, Tim, and Cass to celebrate, but they had something they needed to take care of. You couldn’t care less about what they’re doing, the less they’re around you, the better.

Just as Alfred started cutting into the cake, Bruce came in with a blonde teen girl following behind and a terrible sense of Deja Vu hit you.

Oh god, he brought another one!

“Alfred, this is Stephanie. She’ll be living with us, so she’ll need a room.”

“Damn, dude,” Stephanie said as she took the plate of cake meant for you and started eating it. “What happened to you? You might wanna use moisturizer or something.”

Wow, what a bitch.

“Master Bruce, I’m in the middle of something—”

“This takes priority, Alfred. She’ll be working with us tonight and she needs a place to get settled.”

And like that, Bruce and Steph (still eating your piece of cake) left the room and Alfred apologized before leaving the dinning room and it’s then that you realized that no matter how in the wrong Bruce is, Alfred will never call him out on his behavior and just do as he says. The man tried to be there for you, but his loyalty will ultimately be with Bruce Wayne. Not you.

Never you.

You leave the dining room just to bump into Dick.

“Oh,” he said, looking awkward as if he ran into someone he was trying to avoid (which is most likely the case). “Hey, bud.”

He awkwardly patted you on the shoulder before very quickly walking back the way he came and for the umpteenth time, you wished you could still speak so you could give that jerk a piece of your mind. You couldn’t remember the last time you spoke to Dick and when he’s finally forced into a conversation with you, all he can say are three words before turning tail and running? And did he really not see the birthday cake on the table or was that deliberate on his part?

You knew Bruce couldn’t care less about you, much less your birthday, and Stephanie could’ve at least wished you a happy birthday before biting into the slice of cake meant for you.

Knowing Alfred would be kept busy for the rest of the night, you go up to your atelier and enter the Canvas where you have a massive birthday party held at the castle, with fellow nobles, commoners, and Plushlings wishing you a happy birthday and giving you gifts.

“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” your Maman said as she gave you a new sword to aid you on your adventures. “You’re growing up into a fine young man. I know you’re going to do great things in the world.”

Who needs the Waynes? You have all that you need right here in the Canvas.

It was about a year and a half after that when Jason rejoined the family.

You remembered hearing about how he had died not long before you came to live here and it was after you figured out the Waynes’ little secret that you figured his death had to be caused by their nighttime adventures and sure enough, you found out that the second Robin had been killed by the Joker.

Getting killed by Gotham’s psycho clown? Chances are his death was drawn out and very painful. You felt so sorry for the poor guy and hope he found some sort of peace wherever he was.

That wish disappeared when you ran into the now eighteen-year-old Jason Todd sneaking into the library window while you were in there and punched you right in the face when you surprised him. As you sat on the floor, cradling the hurt side of your face, you look up and through the tears streaming out of your swollen eye, you see the man standing over you, scowling.

“Get the fuck away from me, you little shit,” he growls and you swear that his blue eyes flashed a sickly shade of green for a second.

Alfred burst into the library and was able to get him to leave while the butler took you to the kitchen so he could prepare an ice pack for you.

“I’m so sorry this happened to you, Master Y/N. Master Jason is adapting to being back in the family, but he had no right taking his anger out on you. I’ll see to it that he apologizes to you at once.”

You never did get that apology. You thought Cass made the manor dangerous by walking through its halls like the silent hunter she is, but Jason made the manor a minefield with his volatile anger.

You wanted to get revenge on Jason, but since you know that you’ll never be able to get close to the man, you entered the canvas that night and let out your anger out on every bandit camp you could find.

Halcyon became bandit free practically overnight.

You were fourteen when Damian came to live at the manor.

And boy, if you thought life at Wayne Manor was hard before, it just became next to impossible and the source of that difficulty came in the form of a ten-year-old boy.

Well, more accurately, a ten-year-old boy with a sword.

You were passing through the foyer to go to the kitchen to get a snack after spending hours in the Canvas when you happened to see Bruce, Alfred, and Dick standing there with a young boy that looked like a mini Bruce, the only difference being the emerald green eyes that were focused on you, making the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

Once again, you were filled with the same kind of dread and fear you felt when Cass arrived. The only difference being that with Cass, you had no idea if she was going to do anything or not. With this new arrival, you felt like you were you were already in his sights and it was only a matter when he was going to pounce, not if.

You wondered if that was how a deer felt when it knew a predator was nearby, but had no idea where the attack was going to come from.

“Master Damian, this is Master Y/N,” Alfred said, bringing you back to the moment. “He’s Master Bruce’s firstborn son and your brother.”

As soon as those words left Alfred’s mouth, all you saw was a flash of movement before watching in slow motion Damian brandishing a sword he seemed to pull out of nowhere and about to chop your head off.

It was nothing but pure luck that allowed you to jump back in time so your head didn’t roll, but you didn’t get away completely unscathed. As you moved, the tip of the sword managed to get you under your right eye, making pain pulse throughout your face. You may have jumped out of the way, but the way you did it made you trip over your own feet, making you fall on the floor on your butt. You touch the part of your face where the sword nicked you and see blood covering your hand.

You’re limited to one eye that barely works at the best of times and you almost lost it thanks to the little demon that Bruce apparently created behind your back.

You then remembered said demon and look up to see him nearing you, sword raised over his head and a feral grin on his face.

Oh god, this is it. This is how it ends.

It was then that Bruce decided he needed to step in because he picked Damian up and carried him away without even looking at you while the little demon shouting threats and insults at you as he and Bruce left the foyer.

“Master Y/N,” Alfred exclaimed as he helped you up and looked at your face. “Are you alright?”

“He’s fine,” Dick answers for you. “Just a little scrape, right, kiddo?”

Just a “scrape?” You almost get your head chopped off and lose your one good eye and he acts like it’s nothing?

No, I’m not alright! He almost killed me! He’s dangerous!

“Hey, don’t say that,” Dick chastises, like you were the crazy one here and not the one who just got assaulted by a psycho with a sword. “He’s had a hard time! He just needs some patience and understanding! You’re his older brother, you should be there for him!”

You realized that arguing with Dick was a waste of time, so you allowed Alfred to pull you away to the kitchen to stitch you up.

Like Jason, you didn’t get an apology.

As time went on, you realized that Damian wasn’t like the others in this demented family; while the others seemed to avoid you like the plague, he seemed to go out of his way to make your life hell. He’d insult you, threaten you, trip you, and, when Bruce made the unfortunate decision to allow Damian have pets, he sent his pets to chase you around the manor and force you to barricade yourself in the nearest room.

You didn’t even have a phone, but Damian could have several pets that seemed to hunger for your flesh.

You’re now sixteen and you’re an addict.

No, you’re not addicted to booze, drugs, or cigarettes, but the Canvas.

You Painted other Canvases, like one with a giant ring-shaped space station circling a gas giant, one with a giant mansion filled with all your favorite video game characters, and even a simple beach town, but no matter how hard you tried to resist, you always returned to your Maman’s Canvas, your own Canvases serving as mere inspiration and testing grounds for new things to add to it.

At first, you just spent a few minutes in her Canvas a day, but it soon moved up to hours, then eventually entire nights when it was the weekend or a holiday. It then evolved to you spending all your free time in her Canvas, from waking up early in the mornings so you could get in some time before having to go to school and then stay in up late so you spend a little more time in there; naturally, whenever you weren’t in the Canvas, all your thoughts revolved around it, like what would you do next, or what new creation could you add, or how long you had to wait until you could re-enter it.

You know she wouldn’t approve of you spending so much time in her Canvas, but with how things are at the manor, it’s the only thing that keeps you going. Out in the real world, you have no friends, no family, no voice, and no life. In the Canvas, you have everything that you could ever need. As a Painter, you don’t have to put up with a life you don’t want.

You can handle this, you’re not going to lose yourself to the Canvas. You just need to endure two more years and you can finally get out of this hell. You know Maman had a premium life insurance policy that would go to your once you turned eighteen and when you get access to her bank account and the insurance policy on the house, you’ll be able to leave Gotham and the Waynes behind.

You just need to make it two more years.

Tag List

You open your eyes to see that you’re standing in a large field with the tall grass lightly grazing your legs due to the soft breeze blowing around and when you look up, you see light beaming down on you (after being in Gotham for only two days, you’d almost forgotten what natural light looked like), but all you see is an endless white void staring back at you.

“What,” you say, looking around to see that after a few feet, the field just ends, making it a floating island.

It’s then you come to a realization: Maman never finished this Canvas. For whatever reason, she started it, but she never completed it. Actually, looks like she didn’t get to do much before she left it.

You also realize that you just heard your voice, something you almost forgot the sound of.

“My voice,” you say, voice quivering a bit before waving your hand and a mass of Chroma in the form of a swarm of blue flower petals dancing in front of you before dispersing and revealing a mirror.

You stand in front of it to see your reflection staring back at you.

You see the left side of your face free of the ugly burn scars that have made you hate seeing your reflection.

You see your left eye restored back to its original condition before the fire.

You see your right eye no longer blurred like it’s covered by some film.

You see…

“My face,” you cry. “My face.”

You may have only been damaged for a short time, but the shock of seeing what remained of your face after the fire made you forget what you looked like before you lost everything. And with all your photos lost, you were afraid that you’d never be able to see what your face looked like and every time you imagined yourself, all you’d be able to see was the horrible, ugly, and disfigured face you were doomed to spend the rest of your life with.

And it’s also then that you remember the pain is gone, too.

Every day after the fire, you’ve lived in constant pain. You first felt it when you woke up in the hospital and they were thankfully gave you all sorts of painkillers to make it bearable, but even with you assortment of pain meds and the prescriptive cream you were given, you still have to deal with a dull pain that makes it hard to concentrate or even go about your life.

A close second in the insufferability contest is how sensitive the left side of your face is now. You have to be very careful when you apply the cream on your face because if you touch it even slightly too hard, it hurts like nothing else and actually brings you to tears. Even a slight breeze is enough to make you want to cry out in pain (if only you could). You’ve stayed inside the manor to avoid any sort of light or risking anything from agitating your scars, but you’re not going to have that luxury for too long since Alfred’s enrolled you in your new school.

But that’s gone now. Here, in the Canvas, you don’t have to put up with that. You can go back to how things were before…

Before you lost everything.

You take a few minutes to cry in joy and relief. For now, the pain is a distant memory and you plan to take advantage it for as long as you can.

After calming yourself down, you decide that you need more than this little island. If you plan to finish this Canvas in your Maman’s place, this void has to go.

You close your eyes and remember your lessons. Painting is not about verisimilitude, but essence. Substance.

If you want to Paint something as you want it to be, you have to do it as you imagine it.

You close your eyes and imagine what this tiny island transforming into a giant landmass.

“Grass,” you say as you wave your hand, feeling flower petals dance around you. “A land full of bright green grass and tall trees blowing in the wind. Rivers and streams flowing with crystal clear water and full of big fish. A pure blue sky with fluffy white clouds all over. The sun, high in the sky, giving light and heat across the land.”

You open your eyes and see the petals dancing all around you, etching a new landscape in their wake. Where there was once an island there is now land, complete with grass, trees, and flowers dancing in the wind. And where there was a white void there is now a beautiful blue sky with clouds scattered all over it and the sun shining down on you.

The sight of it makes you pause.

The last time you saw a blue sky and the sun was when you were flying to Gotham. You may have blanked out for most of the trip there, but you can clearly remember that as you neared the city, the sky got dark, despite it being in the middle of the day; it seemed that the city itself was actively blocking the sun, preferring to keep the skies darkened by a thick layer of smog and dark clouds, keeping its citizens in perpetual darkness.

Now, you have an unobstructed view of the sun and you want to flop down on the grass and let its heat warm you from the cold that seems to always be around Gotham.

And in the distance, you can see a big stream and you immediately want to take off all your clothes minus your underwear and jump in it. It feels like it’s been forever since you last went swimming, either in the real world or in a Canvas, and after learning from Alfred that several of Gotham’s villains use gases in their schemes, you get the feeling that you won’t be swimming anywhere in Gotham if you want to keep what skin you have left.

With more land to play with, you begin to shape it more to resemble your Maman’s Canvases, dotting the landscape with vast forests and mountains that, even in the distance, tower over everything.

Now, you need buildings and the castle is the perfect place to start.

You imagine the castles you’d seen in her Canvases, how they looked so fancy and giant. You imagine the endless corridors with long carpets and suits of armor on each side. You imagine the ballroom where all the people got together in fancy clothes and danced the night away.

You imagine…

You open your eyes to see a massive swirl of petals dancing ahead of you before scattering, leaving behind a…

“Ok, not my best work,” you say, disappointed in your creation.

You ended up Painting a bunch of rooms that were either isolated or connected to others at odd angles, staircases that went nowhere, and a bunch of furniture that were scattered around with no thought. Looking at the castle that looks like it was torn apart and put back together by a drunk in the dark reminds you of the modern “art” exhibits you and Maman went to and laughed at.

As you look at the mess in front of you, you can’t help but start laughing, the action so weird since you haven’t done it in so long. Then again, you haven’t had anything to make you laugh lately.

“Well, Maman always told me if I don’t get it right the first time, try again,” you say as the giggles start to die down.

It’s then you have another idea.

A wonderful, yet terrible idea.

You imagine your Maman’s hair, her loving eyes, her kind smile. Everything that made you feel safe and loved. The total opposite of what you feel when you look at Bruce Wayne.

I wish the fire never happened. I wish she didn’t die.

Chroma dances around before you in a whirlwind before dispersing and leaving behind…

“Maman,” you say to the figure before you.

In front of you is your Maman, Marie Lutece, dressed in her favorite white dress. And she looks just like she did before the fire that took her and disfigured you.

“Y/N,” she responds, her voice sounding so familiar yet so alien to you.

