#serialkiller!reader

Worse Then We Thought

-ˋˏ✄┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-

In the quiet hours of night, well past evening in the Wayne family estate, no one slept within its many walls.

One week has passed since Jokers latest broadcast across Gotham, which made it one week since Bruce and the family watched as you were beaten senseless and one agonizing week of waiting for the right moment to finally talk to you.

Bruce had wanted to contact you right away, wanted to show up at your apartment or work or Gordon’s house apparently, the whole family had, but they just couldn’t find a good moment. Alfred had informed them all of past… incidents. Coming home from school late near daily, roughed up and bruised, but every time the butler had pressed for information it always resulted in massive blow ups and self isolation how self inflicted was it really? if no one else ever noticed. Bruce had made careful mental note of possible anger issues after that conversation.

Too add to his ever growing list of you, Bruce was pacing the length of your old and rather cramped room in the manor, he still couldn’t fathom why it was on the other side of the building from the rest of the bedrooms. The family had first found it when the news broke of you adopting that little girl and it has since become a sort of makeshift meeting room for them.

Dick was currently lying at the head of your old bed, legs stretched up and rested against the wall where the headboard lay, eyes squinting at whatever school year book of yours he’d chosen to skim through this time. He’s been heavily invested in them after learning you were, in fact, no longer a high school student and hadn’t been for many years. He particularly enjoyed all the club photos, the words, ‘little over achiever’ was often heard fondly whispered into the quiet.

Tim was at the foot of your bed, nearly hanging off the side as he surfed through your social media accounts for what was likely the hundredth time that day. So far he’d found all your friend’s accounts as well as a sparsely used account from Commissioner Gordon. when asked, Barbara denied having any hand in its creation. It seemed you kept a rather active presence online, though recently you’d gone dark.

Cass, having slipped out a while ago to grab some things from Alfred, left the music sheets she’d been reading scattered across the floor where she’d been lying down. She’d been rather taken with your music since Tim showed her old videos of you on your friend’s accounts doing short dance routines. Bruce was seriously wondering just where you found the time for these hobbies of yours.

Jason, Stephanie, Barbara and Duke, weren’t here, the former three having taken up tonight’s patrol instead, no doubt also taking the time to peek in on your apartment, meanwhile Duke slept before he had to get up for his own patrol in the morning.

Damian however, was sat at a desk that’d been tucked under the single window of your room, littered with all sorts of arts and crafts. Long abandoned in the wake of your absence.

“Tch, hundreds of different pens and brushes but no work to show for it? Father are you positive there’s no sketchbooks anywhere on that forsaken bookcase?” Came Damian’s grumble through the silence. Ever since he’d found out you did art other then the taxidermy lining your walls and filling up at least two other storage rooms, what a shock finding all that was, Steph found them hilarious though, even claiming a chipmunk in a fez and bow tie as her own, he’d been on a war path looking for any of your unfinished work to see what your process was. Bruce admittedly found it quite sweet.

“I’m afraid not kiddo.” Bruce, still pacing, his eyes glued intently to the bookshelf that’d taken up almost an entire wall of your room. The books hadn’t contained anything note worthy though, much too his disappoint, he’d hoped to maybe find a diary or at least a journal in all the clutter. Instead, all he found were true crime novels, taxidermy guides, anatomy manuals, and the occasional year books here and there. Basically, not a single thing they’d been hoping for. Though Jason did find your taste in murder mysteries very intriguing and had taken them to read on his downtime.

“We’ve searched this room top to bottom at least fifty times in the last week alone, we’ve even checked the rooms [Reader] used as storage. They obviously took all that stuff with them because those things were the most sentimental.” Tim spoke up, barely glancing up from his screen, which looked to be zoomed into a group photo of you and your friends. Scoffing, Damian turns in his seat to face Tim.

“If you'd put to work more than a single brain cell and twelve cups of coffee Drake, you’d be asking why nothing else here made the cut of ‘sentimental’. Why not take any of their supplies then? Or their ugh…grotesque animal configurations,” Damian points to small mouse placed on the edge of the desk, posed in an imitation of a pole dancer, tiny dollar bills scattered around its feet, Bruce still wasn’t sure how or even why you had made it, “Or any other number asinine trinkets and tchotchkes scattered around this room, if you can even call it that…”

That… wasn’t the first time Damian had taken issue with the rooms size, often comparing it to that of his own closet. Bruce really hoped he wouldn’t jump into that tirade again. He wasn’t sure he could handle the shame.

