#idns

Mary Winchester hated the city. It was no place to raise a child.

It was too loud. People were mean and rude. The streets were filthy and littered with trash. Not to mention, the noise pollution. Drunks singing loud as they could at three in the morning and drivers honking their horns any chance they could get, as if that was going to make traffic run smoother. Her upstairs neighbors when she first move in was a young couple that fought when people should have been sleeping. While all of these factors drove Mary insane for the first handful of months, her boys didn't seem bothered by their surroundings. Dean was born shortly after they moved, and Sammy had turned the city sounds into his own personal lullaby. She’d lived here for four years, and she still wondered why John wanted to move here.

Well...it was the job offer that brought the newly weds here. Both of them were dirt poor with almost no money to their name. Back at home they were living in an apartment that was half the size of their current place when Bobby gave them a call. John had been out of the Marines for over a year and a half, but he hadn't found a steady job. Mary was determined to make all of this work without asking her parents for a single dime.

They made it quite clear they didn't like John. He wasn't "suitable material" for their little girl, her father said when she first started going steady with the man Her mother ushered her to think about other men she would be happy with when she became engaged. There was so many other boys Mary could have fell in love with, why the Winchester boy?

Because Mary loved him. And John loved her. Why couldn't that be enough for her parents to understand? Sure, John was from the lower side of town. He grew up with a single mother after his father left the family without a trace when he was young. John was rough around the edges, but he cared for Mary. He treated her like a queen. What they had together was enough to make them happy for the rest of their lives. But it wasn't enough to pay the bills and keep food stocked up in the fridge. Mary was slowly losing her hope that she could make it through their first year without asking her parents for help, but, like a gift from God, the couple got a break.

Bobby Singer called one afternoon to see how John was doing. Bobby was a family friend that John met in the Marines. Both of them trained and fought together in the war, developing a bond that would last for years to come. Bobby made contact with the young couple to see how they were doing, and to see if John was interested in a job with the police force. Hundreds of miles away from their small little town in Lawrence, Kansas...away from everyone they loved. And far away from Mary’s parents.

The coupled jumped on the opportunity to start their life over again. Everything seemed to have worked out like it was meant to be. Her parents gifted them with a three bedroom apartment in the better part of the city when they broke the news about moving, and how Mary was expecting her first child in late January. Dean came along a few months after they settled into the apartment and got everything exactly how they liked it. John's new career at the police force was going well and Mary was enjoying her new life as a homemaker. Everything seemed perfect...and it was. Except for the city. Mary tried and tried to fall in love with it like John had. But she couldn't stand it. She missed home. She missed having a yard and trees.

Dean was the opposite of his mother, he loved the city. He was only four and yet to see the flaws in the concrete jungle, but from what he could understand, the place was filled with wonders, and he took in every little thing the city had to offer. The sights of buildings that were monstrous compared to his small view on the world. The smells of all sorts of different cuisines from food carts on the corner and family owned restaurants from people wanting to spread their native foods to the city folks. Not to mention the sight of millions of different people that looked different than him. That was something a small town Kansas couldn't offer. Dean couldn't wait for when his little brother would be old enough to see of this for himself, and to be old enough to play in the vast and spacious park that was only a fifteen minute walk from their apartment.

Mary was a bit afraid of how Dean was going to handle the news of becoming a big brother after she found out she was carrying her second child a little after Dean turned three. Mary and John were both only children. They dreaded the thought of Dean becoming angry and upset at the thought of having the attention not be on him as it had been for the first three years of his life. But to their surprise, the little boy seemed overjoyed. Dean loved his new little brother with every fiber of his being. Mary had never knew the bond of sibling love. She only hoped her children could have what she never did. A strong family bond that lasted forever.

"Mommy?" It was a little late into the evening when Mary was disturbed from the evening news she was watching in the living room. She looked away from the news reporter to see her oldest son standing in the hallway, his glasses crooked slightly on his face and eyes squinted from the florescent lights he was still getting used to. "I heard a noise."

"What kind of noise, honey?" Mary asked in a soft voice. She shut off the TV and sat straight up in her seat on the couch. Dean began to make slow footsteps towards. Her son shrugged his shoulders. "Did it sound like people talking? Maybe a car horn?"

Dean shook his head, “It’s in the walls. I hear scratching.”

Mary thought to herself for a moment what could have possibly made scratching sounds inside the wall. But then it hit her. The reason why she hated this place. Rats. Those disgusting, fat creatures with their long claws and thick pink tails. She let out a quiet sigh and got up to her feet, tempting the idea of calling up John at the station to see if he would buy mouse traps on his way home from work for precaution until tomorrow morning. She'd sit down with Mrs. Wilson, the sweet landlord, to see if any other tenants had the same problem and if she might know of a good exterminator to take a look at the possible infestation while Dean was at preschool.

"Well, I can say for sure that it's not a monsters. Monsters don't like the city. There's not enough darkness to snatch kids up." Mary said, walking over to her son and grabbed him by the hand to lead him back his bedroom. "I'll have Daddy call someone to take a look at it tomorrow. Okay?"

“Okay.” Dean mumbled, agreeing with the plan. He slipped back into bed without much trouble, Mary tucked him back in like he had done two hours ago before he slipped out in a half-asleep state. She kneeled down so she was at level with the bed and fell silent for a moment to listen for the sound that had rose her son from his sleep. But nothing. All she heard was the muffled sound of a police siren passing by. “Mommy, what if it’s a person living in the walls?”

Mary felt her lips stretch into smile at her son's wild imagination. She refrained from laughing as she gave him a slightly confused expression. "It's not, honey. Where did that idea come from?"

"Uncle Bobby said he caught someone living in between a person's walls. He said that he was looking for bad kids to grab and eat them." Dean explained, giving his true reason why he had gotten up from bed to bug her. Mary let out a frustrated sigh from what the old kook had told her very impressionable child. "I don't want to get eaten."

“You won’t. I promise. Uncle Bobby was just...telling you a story. There’s nobody living in your walls. They’re just rats.” Mary reassured her son. Dean seemed to have somewhat believed her, but she could still see the apprehension on her son’s face. She wondered what she could do in order to get him to feel better. Looking around, she spotted the new action figures her parents had bought Dean when they visited last month. She grabbed them and placed each one on the nightstand—Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk. The few that she could find. “See these guys? Long as they’re are around, nothing bad is going to happen to you.”

“What about Sammy?” Dean asked. Mary smiled at how he thought of his baby brother sleeping peacefully in the next room. “Who’s gonna protect him?” “Well…” Mary looked around the room and found Captain America peeking out from underneath the bed. She pulled out the figure and showed it to her son. “He’ll keep an extra eye on Sammy.” Mary could see the relief cross her son's face when she brought out his favorite toys that he played with every second that he possibly could. Him and John would play for hours with these hunks of plastic. Dean would play the hero as John pretended to be the villain who was trying to take over the world. She had a feeling her son was going to follow in her husband's footsteps in the career department. Dean had a knack for helping people and making sure people were safe. Like father, like son. The child stared at the Captain America action figure for a moment.

“Can I put it in Sammy’s room?” Dean's request was asked in a small and timid voice. He knew his mother was strict when it came to his bedtime and scooted him off to bed whenever he tried to get out. But Mary seemed okay with the idea of letting her son stay up for another few minutes. She had checked on the sixth month old to see that he was peacefully sleeping.

Mary allowed her son to get out of bed one more time tonight to deliver Captain America to the room next door to his to put the four year old's mind at ease. Both of them traveled only a few feet to enter ever so quietly into baby Sam’s room, the only light source besides the hallway light came from the baby giraffe nightlight to help guide their way into the room.

Mary pressed her index finger against her lips when she heard the baby let out a deep breath to follow the rhythmic pattern. Dean quietly made his way into the nursery and to the shelf that Bobby had built himself one afternoon, it was a present after he found out Mary was pregnant with her second child. It was filled with different stuffed animals and baby books Mary remembered reading to Dean when he was small as Sam.

The thought of her son being a baby, small as the one sleeping in the crib felt like it happened a lifetime ago. Children grow up quick, but time felt like it moved so slow at the same time when she thought about it. Soon the boys were going to be going to school before she even realized, and all of this was going to be a distant memory.

She grabbed the action figure from her son's hand and placed it on the very top shelf, making sure it was watching over baby Sammy. When she looked over at Dean to make sure she did a good job, her son broke out into a smile, suddenly seeming to have been filled with relief and happiness that his brother was safe from the fictional monster he thought was crawling inside the walls. Little did she realize there was a monster pacing around the halls outside of her apartment.