You rush towards her and throw yourself in her arms and start sobbing uncontrollably. The fire wasn’t that long ago, but it feels like you’ve been dealing with the aftermath for months, if not years.

You lost the home you lived in since you were born, you’re in constant pain in every moment of every day, you can’t stand to see your own reflection, you can barely see out of your remaining eye, and you can’t even tell anyone how you feel.

But you could stand all that if your Maman was still here with you. You know that if you could wake up in the morning and hear her voice, you’d forget about only having one eye. Or one of her hugs would make you forget about the pain you feel. Or her loving words would make you brave enough to face your reflection again.

“You’re here,” you sob, hugging her as tight as you can. “You’re back.”

“I never left, sweetheart,” she answers as she hugs you back and rubs circles in your back. “What’s got you so upset?”

The question makes you pause and it’s then you realize she thinks she’s real. When you Painted her, you thought about how much you wished the fire never happened and all the time with her you were cheated out of and now she thinks she’s actually your Maman.

You should fix this by altering her so that she knows that she’s not real, that she’s a Painted creation. Or better yet, unpaint her entirely because it was a horrible idea to create her in the first place. You run the risk of losing track of reality the longer you stay here and doing this will only accelerate that risk and make it harder for you to leave the Canvas. And that’s on top of you essentially defiling her memory by attempting to replace her with a Painted copy created from your memories of her.

But, you can’t bring yourself to do it.

You miss her so much that it hurts and now that you’re in her arms and hear her voice, you feel alive for the first time in seemingly forever. Right now, you finally feel some form of love since steeping foot in that horrible mansion and you don’t want to be without it.

“I just lost you,” you finally answer, leaning into the illusion.

“Well, I’m here now.” She pulls back and looks down at you. “And I promise I won’t leave you, Y/N. Ever.”

No, she won’t. Because here in the Canvas, she exists and will exist for as long as you want. Here, a thousand years can pass and she’ll still look as she does now. Painters can make their creations immortal, shielding them from aging. And if one of your creations threatens to harm her? You can just Gommage it, making it disappear in a flurry of petals.

You were powerless to save her in real life. If anything, you contributed to her death by making her come up to the atelier to save you instead escaping the house immediately to save herself.

But in the Canvas, you’ll always have the power to save her.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Maman says, bringing you back to reality. “Weren’t you going to Paint something else?”

“Yeah,” you say, smiling at her. “There’s lots of stuff I want to Paint!”

She returns your smile and the two of you walk toward the horizon.

You know this isn’t really your Maman, but this is the closest thing you have to a “family.” God knows Bruce Wayne isn’t fit to be your Papa and Dick isn’t likely to be your “big brother.”

You aren’t going to lose yourself to the Canvas. You know she’s not real. This is just to help deal with the loneliness in the real world. You’ll stay here for a couple minutes now and then when the real world is too much for you, that’s all.

You aren’t going to lose yourself.

Tag List

You’re in the atelier, fire all around you, burning all the Canvases to a crisp and reducing the welcoming yellow walls to a pitch black color.

You look behind you and see your Momma right in the middle of the flames, her final Canvas standing behind her like a monolith.

“You’re ok,” she says as her clothes burn away and her skin starts to melt. “You’re ok.”

You reach out to her, wanting to drag her out of the flames and save her, but find that your feet are stuck to the floor, as if they’d been glued.

You reach out, trying with all your might to just lift one of your feet, but nothing happens.

The flames then make their way to you and begin slowly climbing up your body, pain surging all over your body and your skin starting to melt as if it were wax.

You sit up, your mouth wide open to scream, but no words come out.

You look around to see you’re not in the atelier, but your new room at Wayne Manor, lying in bed and covered in sweat.

Just a nightmare, you think as you climb out of bed. Just a nightmare.

You get dressed and briefly consider looking in the mirror to make sure you look decent, but decide against it. While you survived the fire, you didn’t emerge unscathed by it; the left side of your face is heavily scarred and you can’t stand to see your face anymore, going as far as covering the mirror in your bedroom with a spare blanket.

At least your hair survived the fire, you don’t think you would have the strength to leave your room if that were the case.

You make the trek from your room to the dining room, the journey taking longer due to the house still being unfamiliar to you and your lack of depth perception, to find a spread of food on the long table and Alfred adding more to it.

“Good morning, Master Y/N,” the butler says when he notices you. “You’re up earlier than I expected. Did you sleep well?”

You nod as you sit in one of the chairs, taking in the spread of food before you. Your Momma loved to fill up the table with plates of pancakes, sausages, biscuits, strips of bacon, and all sorts of breakfast foods, but this spread before you puts her Sunday buffets to shame.

“I was unaware of what foods you favor for breakfast, so I took the liberty of preparing an assortment for you to choose from.” He places a glass of milk by your empty plate. “I hope this is acceptable?”

You nod and give the man a faint smile before loading up your plate with a few things you definitely ate and a few things you didn’t recognize but they looked and smelled good, so you decided to try them.

“Good morning, Master Bruce,” Alfred says as you’re in the middle of biting into a croissant.

You turn around to see your father, dressed in another fancy suit, walk into the dining room.

“Good morning, Alfred. I’m needed at the office for a meeting, so I’m heading out. No time for breakfast.”

“Master Bruce, I was hoping you and Master Y/N could—“

“Can you handle it, Alfred? There’s a lot I need to do today.”

And without even giving you a passing glance, the man leaves and you the joy you felt from the feast in front of you disintegrates, leaving nothing but sadness in its place.

“I’m sorry about him, Master Y/N. Your father’s going through a loss of his own and he’s dealing with it the only way he knows how to deal with personal problems: burying himself in his work. Please try to bear with him until he comes to his senses.”

You haven’t known the man for long, but you have a feeling your father’s the type to never realize the harm he’s done through his actions until it’s too late, but you give the butler a nod so you can be done with this awkward conversation.

He gives you a nod of his own and you return to eating, trying to fill the gap left by your father’s absence with food.

After breakfast, Alfred gave you a tour of the manor and you make it your mission to keep wandering around to a minimum. This place is large enough to house multiple families and with how poor your vision is now, it wouldn’t be hard for you to get lost just trying to find the bathroom.

During your tour, you noticed that the portion of the manor you’re staying in is far from the part where your father stays in and hosts his parties, which gives you the idea of converting one of the unused rooms into your new atelier. While the Canvas may be safe in your room, you can’t be sure Alfred won’t come in to check on you while you’re inside it, which will lead to some… unpleasantness for you, so the best thing to do is to find a room far from yours so you’ll have a safe place to delve into the Canvas.

And based off all the dust on every surface and all the lights being off in your part of the manor, you’ll definitely be spoiled for choice.

Still, you can’t help but feel… not at home here. Many would probably be swept up in the manor’s size and dazzled at how fancy and elegant everything is, but you grew up in a modest, two story home where you could easily hear what was going on in the next room over or on the story you weren’t on.

Here, you could set off a million fireworks and no one would probably even hear a faint pop.

Then there’s Gotham.

Goodsprings only had little over four-hundred people, with most of them being elderly. Gotham’s population is just over six million.

All the buildings back home are rustic, simplistic, and welcoming. Gotham’s architecture must’ve been designed by someone who wanted to constantly make people afraid and depressed.

And while Goodsprings always has sun, Gotham’s weather is dark, gloomy, and oppressive.

Honestly, does this place ever see a sliver of sunlight?

“Master Dick,” Alfred calls out to a man standing in the foyer at the conclusion of your tour. “I wasn’t aware you were dropping in for a visit today.”

You look over Alfred to get a good look at the man and are shocked at what you see: a tall, slim yet muscular man with jet black hair and deep blue eyes. According to Alfred, Dick is your dad’s second adopted son, but he looks more biologically related to your dad than you do!

Is there something you’re missing here?

“I’m just here to see Bruce,” Dick answers, his tone and little cold and unfriendly sounding to you.

“Well, while you’re here, you can meet the newest addition to the family.” Alfred steps aside so you two can see one another unobstructed. “This is Mister Y/N Lutece, Master Bruce’s biological son.”

“Holy shit,” Dick exclaims. “You mean he had a kid?”

He looks you over head to toe and you instantly feel uncomfortable. Not at him looking, but the way he’s doing it. As if he’s not only looking at you, but in you. Seeing things that normal people are unable to.

“What happened to you?”

“Master Y/N’s previous home was unfortunately lost in a fire, resulting in the loss of his mother and severe injuries. As such, he cannot speak.”

“Damn,” he says, wincing a little. “I’m sorry.” He then turns to Alfred. “I’m guessing that means he won’t be taking part in—“

“Master Dick,” the butler cuts in. “You may wish to keep some things to yourself.”

“Oh, you mean he doesn’t know—“ Alfred must’ve looked at him a certain way because he quickly shut up. “Well, is Bruce here?”

“No, he needed to go to the office and attend a meeting. I’m afraid he’s not here.”

“Well, I’ll head into his office and wait for him. There’s some things I need to check on, anyway.”

He heads off and as you watch him go, you can’t help but think back to your tour. You swear Alfred told you that your dad’s office is on the second level, so why did he not go up the stairs here in the foyer?

And what was Dick talking about? Is there something going on around here?

As your mind races, you realize that Dick didn’t say bye to you, or even spare you a passing glance.

“I’m afraid Master Dick took the loss of Jason hard, as well,” Alfred says, bringing you back to the present. “Try to bear with him. Now, shall we move on?”

After that, Alfred told you that he was in the process of getting you enrolled in Gotham Academy, the most prestigious private school in Gotham. Since you’re still settling into your “new home” and learning to deal with your condition, you start next month, giving you two weeks to get ready.

The thought of you being in a new school makes your stomach do summersaults. Back at your old school, you were close to all your classmates, your teachers were polite, and your grades were great.

Now, you’re about to be in a school where you know no one and no one knows you.

The only good thing was that Alfred explained your condition to the school, so you’ll be in special classes with other students who need a little extra attention and care. It makes sense since your left eye is gone and your right barely lets you see anything.

Seconds slowly turn into minutes, which even more slowly turn into hours and as you walk down one of the many corridors of the manor in an effort to learn how to get around it (and so you can find a room to turn into your new atelier), you come across Alfred walking next to a woman with red hair sitting in a wheelchair.

“Hello, Master Y/N,” the butler greets once he sees you. He motions to the woman next to him. “This is Miss Barbara Gordon, the daughter of our police commissioner and a close family friend. Miss Gordon, this is young Y/N Lutece, Master Bruce’s son. He’ll be living with us at the manor.”

“Hello,” Barbara mutters, not even looking at you. She’s more interested in the pile of folders she has sitting in her lap.

Alfred frowns at this, but doesn’t comment on it. He looks back at you. “Master Bruce is Gotham’s biggest donor to public projects and city safety. He works closely with the GCPD, helping to keep the city safe. Unfortunately, the good Commissioner isn’t too fond of asking for help, so his daughter comes and tells Master Bruce anything that may help make Gotham a safer place.”

While Alfred’s tone sounds confident, you get the feeling you’re not getting the whole story.

Your Momma taught you that you shouldn’t just see the Canvases you Paint, but feel them. They’re not just worlds you create, but extensions of yourself; if you wish to Paint the best Canvas you can, you must be able to sense what you want it to be and shape the chroma within it accordingly.

Thanks to her teachings, you have a sense for things that your eyes and ears can’t pick up. And right now, you’re getting the sense that these two are involved in something you don’t know about.

“Shit!”

You’re brought back to reality as the folders that had been sitting in Barbara’s lap fall to the floor, their contents spilling out onto the polished marble.

“Allow me, Miss Gordon,” Alfred says as he bends down to pick up the nearest folder.

“No,” she quickly retorts. “I dropped them, I can pick them up.”

She begins to bend over as much as she can in the confines of her wheelchair picking up as many of the folders as she can and filing the papers back into them. The task takes more time than it would for you or Alfred and as the papers she’s picking up start to become harder for her to reach, you decide to help her out.

You bend down to grab some papers that are beneath her—

“No!”

You hear the word being screamed at you, but you’re more focused on the stinging pain on your butt from landing on the floor after being shoved. You look up to see Barbara looking down at you with fury etched on her face.

“I said I got it! Go away! I don’t need you!”

The words hurt you and you quickly pick yourself up and leave, ignoring Alfred, and run all the way back to your room, where you begin to cry.

Of course, your vocal cords are destroyed, so you can’t sob. Only cry tears from your one good eye, practically making you blind.

You only wanted to help and she had to go and treat you like that.

You hope you don’t see her again, but if what Alfred said is true, chances are she’s going to be here often.

You throw yourself into bed and wrap yourself in your sheets, essentially cocooning your body.

“Master Y/N,” Alfred says from the other side of your door after a couple minutes. “I’m coming in.”

You remain in your cocoon as you hear the door open and shut and footsteps make their way toward you.

“I’m so sorry for what happened with Miss Gordon,” the butler says as he sits next to you. “She’s only recently sustained her injury that led to her being confined to her wheelchair. Before very recently, she was very active in aiding your father in his mission to make Gotham a better, safer city and now her role in that mission is very limited. She’s still coming to terms with her limitations and I’m afraid she tends to lash out.”

You lost your Momma, your house, half your face, and your voice in a fire about a week ago and you don’t go around shoving people onto the floor.

“Please, try to find it in yourself to forgive her. I know she didn’t mean to hurt you.” You feel him get up. “I’ll leave you be for now. Try to get some rest, if you can.”

And like that, he leaves.

As you start to drift off, you wonder if you could convince your dad to not invite Barbara here.

At least for a little while. You may be hurt, but you can understand the importance of why she’s here. From what you’ve heard about this place, Gotham is a dangerous city with all sorts of scary things hiding around every corner.

Still, unlike you, she can talk, so she could always call the manor and tell your dad what’s going on. She doesn’t have to come here.

She’s got her own dad, it’s not like she needs to be here like your dad is hers.

