#backlitbubbles

I've always wanted to read more things with Teddy's mum

fastpacedfreefall replied to your post   “Fighting the temptation to write a fic where Teddy’s mom lives, and...” 

it sounds cathartic and wonderful

phoenixyfriend replied to your post “Fighting the temptation to write a fic where Teddy’s mom lives, and...”

 I want to read Xavin meeting Teddy's mom, tbh.

omg u guys??? thank you I think I’m gonna write it

“Jay?”

Jason groans loudly, to express his desire for Roy to shut the hell up because his head is throbbing, and rolls away from the redhead, pressing his forehead to the cool tile of the bathroom floor. Why he’s face-down on the bathroom floor is still somewhat a mystery to him but he’s guessing it has something to do with why he’s also cripplingly hungover. Roy, the fucker, sounds perfectly sober and chipper as he shakes at Jason’s shoulder and tries to rouse him again.

“Hey, c’mon buddy, old pal. Wakey wakey, Jaybird. Jaaason. Jay–”

“What do you want, you insufferable idiot?” Jason snarls, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees with a grunt of effort. He falls back to sit on his butt and resists the urge to punch the sunny smile off Roy’s face, glaring blearily at him. “And if you say something stupid I will hit you.” He’s not going to, his stomach is already violently protesting moving this much but Roy doesn’t know that.

“…Well, someone’s cranky–”

“Roy!” Jason barks, losing his patience with the other in a way he very rarely does but fuckdammit, his head hurts, “The point.”  He wants to get this over with so he can go back to silently praying for death (again) and trying to not lose the contents of his stomach (and this point, he’s pretty sure it’s just vodka and Coke in there but that shit burns as bad coming up as it did going down so).

“My point is that I don’t want you to panic…” Here we go, this should be good, “But we may have accidentally gotten married last night…?”

He lets the words trail off, like they’re a question, and Jason can’t believe Roy woke him up just for that. That doesn’t even register on Jason’s list of Last Night’s Mistakes. That’s nothing. Compared to waking up in a different country, with no clothes, no wallet and no way to contact anyone (which has happened to him not once, but twice), that is absolutely nothing at all. It’s not like being married is gonna change the dynamic between the two of them, anyway. Nothing’s gonna change. Roy’s still gonna be Roy, trucker hat collection and expensive mad scientist habits and all. And Jason’s still gonna be Jason, a horrible enabler of both the trucker hats and the expensive habits.

They are still going to be them; slightly mismatching pieces that somehow manage to make a near-perfect whole.

They’re just ‘official’ now, is all.

“…Well, shit, Harper, if we’re married now, that means you’ll carry me to the bed and not complain. Y’know, since I couldn’t stand up if I wanted to.”

“Sure I will. But as soon as you puke on me I’m dumping your sorry ass on the floor and leaving you there.”

“You’re a real charmer, Roy.”

“That why you married me?”

“That, and your winning personality.”

“If you die, I’m going to kill you.”

And that’s Babs’ voice, not Oracle’s, low and urgent in her ear. That’s not the mechanical buzz that guides her from The Clocktower, that’s an edge of panic and desperation that drives her to push herself to her hands and knees, despite the aching everywhere. Her ribs are protesting her moving and her vision is blurring around the edges the more she tries to focus on the fucking gorilla of a man advancing on her but Babs isn’t letting up, won’t let her give in to the pain like she so wants to.

“Get up, Dinah. Get up.” 

And Dinah can’t help but obey. With a grunt and a surge of agony from the ribs that are definitely broken, she manages to get her feet underneath her, as unsteady as they are. She sways a little on the spot and the thug falters, appearing shocked that she’s even still conscious. To be honest, she’s a little bit shocked too. But she knows what’s pulling her back from the brink.

“Dinah, you have to move. He’s big but slow and not too bright. Just hold on until Huntress reaches you.” 

And it’s a relief, to know that help is on the way, that someone is coming for her. She manages to narrowly avoid the brute’s first swing, throwing herself to the side and barely able to catch herself on a dumpster. The alley’s not big enough to fight regular crooks in, she’s amazed Big, Dumb and Ugly can even fit without getting stuck. She’s not so lucky with the next swing. He hits her right in the gut and she can almost feel another rib give under his hands.

“Dinah!”   

She’s on her back, staring up at a sky too clouded with smog for stars to be visible, trying to catch her breath. The snow’s cold underneath her and if she turned her head a little, she’d be able to see how starkly the red of her blood contrasts with the white. There’s a dark shape above her, coming closer, then the thug’s howling as Helena plants her boots in his face. Babs’ voice is frantic in her ear and Dinah lets it lull her to sleep.

–

“This is without a doubt the stupidest plan you’ve ever had. Of course I’m in.”

Harper huffed out a laugh as Steph surged upwards to plant a kiss on her cheek, eyes bright with excitement and grin so big Harper was almost worried it was going to split her face. It was also utterly infectious and she found herself beaming back at the blonde, despite the fact that she knew that Steph’s latest ‘brilliant idea’ was going to get them both either killed or horribly maimed.

God, she really wished she could say no to Stephanie Brown sometimes but when she was peppering her face with grateful kisses and letting her hands slither their way around Harper’s waist, she just couldn’t find the will to. She was more than a little disappointed when Steph pulled back to smirk at her.

“I’ll have you know that I’ve had several worse ideas than pranking Batman.”

–

Turns out, no, she really hadn’t.