+ + +

Mary found herself back in the same spot on the couch she left twenty minutes ago after tucking in her son back into bed and reassuring him that there was no monster hiding in the walls and waiting to eat him. She swore she was going to give that Bobby Singer an earful the next time she saw him about how he spoke to her children. She had a feeling Karen, Bobby's wife, would feel the same way. Hell, she'd probably beat that man with a wooden spoon. But she saved the day from disaster. Mary smiled in the small victory and continued to watch the news, eagerly waiting for the news segment John told to keep an eye out for. Her husband was famous.

A few days ago the police and FBI took down one of the biggest underground crime rings the city had ever seen. Infamous crime boss, Nick something, Mary didn't remember his name, was arrested for a long list of charges that weren't ever going to let him see the day of light again. Drug charges, illegal possession of firearm, prostitution, rape, murder...the list went on for this one man. But Mary forced her husband to stop talking when he admitted that this Nick guy murdered his baby son and wife, but blamed it on a "robber." It didn't matter. Karma got the son of a bitch. Bobby and John were the ones who made the very public arrest.

Mary half-listened to the report about some robbery that happened upstate just this morning. She found her attention drifting away from the TV when she heard the phone start to ring, which was rather odd for this late at night. Mary could think of only one person that was calling at this time of night, her mother. She only called every few week to see how things were doing and the boys were. Her parents were already in bed at this time of night. She’d be only calling at this time of night if something happened to her father. Mary's mind wandered to the worst case scenario as she got up from the couch to answer the phone.

"Hello?" Mary answered the phone on its second ring. Her voice was dull as she was momentarily distracted by her panic of her father's imaginable illness. She looked over her at to the TV, her lips stretching into a small smile at the sight of her husband on the small screen. She thought to herself about how handsome he looked in his uniform as he escorted out the criminal that was going to be locked away for years to come. “Winchester residence.”

“Mary? Is that you?” The voice on the other end was instantly recognizable as her husband. She answered John’s question in a chipper tone, but he didn’t greet her with a hello like always. “Are you and the boys okay?”

"We're fine." Mary reassured her husband. A slightly confused expression crossed her face from the question he asked her. "Honey, is everything alright with you?"

"Mary, I need you to listen to me very carefully. You and the boys need to find somewhere safe to hide." John explained to the woman the true reason why he was calling. Mary felt a shiver run up her spine from the way her husband was speaking. She warned him to stop joking around. "I wish I was joking, sweetheart. But I'm not. Grab the gun I have in the nightstand and take Dean to Sammy's room. Lock the door and don't let anyone in."

“W-What?” Mary suddenly found it hard to form words. “John, what’s going on?”

The line went silent for a moment, as if he was debating with himself if he wanted to tell her the truth. He did. "It's probably nothing. Some kid dropped a note off at the the front desk a half an hour ago. It said that the families of the cops involved with the big bust a few days ago were..." John didn't need to say the words for Mary to understand. It was a threat against her life. And her two precious boys she had sleeping just down the hall. "I'm heading out now. Bobby left five minutes ago to check on Karen and Y/N."

Mary understood that when her husband became a cop his life would be put in danger every single time he put on the uniform. But never did she think her own would be. Her last thought before she heard the door handle start to slightly rattle was about the safety of the Singer family and their new adopted daughter, Y/N. The infant who had been brought into this world in a painful and miserable way that made Mary feel nauseous when Bobby told her the story. She was such a beautiful baby girl. Mary wondered if her and the boys would be good friends. But she would never know the future, as hers only lasted for a few more minutes before it was cut.

+ + +

Dean felt himself inhale a deep breath as his mind tore itself away from the familiar hellish nightmare that could always make him break out into a cold sweat and confuse him for a second of where he was,. In the brief few seconds of his sleepy haze he thought he was four years old again, clutching his action figure he grabbed from his room for comfort and hid underneath his baby brother's crib like his mother instructed him to do. And he did. His four year old self focused on keeping silent as possible, he was a pro at it from the hundreds of times he used to play hide and seek with his father after he came home from work. But trying to block out his mother’s screams for mercy were harder. The seven minutes that it took his father to get home felt like it took a lifetime and a half.

His father prayed to the Virgin Mary, God and their son Jesus that his wife was safe during the entire way back home from the station. John found her dead body lying on the living room floor, bleeding out from the six stab wounds the killer managed to inflict before sneaking out the fire escape. The last thing Dean remembered about that night was seeing all those cops in the living room and the flashing of lights. Bobby was there, too. He took Dean out to the police car and showed him all the buttons that an officer had to use to chase down bad guys. Dean thought that was the night he wanted to help people. And the last time he ever saw his mother.

Three days after his mother's murder, his father quit the force. He decided that his time would be suited better to helping people as a private investigator, attempting to solve crimes and mysteries the police didn't have time for. Dean knew it was an excuse to obsess over the murder that took his mother's life when his father got a little too drunk. He lost count how many times he came home to boxes and boxes of evidence lying around the apartment. Dean was surprised the old man survived until a few years ago from the heart attack that took his life. His mother’s murder drove his father insane. But now the both of them were at rest.

Dean rubbed his face with his hands, forcing his aching body to get up when he heard the sounds  of rustling coming from outside his bedroom and into his apartment. For a split second in his post nightmare haze, Dean reached for the gun that he always kept hidden underneath his pillow, thinking someone had followed him home last night. But then he realized a few moments later that it was Friday morning, your weekly visit to his apartment to make sure that he was still alive and to drop off the food you picked up after each time you stole his credit card. You thought you were being sneaky, but he caught you every time, yet he never said anything.

Dean was thankful for the helpfulness on such a simple task, and you wanted to make sure the man didn’t eat himself into an early grave from all the takeout he had. Dean didn’t remember the last time he cooked a meal for himself, either. You were here almost every chance you could when you and Dean weren’t too busy with work. From an early age you were in the kitchen with your mother, Karen, learning all the tips and tricks to make a delicious meal. You loved loved to cook, and he loved you...r food. Obviously.

"I don't understand why you don't just ask Dean if you can move in. You're practically here every chance you can get." Charlie Bradbury, best friend to you and Dean, was currently occupying one of the chairs at the small dining area and enjoying the fresh pot of coffee you had put on before she arrived. She was drinking out of the cup that was in the shape of Iron Man's head. It was part of a gift you had gotten Dean few Christmas' ago that were a set of Marvel superhero coffee cups. "You cook for him, you buy his groceries."

"Hey, I'm not paying for this out of my own pocket. He pays for his own stuff. I just happen to live a few blocks away from the store. And I know how to cook better than he can. It's the only way I can get him to eat something that isn't a pizza or deep fried." You defend yourself against your best friend as you put away a few cans of vegetables into a cabinet. "Besides, Dean does this stuff for me when I get busy with the paper.”

"You never do it for me." Charlie said.

“That’s because you’re annoying.” You sarcastically shot back at her. You knew what you said would only add more fuel for her to use against her. So you added, “And that's a lie. I was over at your place every single day cooking for you when you broke your leg last year after you and Dorothy went up the Adirondacks to go skiing. It’s what friends do.”

“Yeah. True. But you’re also obsessed with him and his well-being.” Charlie slyly remarked. She hid her growing smirk behind the coffee cup as she took another sip of her drink. She saw your body stiffen in discomfort at how the conversation shifte. She would take any chance she could get to remind you of the dirty secret you confessed to her at a New Years party a few years back while you were too drunk for your own good. “Why don’t you just ask him out already?”

“Because!” You quickly shushed the redhead when you realized that Dean was still sleeping in the room just across the way. Unless Charlie’s big mouth woke him up. “It’s weird. He’s my best friend. I’ve known him since I was born.”

Charlie's brow raised slightly in curiosity, "So you're finally admitting that you like him?"

You opened your mouth to defend yourself against your best friend's assumption, however you slowly shut it as you felt your cheeks burn in embarrassment when Charlie's smirk grew into a toothy smile. You would admit in a heartbeat that Dean was your best friend for long as you could remember, along with his little brother Sam, who was almost six months older than you. Your father said all you were like the three musketeers growing up, you were always at each other's side at every chance you could get. And the dynamics stayed the same when the three of you were adults with careers and lives of your own. You and Sam had your own dynamics you formed after going to school from pre-k all the way to your senior year of high school. But your friendship with Dean was...different.