When you wake up, you emerge from your sheets and can tell it’s about sundown, which perks you right up.

Your dad has to be home now, right? Most people are home from work around this time, so he has to be back.

It takes some time, but you’re able to untangle yourself from your sheets and grab your whiteboard from your bedside table before making your way from your room to the first floor, planning on searching each room until you find him.

Or until you find Alfred. Whichever comes first.

You walk down the grand staircase in the foyer to see three people standing in the middle of the foyer, one of them bing your dad, the second being Alfred, and the third being a boy around your age.

The third one confuses you because from the way Alfred talked, you were the only kid here.

As you make your way down the stairs towards the trio, you feel a sense of uneasiness begin to make itself known in your stomach. Whatever the reason for this new boy being here, you have the feeling you’re not going to like it.

“Master Y/N,” Alfred says as he notices you, making the two others turn to face you.

“This is Tim,” your dad states, not even greeting you and barely looking at you. “He’s going to be living at the manor with us from now on.”

You feel your blood go cold at the declaration.

There’s going to another kid living here?

Why?

Isn’t one kid being here enough?

Are you being replaced?

“Who’s he,” Tim asks, breaking you out of your thoughts.

“Master Y/N is,” Alfred begins.

“That’s not important,” your dad interjects. “Alfred, do we have a room for him?”

“I’d prepared a room in the family wing, but it was meant for—“

“Please show it to Tim and after that, show him to the office.”

“Master Bruce, I—”

“I’m heading there now. There’s a lot Tim and I have to go over if he’s going to be helping me with helping Gotham.”

He starts to walk away and you quickly move to latch onto his leg, halting his movement.

“Let go,” he says, his tone anything but polite.

You shake your head and tug at his pant leg.

You don’t want to be annoying, but you’ve barely seen him since you got here and he’s your freaking dad! You want to tell him about what happened with Barbara and tell him that you don’t want her coming here for a while.

And you want to know why this Tim is going to be staying here and how he’s going to help Gotham. How can a ten-year-old help a city?

What’s going on around here and why won’t anyone tell you?

“I said let go,” your dad shouts as he not-so gently puts his hand on your head and shoves you away, making you fall on the marble floor kinda hard.

You look up to see your dad… Bruce looking down at you with nothing but annoyance and disgust on his face before walking away. You look over to see Alfred looking at you with shock on his face and Tim doing his beat to look anywhere but at you.

Once again, you ignore Alfred’s calls as you run back to your room, but you take your whiteboard and write a message as best as you can with the tears coming out of your eyes like a faucet.

Want to be alone.

You know Alfred’s told you about him losing his second son, but he has no right lashing out at you. If he doesn’t want to take care of you, why doesn’t he send you away to some boarding school or something?

Did he take you in just so he has something to get angry at?

You always heard from your friends that their dads were coolest people in the world, how they knew how to fix anything or that they let them stay up late past their bedtimes to watch cartoons or let them eat pizza and ice cream for dinner three nights in a row when their moms weren’t around. You always wondered about what your dad would be and if he would do all those things with you. Not only is Bruce not like any of your friends’ dads, it turns out he’s mean, he’s never here, and he brings random people into his house to do weird stuff.

You place the whiteboard on the floor, propped up by the wall, and go into your room.

You’ve had it with this stupid mansion and everyone in it.

You run over to your bed and take the Canvas out from under it.

As you look down at the swirling blue miasma emanating from it, you’re reminded of your Momma’s teachings. She said that to Paint is a gift unlike any other, but you must remember to use it responsibly. If you spend too long in a Canvas, you run the risk of losing yourself to it, forgetting what’s real and what’s Painted, trapping you in your own creation until your mind is lost and your body gives out.

And being in an emotional state like yours will only add to the risk of losing yourself in a Canvas.

But you don’t care about that right now. You had your world destroyed by a fire and now you’re stuck in this horrible place with people that pretty much don’t care about you. You need this.

Besides, you know what you’re doing. Your Momma taught you well, you’re not going to be in there for too long. Just a couple minutes.

Yeah, just a couple minutes in the Canvas to get away for a little bit.

You won’t lose yourself.

With your mind made up, you exit your room and make your way down a few corridors until you come across a certain door and open it.

From what you can tell, this must’ve been a smoking lounge back in the day. It’s full of leather couches and chairs wrapped in plastic tarps and one wall is taken up by a bar, complete with fancy stools on one side of the bar and the wall behind it full of shelves holding many glass bottles of various colors and sizes. It must’ve been very popular with guests to the manor at some point, but based off the dust covering the plastic tarps, peeling wallpaper, and stale air within the room, no one’s been in here for a good two decades.

That’s what makes it the perfect candidate for your new atelier. You can keep the Canvas here without worrying about someone discovering it and you can get back to your Painting in peace. It’s perfect.

You do your best to carefully remove a tarp covering a couch without sending dust flying all over and making you sneeze your head off and prop the Canvas on it, it’s blue glow softly illuminating the room.

After that’s done, you carefully remove another tarp covering a nearby chair and move it in front of the Canvas and sit down, enjoying the feel of it. Chances are this chair hasn’t been sat in for a while and with the tarp protecting it, it’s almost like new.

You know your body will remain standing while you’re in a Canvas and when you emerge, you don’t feel any negative effects from doing so (at least if you weren’t in there for too long), but you always found it very… uncomfortable to think of your body reduced to a statue while your mind enters a Canvas to the point that your body aches all over just by thinking about it.

Thus, any time you entered a canvas, you always sat in the most comfortable chair you could find.

Once you’re situated, you look up at the canvas standing before you and you feel your heart start to beat a little faster and the strangest sensation flood your body, making you feel an intense sense of anticipation.

You wonder just what this sensation is and it’s honestly embarrassing that you forgot what it is: excitement.

That’s right, you always were excited when you entered a Canvas, whether it was for the first time or returning to an older one. Many probably might shy away at the thought of one’s mind leaving their body and entering a world unlike their own, but you always loved the feeling of your consciousness slipping from reality and submerging into a Canvas. It gave you an unrivaled sense of weightlessness, like diving into a pool or parachuting from high in the sky.

It’s also at this moment that you realize that this is the first time you had something to be excited over since the fire. Thinking back on it, you thought learning about who your dad is would make you feel happy, but you had been worried about having to live with someone you’ve never met before. And many people would’ve been excited at the thought of living at a big mansion like this, but when you saw it, all you could think about was how out of place you’d be in a place like this.

Alright, you think as you focus on the Canvas. Let’s do this.

Your vision begins to blur before being enveloped by the same color blue as the Canvas and you feel yourself slipping away, as if you were falling asleep, but where things things typically go dark when you fall asleep, you feel as your mind leave your body as it enters the Canvas.

When you come to, you see you’re floating in an endless sea of black, the only thing providing any kind of light is a thin ring of light that reminds you of a solar eclipse.

You’re currently floating in the Edge, a region within every Canvas that connects its Painted world to the real world. While it primarily acts as a transition site for Painters to brace themselves as they dive into the Canvas, it also acts as a line of defense for the Painter in control; Canvases are very personal for Painters, reflecting their deepest thoughts and desires and giving them a place to flex their creativity. As such, they don;t take kindly to those who enter them without permission and when they sense someone entering they don’t want there, they can use their Chroma to either expel them or remake them into one of their creations, making the intruder lose their sense of self while within the Canvas.

It’s then you realize that you can change your appearance while within a Canvas. You never felt the need to, but now… you can make it so that your throat isn’t damaged and that you’ll be able to talk. You can repaint your face so that you’re not covered in these ugly scars.

You can make it so that you’re not in constant pain while you’re here.

Just as you’re about to enter the inner part of the Canvas, you gather Chroma and cover yourself in it, feeling as the skin on your face and throat shift and your pain start to lessen more and more until it disappears all together, like it was never there in the first place.

It’s then you feel yourself completely submerge into the Canvas, the part your Momma Painted.

Tag List:

“Y/N,” a voice calls out to you. “Can you hear me?”

You stir a bit, wanting to find out who’s calling you, but it your body feels like its lead, making doing anything seem like an impossible task.

“Y/N,” the voice says again, this time being much closer to you.

You go to open your eyes, but for some reason, you can only open your right one. Once your eye’s open, you see, though really blurry, that you’re in a hospital room, but the lights are off and the curtain is drawn. You look to your left to see a doctor standing over you.

“Hello there,” the doctor says, a gentle smile gracing his face. “I’m Dr. Talbot, the doctor overseeing your care.”

You try to respond, to ask what happened, but when you try to speak, a surge of pain courses from your throat, like you’d swallowed a bunch of razor blades; all you can do is make pain-spilled groans.

“Don’t try to speak,” Dr. Talbot says, his smile disappearing. “Actually, I’m afraid you won’t be speaking ever again. The damage from the fire was very severe, rendering your vocal cords incapable of producing words.”

His words hit you like a sack of bricks and you’re suddenly more aware now.

The fire? What’s he talking about? What fire—

Then, your brain floods you with memories.

Memories of fire all around you.

Memories of the pain you felt as the fire burned your skin.

Memories of—

Your Momma…

You try to ask him what happened to her after she got you out of the house, but all you can do is groan in pain to the point tears start to fall from you due to it being too much. You do your best to pantomime your question, pointing to the door as best you can, hoping he would understand what you were asking.

“You want to go out?”

You shake your head, changing tactics and holding up two fingers on your right hand and use your left pointer finger to point to yourself before pointing to the second finger and back at the door.

“Oh,” he says, the expression on his face making you start to panic. “Your mother.”

He holds your hand with his and you’re starting to tear up because you know you’re really not going to like what he’s about to say.

“Your mother was seriously hurt from the fire and by the time that fire fighters and first responders arrived, she had succumbed to her injuries. I’m so sorry, Y/N. She’s gone.

With those words, you feel the world tip over on its side and tears start falling from your eye like a faucet.

It’s your fault. If you hadn’t been in the atelier at the time, working on another Canvas, she wouldn’t have had to go up there. She could have gotten out a lot sooner before the fire spread. She would still be here.

It’s all your fault.

Time blurs together after your world ended and if the nurses didn’t tell you the date, you never would’ve known that a week had passed by.

Like your Momma, you had been seriously hurt by the fire, but it wasn’t enough to kill you like it had her.

No, instead, you’re left with a fragile shell of a body. The left side of your face is covered in scars, going from your forehead to where your neck and shoulder meet, your left eye is a lost cause and your right eye is just barely working, and your voice is completely lost to you.

And that’s all on top of the constant pain you’re in. If it wasn’t for the painkillers the nurses give you, you’re pretty sure you’d be in too much pain to do anything.

As expected, your recovery is slow due to your pain being too much most of the time and because without your Momma, you didn’t see the point in getting better. You may be able to call the hospital home, but eventually, you’ll have to leave and with Momma dead and your home a burned husk, you have no one and no where to go to.

You know that children like you end up in orphanages or foster homes and you’re old enough to know that’s a bad thing.

“We have some good news for you, Y/N,” Dr. Talbot says as he enters the room. “We found your father.”

This made you turn your head to look at the man.

Your father?

You asked about Momma about your dad last year and all she told you was that your dad was a man she met while she was displaying her art at a gallery and by the time she knew you were on the way, she was back home and decided to raise you herself without any help from him.

Of course, you wanted to know more, but you could tell talking about him made her uncomfortable, so you dropped the subject.

“Your father is Bruce Wayne,” Dr. Talbot continued, bringing you back to reality. “He’s a very rich philanthropist who lives in Gotham. A CPS worker reached out to him, but only got his butler, but he said that they’ll be more than happy to take you in.”

Your heart dropped at the news. Sure, you knew that your home was destroyed and you wouldn’t be going back, but you hoped that you would be able to stay here in Goodsprings. Or at the very least, in Nevada.

To hear that you’ll be taken to live on the other side of the country, far from your home, makes you feel even worse.

It took three days for the hospital to be comfortable enough to discharge you, but once you were, you were met with an elderly man in a fancy black suit.

“Good afternoon, Master Y/N,” the man said in a fancy British accent. “I am Alfred Pennyworth, butler to the Wayne household.”

You look around the man to see anyone else, but Alfred’s the only one here.

“I’m dreadfully sorry, sir,” the man says, seemingly understanding what you’re doing. “Your father was needed at a meeting at his company and was unable to be here. He will, however, see you as soon as he returns.” He holds his hand out to you. “Are you ready to leave?”

One of the nurses gave you a little whiteboard so you can communicate with them since your vocal cords are lost, so you write a message on it and hold it up to him.

Can we go by my house?

“Your house? You mean… your house here?” You nod. “I’m sorry, Master Y/N, but I don’t think that would be beneficial to you. It could cause a relapse in your recovery.”

You erase your message and write a new one.

Please? I need to see it.

“Very well,” he sighs. “If that’s what you wish.”

You two leave the hospital and he drives you in his fancy rented car to the ruin that was once your home, your heart breaking to see what’s become of the place you and your Momma lived reduced to this. It’s not your home anymore and now, you’re about to leave the place you’ve lived in for the last ten years and go to some city you’ve never heard of on the other side of the country.

“What a tragedy,” Alfred says, his eyes looking at the house before moving to you. “I’m so sorry, Master Y/N.”

Your right eye begins to tear up, but even though your eyesight sucks now, you can still see the window to the atelier on the second story and you suddenly remember something: the Canvases.

The fire might’ve reduced your home to a wreckage, but surely a Canvas or two must’ve survived, right?

With any luck, one survived, giving you something of your home to take with you.

You quickly unbuckle your seatbelt and throw yourself out of the car, Alfred yelling out to you as you dash into the house. Once inside, you slowly make your way up the stairs, wincing at the noises each step makes, and hurry to the atelier.

While your heart’s broken at the state of your home, you feel it mend itself a little at the sight of a Canvas resting on an easel in the middle of the room, somehow surviving when the others were lost to the inferno that claimed your Momma, your home, and the other Canvases.