Bruce was still seething after a week and Tim still wouldn’t talk to her after he and the other boys had gotten caught in the spray of foam that had blasted from the Cave’s sprinkler system. Damian had given her an earful, in both English and extremely furious Arabic, and Dick was still sulking about how long it had taken him to wash the stuff out of his hair.

Babs and Jason, however, both managed to see the funny side of it all.

“Don’t you dare throw that snowba–goddammit!”

Jason spits out his mouthful of snow and shakes it out of his hair, which is already saturated and plastered to his forehead. Tim’s laughing and Dick’s practically howling and Jason’s determined to wipe that fucking sneer off Damian’s face if it’s the last thing he ever does.

“I’m gonna kill you, hellspawn,” he warns him and then he’s swallowing another mouthful of frozen mush because Tim’s pegged another snowball at him at the most opportune of moments, the little traitor. “Motherfucker!”

Dick’s laughing so hard he can barely stand up and Jason feels a sense of vicious satisfaction when Steph dumps handfuls of snow down the back of his jacket. The shriek that Dick lets out is the funniest thing he’s heard all week, honestly, and watching the idiot dance around like someone lit his ass on fire is also a thing of beauty. He’s getting a kick out of the fact that Tim’s now being pummeled with snowballs by Cass too, and thinking yeah, he definitely picked the right team to be on.

The snowballs start flying in earnest and Steph’s screaming and Cass and Damian are taking the entire thing far too seriously and Alfred is barely avoiding being pelted with off-course flying projectiles while he watches over them with a fond, grandfatherly air and it’s good. Jason can barely remember the last time he had this much fun and when Tim looks up at him, cheeks flushed from the cold and eyes bright with an almost childish sort of glee, Jason can feel his chest getting tight. He leans down and Tim rises up onto his toes and they meet halfway for what’s barely a brush of lips but that’s good too.

Dick gets a lump of snow that barely qualifies as a snowball to the side of the head when he stops to coo over them and Damian tackles him into a snowdrift while he’s still reeling from the shock. Both of them disappear in a flurry of white and Dick’s girlish giggling. Steph and Cass are celebrating an easy victory, the blonde draped over the shorter girl with a lopsided grin Jason remembers wearing when he was still Robin. Privately, he thinks Steph wears it better than he ever did.

“Jay.”

He turns his head to glance down at Tim and dutifully receives another snowball to the face. “Little shit,” he tells him fondly and Tim wrinkles his nose at him, dancing out of the way of the playful swing Jason takes at him. He lets the shorter boy tangle their hands together and Tim tucks himself into Jason’s side as they trudge back towards the house, where Alfred, bless him, is waiting with a tray of steaming mugs of what is surely the man’s famous hot chocolate. Steph goes flying past with what sounds like a war-cry and then Damian’s charging after her, both of them shoving each other as they race up the driveway.

“No one touch my World’s Best Brother mug!” Dick calls, from where he’s still trying to drag himself out of the snow, and Cass offers him her hand, clearly attempting – and failing – to hide her smile.

“Did he buy that for himself?” Jason mutters to Tim, who snorts and nudges him lightly, ducking his head to hide his grin.

“Damian bought it for his birthday.”

“You forgot to say the magic word,” Steph coos in the most sing-song voice she can muster, dancing out of the other’s reach, putting the couch between them.

Cass purses her lips and Steph has to try hard to hold in her giggles as the other shuffles on the spot, hands wringing together anxiously. She looks utterly adorable and it’s a struggle for Steph to squash the urge to gather her up in her arms and never let her go. She doesn’t allow herself the temptation though, waiting (semi-)patiently for Cass to work through whatever it is she’s working through. She’s probably deliberating about whether or not she wants to give Steph this small victory, whether or not she wants to make this tiny concession. Steph’s practically bursting with nervous/excited anticipation when she eventually opens her mouth to speak.

“Please,” Cass murmurs and Steph’s springing over the back of the couch before she can even get the word out fully, pressing her lips to the other girl’s in a sweet, chaste kiss. Cass’ hands come up to clutch at her forearms, dragging her closer when she tries to back up, knowing Cass usually needs her space. “Thank you,” she breathes against Steph’s lips, sending waves of tiny shivers across her skin.

“This isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

The low murmur catches Jason’s attention and he rips his attention away from the deal going on in the warehouse below them to glance over at Roy. The redhead’s got his cap, his stupid fucking trucker cap, pulled down low, so Jason can’t see most of his face but he knows that sour tone of voice. A crooked grin pulls at his lips, dragging the corners up. He nudges Roy, earning himself a grumble, and scoots closer, so that they’re pressed side by side. The deal isn’t anything major, evident by the fact that the Beretti family haven’t even bothered to send at least one major player. They can afford to let this one go and Jason can always crack a few heads on his own once Roy’s left to head home. O’s probably got the warehouse bugged anyhow, someone else can deal with this if they want to.

“What, illicit drug deals aren’t your idea of a good time? What kind of hot date did you have in mind, Harper?”

“It included not freezing my ass off, I’ll tell you that much,” Roy mutters, lifting his head enough for Jason to see the bitter twist of his lips. “And, ya know, our lives not being in danger.”

Jason tactfully fails to point out that they’re capes, their lives are always going to be in danger. Instead, he grabs Roy by the arm and tugs him up, pulling him along the catwalk until they can slip out the same broken window they entered through. The Gotham air is crisp, and thanks to their proximity to the docks, reeks of piss and fish, and their breath fogs out into the night. Roy’s shoulders are hunched against the cold and Jason resists the urge to shrug out of his jacket. He’s cold too and not that much of a gentleman.

“C’mon, princess. We’ll get out of this shit and I’ll show you a real Gotham good time.”