There was something about him, from his nerdish love for everything comics and horror related, to old Westerns he used to make you and Sam watch all the time as teens, to his taste in music. The both of you liked a lot of the same things, sharing a special bond to the old cartoon of Scooby Do when you used to watch it together, and his secret guilt pleasure of Disney movies you would drag him every so often if there was a cute one playing in theatres. He was adamant on not wanting to see "Finding Dory" when it came out a few years ago, but he fell in love with the forgetful fish. Much as the both of you acted like best friends, at some point in your life you grew the tiniest crush on him that never stopped growing.

Luckily before you could try and deflect the conversation from spilling your guts, a familiar face greeted you when you turned around to finish putting away the rest of the groceries. A smile crept at the ends of your lips when you saw Dean standing in the doorway of the kitchen with a slightly groggy expression, his green eyes that you could stare into all day were covered behind this black rimmed glasses he wore since he was a little kid. You realized that you must have accidentally woken up from how loud you and Charlie were talking.

"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty." You greeted the man in a playful tone as you shut the fridge door after putting away a quart of milk. Dean scratched the back of his head, subtly making sure his short hair wasn't sticking out in any odd ends. He adjusted his glasses and mumbled a good morning to follow yours. You took a moment to examine the man when he went on the search for finding himself a clean mug to pour himself a cup of coffee. "No offense, but you like you were dragged through a hedge backwards. Rough night?"

"Yeah. If you want to call it that. I was out until three for a client. He wanted me to follow his wife around to see if she was cheating on him. You know, the stuff that pays the bills. Hey, do you know where the..." Dean tried to remember the word for the bottle of painkillers he was searching for. He rattled an invisible bottle in his hand, you grabbed him a new box of ibuprofen and threw it at him.

"Saw you were running low nd got some more. Stocked your bathroom with a new one, too. I swear, you gotta be careful with that stuff." You warned the man. But you knew you were contradicting yourself when you grabbed an open can of an energy drink you picked up from the store. "Too much of that is gonna give you kidney failure in the future."

"Uh-huh. And that stuff isn't a heart attack in a can." Dean said. You rolled your eyes as you took another sip of the drink that was the only thing keeping you from falling asleep. He ripped open the paper packaging to dig inside the bottle and take out a few pills, trying his hardest to keep the muffled sounds of his pain to a bare minimum so you wouldn't notice. But you always did.

"So," You leaned yourself against the countertop and looked over at the man who downed the few pills with a sip of coffee Charlie poured for him. You pointed to Dean's stomach area that you were guessing was making him walk around like an eighty year old man in pain. "What's the latest injury? The cheating wife kick your ass after she found out you were following her?"

Dean worked as a private investigator after taking over his father's business when John died a few years ago from a heart attack. Winchester Investigations was started before Dean's firth birthday and attracted all sorts of people for John to help them. Mostly on missing people and unsolved mysteries that families wanted closure for. But that didn’t always walk through the door asking for Dean’s investigative skills. Lately it was a disgruntled spouses wanting to see if their partner was cheating on them with someone younger than them. They wanted photographic proof to file for divorce, Dean agreed, and he'd do all sorts of weird things to get his proof.

“I...might have fell out of a fire escape trying to get her picture.” Dean admitted to you. His words became muffled slightly as he brought the cup back to his lips to take another sip. But he knew you heard him as your eyes grew slightly wide in concern as you spoke his name in a serious tone of voice. “Relax, Y/N. I’m fine. Nothing’s broken. Just a little bruised up.”

You let out a sigh and shook your head from how accident prone he could be. You rubbed your face with your hand as you let out a yawn. The few hours of sleep you managed to get last night were demanding more. “You look like crap yourself.” Charlie said. You gave her a small smile as you sarcastically thanked her for the compliment. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

“About two hours. Cas and I were down at the docks since four this morning. His ‘friend’ Meg tipped him off about these four girls who said they were kidnapped and kept in these horrendous conditions in one of those storage units. You know, the ones that get shipped off into boats and stuff? Well, we got there first and took a look around. And...trust me, it was messed up." You explained the situation to your friends about the news story you were investigating for your job. These poor girls were kept in complete darkness for days. They barely were given any food. There was no place to go to the bathroom or bathe. God knows what would have happened."

"That's terrible." Charlie mumbled. You could see a slightly disturbed expression cross her face when she imagined what kind of things you had seen. She knew by tomorrow morning you would have written all about it with Cas' pictures on the front page. "How did they get away?"

"This is where things got...ridiculous. These girls claimed a guy dressed in all leather and a red mask saved them. Never saw his face. The guy never said a word to them. He somehow managed to take on four men all by himself." You said, your lips stretching into a small smirk as you retold the statement one of the women had given to Meg Masters. "When the cops got there all of the men were tied up and locked in the unit."

Charlie's brow raised itself slightly in curiosity from the description she heard a dozen times before, "You mean this could be the work of the Red Hood?"

"Red Hood. Who the hell came up with that stupid name?" You mumbled to yourself. You couldn't help yourself when you rolled your eyes as you scoffed from the name you had grown to hate. "No. These girls were severely dehydrated and scared out of their minds. They probably wanted to think it was that psycho."

"If they were in such bad shape, how did they manage to escape?" Charlie asked. You tilted your head to the side and gave her an annoyed look from how she was getting on your nerves today. She grew a smile from how easy the mention of the masked vigilante could make you so angry. "Why do you hate the Red Hood so much?"

"Because there's some stranger out there taking the law into his own hands. Putting the lives of people in danger so they can play hero.” You said, crossing your arms over your chest. "Last time I check it only takes three buttons to call 911 and report a crime. It's gonna be a matter of time until they kill someone."

"But they haven't yet." Charlie subtly argued with you. You gave her a look of disbelief from her support to this masked mad man running around the city that seemed to have popped out of nowhere a few years ago. "You've got a point, Y/N/N. And I'm not dissing your dad or the cops. They do a good job. But it doesn't hurt to have some peace of mind knowing there's someone out there looking out for us folks. And he probably saved those girls from being trafficked.”

You let out a sigh as you looked around the kitchen, waiting a second before giving your best friend the satisfaction that she had won this argument. "You’re right. But I still don't like him. And I’m not mentioning him in the article.”

You finished the last of your drink and disposed of it in the recycling. You wanted to stay for a little longer but you needed a nap and write the first draft of the article for your editor, Gabriel, to read over to see what revisions you might need to make before the printing of tomorrow's paper. You said your goodbyes to your best friends and made your way out. A moment of silence fell between Dean and Charlie after the door slammed shut. Dean sipped the rest of his coffee as he started to open up the cabinets, wondering what he might want for breakfast. He ignored the shift in Charlie's expression as she narrowed your eyes slightly on the man.

“You fell out of a fire escape, huh?”

“Yup.”

Charlie tapped her fingers against the ceramic mug, allowing the man a chance to come clean with the truth of his injuries. But Dean remained silent as he settled on a bowl of cereal, ever so slightly wincing at the movements he made. Charlie couldn’t take it anymore. “I thought we were gonna be smart about this, Dean. You could have gotten yourself killed. We should have went to the cops—”

“Charlie, I've went up against worse. I'm just a little sore. I'll be fine in a couple of days. Nothing a little rest and painkillers can’t fix. And besides, I don't think Bobby would like how we found those girls.” Dean cut off of the redhead from expressing her concerns. Charlie let out a faint sigh as she sank down into her seat, knowing that he was right. "But you did a good job. You should be proud of yourself.”

Charlie grew the faintest smile as her face lit up at the compliment. She took another sip of her drink and looked over at the front door. "I think Y/N is starting not to had the Red Hood so much. I'd call that progress." Dean turned his head slightly and looked at the woman from the corner of his eye. "You know, I think she would change her mind for good if she were to meet him."

Dean gave his best friend a disapproving expression from her idea. He didn’t want anyone to know the truth, not even Charlie. But things happened that caused her to know his secret. And he wanted to keep it between the both of them. "Right. Tell the daughter of the city's police captain that I'm really the Red Hood. 'Cause that doesn't end up with me getting hauled off to jail. Or Y/N laughing in my face.”

"I didn't say you had to reveal your secret. Just find a way to talk to her as the Red Hood." She suggested. Dean stopped for a moment as he stared at her with a look of disbelief from how she wasn’t letting this go. He asked her in a sarcastic tone of voice if he wanted her to show up at their best friend’s front door dressed up as the persona he adapted into. “No. But I know Y/N. And she loves a man in uniform. Besides, you can’t tell me you’ve never followed her around.”

“What? No. That’s weird.” Dean quickly defended himself against such an absurd accusation his friend thought of. Charlie tilted her head to the side, he quickly moved his gaze back to the bowl of cereal me made for himself. “I did get those pictures of Mrs. Taylor last night. They're still on the computer. Send them to the client and get the hell out of my apartment. I’m going back to bed.”