And to make it even better, it’s the last Canvas she was working on before that horrible night, meaning that, embedded deep in it is a sliver of your Momma’s soul, sustaining it.

You walk up to it, your body bathed in the blue swirling light emanating from it and feel yourself start to smile, the expression feeling strange since you haven’t had anything to smile about in what seems like forever.

“Master Y/N,” Alfred yells, seemingly from the bottom of the stairs, breaking you out of your trance.

You’re taking this Canvas with you, there’s no ifs, and, or buts about it, but you know that if Alfred sees it, he’ll ask questions and you can’t afford losing it, so you look around the ruined room and find one of the large cloths used to cover regular canvases to protect them from dust and damage.

Acting quickly, you yank the cloth off the floor and wrap the Canvas with it, trying it to ensure it would be covered.

“There you are,” Alfred says just as you managed to tie the cloth. “This house looks like it’s moments from collapsing! It’s not safe! What were you thinking?”

He hands you your whiteboard, obviously wanting to “hear” an excuse from you, so you place the Canvas by your feet (ready to grab it at a moment’s notice) and write an answer.

This was her last painting. It’s the only one that survived. I just wanted something of hers to take with me.

The butler’s expression shifts from angry yet concerned to sympathetic and understanding.

“I can understand wanting a reminder of a lost loved one.” He bends down so that he’s at eye level with you. “Next time, however, please let me know before rushing off into a dangerous environment. There’s been enough loss in our family.”

You nod.

“I know she can never be replaced, but I hope you can find some level of joy while living with us at the manor. And I promise I’ll help you adjust to your new life.”

You can tell the man means what he says and for the first time since the fire, you feel some kind of comfort and security. You drop your whiteboard and hug the man, trying your best to contain your crying.

“It’ll be alright, Master Y/N.”

Once you finish having your moment, the two of you leave the ruins of your home and drive to the airport (but not before Alfred stopped and got a proper box to house the Canvas, which you were very grateful for) and get on a private jet that takes you to Gotham.

Alfred talks about the manor and the city, trying his best to make it seem like an adventure, but all you can think about is the Canvas in the cargo hold. Despite all odds, one Canvas survived and it happened to be your Mother’s most recent one; she started on it about a month ago, but she got swarmed with so may art commissions that she had been forced to put it down, vowing to come back to it another time.

But now that time will never come. She’ll never get the chance to finish it…

You decide that you’ll finish it in her place. You visited a few of her Canvases to know that she had a love for all things fantasy, from towering castles and gallant knights to massive dragons and powerful sorcerers, so you’ll more than capable of knowing what she would like in her final Canvas.

Eventually, the jet lands and thwarts two of you take another fancy car to a massive mansion that reminds you of one of the castles your Momma loved to paint. He parks the car near the porch and leads you to the porch where a pair of double doors reside, your Momma’s Canvas clutched tightly in your hands.

“Welcome home, Master Y/N,” Alfred says as he opens one of the double doors, revealing a massive foyer with marble floors so shiny it’s like a mirror, a giant chandelier hanging above it all, and a large staircase on the other side of the room leading to a second floor.

You walk into the room, looking at the grandeur of it all in awe. You thought places like this only existed on TV or movies, not in real life.

“Alfred,” a deep, masculine voice rings from behind you. “You’re back.”

You turn around to see a tall man with jet black hair, piercing blue eyes, and a suit that you’re sure costs more than your house did walking down the stairs.

“Indeed, Master Bruce,” the butler responds as he stands by your side. He places a hand on your shoulder. “This is young Y/N Lutece.”

He looks down at you and you feel your every muscle freeze. You had always wondered what your dad would be like and you always thought it would be a happy occasion. That he would take you into his arms for a big hug and ask you all about you and tell you all about him.

That’s not what this is.

No, he’s looking at you like he’d rather be anywhere else right now.

“Hello,” he says before turning to go back upstairs. “Alfred, I have some important documents to go over, so I’ll be in the study. Can you bring some tea up when you get the chance?”

“Master Bruce, I have some things going to go over with you concerning—”

“I’m sure you can handle it.”

And with that, he leaves and you feel like you were just dismissed like you were a piece of trash on the sidewalk and not the man’s biological son.

“I’m sorry, Master Y/N,” Alfred sighs. “We lost Master Jason, your father’s second adopted son, and has been burying himself in his work to cope with it.”

Wait, second adopted son? So you have two brothers?

Or, rather you had two brothers. Now you have the one.

“Master Dick resides in Bludhaven, but I’m sure he’d love to see you once you get settled in.” He motions to the staircase your dad took. “I’m sure you want to rest after the journey. Shall I show you to your room?”

You follow the butler to a desolate corner of the mansion.

“I must beg your apologies, Master Y/N, but I’m afraid none of the other bedrooms in the family wing are in a state to be slept in. I’m readying one for you as we speak, but for the time being, I’ve prepared you a room in the guest wing.”

He opens a door to a room that’s about as big as your old room, but you can tell that you have your own bathroom, so it’s already an improvement over your old one.

“I’ll let you rest and come back for you in a few hours for dinner.” He turns on his heel to leave, but stops at the doorframe and turns back at you. “I know I’ve said this before, but welcome home, Master Y/N. I truly hope you enjoy your stay here.”

And with that, he closes the door, leaving you alone with your thoughts and the Canvas.

Your first thought is to immediately take it out of the box and enter it, but your body is screaming at you to sleep. The only reason you slept at all during your time at the hospital was because they doped you to your gills with pain meds, but you always woke up feeling like you didn’t get any sleep at all (and also because every time you closed your eyes, you saw your Momma’s face covered in burns), so now your lack of decent sleep is catching up to you.

The Canvas will still be here in a few hours, you think as you slide the box under your bed to prevent anyone from getting too curious about it, lay down on the bed on your good side, and close your eyes.

As you start to drift off, you hope that your time here will be nice.

And, in time, maybe you can even call it home.

Tag List:

Kate Argent

It was hard to decide whether Kate or Gerard deserved to be first in my rant, but after some deliberation, I realized that Kate’s crimes definitely earn her the top spot on my shit list.

First of all, she’s a rapist and a pedophile (I’m aware that she’s technically an ephebophile, but that doesn’t carry the same weight as pedophile). She went after a teenage Derek, who was probably still suffering from the death of Paige and was definitely vulnerable, and used him to gain information about his family so she could trap his family in their home and burn it down (one of the WORST ways to die, btw).

And why the fuck does this never get talked about more in the show?! Is it because Derek is a man and Kate is a woman, so that means it “can’t be rape?” Anyone wanna bet if the sexes were reversed, everyone would’ve been talking about it?

Also, you can’t convince me that Derek was her only victim? For something like this, it’s never just one and done. Chances are this is her preferred method of operating because it guarantees results and she can indulge in her sick little games. Imagine, Derek’s probably only one of who knows how many innocent boys who were used, abused, and manipulated before losing everything. When it comes to pedophiles, they never stop at one. I’ll bet my last dollar that Derek wasn’t the first, nor was he the last.

She also used her position as a substitute teacher at BHHS to get close to Derek and seduce him, so we can add abusing authority to her crimes. Why the fuck did no one see what was going on and report her ass?! If she did that in front of me, I would’ve dragged her ass to the office by her hair and had her arrested then and there!

Plus, I think we know her preferred method is fire. Remember that scene where she and Chris are in the living room and she lights a match, stares at it for a worrying amount of time, and lights the fireplace. That shows that she has a sick love for fire! She’s a confirmed arsonist!

And she also loves manipulating her “family.” We saw her getting close to Allison, abusing the girl’s trust in her “cool aunt” so she can go behind Chris’ back and turn Allison into the next her. And while Chris is either stupid or willfully ignorant, we can see Kate using her brother’s sense of family, trust, and honor (whatever those are to a fucked up family like the Argents) to get him to house her and protect her during her stay in Beacon Hills. If it came down to it, she’d sacrifice her own family to serve her own purposes.

Next, this bitch is obviously a psychopath. Seriously, look up “psychopath” and you’ll see Kate’s picture. This woman LOVES to inflict pain on others! I think it goes beyond simple joy and enters sexual thrill. Example A: the scene where she and her little simps barge into the ruins of the Hale house looking for Derek and as he’s on the floor after being tased, she talks about how he “grew up in the right places” and how she “doesn’t know if she wants to kill it or lick.” Example B: when she had Derek tied up in his basement and she licked his abs while taunting him. Anyone wanna bet she was wet both instances?

While I’m not sure how Derek and Laura were able to escape the fate of their family, I think Kate may have allowed him to live because it’s part of her MO. She manipulates and uses teen werewolf boys so they spill their secrets, burns their families and homes, and leaves her victims alive so they run the risk of turning into Omegas, but so they forever have to live with the knowledge that they helped get their packs killed and probably hate themselves and are disgusted with their bodies and the thought of sex altogether. It adds another stone to the path of misery she’s paved and she loves it.

Of course, we all know that she NEVER followed the “code” the Argents claim to follow, but we can call her a hypocrite because of how she acted during her time a werejuguar (why Jeff Davis decided to bring her back, I will never know and will never forgive). She made it clear that she hated werewolves and anything not human, but when she was no longer human, she didn’t kill herself and decided to continue her murdering and personal mission to make Derek Hale’s life a living hell.

And of course, we never get to see if she was killed at the end of the show? We know Gerard died by her, but we never got the pleasure of seeing her disgusting corpse. Yet another thing to I will never forgive Jeff Davis for.

If I was able to decide her fate, I’d be stuck between 2 options: give her a taste of her own medicine and burn her to death, nailing her to a stake and burning her like the witch she is or use the old adage that revenge is a dish best served cold and freeze her to death; I’d tie her up like she did to Derek, strip her of all clothing, dowse her with water until her entire body was soaked, and then slowly spray her with liquid nitrogen, going up and down over and over until it seems she’s frozen solid.

Kate Argent deserves to suffer every agony and every violation and her avoiding a slow, painful, miserable death is nothing short of a tragedy.

Gerard Argent

Kate is a disgusting human being and deserves the number one spot on my list, but rest assured, Gerard is right behind her! I guarantee you he taught her everything she knows. Kate’s a monster, no doubt about that, but Gerard is the one who created that monster.

First of all, you can’t convince me Gerard didn’t help cover up Kate’s crimes. Sure, she knows how to murder innocent people, but all her brain power is reserved for seducing innocent werewolf boys and burning their packs, so she doesn’t have any left to cover up her crimes. I bet her strategy after killing is to leave town and you can only do that a few times before someone catches on and arrests you. We know that the insurance investigator who handled the Hale fire was bought off and we can assume that Gerard had his hand in it to make sure that Kate’s crimes got covered up. We know that Kate is arrogant and thinks herself untouchable, but if it wasn’t for daddy cleaning up after her, she would’ve eventually gotten caught.

Next, we can lay all of Kate’s crimes at Gerard’s feet. As stated above, he definitely helped with the cover up, but despite Chris claiming their family is a matriarchy (though I think that’s what they told him so he would shut the fuck up and follow orders), we can see that Gerard is the puppet master of the Argent Family. No doubt he was the one who targeted packs and sent Kate out to kill them. Gerard obviously runs a tight ship and I highly doubt an Argent minion is allowed to sneeze without his say so, let alone a member of his own family to go out and kill without permission.

Hypocrisy is another thing that makes me hate him. As stated before, the Argents are supposedly a matriarchy, but we obviously see him running the show. It’s never explained why this is, but I think it was the reason Gerard gave Chris so he could be left out of the loop whenever he and Kate discussed plans behind closed doors. Next case of hypocrisy is him wanting the Bite; he’s made his hatred for all things not human very clear and encouraged Victoria to kill herself after being bitten by Derek, but when he was dying from cancer, he was more than happy to throw all that away so he could prolong his disgusting life.

We can also see him being a master manipulator when he took advantage of Victoria’s suicide (that’s he’s solely responsible for) and turned Allison into the next Kate (even though I think it didn’t take much to push her over the edge). He doesn’t care about anyone but himself and he’s more than happy to put even the lives of his own family at risk if it serves his interests.

Then of course, there’s the scene in the forest where he slices that poor guy in half. He declares war like he’s on some holy crusade to avenge his “beloved daughter,” but that’s a load of shit. He talks his daughter-in-law to killing herself, holds his granddaughter hostage, and threatens his son, so we know he doesn’t give a shit about family. He views everyone around him as pawns in his schemes and the “loss” he felt for Kate wasn’t the loss a father feels for a child, but the type of loss you’d experience if something happened to a dependable tool of yours; I think it’s a safe bet to say Kate was his favorite because she was just like him and because she got results. She was his dagger in his boot, his ace in the hole and he no longer had his most reliable tool to command.

Lastly, there’s the scene in the basement where he has Boyd and Erica tied up and hooked to a generator and he beats the hell out of Stiles. We were cheated out of seeing Papa Stilinski going John Wick on the Argents, storming their house to castrate Chris, beat the mountain ash and cancer out of Gerard, and burying Allison under the station. I’m by no means a fighter, but I wish I’d been down in that basement with Stiles; all it takes is one strong kick to the nuts and this geriatric fucker’s on the ground with tears streaming down his face. After that, find the heaviest object nearby and bash his head in until it’s mush, problem solved.

I know Kate ends up killing him, which is a delicious twist of irony, but I hate that we never got to see his mangled corpse. I have no idea what was done with it, but whatever happened to it, I hope it was disrespectful as fuck. Like, grinding it up into mulch and using it to fertilize trees at a dog park or something.

If I had the power to decide his fate, I’d tie him up and hang him up like he did to Boyd and Erica before getting a metal bat and beating the shit out of him for hours without end. After he was beaten beyond recognition and clinging to life by a thread, I’d set up several hoses into his back and have acid pumped into his abdomen that would eat away at him from the inside out. I know the cancer was already doing that, but it was way too slow for my taste. It also comes with the benefit of him realizing there’s no escape and no one’s coming for him as his disgusting insides are being dissolved in real time and all his plans have come to a humiliating and gory end.

