#(headcanon)

Ilya always had been a light sleeper, so no matter how lightly they stepped he was awake moments after the first shocked gasp.

Ilya knows it’s over for him. There’s no mistaking that there’s a man asleep on his chest in a clearly non-platonic cuddle. Usually Ilya would be punching the intruder, threatening violence to try and ensure they kept their mouth shut but he has quickly realised something far more important. With the way they are sleeping, Ilya on his underneath on his back and Shane on his stomach on top with his face pressed into the gap between Ilya’s neck and the couch, they can’t see his face.

He quickly pulls Shane’s hood up over his head to hide hair and rests a hand over it to gently discourage Shane from moving it should he start to wake up.

So Ilya just stares down his team and goes “you can be upset, but are going to be fucking quiet about it because if you wake my guest I’m sending all my blackmail on you to your wives, and then start fucking them to help them get over the divorce.”

So the whole “You’re fucking gay!” “No, I’m a fucking bi who is fucking a gay” conversation happens at a furious whisper, with Shane blissfully sleeping on Ilya’s chest as life implodes around him.

Shane may be a deep sleeper - and the argument in whispers - but even he starts to stir at the noise.

Ilya can’t have him moving his face into visibility now, so he just scruffs the back of his neck harshly and pressed him deeper into his shoulder.

Shane lets out a pleased (and not at all quiet) moan, and - worried that he is going to start talking - Ilya realises he needs to shut him up.

So he glares at the Bears to be quiet, while suddenly putting on the softest voice they have ever heard him use as he goes, “shhh quiet time now mоя любовь. Back to sleep.” And then shoves his fingers into Shane’s mouth.

I think it would be fun to mix that with the way the rest of the batfam is drawn when they're in shadows:

the glowy eyes and splashes of vibrant colour, especially with Nightwing's symbol looking like it's actually reflective.

So now I'm thinking:

imagine if Gothamites realized that dangerous people get really uneasy when they keep seeing things that, out of the corner of their eye, might look like a vigilante. To the point that they avoid areas where, let's say, an old poster on the wall is just that shade of yellow that keeps jumpscaring them every time they turn. Or that old trash can that still has a patch of green paint that hasn't peeled away yet. Not even realizing what makes them nervous, just knowing that a particular place makes them jumpy. Stuff like that.

So to keep themselves a little safer Gothamites just start… adding little things like that in their neighborhoods. Nothing that outright references the Bats - stuff like that might get vandalised or just lose the effect if it's recognised, but things like:

- plants on window sills in flower pots or vases in bright colors

- little shiny trinkets in the windows that just might be mistaken for a flash of a utility belt

- colorful curtains get very popular for children's bedrooms

- someone sticking a piece of blue reflective vinyl on a chimney visible from the street, so that as you walk you see a little flash of electric blue when the light from streetlights hits it just right

- people painting a pair of dots with glow-in-the-dark white paint high up on walls by fire escapes or in dark alleys, that look like glowing eyes

hospital personnel from where he used or still visited the paediatric department with the team, parents of patients, even former patients themselves seeing how great, attentive, funny and light-hearted he was

puck bunnies or women he had one night stands with during the years playing for Boston saying he was a phenomenal lover and a consent king, or women that approached him whilst inebriated and whom he gently turned down, bought a bottle of water for and paid for their cabs to get back home safely

neighbours saying he was very polite, people he was nice or helpful to through the years, a mom with a screaming child whose first class seat on a flight to Moscow he gave up so she could have more room for her herself and the baby, a classmate he defended in school, a former teacher saying how smart and talented he was in spite of not having much time to study because he was training a lot, Russian-speakers saying his interviews in his mother tongue are a thing of beauty and incredibly well-spoken, waiters and shop assistants stressing how polite his interactions were

Shane devours these stories with tears in his eyes and a heart about to explode, the tab perpetually open in his phone, incognito mode.

@lunardevistation i want u to know it was your comment that inspired this specifically.

anyway, i had a few more things i had to get out of my head before i could calm down so I've made dinner for anyone interested.

I didn't have time to draw this, but i genuinely cant decide who would be who in the "he asked for no pickles" scenario. both options are entirely possible

also here, have some angst, because i love hurting people, I'm tired I'm going back in the ground