Charlie watched as Dean grabbed his bowl of cereal and began to slowly make his journey back to his bedroom, the painkillers he took were starting to kick in. The redhead snickered to herself and got to work on her day job, delivering bad news to their clients about their suspicions on how faithful their partner was being. As Charlie uploaded the pictures to the computer, she found herself growing the smallest smile. Sure, this kind of work helped keep her and Dean in a job, but it was what the both of them accomplished last night that made her stick around and help the Red Hood. And she had to repay him back after Dean saved her life that night.

IDNS Taglist:

@godmuffin @hopefulcolorcollectorsthings @albot-eh

The Red Hood was called many different names over the years since the masked stranger had seemed to come out of nowhere in attempt to make the city he lived in a safer place. Criminal, psychopath, murderer. A vigilante with a death wish. Some even went far as to call him a hero. Dean thought the title was a bit pretentious and far fetched. He was just some guy wanting to do his part to help the common folk and make the lives for the police a little easier. It took some experimenting and what he was willing to do to accomplish his goals, but he found a way.

During the day he was known as Dean Winchester; second generation private investigator and one of two employees at “Winchester Investigations." The company name was always a conversation starter for clients to try and break the awkward tension for the reason why they were seeking his help. The man would always crack a friendly smile and tell them about how his father was the one who started this. While his father didn’t put too much thought into the name, Dean liked to say it was because the effort and attention were put into finding answers to the problems they came to him for. It worked like a charm every time.

Dean had to admit that being a private detective wasn't what he thought it was going to be. His father drilled it into the back of his head that he was going to run the family business when he grew up. And ever since Dean was little he wanted to do just that. He wanted to be exactly like his old man. His childhood hero that wasn’t around a lot. Dean blamed it on the big and scary crimes his father was solving out in the city. But it wasn’t all that bad. Dean and his little brother spent most of their time after school and into the early evenings at the Singer household where they would get a home cooked meal and to play with you for hours, pretending to solve crimes like the ones you saw on Scooby Doo.

Dean realized that he created a fantasy in his head about how life was going to go. He thought the family business was going to be him, his little brother and you. His father could retire and put what started all of this to bed. Maybe he could find some sort of closure and live a somewhat happy life. But that wasn’t what happened.

Sam decided that he wanted to go into law and you still followed the crime, but you wanted to write about it. So Dean was left all by himself to help solve cases of rich spouses trying to get dirt on their partners and tracking down people who went missing a decade ago. The cases weren't great. And it sure wasn't what his five year old self thought when he wanted to beat the bad guy and save the day. They kept a roof over his head. And then there were cases that he couldn't solve...but the Red Hood could. He felt like he became the person he aspired to be when he was younger.

The death of his mother wasn’t just the reason why Dean became the Red Hood. It came about in a way that made him feel guilty to this very day for what he couldn’t stop...what he let happen after agreeing to a case that sounded like it was just a husband looking for his mentally ill wife, or as he claimed she was. After taking that case and discovering the truth it made Dean realize that those old cartoons be used to watch as a kid lied to him. The monster he was supposed to be looking for didn’t wear scary masks. They wore friendly smiles and offered you an alarming sum of money to get what they want. It could be the sketchy looking man he passed on the street trying to find the right victim to mug at knife point. Anyone was capable of doing the worst things to get what they desired, no matter the price they or others needed to pay. It was human nature. But there was also compassion in a time of crisis and wrongdoing, a need for justice to put the wrong behind bars. Sometimes the cops were able to do the job they signed up for, sometimes they were stuck behind the red tape to help people. There was so many different reasons why they couldn’t help a victim get justice. Not enough evidence, they might not have gotten in there on time. Maybe they disappeared into the wind without a trace, never to be seen again. Sort like his mother’s killer. But not when the Red Hood was around. He made sure those got what they deserved. It started with Dean roaming around the streets in a zip up sweatshirt with the hood up to cover his face. His head down as he aimlessly wandered the city looking for someone to save. To hear a cry for help others would ignore. For a short while Dean thought it was all in vain and guilt for trying to make up for the mistakes he made, but it wasn’t. He lost count the first year how many people he saved from being mugged and poor women harassed by creeps on the streets. While it felt good to make the world a little less dangerous of a place, he soon realized that he couldn’t do it alone. Like every good hero there was a trusty sidekick behind them to count on when they needed it the most and to lend a helping hand. And for the Red Hood/Dean, it was his best friend Charlie Bradbury. It was sort of an accident of how she got to learn his secret when people only thought of him as a bystander trying to do the right thing in a time of someone’s need. Charlie needed helped that night, and at the end of it, so did Dean.

The redhead was walking home one night after working late on a big project she’d been heavily invested in and told by her boss, Dick—his name matching his personality—that needed to be taken care of by the end of the week. There was a security virus in the security system that posed a possible problem. It was Charlie’s job as part of the I.T. department to fix it. She worked well after her coworkers left for the night. She stayed behind, burning the midnight oil, and trying to figure out what the problem was. There was an opening she wanted. And if she didn’t want to end up on the streets, she needed to figure out the issues before the deadline. Charlie called it quits when her vision started to grow blurry and her eyelids heavy.

Charlie never liked to wander out this last at night and far away from her neighborhood where she knew mostly everyone. She lived a decent walking distance from her workplace and would often enjoy the city's scenery during the warmer seasons and early autumn to and from work. Because most of the time when she left there was still a decent amount of people out. When she stepped out of work that night there seemed to have been almost no soul around, making Charlie feel a little on edge. Because while she was walking home she felt the sense like she was being followed. It was one of the those nights that she mentally wished she spared a few bucks to grab a cab home. She brushed it off thinking that she was just being paranoid.

But she had to find out the hard way that she wasn't be paranoid at all. One block she was walking down the street with her earbuds in and minding her own business, and the next one she turned to continue her route to her apartment was when disaster struck. She felt someone grab a hold of her by the arm and pull her into an alley, shoving her against a brick wall and a knife into her face. The man that was twice her size demanded her to give up all her valuable possessions. Charlie made the mistake of trying to scream for help, but it only ended with the man putting the knife dangerously close to her throat.

Charlie thought Lady Luck wasn't on her side that night. Of all the times she had to be mugged it had to be when she was carrying home her work laptop that was worth more than her rent and stupidly walking around with most of her paycheck in bills she had every intention of depositing into her bank account tomorrow. But it seemed she would never get the chance after tonight. She’d be out a couple hundred bucks and a job after she tried to tell her boss about how she got an expensive laptop stolen that she technically wasn’t supposed to bring home. Charlie was preparing to hand over the things in exchange for her life, but before she could, the knife to her throat seemed to vanish. Along with the attacker from her sight.

It was dark that night an the alley she was standing in didn’t provide enough light to see the face of the person who attacked her. That’s probably why he chose this place to pick his victim. But it seemed the man never thought to consider that someone heard Charlie’s distant screams that only lasted for a second, but alerted a heroic bystander. The person who saved her life was wearing a red sweatshirt with the hood covering half of his face, but that didn't stop him from kicking the mugger's ass like he was straight out of an action movie.

From what Charlie could see in the street light just a few feet down the sidewalk, it seemed that the stranger was winning the fight. But the mugger had a defense of attack that he used against her before. He shoved the blade of the knife into the stranger's shoulder when least expected, and threw a punch as a last ditch effort to get away. That night Charlie had her first experience of danger while living in the city, and how she learned her best friend since her sophomore year of high school was the Red Hood. Back when he was running around the city in a sweatshirt without a real purpose of what he was going, and without the proper gear to defend himself.

Dean tried to get away that night and bad to safety before she could find out his secret, his worst fear if she discovered his secret would be that she’d freak out. But he never made it only a few feet before falling to the ground from the pain. Charlie helped him back, but somehow, she convinced him to go to the hospital and report the robbery. Mostly because it would explain how she got a thousand dollar laptop smashed and his stab wound would be properly treated. When everyone found out what happened, all of you rushed to the hospital.

“Chicks dig the wounded hero.” Charlie said to the older Winchester while they were in the emergency room after you explained to a nurse how Dean got stabbed and a busted up lip. She was half joking, half serious and ushering the man to use this opportunity to his advantage.

Charlie knew about you and Dean having feelings for one another long as she knew you back in high school. She might like girls, but she knew well enough about how crushes worked. And no matter who you were trying to impress, a life threatening danger was the perfect chance to get closer. Dorothy Baum, the woman that the redhead had been dating for a few months, was all over her in a panicked frenzy when she got the news about the attack. The happy couple had been together ever since then and still going strong.