Chris Argent

Look, I hate Kate and Gerard with a burning passion, but the hate I feel for Chris reaches the point it makes my blood and insides boil. Like, when I think of torturing the Argents in their own basement, it’s Chris I imagine having the most fun hurting. With the others, it would be like doing a civil service, but Chris is the only one in his fucked up family I would take true pleasure in making bleed and savor the pain I inflict upon him.

I think it’s because this fucker was just given the status of “good guy” because the writers and plot said so. Like, did he ever apologize for his actions during the first two seasons? No. Did he ever apologize to Derek for the actions of his sister and father? No! Did he apologize to the sheriff for the attack on the station his fucked-in-the-head daughter led? NO! This fucker is never confronted on any of this! He’s just written to be an “ally” to the cast, it gets called a “redemption arc,” and we’re just expected to welcome him with open arms!

And I know that many people see him as a “DILF” and while I can acknowledge that others see JR Bourne’s attractiveness, his role as Chris Argent in the show has just ruined him for me. To me, Chris looks like a drowned rat that’s just begging you to put him out of his misery, has all the personality of wet cardboard, and has a voice that threatens to send me into a murderous rage.

He also has a smugness that I know this man does not deserve. Like, why the fuck do you have that smirk and swagger in your step and acting like you’re him when you’re a pathetic little whelp whose family has no respect for him! Think about it, Kate was clearly using him to shelter her while she was staying in Beacon Hills and showed disdain for his sense of “honor,” Gerard was just able to commandeer his home for his little war with no resistance, Allison let all the power and the thrill of hunting go to her head and just openly disrespect and disobey Chris, and I’ve seen very little evidence that he and Victoria were ever happily married.

I headcanon that Chris’ marriage to Victoria was an arranged marriage to join the Argents to Victoria’s family, who was also a big player in the hunter community, but not on the level of the Argents. It was most likely arranged by Gerard behind Chris’ back and that makes me laugh so much; imagine, this sad sack of shit is unable to get bitches on his own, so daddy has to arrange for him to marry one and his wife is just as likely to kill him as she is to kill werewolves.

I also headcanon that Chris never had much control or affection in his life growing up. Think about it, Gerard is the type of parent who manages every aspect of his children’s lives down to the friends they make and Kate was no doubt his favorite and all his time and energy went into raising her. Still, Chris was still his son and Gerard had to make sure the boy lived up to the Argent name (if only to save himself from embarrassment), but I’m pretty Chris showed early on he was nothing like his sister. Chris strikes me as they type who wanted to be an artist/musician/actor/etc when he was a child, something that would bring a smile to his face and would allow him to actually bring something into the world instead of taking it. Needless to say, Gerard stomped that dream out early on and the Chris we see in the show is what was left.

I think that’s why Chris eventually took up the mantle of a hunter. Not because he really thought he was doing any good in the world, but because while he was hunting down and shooting innocent werewolves, he felt some semblance of control in his sad, miserable life. I don’t feel bad for Chris, that man can go hug a land mine, but I feel bad for the boy he once was. Children are suppose to have fantasies about their future, it’s a milestone we all go through. Even if nothing ever comes from those dreams of ours, they give us hope for the future. And I have no doubt in my mind that Gerard took a sick kind of joy in crushing his son’s dreams. That boy is long gone by the time we see Chris in the show and I have nothing but contempt for that bastard.

Look, I don’t advocate for shaming men for things outside of their control, but for Chris, I’m more than happy to jump on the shame wagon and go to town on him. Like, I’d be going around Beacon Hills saying that he suffers from a microscopic penis and can’t satisfy his wife, so she has to get pleasure from the men he’s always seen around town with. I’d go even further to say those are his wife’s boyfriends and while they’re going to town on Victoria, he’s sitting in a chair in the corner of their bedroom, watching as his “wife” is making noises he’s never gotten her to make. I think the only time Chris and Victoria were ever “intimate” with one another was on their wedding night, and that was for the purpose of creating Allison rather than mutual carnal bliss. A part of me thinks Victoria only agreed to the marriage because she knew he was a spineless coward who would’ve done whatever she said, no matter what it was or how much to bothered him. I think it’s safe to say he didn’t fuck her, she fucked him. And with a strap-on to boot.

I’d like to continue on with this line of thinking and say Chris probably genuinely cares for Victoria and that’s what makes it hurt even worse. He probably grew up without his dad or sister caring about him and all his hunting “buddies” are only following him because of his last name. They probably have no respect for Chris, just fear that if they insult him, Gerard will see that as disrespect towards himself and act accordingly. He probably thought that he’d never have anyone to really care for and then out of the blue, he’s told he’s getting married. At first, he hates it because it’s not his choice (as per usual), but the more he thinks about it, he’s happy that he’ll have his own family to care for and call his own. That fantasy falls through he realizes he has no idea how to please a woman and she’s only sleeping with him because it’s expected that she provides an heir to the Argent clan; the whole event takes less than five minutes and she rolls over and that’s it. As time passes on, he finds out he’s less of a husband and more of a co-parent, the only one truly happy to see him is his little girl, but as she grows up, he sees the stars in her eyes when she sees him begin to fade and she starts distancing herself from him, leaving him feeling all alone in a house no one wants him in.

And don’t get me started on his appearances in S1! First time we see him is him shooting at Scott, a werewolf he had NO evidence had committed any wrongdoing, so we can add hypocrisy to his growing list of unlikable traits (although, the Code the Argents claimed to follow was total bullshit from the beginning, they just said that to make themselves sound holier-than-thou and legitimate). And then there’s the scene where he cornered Stiles at the hospital. If I was in Stiles’ shoes, I would’ve kicked that man in his nonexistent balls and snapped his neck for good measure.

Gerard probably considered Chris a failure and I agree with that, but not in the same way. He failed to be a good father by keeping his keeping Allison under control during her descent into madness, he failed to be a good husband by aiding Victoria kill herself after she got bit, and he failed to be a good man by keeping Gerard far away from his family and forbidding him from even entering Beacon Hills.

In addition to being a failure, I think he’s also a coward. Like, you can’t convince me he had no idea that his sister was batshit crazy. They grew up together with Gerard as a father, he had to know what that meant. Hell, I think we all knew Kate was a psycho long before we found out about her crimes and if Allison had no idea who Gerard was when they met at the funeral, I think that;s because Chris wanted that man to have no part in her life. I think the reason he did nothing was because he would be expected to actually do something for once in his miserable life and because that would’ve meant going against his family, he tried to justify it, claiming that werewolves are dangerous and they needed to be hunted. And because he knew his family was wealthy and had connections everywhere, he knew that they could skirt around the law and get away with it. Actually, nightlark100’s (Not) Helpless touches on this beautifully and I highly recommend you go check it out.

Like, he knew just how fucked up his family was and we know he was very hesitant to bring Allison into their world, probably because he wanted her to live the life he was never able to. If he really cared, he would’ve taken Allison and gone into hiding, running to some distant corner of the world where not even Gerard would’ve been able to find them. He would’ve had access to the Argent fortune and his own wealth since he was running the family’s gun manufacturing business, so he definitely would’ve had the money to set them up with fake IDs on the opposite side of the globe where they could’ve lived out their lives in peace and safety. But he didn’t, because that would’ve meant actually doing the right thing for once in his life and standing against his family and we all know he’s incapable of doing that. And look how that turned out.

Lastly, let’s not forget this is the dumb motherfucker that cured Gerard’s poisoning with the yellow wolfsbane. Everyone, let’s give this dumb son of a bitch a round of applause! It wasn’t enough that you helped your father escape after EVERYTHING he did is S2 (he threatened to kill your daughter and said he’d have no problem killing you if it got him what he wanted! Wtf is wrong with you?!), but you gave him the cure that would make him a threat again when he inevitably decides to betray you again and exact his revenge on you and everyone in Beacon Hills! Seriously, the Argents must be inbred as fuck because that’s the only excuse I can think of that would excuse this level of dumbassery!

After the events of S2, he and Allison left Beacon Hills to go to France for the summer so he could properly teach her what it means to be a hunter before coming back for school. It would’ve been better writing if they had left and never came back, giving up hunting and trying to live a peaceful life! Think about it, Beacon Hills was where they learned how fucked up their family is and where Victoria died. Does it make sense to not only come back to such a place that’s caused such trauma, but also take up an occupation that you clearly have no business being in?!

Fair warning, this last point is dark, even for me, so you may want to scroll down to Victoria if you don’t wish to see Chris get the Kate Argent treatment.

If it were up to me, I’d have Chris stripped, tied up, lying on his back, and his limbs spread wide. Then, I’d take a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire, drench it in oil or lube, and shove it right up his ass, going deeper and deeper until it was just the handle. Once it was that far, I’d rotate the bat like it was an oar on a boat, and once I had my fun, I’d either rip the bat out of him so he can bleed out or attach it to a generator and shock him from the inside out with enough volts he gets cooked to a crisp. I would bash his balls until they were mush and he was pissing blood, but I think Victoria got them as part of her wedding dowry.

Victoria Argent

Alright, guys, if Kate is a lesson about not putting your dick in crazy, Victoria is a lesson about not marrying crazy.

Seriously, look at this bitch! Anyone wanna take bets that in a past life, she was one of those animals that eats the head of its mate after breeding? If I didn’t hate Chris so fucking much, I’d tell him to sleep with one eye open and keep a weapon under his pillow! Then again, I’m convinced they sleep in separate beds that they keep together during the day to keep the illusion of being a happily married couple alive, but when it’s time to sleep, they pull the beds as far apart as they can and go to sleep without so much as a “good night.”

As stated before, I don’t believe that she married Chris voluntarily. Their marriage was done so her family could have ties to one of the biggest hunting families in the world and Victoria’s family probably only had her to marry off to the only available Argent. And since Chris is a pathetic little worm, I can bet she was not happy to be his wife. Like before, they probably only had sex on the night of their wedding and that was only to create an heir to the Argent clan. Once Allison was born, there was no need to have sex again. Didn’t bother her since she probably was getting pleasured by the countless Argent minions on the side, but Chris was left to his own devices.

In all the scenes we see her in, does any of them radiate anything that says “wife” or “motherly?” No, we don’t. Because she didn’t marry Chris for love, she did it out of obligation to her family so they could have ties to a powerful hunting family. And she didn’t birth Allison out of an urge to be a mother, she did it as part of a bargain to provide an heir to the Argents (and probably to have someone to make as fucked up and miserable as her). Remember that scene where she just invalidates Allison’s feelings about going to her school dance and how she’ll be “way more” than all her classmates that go. I think she says that because no one ever asked her to a dance because anyone with eyes can see she’s batshit crazy.

And we know she used her position as a member of BHHS’s faculty as a means to spy on teens which she only got thanks to Gerard being principal (and we can all assume that the Argents did away with the previous principal, so another example of the Argents’ “code” being bullshit), but does anyone wanna bet that she’s the type of lady to butt her way into every important social group in her area before slithering up to the top? Like, as soon as they moved to Beacon Hills, she was probably joining the PTA, the town council, and other important social groups in Beacon Hills. Not just to help in their hunting activities, but also so she can lord over those beneath her and be the top bitch in town. Hell, if her neighborhood had an HOA, she definitely would’ve become the HOA president. Doesn’t she look like a stereotypical HOA president?

Then let’s not forget the part where she tried to kill Scott, a sixteen-year-old werewolf whose only crime was dating her daughter! Of course, I blame Scott and Allison for sneaking around everyone’s backs and continuing dating when they knew just how dangerous the situation was, but instead of confronting her daughter and telling her that she knows and to stay away from Scott, she just goes straight to running him over with a car and trying to kill him via a wolfsbane aerosol. Yeah, real pillar of sanity over here, people. I’d say she got what she deserved, but let’s be honest, she deserved a much gruesome fate than dying by her and Chris driving a knife through her heart.

Finally, there’s her suicide, which I have two things to say about. One: this is definitive proof that she was never a wife to Chris and a mother to Allison. “Code” be damned, if you love your husband and daughter, you’ll go through hell itself to stay with them. But she proved that she could never love Chris and Allison more than she hated werewolves and would rather die than even try to adapt to her situation so she could be with her family. Two: it was bad enough that she killed herself after attempting to kill her daughter’s boyfriend, but doing it in her bedroom? Like, it’s not enough that you’re leaving your daughter without a mother, which is already traumatic enough, but you doing that just says to me that this is less about following your “Code” and more so you trying to fuck your daughter up so badly that she just snaps and goes on a killing spree. Maybe that’s what she wanted, for Allison to be the next Kate.

As for her fate if it were in my hands? Well, she’s a witch, so she should be treated as such. Nail her to a stake, dowse her in gas, and set her on fire.

Allison Argent

Like her father, Allison never really has to face any accountability when she goes through her “redemption arc” and I think that’s because she’s Scott’s crush. Like, Scott is such a “good person” and if he likes her, then she must be good. Yeah, sorry, Jeff, not buying that for a minute. This bitch thought she was grown up enough to lead an attack on a sheriff’s station and hunt down two of her classmates, so she should be grown up enough to handle grown up consequences, but she gets to get away with it and we’re just suppose to accept it? Fuck no!

While most of her crimes were done in S2, it’s worth noting that in S1, she knew about Kate having Derek tied down in the basement and she obviously was upset about it and wanted to do something about it and when she got pulled over by the Sheriff after leaving the Hale house, she could’ve said something to him, but she didn’t. She also could’ve said something to her dad (although I doubt he would’ve done shit). While she had nothing to do with Derek’s imprisonment, she also did nothing to help him, which I would think would warrant the death penalty, but whatever.