“Just because you like having an over sized bedroom and a closet that’s too big to fill doesn’t mean (Reader) does. Maybe they just like smaller spaces? Not everyone has your insane standards.” Tim shoots back, swiping away from the group photo and moving on to one with a tall, dark haired woman giving you bunny ears.

“Uuugh, can we not do the whole ‘room-closet-thing’ right now? It’s getting really old,” came Dicks groan, thankfully speaking up before Bruce had too, “besides, when [Reader] moves back in we’ll just move them too a bigger room in the family wing.”

The certainty this was said with was unsurprising, the family had talked about this exact subject at great lengths many times in the past few weeks, though Dick seemed to be the only one convinced you’d happily move back with little resistance, the others, Bruce included, not so much.

“We still don’t know if they’d even be open to moving back in, I mean they haven’t even visited since they moved out.” Tim says as he uses one arm to prop himself up and look over at Dick. Bruce was inclined to agree, as much as he admires his oldest’s boundless optimism, his own cynicism kept him from siding with Dick entirely.

You had gone as far as to move out without telling anyone, minus Alfred, and had been independently living on your own for years now. The likelihood of you moving back anytime soon was slim to none. Of course, that didn’t stop Bruce from hoping though, sue him, he likes the idea of having all his kids under one roof.

“What?” Damian turns in the chair fully now. The look on his face one of complete bafflement, “Of course they have, they attend the families monthly dinners.”

At Damian’s statement, Tim flips over on the bed, sitting up to face the younger boy, while Dick finally looks up from the year book, both exclamations jumbled together as they voice their astonishment.

“No way, I always join those, I would have noticed that!”

“You’re kidding, are you sure Dames?”

This was news even to Bruce, those dinners had been going on for years, having started as team bonding outside of training, surely he who have noticed you being there, right?

…right?

“Of course I’m sure! They show up every three months, how have neither of you noticed that?” Throwing up his hands in disbelief, Damian looks about ready to blow a fuse.

Bruce watches as awkward glances are shared between Dick and Tim before they look away. Dick slowly pulling the book down to cover his face as Tim seemingly finds a crack in the wall particularly interesting.

“They sit next to you, Richard!”

“Oh geez…”Bruce swore he could see all five stages of grief flash across his oldest son’s face, even under the book.

Damian turns to Bruce “Father please tell me you at least noticed!”

“Oh, umm...” Now Bruce found himself avoiding his youngest accusing glare, accidentally making eye contact with the glass eyes of a squirrel dressed as a cowboy, tiny pistol aimed high. He couldn’t tell if that was better or worse.

“Tch, and you call yourselves detectives.” Damian huffs, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. Tim stands, phone forgotten on the bed as he rounds on Damian.

“Oh like you’re any better! You didn’t even like them until two months ago!”

“You wouldn’t even know about this room if it weren’t for me or Pennyworth. At least I acknowledged their existence, which is more than I can say for you, Drake. ” Damian bites back, standing to meet Tim half way in the middle of the room. Fights between the two always escalated this quickly, so Bruce moves to break up the impending fist fight before it can begin and out of the corner of his eye he can see Dick setting the year book down as he stood to do the same. Unfortunately, neither are quick enough as Tim spits out his next words.

“At least I didn’t stab th—“

A single push and Tim’s flat on the floor, much to everyone’s shock. The shove, while still harsh, was hardly more than that, just a shove. Not something that would have someone as skilled as Tim sprawled out on the ground.

Stunned silence fell over the room, Damian recovering the quickest, shocked expression quickly morphing into a smug look.

“Hmph, not only are you losing your wit, you’re now unable to stay upright after a simple shove? Pathetic.”

“I am not- it wasn’t- the floor moved or something!” Sputtering, Tim seemed just as flabbergasted by his own lack of balance. Damian snorts at that, muttering something along the lines of ‘unbelievable…’

“You gotta admit Tim-bo, that does seem a little far fetched, even for you..” Dick now stands next to Damian, bending down to offer a hand to Tim, hoisting him up to his feet. This comment, of course, results in another full blown argument between the three about the possibility of moving floors.