You were overwhelmed with panic when you got to the hospital after you were told that not only was Charlie almost mugged, but Dean had been there and saved the day. You were in near tears as you embraced Charlie into a tight hug as you thanked your lucky stars that the only thing that happened to her was a broken laptop. You reassured her that if her dick of a boss was going to give her any trouble you'd march down there and kick his ass. But it was Dean that had made you a nervous wreck on the drive down to the hospital.

Seeing him stitched up with and bandaged made your heart skip a few times over in your chest. And you knew you shouldn't have, but you squeezed him hard as you could, burying your face into his neck as you told him what an idiot he was. But the smile on your face when you pulled away was a look that made him realize that you were proud of him for what he did. You were at his side every single day while he recuperate, making sure he followed the doctor’s orders of not lifting too much and cleaning his wounds properly. You honestly did consider Dean a hero after what he did in order to save Charlie’s life. But you would have never guessed he did it for others. And he wondered if you would have felt the same way if you learned the truth.

Charlie never breathed the word of what really happened to either Bobby or their friends. Because he saved her life, Charlie felt she owed him hers. But the woman had questions she asked him in privacy when the situation died down and he started to heal. Mostly of how long he'd been doing this, why he started and all of those kind of things to ease her curious mind. And out of the blue, when she gathered the courage, she asked him if she could help him on the side. So he offered her a job to not only work cases with him, but to help use that big brain of hers to hack into things that he couldn't. She agreed without hesitance.

The both of them got planning on how Dean could become a better vigilante and not risk the chance of him getting hurt and bleeding to death. And that’s how Dean got to where he was today. Thanks to a nerdy cosplayer and her extensive knowledge of the right people to help them make a badass outfit that would help keep Dean safe if someone tried to attack him. Not to mention a few nifty gadgets that helped him find a cry for help or a crime to stop.

Dean knew the comic books that he used to read every chance he could get as a kid, mostly underneath the covers with a flashlight when his father thought he was sleeping, and superhero movies he watched were a work of fiction. He wasn't bitten by a radioactive spider. He wasn't from a different planet and he didn't have billions of dollars as his disposal. (Much as he'd like that.) He was just some guy wanting to make the world a better place. And then Dean realized that he was sort of like Superman in a way. He lived a double life and nobody knew. If Dean was Clark Kent, you were his Lois Lane.

+ + +

For long as you could remember you’ve always wanted to be a journalist. There was something about uncovering the truth and putting it out there for the world to see that drove your passion. And you’ve been writing for long as you could hold a pencil. Your parents had countless pictures and home videos of you conducting interviews with relatives, along with every single school newspaper you had been apart of since middle school. Maybe the reason why you were so driven was because your father was a police officer. And he always told you that honesty was the way to go. Because you knew that then things started to make a little more sense.

It was confession that put people behind bars and let the guilt of the crime they commited to lessen, the evidence that put the pieces together. Without factual proof all you had was an opinion, a speculation on what might have happened. And there was enough of that going around in this day and age. You liked the old fashion journalism where you put effort and time in your writing to give the people the whole truth and nothing but. And that's how you did things since you got your job at the Daily Insider. Well...until the Red Hood came about. The mention of his name made you want to throw all your morals out the window.

You didn’t know who your real parents were, it was a miracle you were alive from how Bobby found you. He never went into details about what happened, he just told you that your biological parents were killed before you were born, and it was one look at your infant face that made him and his wife, Karen, to adopt you as raise you as their own child. They had done just that since you were only a few days old and took you home from the hospital. You never looked deeper into what happened to your parents because it wasn’t your business. They got the justice they deserved, and even if they didn’t, it wasn’t in your control to try and make it happen.

All you knew that life sucks. Sometimes people got justice for doing the crime, and sometimes they got away without a single headline to draw attention. It meant that the law didn’t belong into someone’s hands. Much as you would love to give people the justice they deserved by knocking their lights out or trashing their name in the paper, you couldn't. You had to be like everyone else and hope that justice got served like how you wanted. Sometimes it was, sometimes you had to hope and pray to God that He would give them the rightful punishment after death.

You rolled out of bed a little after noontime, feeling more rested than you had after you dragged yourself back into your apartment after running around for the past four hours with little sleep. You fell right into bed without changing your clothes. And you still didn't when you rubbed the crust from your eyes and fixed yourself a cup of coffee to make yourself feeling more focused. You still had an article to write that was due by tomorrow morning. And the topic of the story wasn’t just about a serious bust where four men got arrested on kidnapping charges. No, that might have sold some papers, but that’s not what the city wanted to hear about.

It was about the person those girls had swore up and down who saved them that night and put those men behind bars. And your editor, Gabriel, wanted you to write about. The Red Hood strikes again to do another good deed. You hated yourself just thinking about it. But if you did agree to this, then you got the front page. Cas’ picture would be all over thousands of copies. You swallowed what pride you had and agreed to tweak the story to include the vigilante.

You clicked on the top of your pen as a small smirk began to spread across your lips when the brilliant thought hit you. The Red Hood would get his fifteen minutes more of fame and the city could applause him for his good deed. Even you had to admit this was a win for the city and the police department. But to you this was still a crime, and you were going to expose this man for who he was. Because if there was anything you liked better than an investigative story, was ruining someone's life and seeing justice serve like they deserved.

IDNS Taglist:

@godmuffin @hopefulcolorcollectorsthings @albot-eh​ @thewinchesterchronicles @vidzbyemz​ @sophieasaurus @faithfullpanicmoon@saltygoof @kaylinfayezink @ria123love @cunning-girl @hungry-eyed

The next morning was Saturday, the start of the weekend and an escape from work for some who worked the traditional nine to five, for you it was just another day on the calendar. Working as a journalist meant you had no set hours you needed to abide by, just an deadline to meet. Sometimes you loved the freedom to work whenever you wanted within reason, sometimes you hated it because the job called for your attention when you least expected it—and at some inconvenient times, too. But you wouldn't chose any other career in the world.

You loved being front and center at breaking news and chasing down every lead and interviewing people to get their side of the story to give the most factual article for the public to read. Lucky for you there was never a shortage of stories to write in the city. Crime never stopped in a city that never slept. You lost count how many articles you wrote about from crooked business owners to major drug busts. And the world around you provided even more things to write about, too.

When you did come to the office to either work on an upcoming article or try to get done writing done, you dragged your feet gave a deathly glare for anyone who dare so look in your direction to say hello, or God forbid, smile. You hated early mornings when a big article was due in such a short time span, because it meant you were up half the night making sure everything was perfect. You took pride in your job and reporting the news seriously. However you were feeling quite the opposite when you rolled out of bed today. You walked into the building with a smile on your face and actually greeted fellow coworkers who passed you by. Today was going to be a good day.

“Good morning.” You greet your partner and best friend Cas with a warm smile and friendly tone of voice he would have never expected out of someone like you. You stopped by his desk before your own, your bag draped over your shoulder and your jacket still on. In your hands were two coffees in a paper tray and a crumbled up to go bag from your favorite shop. The man stared at you for a moment with a slightly hesitant look. “What? It’s coffee, Cas. I didn’t lace it with arsenic.”

“It’s not my birthday.” Cas thought to out loud to what could be the occasion where you brought him coffee and were in the office so early, especially on a Saturday. He tried coming up with an idea that might explain what you were doing here and looking so cheery, but he came up with nothing. He reached out a hand to grab the coffee that you offered him. “Did you make yourself an Irish coffee or something? Most of the time I have to keep my distance until you circled around the break room twice to get your coffee intake. And you even more bitchier when we’ve got a story due.”

“Shut up.” You mumbled, pretending to be a little offended at the description of you that too accurate not to be you. “A girl can’t be happy?”

“In your case, no.” Cas replied as he took a sip of the coffee after making sure it was cool enough so it wouldn’t burn him.

You narrowed your eyes on the man as you dropped your bag to the floor and sat down on the edge of his desk that you knew could hold your weight. You placed down the bag of food and pushed it closer to you when he tried to sneak a peek at what it was. “Hey! That’s not for you.” You said, nearly slapping his greedy hands away. “Is Gabriel in? I need to talk to him.”

“Yeah. He’s late to everything except work.” Cas said. Your happy persona faltered for a moment as you inhaled a deep breath, suddenly overcome with nervousness at what you were about to do.  “Is this about the article?”

“Sort of.” You admitted. “I want to ask him about a idea that I know would make a perfect front page story. But I’m gonna need some time.”