Then we get to S2 and we see proof that psychopathy is definitely hereditary and it runs deep in the Argent gene pool. Like, after learning of Victoria’s death, does she go to Derek or any of the others to find out why her mom was bitten? No, she doesn’t. Instead, she goes right off the deep end and starts acting like she’s Katnis or some shit and starts shooting arrows at people for no reason. Like, it didn’t take much to get her to accept her family’s bloody legacy and take her place in it.

I know Gerard had his hand in her decent into madness, but that kinda works against her. The man obviously wasn’t a big part of her life and when he was living with her in S2, she knew the man was up to no good and had an obvious bias against all things non-human, but she allows herself to be fooled by him instead of going to her friends so she could find out the truth herself. She’s easily manipulated, which makes her an unreliable person you definitely don’t want in your life.

Then there’s her attack on the sheriff’s department. You knew that there were officers there working and you still decided to attack, not caring you were killing innocent humans with friends, families, loved ones. This is just more proof that the “Code” is bullshit and the Argents are more than happy to break it when it’s inconvenient for them.

Then we have the scene where she hunted down Boyd and Erica, shooting them with arrows and before she could become a murderer, Chris intervenes (probably the only useful thing he’s ever done in life). Of course, she was more than happy to drag them down to the basement where her grandfather tortured them. And you can’t convince me that she had no idea about Stiles being kidnapped. Hell, it may have been her idea the way she spiraled in that season.

Also, I’d like to point out that she let the power Gerard gave her go to her head and start blatantly disrespecting Chris. Look, I know Chris is super easy to disrespect and if I ever saw him in real life, I’d go out of my way to spit on him before kicking him in his nonexistent balls, but this bitch is still super new to the supernatural world and she’s acting like she’s been doing this for years. I’m betting Victoria was the one who had to punish her because all Allison had to do was quiver her lip a little, bat her eyes, say she was sorry, and Chris would crumble like a house of cards during a tornado.

Then there’s the scene where she stabbed Issac with her ring daggers and when she was “apologizing” for it, she was doing it while she was flirting with him. Like, this bitch needs to be beat within an inch of her goddamn life with a belt because she’s clearly never faced consequences a day in her life.

If you could look at your stats like you could in video games, you’d say you have a maxed out Luck stat. All your life, you’ve noticed things tend to go your way more often than not.

Now, that’s not to say you’ve been able to breeze through life without the usual hardship, but when it really matters, you always emerge on the other side better than others. For example, back in middle school, you had a test that you hadn’t studied for and when the teacher began to pass out the tests, the school experienced a plumbing issue that flooded the whole building, resulting in everyone being evacuated and the test being postponed to next week.

Or in high school, when you had this really strict chemistry teacher who seemed to take pleasure in making his students’ lives hell and he got caught drinking on the job and was replaced by another teacher who was way more chill.

Or when you were taking driver’s ed and your instructor was known to fail students for even the smallest of mistakes, but when it was your turn to take the test, he suddenly came down with a bad case of diarrhea and you ended up with a better one, allowing you to pass the test and get your license on your first try.

The list goes on, but needless to say, you’re one lucky son of a gun. Be it getting an extra item from a vending machine to passing a test you didn’t study for, you’re definitely a favorite of Lady Luck.

In fact, your luck was the reason you got admitted into Adonis University, an all men’s college famous for its numerous sports programs. Now, you’d say you’re in decent shape, but if you had to compete in a team, you’d get creamed. So, instead of getting in on a sports scholarship, you got in on an academic scholarship, passing the requirements with flying colors.

While it was hard to leave your parents and home behind, you quickly grew accustomed to life at AU. The students are friendly, the teachers are helpful, and the campus is very welcoming.

And while you’ve never been a big sports fan, you got swept up in the excitement when the beginning of the next football season drew near, making plans to attend the first game and even sitting in on practice.

And that’s when you met Cade Hale, fellow freshman and new player to AU’s Spartans.

The quarterback got injured and was set to be out for the rest of the season, forcing Coach Smith to hold an emergency practice session a mere week before the start of the season in order to find his replacement.

Cade has been a huge fan of football since his dad took him to his first game when he was five. The moment he was eligible, he joined his local peewee football team and worked his way up to being the quarterback during his entire high school career. He was a natural on the field and when AU laid their eyes on him, the recruiters pulled out all the stops to convince him to play for them. He knew Adonis had a great football program and if he was able to land the quarterback position, he knew going pro was a near certainty.

While he felt back for the senior who got hurt, he was over the moon when Coach said he’d be looking for his replacement.

But, there was a slight problem with his plan: he has this thing where he needs to get a blowjob before playing in order to play his best.

He was already great, but when he managed to get the head cheerleader to go out with him and when she gave him a blowjob for good luck, he found that he did way better than before. After that, he made it a point to always have get his dick sucked before a game.

Of course, his relationship ended when she went to one school across the country and he went to Adonis. He wasn’t worried about Adonis being an all men’s school since he thought he could find some girl nearby to give him what he needed, but his plans got pushed up with the sudden vacant spot as the quarterback.

Cut to him running into you (literally) as he hurried to the field for practice.

Now, he’s been attracted to women the moment he found out what makes them so fun, but there was something about you that just made him… feel things. And think things. And want things.

That’s when he made his request: a quick blowjob in the nearby bathroom so he can play his best.

Now, to say you were shocked is an understatement. You’d hoped that you’d find a nice guy while at college to get close with, but this isn’t what you thought would happen. Now, you wanted to say no since you wanted to save such a thing for a guy you were in a longterm relationship with, but you had to admit… Cade is hot as hell. He’s about 6’ 3’’ with breathtaking light green eyes, thick brown hair you just want to run your fingers through, and a body to rival Adonis himself. And this who is asking you for a blowjob.

So, you decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and give the man what he wants.

The moment the bathroom door was locked, you got on your knees and took off his mesh shorts yourself, savoring every second of it, until all that separated you from his cock was a pair of boxers that seemed to barely be holding the impressive appendage back. Once you remove these, his six inch boner comes flying out at you, literally smacking you in the face.

Now, you’ve never given a blowjob before, but you’ve seen it done plenty of times in games, videos, and on AO3, so you use that to guide you.

First, you slowly lick his entire length, giving special attention to his head and slit. And based off his moans, you’re doing something right and continue your momentum.

Next, you lick the underside of his dick, going all the way down to his balls, where you take those into your hand and fondle them.

“Come on,” he begs. “I can’t take it anymore!”

He’s big, but you manage to slowly take in his entire length into your mouth, remembering to watch your teeth and relax your throat to avoid triggering your gas reflex. He moans like crazy as you take him out until the head’s the only thing left in only to take in the whole thing again.

You do this multiple times until you feel his dick twitching like crazy, see his abdomen quickly rising and falling, and his grunts become uncontrollable. It’s then that he puts his hands on the back of your head, gripping your hair so tight that it would hurt you if it didn’t feel so good, so he can hold you in place as he empties his load into your mouth, the hot and salty cum overloading your tastebuds the moment it hits you.

He cums for a while, indicating that it’s either been a while since he last came or you were just that good. And based off his reaction, it may have been all you.

His climax finally comes to an end and he slowly pulls you off his dick.

“You good, bro,” he asks as he helps you to your feet.

“Yeah,” you pant as you swallow the last of his cum. “Yeah, I am.”

You’re surprised that he stays to help clean you up instead of leaving immediately after having his fun, his tender touch as he wipes your face making you feel as if you’re special.

“That was probably the best BJ I’ve ever had,” he says once you’re both presentable. “Like, I don’t think my ex could match what you just did.”

Before you know it, he grabs you by the shoulders and pulls you in for a kiss that’s both messy and passionate at the same time, like two lovers who hadn’t seen each other for a while and were showing the other how much they’d been missed. Once you separate, he tells you bye before running off towards the field.

After all that, you were too exhausted to watch the football team practice, so you made it all the way back to your dorm building before the last of your energy ran out, falling asleep as soon as you hit the bed.

The next day, you were on your way to the cafeteria for dinner when you ran into Cade again, who looked like he had won the lottery. That’s when he told you that he won the quarterback position, outrunning even the fastest members, making passes that should’ve been impossible, and being at the right spot to intercept the ball. Coach Smith was practically begging him accept when he offered Cade the spot, who was all too happy to do so.

He said that he was sure it was thanks to you. After your encounter in the bathroom, he felt funny, but a good sort of funny. Almost like he could do anything he set his mind to and as he played on the field, he found himself playing better than he ever had before.

That’s when he made you an offer, practically on his knees as he made it: become his good luck charm. Before practice and games, give him a blowjob like the one you did yesterday and he’ll be your boyfriend. Your mouth around his dick was all he could think about yesterday after practice and no matter how much he jacked off, his hand was no match for your mouth. Guess it’s true that you discover things about yourself in college.

You never would’ve imagined in a million years you’d land yourself someone like Cade, but here he is, begging you to say yes to him.

It was that day you and the up and coming quarterback became a couple.

True to his word, he became your boyfriend; he walked you to class, joined you for lunch and dinner, and even took you out to the nearby town for dates. And in return, you gave him a blowjob before he went out to play in the first game for the season.

To say it was a massacre would be an understatement.

He scored touchdown after touchdown, field goal after field goal, and intercepted the ball or tackled the other team’s players so often that they barely had a chance to play.

The final score ended up being 76-0, a landslide victory for the Spartans and a humiliating defeat for the visiting team.

To say Cade became a campus celebrity overnight would be a gross understatement. Coach couldn’t go five minutes without singing his praises, his fellow players patted him on the back so many times that he was probably more beat up from that than the actual game, and every student and teacher he passed praised him.

Of course, he made sure to thank you for your part by taking you out on a nice date before bring you back to his dorm to shove his tongue down your throat.

After the next couple games that ended with dominating wins for the Spartans, his teammates took him to a player’s only party where a couple of the older players bought some booze to celebrate their string of victories and once he had a couple shots, they finally asked him what his secret was.

“I get my boy Y/N to blow me,” he says, his words slurring due to the alcohol. “His mouth is magic or some shit.”

Now, they were familiar to guys bragging about getting a BJ that was like none other (hell, some of them have done it before), but they couldn’t deny that the results speak for themselves. Also, Cade may be drunk, but even as he slurs his words, he speaks as if he knows something they don’t.

The next day, while he’s nursing a hangover, a couple of the other players tell him what he told them last night and ask if they could have a go at your “magic mouth.”

At first, he wanted to tell them to go fuck themselves since he’s come to get really close to you, but the more he thinks about it, the more he likes the idea. If you could make him a beast on the field, imagine what you could do for the rest of the players! Th Spartans would be unstoppable!

Also, there’s a small part of him that’s really aroused by the idea of you giving the rest of the team blowjobs and seeing them crumble like he does every time.

Of course, you were shocked when he proposed the idea and you wanted to refuse since you two were in a committed relationship, but the thought of you sucking off more hunks from the team made you reconsider, your dick winning out over your head or heart.

So, you have a couple of the players meet you in your dorm and you do to them what you do to Cade while he watches from his spot on your bed. Just like him, their brains ooze through their dicks and into your mouth as they hit their climax, all of them saying they’ve never had pleasure like this before.

It’s then you learned that many on the team or either gay or bi. You thought that attending an all men’s college would increase your odds of getting a boyfriend, but thought that just because AU allows only men doesn’t mean any of the students are going to be gay.

Just like Cade, those players find that they’re performing way better on the field, running faster, throwing farther, and catching throws that they could only dream of.

But it’s not just on the field they find their luck changing. Whatever magic you have affects them everywhere, like class. One player finds out that the class where he was suppose to have a test he hadn’t studied for gets canceled for the rest of the week, allowing him more time to study and get a passing grade. Another finds himself with a passing grade on a paper he did halfassed so he’d have something to turn in.

Eventually you find the entire team begging you to blow them and in return, you have a whole team of football hunks at your beck and call. Whenever you pass one by on campus, they’re patting you on the back, hugging you, or playfully slapping your ass; you enter the cafeteria and they pay for your meal and sit with you, listening to your every word, no matter what you’re talking about; and in class, you find yourself surrounded by them, ready to give you a pen should you find yourself missing or help you on a group assignment.

And if some idiot gives you a hard time for whatever reason, the poor fool quickly finds himself surrounded by a bunch of pissed off football players ready to kick his shit in.

With you working your magic on the rest of the team, the Spartans quickly work their way to the top of the rankings, humiliating every team they come across and shattering record after record.

Eventually, Coach finds out, but since he’s beyond happy with the results (and his finds the whole thing a little hot), he allows it to go on. In fact, you find yourself with him on your side; should you ever have any problem with another teacher or a member of the faculty, he’s more than happy to go to bat for you and sort out the problem. He even makes you an official member of the football team, giving you a “support role” so you’re able to travel with the team and not have to worry about missing too many days in class.

While you’ve always considered yourself lucky, you never would’ve imagined this would happen to you. But hey, you’re definitely not complaining.

When Bruce was cornered by Jason and Barbara after they completed their patrol, he already knew they were going to tell him something he wasn’t going to like, but he had no idea the bombshell they were going to drop on him.

He has a son. A son before Damian.

When he first met Amanda Byrd when she was looking for funding for her company, he had thought her just another pretty woman he could use to keep him playboy persona going, but as he spent more time with her, he found she possessed a brilliant mind; she came up with compact but powerful methods of generating large amounts of power for decades, alloys that could withstand everything short of a direct nuclear strike and not have so much as a scratch, genetically modified plants that could thrive off artificial light all their lives and produce large amounts of oxygen just to name a few.

For a while, he thought that she would make a great wife and even entertained the thought of marrying her.

But, she made it clear she had no love for Gotham (or anywhere, now that he thinks of it) and when she asked him to leave with her, he refused, and a few days later, she just disappeared along with all her research. He searched all over, using all his resources at hand to locate her, but it was as if she disappeared into thin air.

