#kid devio

Thanks for this one! I won't say it was fun, considering the subject matter, but I've wanted to write something like this for a while >:D. I'll reblog with an ao3 link too. First, the inspiration for this thing was these panels:

It was Dan's fault.

Even his team, as accepting as they were would have agreed, but they don't know, he hadn't told them, didn't plan on telling them. Marla would already know, wherever she was, he just knew she must have known, and she'd be blaming Dan too.

Because he'd promised her, staring blankly at the TV screen and again over her grave, with tears running down his cheeks, he'd promised. That he'd take care of her kid, wouldn't leave him alone, as if that would in any way make what Dan had done to her any better. He could never be Marla, but he'd be Eddie's best friend, always be there, he'd try. He'd promised and he'd tried.

[[MORE]]

And it worked, Dan had been there, he'd gotten Eddie to laugh and joke and jabber on about Eddie's projects. Had gotten help on some of Dan's own projects, because Eddie was so smart, he could do things Dan hadn't seen anyone his age do before, and did them so well. Of course Eddie was smart, he was Marla's kid and of course her kid was going places, was going to do amazing things.

Then Eddie's project was his suit. He wanted to fix it up, to go out and throw himself at the worst of the unimaginably evil parts of the world. Because as much as Marla had been the most important person in his life, Dan was his hero. He wanted to make his aunt proud by getting into show business, he thought he could make Dan proud by becoming a hero. He couldn't see that the both of them had always been so, so proud of him.

Dan didn't know what to do, he couldn't barely push down the horror and the dread when he tried to chuckle at a joke. Couldn'tstop seeing a body, broken and mangled in that red suit, a grave right next to Marla's whenever he closed his eyes. Faceless forms reminding him that it was all his fault. Eddie was going to suffer and hurt and it would be all Dan's fault for inserting the himself into the kids life like a parasite to ease his own guilt. He didn't know what to do.

Then he felt death again, and when he came back, Eddie was fine, because of course he was going to find a way to survive on his own in Hollywood. He was working, had his own place, he smiled and joked as much as he always had. Not throwing himself into danger, not until Dan let himself in again, all Eddie would talk about was that damn suit, was wanting to help, he went to another country with a bunch of other children to fight in what amounted to a fucking war, and Dan broke.

Eventually, when Dan got the call, coward that he was, he couldn't answer it. Or the next, or the next. If this was the only way to keep Eddie safe, then this was what he'd do, no matter the cost.

He found out the cost when so long after, he saw saw it on the news. His best friend's kid; red and demonic and horrifying to look at, still smiling. When he found out from Robin - a replacement for the last one, because that was the value of a child in this life - that the sweet, excitable Gopher had had his chest ripped open on a mission. When he'd promised to visit, wanted to try and again to talk Eddie out of it, to tell him what Dan had done to Marla, hoping it would be enough to out an end to it, and Dan had drunk himself into oblivion instead. When Eddie came to visit, confront Dan about it himself, and left as horrified by the truth as Dan was.

Still, 'Red Devil' hadn't stopped, and the final blow came months later; Eddie was dead. Blown to nothing flying a nuclear explosion away from a city. A child who should never have needed to be a hero.