Sighing, Bruce decides now is probably the best time for them to all separate and go to bed. Though just as he moves to put an end to the squabbling of his three sons, a tap on Bruce’s shoulder draws his attention away from the bickering, to Cassandra.

She had at some point slipped into the room without his notice, but before he could mentally kick himself for his lack of awareness, Cass points to the floor boards where Tim had fallen.

There, just before the wood meets carpet, was an ill fitting panel, just a quarter of an inch short of what it needed to be to fill the gap. Evidently, it seems Tim’s insistence on the floor “moving” had been more than a little accurate.

“Damian.”

The bickering cuts off, Damian looking ready to be chastised and while under normal circumstances Bruce would, far more important things needed doing. With an outstretched hand he says, “I’m gonna need your knife.”

With only a confused look, Damian fishes a knife from inside his shirt sleeve, and hands it to Bruce without a word.

Kneeling down, Bruce jammed the knife in between the seam of the boards, ignoring the quiet 'what…?' from behind him, and nudged the blade under the wood, using the palm of his hand to push his weight into it and with a swift flip the board was turned over.

Underneath was a treasure trove of personal artifacts. At least, that’s what it felt like to the bats in the room. Three shoe boxes stacked in a row lay before them, each a different color, black, yellow, blue and decorated with haphazardly glued on magazine and newspaper clippings.

Bruce gingerly lifts the black box out of the hole in the floor, handing it off blindly to whoever was to his left. He runs his fingers over the yellow box before picking that one up too, this one being far heavier than the black one. The last, blue, box was the lightest of the three, barely weighing anything at all compared to the first two.

“Dick I need you to call in Jason and Stephanie, Tim go wake up Duke, and Damian go find Alfred. We’ll take these down to the cave to look through.” Quickly the three boys were off, knowing that the quick they get everyone together, the quicker they’d find out what’s inside.

Cass, having been given no task, stayed with Bruce in your old bedroom, holding the black box delicately in both hands.

Tucking the blue and yellow boxes under one arm, he rests a hand on her head, smoothing down her hair as he leaves a quick peck to her temple, “Good eye sweetheart.”

-ˋˏ✄┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-

~Masterlist~

“-Actually tried to take on an older sibling role with Jason when he arrived

-Jason appreciated it, even if he thought you were a bit creepy”

Can we get more on this

I wanna see reader awkwardly try and be a sibling to lil jason

This has been stuck in my head

Anon I got carried away with this one lol—

(Not proof read)

-ˋˏ✄┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-

The first thing you thought when you met Jason was ‘cute’.

He was so short, despite only being a year younger then you, with a little button nose splattered with freckles, and a mop of black hair that made him look even more deathly pale then he really was.

He reminded you of those feral kittens you’d see on the internet, all spicy and hissing.

So yeah, you thought he was cute.

Now normally, when you found something cute, you’d hug it and squeeze and squeeze and squeezeandsqueezeandsqueezeandsqueezeaNDSQUEEZEAND—

Aaaaand you get the point.

But you couldn’t do that, Alfred said no more squeezing and you weren’t sure you could trust yourself to just hug without squeezing so… best to avoid physical contact altogether.

So you found other ways to interact with the spicy kitty.

A little minor stalking never hurt, right?

I mean, it’s not like you had much else to do besides watching him constantly, you weren’t allowed to play with torture the local wild life anymore, so you had a lot of free time to get to know Jason. He just… didn’t really know you were doing that.

He does notice eventually though, he can only look for watchful eyes so many times before spotting you r hiding spots.

He hates it. What the fuck is your deal? He has enough going on with Dick kinda hating him and patrols with Bruce and adjusting to school and now he’s got a live-in stalker? Fuck that!

He refuses to go running to Bruce though, determined to deal with it himself. He’s dealt with worse, is what he keeps telling himself.

Eventually, you start hanging out in the same rooms as him, foregoing your previous lurking. Little by little, you’re suddenly everywhere, the living room, the dining room, school, the gardens, the library. Pretty much the only place he finds himself free of your presence is his room or the Batcave (you seem to have a staunch aversion to Bruce’s office anyway, like a vampire to holy ground).

Still, he refuses to tell Bruce of his constant shadow, no matter how unnerving your long stares and slow blinking can get.