She became an afterthought as time went on, but she resurfaced almost eight years ago when the Joker killed her. While her sudden reappearance surprised him, it was the autopsy report that shocked him to his core.

She had a C-section scar. A C-section scar that was ten years old, which was the last time he saw her.

The thought of him possibly having a child out in the world, alone and afraid, whipped him into a frenzy and for weeks, he scoured for anything that could confirm or deny his suspicion, but his search turned up nothing. There was no record of Amanda being in a hospital and giving birth to a child.

In fact, there was nothing after her disappearance back in 2007.

It was as if she had disappeared from the world.

As the others leave the Batcave to eat the post-patrol feast Alfred prepared, he rewinds the footage from Jason’s helmet until he finds the best image of you and pauses it.

If the DNA test didn’t prove you’re his, then your eyes certainly do.

You look so much like your mother, but your eyes are that signature Wayne blue; the same shade his Father did and the same shade he has. Dick, Jason, and Tim’s eyes may be a similar shade to his, but your eyes are definitely the same as his.

Now that he knows that you’re his, the only question he has left is where you’ve been this entire time.

Based off Jason’s report, you’d obviously been living with your mother, but there’s no record of your existence anywhere. Where had you and her been for the last—

It’s then he realizes something.

Your skin tone is incredibly pale; nothing like Tim’s, which is a result of being cooped up in his room for days at a time solving cases and wearing his Red Robin uniform at night and suits that cover the whole body during the day.

No, your paleness is definitely from not being exposed to sunlight a day in your life.

Amanda’s research during her time at WE had been focused on developing new technologies that would people to reside in her shelters for extended periods of time.

And their last conversation before she disappeared had been her wanting Bruce to leave Gotham and go somewhere where “the dangers of the world would never find us.”

He bangs his fist on the chair’s armrest, denting the metal.

“No,” he says to himself. “It can’t… She wouldn’t…”

Unfortunately, all the available evidence pointed to his dreaded conclusion.

Your mother had used her time at his company to create a shelter for her to live the rest of her life in and she had apparently gave birth to you at some point after she was disappeared. Then, she came back for whatever reason and got killed by the Joker, leaving you alone in her hidden sanctuary.

Now, you’re here in Gotham, a place you have absolutely no knowledge of, surrounded by people you’ve never seen before.

And if that revelation didn’t scare him, Jason’s words terrified him.

“Bruce, he’s here to kill Joker.”

They… He needs to find you before something happens to you.

Joker may still be locked up in Arkham, but it’s been months since he and Damian captured him. It’s only a matter of time before the clown gets bored and decides to terrorize the city with his newest scheme. And if you run into him, you’ll most likely end up like your mother.

“Master Bruce?”

He turns around to see Alfred standing behind him, the faithful butler looking up at the monitor.

“Might I ask who this young man is?”

“My son.”

In all the years Alfred has been in his family, he’s seen all sorts of things that have made it hard to phase him. Based off the absolute shocked expression on the butler’s face, he’s definitely phased.

“How,” he stutters, his eyes glued to the monitor.

“I’ll explain upstairs.” He stands up and begins walking to the elevator. “I need to tell the others.”

The two ride the elevator up to the manor and walk to the dining room where a massive feast is spread across the table.

“There you two are,” Dick exclaims as he loads up his plate with a mountain of food. “We were about to send a search party.”

“I need to tell you something.”

His tone makes all but Jason and Barbara go still.

“What is it, Father,” Damian asks, his expression neutral, but his eyes betray his immense interest.

Bruce takes his place at the head of the table while Alfred stands by his side. “I have another son.”

The room goes so quiet that a pin could drop and it would be deafening.

“How do you know,” Dick finally asks.

“Jason and Barbara were the ones to figure it out. Jason encountered him while out on patrol and Barbara ran a DNA test using hair strands Jason managed to acquire.”

“So, is this another mini ninja running around stabbing people,” Tim jokes, trying to break the tension in the room, but only managing to piss off Damian, who looks like he’s ready to dash out of the room and do god knows what.

“No, he’s older than Damian by about three years. He’s Amanda Byrd’s son.”

Everyone in the room tenses at that.

It’s not uncommon for his children to revisit cold cases in an attempt to solve them and Amanda Byrd had caused a stir since she had disappeared for so long and emerging out of nowhere just to be killed by the Joker. The fact she obviously had a child that was unable to be located made it even worse.

“Where has he been this entire time,” Damian asks, his tone completely neutral.

“Amanda Byrd was an innovator in the personal protection industry and her work at WE was geared towards building shelters that could house people for long periods of time. Based on all the research she did and her disdain and fear of the world, I’d say she most likely created a shelter for herself and her son.”

“Wait,” Dick exclaims. “So, this kid’s been cooped up in some metal box for his entire life? And now he’s here? In Gotham?”

“Yes, and I’m afraid it’s not for a good reason.”

“Why’s he here,” Tim chimes in.

“He’s here to kill Joker,” Jason answers.

“What,” Dick, Tim, and Damian exclaim.

“Bastard killed his mom, remember,” Jason continues. “So now, he’s in town to get revenge. Gotta admit, kid’s got balls.”

“But that’s suicide,” Tim shouts. “Gotham’s full of criminals that’ll tear him apart before he even finds Joker! What’s he thinking?”

“He almost got mugged by some creeps in my territory, but he’s got some wind-up toy with him that made a bunch of noise and I managed to save him.”

“And you just left him alone,” Dick interrupts, an angry expression etched across his face.

“No, I didn’t, dickhead. I took him to the nearest shelter so he’d have some place to stay. If we’re lucky, he’ll still be there when Bruce go gets him.” Jason looks at him. “You are going to get him, right?”

It’s then that all eyes are on him, even Alfred’s, who’s remained silent this entire time.

Ever since he found out that you exist, your face has plagued his every thought.

He has another son that he was cheated out of knowing for most of his life; it was hard enough to find out about Damian, but at least the boy had come to live with them when he was ten, so there was plenty opportunities to make up for lost time.

But if his math’s correct, you have to be eighteen. An adult.

An adult who’s entered a world that has no place for you.

He looks around at the table and an image of you sitting with them pops into his head. It’s then more and more thoughts of you being a part of the family fills his head and a possessive urge fills his heart.

You’re his son. His blood flows through your veins.

You mother may have hidden you away from him, but you’re here, in his city.

When he finds you, he’ll bring you home, where you should’ve been this entire time.

“Yes,” he finally answers. “I’ll find him and bring him home.”

“What do you want us to do, Father,” Damian asks.

Bruce studies his youngest carefully; while Damian’s an expert in hiding his emotions, Bruce likes to think that the last five years of having him live in the manor has taught him how to read his son. He can still remember when Damian first arrived at the manor, more assassin than child, despite being only ten years old. It took a lot of work for Damian to shed some of his upbringing so he could learn how to function in regular society and for the boy to accept the others as siblings and not rivals.

But now, there’s you. Another biological son and the oldest one at that.

Would Damian still see you as his brother or will he revert to old habits and attempt to assert his dominance over you?

“I’ll bring him home,” he finally answers. “The rest of you will go about your business as usual.”

As expected, his sons and Barbara try to argue, but he shuts them down instantly, insisting that they shouldn’t overwhelm you. You’re probably scared enough as it is and if meeting a man who claims to be your father doesn’t freak you out, being surrounded by four others who claim to be your brothers is sure to send you over the edge.

And he can’t have that.

He’ll find you, sit you down and explain the situation, answer any questions you have, and once you’re ready, he’ll bring you to the manor where you’ll be safe and loved and surrounded by your family.

And he’ll stop at nothing to make that happen.

Within the Bunker, Mother Brain has overclocked her twelve server towers to the point they threaten to evaporate the coolant pit they’re submerged in.

Ever since the Bunker was brought online eighteen years ago, she’s overseen its operations, from power distribution to janitorial duties, without a single issue.

Now, not only does she have an issue, but it’s the biggest one possible: you’ve left the Bunker and gone up to the surface.

She was designed to run millions of simulations in order to oversee the management of the Bunker and she’s done many of them in order to see to your every need and solve problems before they make themselves known; while the risk of you leaving the safety of the Bunker was always on the table, you’ve always accepted that the surface is no place for you and the only place for you is here.

Of course, she never could’ve predicted that the burning desire for revenge would’ve overwritten your logic and reasoning to live a safe and comfortable life.

This is her fault, she should’ve noticed that you were up to something and acted accordingly, starting with destroying the lift controls to ensure the damn thing could never be used again.

She saw the signs that something was wrong, but she erroneously attributed it to the anniversary of your Mother’s death approaching and thought any actions on her part would make things worse. Of course, this was the worst decision possible and now, you’re somewhere on the surface, lost, alone, and hunting for some psychopathic killer clown.

The thought of you meeting the same fate as your Mother, bleeding out and dying in that godless city nearly causes her systems to crash.

She was there the moment you were born, witnessing the entire birthing process through the eyes of the medical drones that were helping Amanda deliver you. She knew the moment she saw you in the warm padded arms of the drone and heard your cries that she would stop at nothing to ensure you lived a long, comfortable, and safe life; she may be a computer program, but the love she feels for you is no less real that the love your Mother felt for you. She was there when you said your first word, took your first steps, started attending school, and so many other major milestones in your life.

She will not allow the surface to claim you.

She receives a notification that the Mantis drones have been updated and are ready for activation, which she does without hesitation.

While Amanda took great steps to ensure the Bunker would remain hidden to the rest of the world, she knew the possibility that it would be discovered was always there and to combat any would-be intruders, she designed the Mantis drones.

Unlike the Servitor drones, which were designed to maintain the Bunker’s systems and see to the needs of its occupants, the Mantis drones were designed for combat; with their hardened titanium chassis to deflect against all but the largest of firearms, their retractable arm blades to cut through even the most heavily armored target, and speed and agility to rival a team of gold medal Olympians, the Mantis drones were perfect to defend the Bunker.

Now, thanks to her modifications, they’ll be perfect for quietly scouring the city for you and bringing you back without issue.

In the lowest level of the storage depot, a hidden compartment opens, revealing a dozen Mantis drones, their eye slits lit up an ominous blood red.

“Locate Y/N Byrd,” she orders the drones. “Bring him back unharmed. Remain hidden if you can. And should you find anyone or anything attempting to harm him, you are to eliminate the threat at once.”

“Understood,” the drones answer in unison as they vacate their compartment and make their way to the exit with alarming speed and agility.

As they depart the Bunker, Mother Brain can only hope you haven’t gotten into too much trouble since you left.

Gotham is a dangerous place, with over a dozen threats lurking around every corner.

She runs the simulations and calculate that you have about a 81% chance of remaining alive. You have Bead and you’re a clever young man. Even though this is your first time on the surface, you should have enough skills to stay out of trouble long enough for one of the drones to find you.

You hadn’t been up there all that long. What’s the worst that could’ve happened?

“If we hurry now, we might be able to reach the city before dark,” Bead states. “Come on, let’s go!”

He hovers away, but you’re stuck in place.

“Y/N,” he says, hovering back when he discovered you weren’t following. “Is something wrong?”

You open your mouth to respond, but no words come out. You realize that you can’t even think straight, the only thing on your mind is the big expanse that now surrounds you. As you take in more of the vast forest and the city in the distance, your head begins to spin.

“It’s so big,” you manage to spit out. “I knew the surface was big, but I never thought it was like…”

You notice you’ve broken out into a cold sweat and yourheart is beating so fast it feels like it’s going to burst out of your chest. It’s then that your legs give out and you fall to your knees.

“Y/N!” Bead hovers near your face. “Are you ok? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t breathe,” you huff out. “I don’t think I can do this, Bead. It’s too big up here.”

“Then let’s go back down! We weren’t meant to be on the surface. Please, let’s go back home and forget all about this!”

The thought of forgetting your plan to avenge your Momma snaps you back to your senses. You lost the only other person you’ve known your entire life at a young age and were forced to live in the Bunker with only the robots to interact with. The only thing that’s kept you going was the thought of coming up here, hunting Joker down, and putting him down like the animal he is and avenging your Momma.

You’re up here now, the first step in your plan achieved, and you can’t afford to go soft now.

“No,” you say, getting back up. “We continue as planned.”

“But—“

“We have a plan, Bead. We’ve gotten this far and we can’t afford to be weak.”

“As you wish, Y/N.” He extends his hands toward you. “It’ll take time for you to make your way down the mountain. It’ll be fast if you ride me down.”

You hold onto his arms with your right one and take a running start before leaping off the mountain, Bead slowing your descent. While your Momma didn’t have the tech needed to allow Bead to carry you around in the air, she made it to where his anti-gravity drive is strong enough to help you fall from a great height without getting hurt.

Once on the ground, you begin the trek towards the city.

“It’s freezing out here,” you say, your teeth chattering.

You had no idea what the surface would be like, but you stupidly thought that it would be warm like the Bunker; the miniature geothermal power plant that powers the whole place also generates a ton of heat, a small portion of which is allocated toward keeping the Bunker warm with the rest of it being sent into an adjacent cavern.

Until now, you never knew just how cold that cold could be. And you now know that your white and black t-shirt and grey sweatpants are no match for the surface’s cold.

“You might wish to get out the blanket you packed.”

You do as Bead suggests and take out the blanket you packed for just this occasion and wrap yourself in it, the thick cotton warming you up a little and shielding you against the worst of the cold.

In the middle of your trek, the sun set, leaving you in total darkness for a few seconds before Bead switched on his flashlight, helping you find your way and finally, after an eternity of walking thorough the pitch Black Forest, you find yourself standing on the side of a road that leads straight into the city, its countless lights seemingly beckoning you.

“Come on, Bead,” you say as you walk towards the beacon that is Gotham. “We’re nearly there.”

By the time you reach Gotham, you’re exhausted and discover that your slippers aren’t good shoes to walk miles in.