Cas leaned back in his office chair and grew a smirk across his lips that was hidden behind the paper cup he brought to his mouth to take another sip. “Oh. Are we talking about one of Y/N Singer’s famous investigative articles?”

“Something like that.” You said, shrugging your shoulders.

“Well, what is it?” Cas asked out of curiosity.

Before you could answer your friend’s question, you saw your boss coming out from the break room and heading back to his office with a cup of coffee in his hands. You jumped to your feet and grabbed the paper bag, following behind Gabriel as you called out his name to get his attention. Cas rolled his eyes and grabbed his camera before following behind you, knowing he was going be called in so Gabriel could inspect the photographs he took the previous day and pick one that would be printed and others published on the site to compliment the article you wrote and capture the feeling in the photographs he took.

You and Cas had worked together on many stories over the years since you were hired at the paper, and that’s where your friendship started. You were good with words, Cas had a talent at takings photographs. It didn’t matter if there was complete chaos, it didn’t matter if the sky was falling. He always managed to capture what was going on around him without fail. Both of you were a duo that Gabriel swore was gift from God.

You straightened out your shoulders and made your way into the office of your editor who sat at his desk, pretending to look busy like he always did to get people to leave him alone. But you knew if you didn't do this now, you were never going to get the courage to ask him again. When he noticed your approaching figure, you greeted him with a smile as you plopped down the bag in front of his face. Your smile grew wider when his eyes dropped to the label on the bag that was from his favorite bakery you saw him come into the office with at least once a week.

You learned from another writer that one way to persuade him into letting you do an article was to bribe him with food to satisfy his sweet tooth. While the contents inside was his favorite, you pulled it away from him before he could even reach out an arm and grab it from you.

“I want the front page of Sunday’s paper.” You demanded as you told him the reason why you were here, but the tone of voice came off more nervous than you had intended for it to be.

“Good morning to you, too, Sugar.” Gabriel asked, his eyes darting straight to you when you barged into his office without even saying hello, which wasn’t like you. You crossed your arms over your chest and nodded your head to the paper bag that he was eyeing. He opened up the bag to see that it was his favorite. He slowly crumpled up the bag and raised his brow in curiosity. “What can I do for you, Y/N? Excellent work on the article, by the way. Read it last night. But I’m sorry. I would love to put your story on the front page, but there was that whole—“

“Thank you. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I want to do an investigative piece. Something that’s gonna take some time.” You told your boss. Gabriel seemed curious as he wondered what you had in mind. You inhaled a deep breath as you forced yourself to tell him what you wanted to write about. “I want to do a piece about the Red Hood.”

"The Red Hood?" Cas repeated the name of the stranger who had made headlines a few times here and there over the past few years since coming out of nowhere. You always gritted your teeth and unwillingly wrote about the hero and their good deed. You looked over to the side to see he was standing right next to you with his camera in his hand and a baffled look on his face. "I thought you didn't—”

“I don’t like him/her/them.” You said, bringing up the opinion you shared with him last night after you interviewed the three women in the hospital, who claimed the masked vigilante saved their lives. “Whoever the hell is running around this city.”

“You want the front page to say you don’t like some guy who saved three innocent girls from God knows what future? Not to mention dozens other crimes they stopped? Sorry. Not gonna happen.” Gabriel said. You rolled your eyes from how he was shooting you down without letting you pitch your real story. “Go work for Fox news if you want to spread your opinion. Here at the Daily Insider we like to report on important things that—”

"What if I personally got an interview with them?" You asked, cutting off your boss. Gabriel had one hand shoved into the paper bag to grab his breakfast as Cas was flipping through the pictures on his camera to pick out the best ones, but both men stopped from what you said. You swallowed slightly and went at trying to explain your idea without sounding like a lunatic. "You're always telling us to ask the questions everybody else is afraid to do. Push the boundaries and get to the real source of what’s going on. That’s what our readers count on when they read our newspapers. And this city knows the Red Hood—but they don’t know him or her. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a few questions of my own.”

Gabriel pulled his hand out from the bag and settled it on the desk as he arched his brow. You knew by that look you got his curiosity going from what you were saying. “Yeah? Like what?”

"What made them decide to dress up in a costume and put the justice system into their own hands? How do they know where all these crimes are happening? And most importantly, how about the countless people he's beaten up and caused serious damage?" You proposed just a few questions you had come up with last night for an interview you planned out all in your head that could have taken place behind the plexiglass window of the jail where the Red Hood would be in after you found out who they were. “And I know, I know. They're criminals. The public doesn't care about them. But you know what the public cares about? The fact that their taxes are being spent on said criminals to pay for their medical bills. And the cops who protect this very city. Red Hood is taking the law into his own hands and making it harder for them to do their job. This...masked psychopath is not a hero. And I want to prove it.”

"What are you going to do? Write an article asking for them to stop by at your house to have a formal interview?" Gabriel asked you, entertaining the idea. You rolled your eyes and shook your head no. "You can't get an interview with someone who doesn't want their identity found out. Hence the whole secret identity, Sugar."

"I said I wanted an interview, not to dox the person behind the mask." You corrected him, even though that was your true intentions. Gabriel still seemed hesitant to say yes. "Come on, Gabe. Who else can say they've got a personal interview with the one and only Red Hood? Think of how many papers we could sell.”

Gabriel thought about what you said and sat on the idea for a moment. You bit the inside of your cheek as you impatiently waited for him to answer. He looked at you for a moment before he rolled his eyes. “Fine. If you can somehow give me a legitimate story and somehow pin down this person to ask a few questions, the front page is all yours.” You broke out into a smile as you got ready to thank him, but your boss stopped you with a few guidelines. "This is a personal project I want you working in your free time. If I ask you to cover another story, that comes first. I mean it. And don't do anything stupid to get yourself killed.”

“Of course. I leave all the stupid stunts to this one to get the money shot.” You said, nudging your fellow friend in the shoulder as you gave him a playful wink. Cas gave you a sarcastic smile before rolling his eyes. He headed forward to Gabriel to discuss what he came in here for when your boss waved you off. “You won’t regret it, Gabe. Promise!”

Gabriel brushed off your words and waved you away to complete the job that he was unwillingly giving you time to do. You headed back to your desk with a victorious smirk on your lips, wondering how good it was going to take this son of a bitch down once and for all.

+ + +

Even though Gabriel had given you the go ahead for the story, there was still so many little things you needed to worry about before you could actually sit down and start writing. Your editor thought you were going to change your tune about the stranger behind the mask when you sat down and began to hear the good they had done for the city. But you couldn’t do that. Maybe it was because you grown up always being told that violence didn’t solve anything and your father was a cop. Maybe it was because you were a good person who obeyed the law. Maybe it was because you saw a good man spiral into a pit of self destructive behavior to solve a crime he would never be able to. And his kids were still paying the price for his actions. You wanted to know everything about this person; from who they were to why they thought it was their responsibility to stop muggers and beat up sex traffickers. (Okay. If you had to admit one good thing he had done it was saving those three girls. But a good deed didn’t stop all the bad he had also brought on.) If he knew that there was a serious problem going down than they should call the cops. Not put their life in danger and get themselves—or worse, the victim they were trying to save—from being killed. There had to be someone out there in this city who shared the same opinion as you. 

You spent the rest of your day between working on a list of topics and tasks you needed to complete for the story. The vigilante was a hushed secret nobody liked to talk about, it was sort of like politics. Everyone had an opinion on the matter, and they thought they were always right. There was a few published articles about the Red Hood’s heroic antics, but you wanted more than just someone else’s glorified words. You wanted to speak to the victims themselves and get to the police reports of what happened. Maybe even talk to a few cops to see how they felt about him. You even contemplated on talking to a few criminals who were busted by the vigilante to see what they remembered.

You immersed yourself into work and search, not realizing the morning had blended into the afternoon, and the lunch Cas had brought you from your favorite food cart was devoured between the things you were doing. As the time ticked away and the office thinned out, you didn’t realize how late it ended up until your computer screen went black. Your heart suddenly stopped in absolute fear from what happened, everything you had been working on all day was still there. All the news articles you found and people you were trying to track down...all gone just like that. “All work and no play makes Y/N a lame friend.” You quickly tore your gaze away from the black screen and to the person who was to blame. Your expression dropped into an annoyed glare when you saw Charlie standing in front of your desk with her finger on the power button to the screen thankfully. Cas was standing right next to her with his messenger bag strap resting on his shoulder and a twinkle of amusement in his blue eyes.