On your end though? You’re doing great! Good job you! Unwavering eye contact is so hard but you did it! For ⊹ ₊ ⁺˚bonding˚⁺ ₊ ⊹!!! You’re practically a pro at this point!

And that’s where the gifts start coming into play.

Except you never really handed the gifts to him outright or ever explained how exactly you know what kinds of things he liked, mostly because that last part seemed obvious to you.

You started leaving things around for him, little things at first, like snacks you knew were his favorites finding there way outside his door, or giving him larger portions of food when you helped Alfred in the kitchen, tool kits left on the table with sparse notes of “hope you like it :p” attached, and most damning of all in Jason’s eyes, handing off your cookies to him when Alfred wasn’t looking with the lame excuse that you just didn’t like sweets much.

Which was bullshit!!! Sweet tooth or not, everyone liked Alfred’s cookies.

So yeah, to him you were still weird and creepy and a liar. Of that Jason was certain.

And fine, maybe all of those things might look really nice from a distance, but the way you went about it was what really freaked him out. You hardly ever talked, just hovering around his general vicinity and anytime he tried to start a conversation it was like you vanished into thin air with the only thing left in your wake being some new little trinket.

But to you? 10/10 big sibling work, nailed it completely! You didn’t even stick around long enough for the overwhelming urge to squeeze to kick in! Alfred would be so proud!

It comes to a head one day, long after he’d been established as Robin, when he comes home to find a blue bag on the dining table, along with one of your signature notes.

‘here ya go bluejay :p’

Bluejay. A nickname you’d bestowed upon him nearly a month after he moved in and as childish as it seemed, it irritated him to no end. He wasn’t some bluejay, he’s THE Robin, partner to the Batman and protector of Gotham. It felt silly, being upset when you didn’t even know about him and Bruce being the crime fighting duo, he knows that, it still stung though.

So finding that note, attached to a bag that was his favorite color, of which he was positive he’d never mentioned to you, he decided that this was the final straw. Marching off to where you’d most likely be.

He finds you curled up by the window in the library, book open in your lap as you flick a ball back and forth against the wall. The whole process of it wasn’t very consistent, every few tosses inevitably leading you to bat the ball around mid air in a struggle to keep it from falling from your hands. The whole display honestly reminded him of the alley cats when they’d catch a mouse they didn’t feel like eating yet.

Oh.

Oh.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph… you were a fucking cat.

You were just a weird fucking cat.

All at once, it seemed to click into place.

The shared common spaces yet never really interacting, the staring and the slow blinking, the odd gifts here and there, constantly trying to feed him—

The bag felt heavy in his hand now, the fight he’d been amping up for dissipating as his mind rewired itself.

You were still weird, his body rejecting any notion that you might not be, but… that could just be because you weren’t very socialized.

He backs away, ducking out of the room before you’d realize his presence. He really needed to process his frankly ludicrous conclusions about your character.

For a few weeks he agonized over it, even more hyper aware of your haunting eyes, until eventually he decides he might as well watch you back.

He did need to practice his sleuthing and data collection anyways, really this was all to help him be the best vigilante he could be, totally.

And you were so so happy he seemed to be reciprocating your displays of familial affection, especially when you weren’t used to being so un-physical with it. He’s even using the bag you gave him, you were damn near giddy.

And so it goes on like this, the two of you not so subtly stalking each other, ebbing and flowing, gradually escalating over the years, still refusing to breach the slowly cracking wall of actually talking to each other.

But all things have a breaking point and so too does the invisible barrier of awkward emotionally constipated feelings so often observed in the manors halls.

And the dam is overflowing, and you so so wish for the understanding, the care, the protection, the love and—

He died.

The dam runs dry. The walls are spackled and polished, not a crack in sight.

And in your young, impressionable mind, the thoughts that have loomed over you since your mother’s blood stained the kitchen tiles are reinforced: Everything Close to You Will Die.

-ˋˏ✄┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-┈-

I completely forgot I didn't post this oops-

Bruce: Reverts back into himself. Spends long hours at the batcomputer just… staring. Clicking through file after file, going back years, looking for something.  A sign? A clue? Anything? Where did he go wrong? At what point did you change? Because there had to be a change, he couldn't believe for even a second that you had always been this way, that he simply never noticed.

Surely there had to be a better answer. Could it be blackmail? Or mind control? Hell, he’ll even take a Harley and Joker situation if it meant you had not been acting of your own free will. He looks for any other reason, anything, if it meant he didn’t have to face this harrowing truth.