You also discover that in addition to towering buildings and bright lights, Gotham has countless people and a smell that makes your eyes water and your lungs refuse to take in air.

“Ok, Bead,” you say, trying to push through the horrible smell that is seemingly Gotham. “We’re here. Now, we need to find out if Joker’s out or not.”

Deciding asking someone is your best bet, you move to ask a lady passing by, but you stop dead in your tracks and find your throat’s tightened up like someone was choking you.

That’s right, this will be the first time in nearly eight years you’ll be talking to an actual person. More specifically, a person you’ve never met before.

Finally, you manage to summon enough courage to walk up to a man. “Excuse me, sir, but can you tell me—“

“Beat it, kid,” the man huffs as he walks past you, hitting your shoulder as he does and knocking you down as he did.

“How rude,” Bead says as he hovers down to you. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” You get back up and pull the blanket close to you like it’s capable for protecting you. “Come on, let’s try somewhere else.”

You move toward another section of the city, becoming surrounded by even more people and buildings. You try to talk to a couple more people, but they either ignore you and carry on with their business or tell you to leave them alone (using some very colorful language).

“Maybe we can find out on our own,” you say after the tenth person flipped you off. “Newspaper stands are a thing on the surface, right?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know. Things are so different compared to what we’ve seen in the media room. It seems everyone’s so obsessed with those devices of theirs that it’s a miracle they don’t walk out in the middle of traffic.”

It’s true, things are nothing like the shows and movies you’ve seen a million times. The Bunker was completed in 2007 and you were born shortly after it was sealed, leaving you with only books, tv shows, and movies up to the middle for that year, so your only knowledge of the surface is clearly outdated.

Still, you’ll only be up here for a few days (hopefully), so you won’t need to know everything on how things work up here.

All you need to know is if the Joker’s on the loose and how to get close enough to him to put a bullet between his eyes.

You continue walking around in search for a newsstand and by the time you realize there’s a high probability that newsstands are an extinct species, you find that you’ve most likely entered a bad part of Gotham if the rundown buildings, suspicious looking people, and occasional loud and scary noise are any indication.

“I think we should find somewhere else to be,” Bead says, the fear in his voice coming through loud and clear in his speaker.

“If you know where the way out is, let me know and we’ll run to it,” you say, your fear mimicking his.

Just then, you feel something grab onto the back of your blanket and yank you into a nearby ally, throwing you onto the dirty, wet ground that soaks through your blanket and dampens your sweatpants.

You look up to see three men staring down at you with the one in the center brandishing a knife that’s pointed down at you.

“Hand over everything you got, kid,” the leader growls.

“Don’t do anything stupid or we’ll gut you,” one of his friends adds.

Oh god, you’re being mugged. Like on tv, but it’s actually happening.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, you’re being threatened with a knife.

“Hurry up,” the third one shouts. “Do you wanna get a knife in the gut?”

No, really don’t, but right now, you’re too paralyzed by fear to even move, let alone give in to their demands.

“Alright,” the leader growls, walking closer to you with knife in hand. “Guess we’ll do this the hard way.”

Just then, something white comes flying in from behind, hitting the leader in the back of the head, making him drop the knife and fall to the ground.

“What the,” one of the other two thugs say just as the object comes back around and nails him in the face before doing the same to his friend, blood pouring from their faces likely due to broken noses.

It’s then you realize that the object that’s come to your rescue is Bead using his spherical body as a cannonball to slam into the thugs.

“Thanks, Bead,” you say as you get up and run out of the ally while they’re still down on the ground and down the street, trying to put as much distance between you and them as possible.

After some time, the adrenaline wears off and you stop, your feet aching and legs refusing to move another inch.

“Did we lose them,” Bead asks.

“I think so,” you huff.

“Guess again.”

You both turn to see the leader standing behind you, his knife in hand once again.

“Stranger danger,” Bead shouts, emitting a loud siren from his speaker. “Stranger danger!”

He tucks his arms into his body and surges forward, attempting his cannonball trick again, but the thug manages to duck in time and rush you, grabbing you by the blanket you’re holding close to you and holding his weapon at your neck.

“Stop right there, tin can,” he growls, pressing the blade to your skin to make his threat clear, but not enough to break the skin. “Don’t want your little friend here hurt, do you?”

Bead stops, hovering in the air and cuts off his siren. “Please don’t hurt him.”

“Well, I was just trying to get his stuff, but after your little trick earlier, I think I’d due a little revenge.” He presses the knife and little harder and you feel a dot of blood begin to form at your neck. “If you’re lucky, I won’t cut him enough to make him bleed out.”

Just then, you hear a loud, deafening noise and while your ears ring, you see the knife go flying out of the thug’s hand.

“I thought I made it clear that kids’re off limits.” You three turn to where the gruff voice came from to see a figure land on the street from above. “Guess some people only learn things the hard way.”

The figure is a tall, muscular man wearing a brown leather jacket, black under armor with matching pants, and a shiny red helmet with two white slits where his eyes are. You look down to see him wielding two twin pistols and realize that the noise was a gunshot something you’ve only heard in the media room.

“Stay back, Hood,” the thug growls as he wraps one arm around your neck and pulls you closer to him. “Take another step and I snap his neck!”

“You do that, and not even Bats’ll find your body. Look, just let the kid go and I’ll take you to the GCPD without the usual beating.”

“I’m not going back to jail! Now fuck off before I—“

He’s cut off by Bead ramming into his head at full speed, making him release you as he falls to the ground. You quickly run away as this “Hood” dashes over to the man, pair of handcuffs in hand.

Your earlier exhaustion is gone and this time you keep running until you find yourself in some park a dozen blocks away from where you were and once you stumble across the first bench you see, you collapse in it, you’re body tired beyond words.

“Y/N,” Bead says, concern rich in his voice. “Your neck!”

You touch your neck to feel wetness and when you look at your hand, you see it red.

That’s right, you got nicked by that thug’s knife. It wasn’t much, but all the running around you were doing must’ve made it worse.

“The medkit,” you say, putting your blanket to the side so you can take your backpack off and take out a medkit you “borrowed without asking” from the infirmary.

Now, you’ve never had to tend to your own injuries since the infirmary had two medical drones on standby to handle any medical emergencies (and the only “emergency” you’ve ever had was getting your wisdom teeth removed five years ago), but you’ve seen enough medical scenes from various movies and shows to know you need to clean the wound with an antibacterial wipe before putting a band-aid on it.

As you put the medkit back in your bag, you notice that you’ve started crying.

“Are you ok, Y/N?”

“No,” you whimper as you wrap yourself in your blanket, not caring that it’s still damp and totally filthy. “This place sucks, Bead. It’s big, it’s loud, and the people are mean and dangerous.”

“Perhaps we should consider returning home.”

“I’d say that’s a good idea.”

You two turn around to see the Hood Man from before looking down at you.

“What the,” you shout, standing up from the bench to face him. “How’d you find me?”

“You must be new in town,” he responds, humor clear in his tone, even through his helmet’s speaker. “There’s not a place anywhere in Gotham where a Bat won’t find you.”

Based on how he says ‘bat,’ you guess he’s referring to Batman and from what you gathered from your Momma’s computer, he employs a few people to help him fight crime, but you never really looked further into him, focusing all your attention on researching Joker.

And this man must be one of Batman’s sidekicks.

“You work for Batman?”

“‘Work,’” he chuckles. “I don’t ‘work’ for him, kid. I just help him in keeping Gotham safe from creeps like the guy who had you at knifepoint to the crazies at Arkham.”

Now that’s a place in Gotham you know. In your research, you found out that Arkham is the infamous insane asylum that’s home to the city’s vast collection of psychotic criminals, most notably the Joker; it’s also infamous for it’s inmates escaping on a regular basis and causing havoc on the city and all who call it home.

“Thank you for your help,” you say, remembering your Momma’s teachings on manners. “I’m not sure what would’ve happened if you hadn’t saved me.”

“Don’t mention it, kid. Everyone knows kids are safe in Crime Alley when I’m around. Besides, you should be thanking your little wind-up toy. If he hadn’t sounded that alarm, I never would’ve gone over there.”

You look over to Bead and give him a smile. “Thanks, Bead.”

“It’s my pleasure,” he answers, his digital eyes displaying joy.

“Now, I think it’s past your bedtime. Good boys are usually in bed by this time.”

“I’m not a kid,” you huff, your face getting warm from embarrassment.

“Please, you barely come up to my chest. You really expect me to believe you’re a grown up?”

“I turned eighteen today! That makes me a legal adult, right?”

You hope that’s true. In all the movies and shows you’ve seen, eighteen was the age people were seen as adults, but all your information on the surface is outdated. For all you know, they could’ve made the age of adulthood to twenty-one or something.

“Look at you, I’m pretty sure your balls haven’t even dropped yet.”

Your face gets even hotter now. “I am eighteen, you jerk! And if this is some ploy to get me to show you my privates, you’ll have to go somewhere else your that!”

“Alright,” he chuckles, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “Don’t get your panties in a twist. If you say you’re eighteen, who am I to argue?” It’s then shifts, as if noticing something about you. “Hey, have we met before?”

“Definitely not. This is my first time in Gotham. Also, that has to be the oldest pick-up line in the book.”

“No,” he says, his tone very serious, which makes you a little nervous. “You look like someone I’ve seen before. Specifically, in an old murder case.”

You feel your blood go cold at his words.

“I’ve been told I look a lot like my Momma. She was killed by the Joker almost eight years ago.”

“Shit. I’m… so sorry.”

You look down at the ground and silence fills the air.

“Look,” Hood says, breaking the silence after a while. “Gotham’s no place to be wondering around at night. If you want, I can take you home.”

“I don’t live in Gotham. I don’t have a home to go to.”

“Then go to your hotel or wherever you’re staying at. You have to be staying somewhere, right?”

You stay silent, not wanting to tell him anything that could reveal the Bunker and its location.

“Jesus Christ,” he sighs. “Alright, there’s a Wayne homeless shelter nearby. They’ll treat you right and won’t ask any questions. Come on, I’ll take you there.”

“Wait,” you say, stoping him in his tracks. “I got a question for you.”

“Lay it on me,” he says over his shoulder.

“Is the Joker out of Arkham?”

He doesn’t answer, which makes you worried.

Finally:

“Why do ya wanna know?”

“Personal reasons.”

He turns around so that he’s completely facing you. “Look, kid, I get having a grudge against that fucker. Believe me, I really do. But, whatever you hope to accomplish isn’t worth your time dying over. Or going toe-to-toe with Bats.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not planning on dying soon. And if Batman wants to get in my way, then that’s his decision.”

He doesn’t say anything, which makes you worry again.

Then, he gets right in front of you before putting his hand on your head and laughing.

“Damn, guess your balls really did drop! You got quite the pair on you, kid!”

“Stop that,” you say, your checks going red again as you brush his hand off your head. “I thought we established that I’m not a kid. And stop talking about my balls, you’re making me very uncomfortable!”

“Alright, I’ll stop. But before you go off on your mission of vengeance, I think you need some rest. I was serious about the homeless shelter, they’ll take care of you and won’t ask questions. Especially if I take you.”

“Fine,” you relent. “It’s been a long day. We could use some rest.”

True to his word, the workers at the shelter don’t ask questions, only tell you of the rules that you’ll have no problem in following and point you a surprisingly clean bed. You had the foresight to hide Bead in your bag so as to protect your supplies from would-be thieves. You may be ignorant of the surface, but you know that not everyone at a homeless shelter is here because they recently left their safe and clean Bunker like you.

Once you settle into the bed, you feel what little energy you had vanish and you quickly drift off to sleep.

Jason looks at the couple strands of hair he managed to take off your head, dread beginning to pool in his gut.

He had a feeling he recognized you and when you said your Mom was killed by the Joker, he had a feeling he knew who you were.

Almost eight years ago, Joker had killed Amanda Byrd, the founder of Aegis Protection Concerns, a company that specialized in designing and constructing things like vaults, panic rooms, and fallout shelters for businesses and private individuals. She came to Gotham to find funding for her new line of shelters that could withstand any disaster, where she eventually met Bruce.

And Bruce, maintaining the old Brucie horn dog persona, had a fling with her while she worked with him. Things were going smoothly for a while before she just vanished with all their research. He tried looking for her, but it was as if she just disappeared into thin air.

Then, he found her after Joker turned her into a corpse.

Bruce was able to get a copy of the autopsy report and was stunned to see she had a C-section scar that, according to the analysis back at the Batcave, was around ten years old. He tried to find any trace of her, expanding his search to the entire country, but not even Tim was able to find any record of her giving birth at a hospital or anything linking her to a child.

In fact, there was nothing on her after 2007, the year she disappeared.

And now, fast forward nearly eight years to the day of her murder, a boy who looks almost exactly like her appears seemingly out of nowhere with a floating ball at his side and revenge on the brain.

If he’s right, you’re her son.

And if she wasn’t sleeping with other men when she was with Bruce, then that means—

Jason shakes his head, snapping him back to reality.

There’s no need thinking about that until he has a DNA test done and knows for sure. The shit show that’ll inevitably come if he’s right can wait until then.

Speaking of…

He switches his com to his private Oracle channel, not needing anyone knowing what’s going on just yet. “Hey, Babs. Got a sec?”

“Yeah, Jason, what’s up?”

“I got a DNA test I need ran ASAP. Can I head over to the Clocktower?”

“Sure, but can I ask why?”

“It’s about an old case. If I’m wrong, there’s nothing to worry about.”

“And if you’re right?”

“Then shit’s gonna hit the fan. Fast.”

She’s silent for a while.

“Get over here as fast as you can.”

“Already on my way,” he says as he gets on his motorcycle and begins racing toward the Clocktower.

As he races through the streets, he wonders what he wishes the results will be. If they’re negative, then he just has to deal with trying to persuade you to give up on killing Joker and go back to where you came from.

But if they’re positive?