“Charlie, I love you, but I’ve got a big story I’m trying to work on.” You said to her, lightly slapping her hand away so you could turn on the screen again to get back to work. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for Charlie to pop into the office. She sometimes visited when things were slow at her own job, and she even helped with an I.T. problem instead of paying someone to do it. “What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you and Dean had a ton of stuff to do today.” “We did. But one of the joys of being self employed is that you get to make your own hours. And we mutually agreed it was time to call it quits.” Charlie said. You scoffed at her bragging as you went back to work, oblivious to the time just yet. The redhead looked over at Cas as she raised her brow slightly from how concentrated you were. “Is she always like this?” “Only when she’s got something on her mind.” Cas replied. You rolled your eyes and saved your work when you saw the time. You started to shut down your computer and gathering your things, calling it a day. “Wow. You’re actually coming out with us tonight?” You gave the man a confused look as you slipped on your jacket and then began to shuffle up some papers you needed to help conduct further research. “What are you talking about?” You asked, shoving the papers into a manilla folder and then straight into your bag for safekeeping. “You’re kidding, right? It’s my birthday.” Charlie told you in a dead serious tone of voice. You felt your breathing stop when your best friend mentioned something that you swore you would never forget. The panicked look on your face quickly made the redhead break out into a smile as she lightly punched you in the shoulder. “God, you’re so gullible. It’s kinda sad with you being a journalist and everything.”

You narrowed your eyes slightly on the redhead as you gave her a type of glare that Cas was all too familiar with. It was the exact same one he expected to be greeted with this morning, but it seemed you were saving it for someone else. “Word of advice,” He leaned forward slightly so he was whispering to Charlie. “I’d be careful if she tries and offers you coffee. She might try to poison you.” “Nah. I’ll just brutally murder the both of you and write about it. ‘Charlie Bradbury and Castiel Novak disappear, never to be seen again.’” You said, coming up with a fake front page header as you gestured a hand to mimic the title. Charlie pretended to be scared from the empty threat and began walking in sync with you and Cas. “Is Sam coming, too?” “Yeah. He’s coming out for a couple of beers. Dean really wanted to get all of us together since it’s been forever since we all hung out. And he especially wanted to see you out having some fun because he knows how much of a workaholic you can be." Charlie said.

Her voice shifted into a playful tone that made your cheeks suddenly feel like they were growing warmer at how easy she was for her to tease you about Dean. You lightly shoved her forward as you continued walking to the exit, trying to hide the butterflies that were starting to flutter in your stomach from the shenanigans all of you were bound to get into tonight.

+ + +

Cas split up with you and Charlie when you mentioned about wanting to go back to your place to change out of the clothes you had been wearing all day and put away your work belonging before meeting back at the bar. The both of you made it there a little while later, the bar you frequented since your early college days was rather busy for the time of night. The place was a hole in the wall bar downtown where the beer was cheap and the company was decently friendly. You made your way through a small crowd of people and to the back of the bar where you spotted Cas talking to a familiar face. A smile broke out when you saw his  ginormous frame with a head of hair that always seemed a little too perfect.

“Sammy!” You called out the man’s name in an excited tone as you approached him and Cas. You noticed he wasn't dressed in his usual suit and tie, but in jeans and flannel that almost seemed like a Winchester uniform. Sam momentary paused his conversation when he noticed you were finally here. You waved your hands for him to bend down slightly to your level so you could give him a hug. The both of you embraced one another in a tight hug after the long time it’d been since seeing each other in person. When you pulled away from him, your smile dropped as you lightly shoved him in his chest. “It’s about time since I’ve seen you. Does the firm chain you to your desk?”

“Kinda. I’m up to my eyeballs in cases right now.” Sam said, giving you a glimpse of what his life had been like as a lawyer. You pretended to wipe away a tear at his life out of sarcasm. “But I managed to pick myself free for a couple of hours before they find out.”

“Well, I’m gonna have to break you out more often. It’s been too long since I’ve seen your handsome face, Sammy.” You said, teasing him slightly as you reached up to lightly pinch him on the cheek and use the same nickname he once hated when he started college. And speaking of handsome faces, you dropped your arm back down to your side and began to absentmindedly look for Sam’s older brother. “Hey, do you know where—“

"Hey, sweetheart." You turned around just in time to see the person you were looking for. Dean greeted you with a smile as he came back from the bar, his fingers cradling two beer bottles by the neck that you presumed for himself and Charlie. The other drink he was holding was your favorite cocktail. "I thought I might save you two the trouble."

"Thank you. That's so sweet of you." You said with a smile of your own at his generosity. You grabbed the drink from him and took a sip to see that it was exactly how you liked it. "I swear you've got a sixth sense or something. Charlie and I just got here."

"Well, I guess we're just that in tune with each other." Dean replied, shrugging his shoulders. He took a sip of his own beer as you took another one from your drink, your eyes moving around the bar as his wandered over to the redhead standing next to you. She hid her smirk behind her beer, knowing it was her who had told him about your upcoming arrival and suggested to get drinks ahead. You wondered if you could find a spot in the bar to occupy when you saw a wave of people come in. Dean heard the sound of pool balls clacking against one another, a sound of a game he was all too familiar with. "Hey, Sammy. Up for a game?"

One of the good things about the bar was that there was a few activities around the place for people to enjoy from foosball to darts, and the game of pool Dean suggested to his younger brother. While it was still early in the night, you knew in a few hours the competitiveness among the players would be replaced with giggles and people missing the target. Sam shrugged his shoulders and opened his mouth to agree to the game, knowing he was the only one good enough to play against the man. Charlie, always being the one to be a good wing woman to her best friends, quickly spoke up before the boys could get going.

“Sam!” Charlie suddenly shouted the younger Winchester’s name, taking the four of you slightly by surprise. Sam gave her a confused expression from what she just did, you let out a quiet chuckle from her outburst. Charlie smiled as she quickly struck up a conversation. “W-Where’s Amelia? I thought you would sure bring her around.”

You watched as the mention of Sam's year and a half long relationship with his girlfriend, Amelia Richardson, didn't turn out the way you expected. You and Dean were the only single people in your small group of friends. Charlie had been going serious with Dorothy for the past few years, Cas hadn't really settled down. But you knew that his friend, Meg Masters, was always something with no strings attached. However you always suspected he had some feelings for her. You had a few relationships of your own that barely went anywhere from a couple dates to a handful of months. Dean was in the middle of the spectrum from how his love life went.

You wouldn't say that he was a complete womanizer, but he had his fair share of one night stands that you accidentally walked in on and while they were doing the walk of shame out of his apartment. When they saw you, it was the awkward pause of silence wondering if you were the the other woman. Dean had only two real relationships in his entire lifetime for long as you had known him. There was Cassidy, a sweet girl he had a thing for when you were in college. He started to fall for her, but things were moving faster than she liked, so she dumped him. And then there was Lisa Braden...the woman you thought Dean was going to spend his life with.

However if anyone's love life was tragic it had to be poor Sammy. He got his for real relationship when the both of you were in college. During his time at Stanford he met a woman named Jess, a sweet blonde who was the apple of Sam's eye. You met her a few times when Sam brought her home for holidays and summer break. Sam had confided in you at the fact that he was wanted to marry her. Unfortunately tragedy struck one night in their apartment they shared got had a gas leak, and the place burst up into flames. There was no way that it could have been prevented, but Sam blamed himself for months after her death.

You thought he was never going to get over her. And then he met a woman named Madison. The both of them seemed cute together, however she ended up breaking up with him after his dog, Riot, bit her by accident. And then there was the one crazy ex he never liked to talk about, Ruby. She had almost all of you fooled that she was Sam's perfect match. Except it turned out she was a complete psycho. A few years after Ruby came Amelia, a veterinarian who had been going steady with the man for the past year. Both of them seemed like wedding bells were in the air, however the sullen look in Sam’s face made your heart sink.

“Yeah, about that…” Sam cleared his his throat as he broke the news to all of you. “Amelia and I are no longer. We broke up a month ago. She didn't like the fact that I was spending almost all my time at the office and didn't want to move to Texas with her like we talked about. So we decided to end things mutually."

"Oh, Sammy." You whispered the man's name as you placed a hand on his back to give him a supportive pat. "I'm so sorry. I wish you told me."

Sam shrugged his shoulders, "I’ve had time to move on. I had a feeling things were heading in this direction. Besides, there’s a new woman who started at the firm. Her name is Eileen.”

“Sammy,  you sly dog.” Dean broke out into a grin at the mention of another woman his brother was interested in so soon. “Normally you sulk for weeks before putting yourself back out there.”

“It’s not like that…yet.” Sam said, giving his brother a slightly annoyed look from the way he thought so quickly. You lightly shoved Dean before you looked back at the younger man with a curious expression to know more about this Eileen. “She’s pretty cool. And smart. And, this is gonna be random, but do you guys don’t know any ASL?”

“I know a few sayings. Dorothy has a deaf cousin. She taught me a few things.” Charlie said. She reached out and grabbed Sam by the arm as she face him a smile. “Come on. I can teach you a few things like ‘Hi’ and all that.”

“What about the—“ You pointed to the pool table that was going to be free for so long before it was going to be snatched up by another group.

“Hey, didn’t you tell me you always want to learn? Well, this is the perfect time. Dean can teach you and I can show Sam some sign language.” Charlie suggested a way to spend the night. You felt your cheeks suddenly start burning when she gave you a cheery smile, the kind you saw yesterday morning when she was talking about your feelings to the older Winchester. You gave her a glare as she began walking away with a smirk you wanted to smack off her face.

You and Dean weren’t a stranger to hanging out with one another, you practically did it every chance you weren’t busy. While you were hoping to catch up with Sam, Charlie had other plans for tonight. You tightened your grip around the glass as you looked over at the older Winchester with a small smile.

“Out of all the years we’ve been coming here, you seriously never learned how to play?” Dean couldn't help himself but ask out of curiosity. You shrugged your shoulders, saying how you liked to observe from the sidelines than participate. Dean set his beer down on the wooden edge of the table and grabbed a stick for himself. “The game’s not that hard. My dad taught me how to play. But how I really got good at the game was the help from a wise and old mentor. We took our gig around town and made a few bucks.”

"I feel like you're lying and got the idea out of that Tom Cruise movie,” You approached the table as you placed down your drink next to his and rested your hands down on the wooden trimming, your fingertips almost grazing the green fabric. “Or there’s a really good story behind this you’ve never told me.”

"I wouldn't say that it's an exciting story." Dean said, shrugging his shoulders. “Bobby and I used to go to the bar when you and Sammy were still in school. We would knock back a few beers after he helped me figure out how to get my P.I. license and stuff. Let me say, your dad is a pool shark."

"Wait," You felt your face break out into a smile that seemed to light up your entire face when the story turned into a direction that you weren't expecting. While Dean was rubbing chalk at the end of the pool stick, he couldn't help himself but think about how pretty you looked underneath the bar florescent light. "You're telling me my dad taught you how to hustle?"

"Well, he wouldn't use those kinds of words. But, yeah. He did. My dad was a good private eye, but it didn’t always make bank when we needed it. And that’s how I helped pay for Sammy’s textbooks when he went to college." Dean said. You honestly thought you couldn’t think that he couldn’t have been a better big brother, and there he went. Dean set everything up for a game, and since he knew you saw enough of these to know the general rules, he handed over the stick to you. For some reason you stared at him, not sure what he wanted you to do. "Come on. It's not gonna bite you. I just want to see what you know and then we can improve on that."

You grabbed the pool stick from him and walked over to the side of the table where Dean had set everything up, saying a little prayer in your head so you wouldn't look like a complete idiot. As you inhaled a deep breath and began to remember the position that you saw him and Sam get into to hit the ball, your eyes wandered away from the white one when you saw Dean moving around in the corner of your eye. You turned your head to see that Dean was shrugging off his jacket, revealing the red button up shirt you had gotten him for his birthday a few years back, paired with a black t-shirt you swore he owned at least a dozen of from how many times you wore them.

Maybe it was because of the bar lighting, the few sips of the cocktail you had, or the nerves wracking inside your body that was making you think of how good he looked tonight. There was no denying the Winchesters had good genes. Sam might be tall and large compared to most people, but he carried a soft charm and a dimpled smile that wooed over so many women. And Dean...well, you could go on forever about him.

It was his green eyes that you got lost in while it was just the both of you talking at his place and at dinner, his hair that always remained short and yet made you long to run your fingers through the sandy locks. The muscles you saw outlined in his clothes when he moved. There was so many things you could list about him that you loved about him. And you swore if Charlie was looking your way she would be grinning like an idiot from what was about to happen next.

You slightly leaned over the edge of the pool table with the stick at a perfect ninety degree angle like you were supposed to, As you got ready to hit the white ball, Dean momentarily distracted you when he remarked about how good you look. All though you knew it was about your posture, your mind went in a completely different direction, making the stick fly off the table. You let out a sigh from what you just did, knowing how much you were making yourself look like an idiot when you heard Dean let out a chuckle. It might have been out of amusement, but he wasn't ready to throw in the towel just yet.

“Not bad. But the problem is in your fingers. Here, let me show you.” Dean walked over so he was standing behind you and in attempting to fix your posture. He reached out his hand and grabbed your wrist that was resting the stick on. He dragged it backwards so your fingers were now just resting on the edge of the table and laid out almost flat. "It's all about how you position the index finger and the thumb. You see," Dean talked you through the steps, making you realize he was closer than you thought. You swallowed slightly as you felt him move the fingers so they were holding the tip of the stick at a better angle. "That should help guide it a bit better."

You listened to what he told you, and trying again, you hit the cue ball perfectly, sending all fifteen pool balls to scatter across the table. You broke out into a smile as you turned your head to the side Dean was leaning over, getting ready to thank him for how easy he made it out to be. But in doing so, you realized how close he was to you, and how his fingers were still on yours, making your smile begin to fade slightly as you felt your heart start to beat faster. The both of you found yourselves staying in that position for a few seconds, unsure of what to do next.

"You know if your pool skills were half as good as your writing, maybe you wouldn't suck so much." You flinched at the sound of Cas' voice, making you realize what you were doing. Dean cleared his throat as he quickly stood back up, you did so a few seconds later. You gave the man a sarcastic smile, resisting the urge to smack him with the stick you were leaning on. "Did you tell everybody yet of your big story you're gonna do?"

Sam headed back over to the pool table, seeming to have leaned enough words to break the lesson you were having with Dean, and curios to find out what you were working on. “Really? What’s it about?” You fell silent for a moment as you contemplated of even telling them, knowing how all of them were going to take it in a different way. “It’s about...someone.” “Very specific. I think I heard of this ‘someone.’” Dean teased you, wondering what was making you suddenly grow so bashful. You looked away from him when he kept pushing for an answer. “Come on, Y/N. Tell us.” “No. It’s not that big of a deal.” You said, shrugging your shoulders. “It’ll probably go nowhere.” “Fine. I’ll tell them. Our dear Y/N has officially lost her mind. She wants to write about the Red Hood.” Cas announced to your group of friends, making you dread how they were all going to take it. You stared at the ground for a moment as he kept on going what you had asked for your boss to do. “More specifically, she wants to interview him.” “Huh. Did you hear that, Dean?” Charlie asked her best friend when she heard something that seemed to contradict what you had said yesterday morning. The older Winchester suddenly felt four pairs of eyes on him, making him panic about this. It was like a nightmare come true. “Y/N wants to interview the Red Hood.” “Yeah, Charlie,” Dean mumbled as he let out a quiet chuckle, hoping nobody would see how nervous he was becoming for all the wrong reasons. “I heard her.” “Not exactly.” You said, correcting the redhead. Dean felt his heart suddenly starting to beat a million times a minute from what was going on. It was like a nightmare come true. "I want to find out who this person is and put a stop to the crap that they've be causing for the past couple of years."

“‘Crap’?” Charlie repeated after you. She seemed a little offended at the wording you used to describe someone who made this place a little safer. But you didn’t see it that way. “Don’t you think that’s a little harsh?”

"Please. You can't tell me you're okay with some psycho running around this city and taking jobs away from the police—whose job is to protect us." You said, giving your personal feelings on how you felt about the vigilante to your close friends. "It's a matter of time before someone gets hurt, or worse, dead."

"While I agree that taking the law into your own hands is never a good idea," Sam said. “some people think of this person as a hero.”

“We’re not living in a comic book. There's no evil villain that's harassing the city that the police can't arrest. And heros don’t wear masks. It’s people like...Dean,” You looked over at your best friend that you thought was the perfect example you could make from what you were about to say next. “He stepped up and saved Charlie’s life. He’s a hero. Not this Red Hood creep.”

"Thank you. But it was nothing." Dean said. The mention of the night he got stabbed made his shoulder start to ache. He cleared his throat as he kept his composure, casually asking you a question he really didn't want the answer to. "So...What are you gonna do about this Red Hood?”

“I’m gonna expose them and put a stop to it.” You said in a matter-of-fact voice.

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