But eventually, he’ll be forced to come face to face with the fact you are, indeed, a cold blooded killer that knowingly and willingly murdered innocents to… what exactly? Provoke him? Or was this some horrible, desperate cry for attention? 

It never does cross his mind that you do it simply for your own enjoyment. 

Dick:  Almost as deluded about this as Bruce, but it’s less that he can't accept it and more that he refuses too. He also tries to look for where it all went wrong, but instead of looking through decades old documents, he goes to you directly. He'll try to confront you about it, get you to talk, vent, yell, anything. He’s looking for the slightest glimmer of remorse so he can keep his idealized version of you intact,

Sees it as a similar situation to Damian's, at least at first. Thinks if he gives you the affection you were denied growing up, that it will somehow fix you. So he tries to act the most normal around you. Which of course is infuriating because his perception of “normal” is nothing like how he actually used to treat you. He never ruffled your hair or patted your shoulders or hugged you or ANY OF IT!! This was never the norm and you will not for a second let him think otherwise.

So you fight, and push and shove and stab, yet despite all of your physical assaults, it's your verbal ones that finally break the camel's back. Finding out that the whole reason you started your near decade long killing spree was because you'd thought it'd been him you'd murdered, just… something in him snaps. He’ll still treat you as his precious little sibling, of course, but he’s no longer working under the assumption that you are as severely misguided as Damian was. 

Once he realizes you're scared of him, (albeit reluctantly) he’ll definitely be using that against you. He sees your fear as a form of guilt for what you’ve done, and if you feel guilty then he can help make you better, even if he has to force remorse from you. So if you’re going to fight, kick and scream and then he’s not gonna hold any punches either, if you can't handle that, well, then stop being so difficult.

You want me to be the bad guy? Fine, now I'm the bad guy.

Jason: He. Is. Pissed. Absolutely pissed. You now have first hand experience with how mean Jason's right hooks are.

Honestly? Might actually get the closest to disownment. You killed people he knew, people he cared about, people who depended on him for protection, his people and he… he failed. You had been right there this whole time, playing this sick game. 

How many nights had they spent prowling the streets for any sign of this ruthless butcher, when you'd been home sleeping soundly, with innocent blood on your hands and a pile of bodies left in your wake. How often had you lurked in the shadows of rooms, watching them as they tried to find even a hint of concrete evidence, how often had you snickered to yourself as they ran themselves ragged trying to save people from you.

And after everything you've done, you have the audacity to taunt them, spewing names of victims left and right, like a long list of trophies that you couldn’t care less about except for the simple act of possessing them. Some names he recognized and even more names he didn’t. It hurt, hurt so much and it made him so angry. Comes to be more upset that it doesn't really change his view of you, he can't seem to connect the scatterbrained and aloof older sibling that use to sneak him cookies to the brutal crimes that had further blighted Gotham's already decrypt streets.

 And yet he still comes back, after a while, couldn’t stay away even if he wanted to. His guilt wont let him, he didn’t just fail his people in crime alley, he failed you too.

And he won’t fail again.

Tim: Absolutely confused, how? HOW?? How did you keep this from them, how could you hide all this?? 

Is pretty angry obviously, you had all this capability and you waste it on…. This? Senseless violence? Gruesome mindless slaughter. Even with murder you did the bare minimum to not get caught by the family, exactly on the line, until incredibly recently, that is. 

Which just proves to him you could have always gone the full way, made sure you'd never get found, never caught, but you didn’t, instead you operated entirely on the basis of the family never noticing you, you had plans for every possible scenario, except this one, was that so far outside the realm of possibility for you? Them noticing you? Them loving you? Was that really so hard to believe?

 Them finally caring is what made you slip up. The family never would have caught you if they hadn't wised up to their own personal issues. Acknowledged the elephant that had sat in the room so long they forgot it was real, that its rough, gray skin was that of living, breathing flesh, not the cold harsh stone they had grown accustomed to passing by without so much as a glance. 

Well he won't look away again, he has to know you, know everything and how it all led to this. This is a whole other part of your life you kept locked up tight and he will chip at it piece by piece until the full picture finally reveals itself.

Maybe then he’ll finally feel close to you.

Damian: He's… surprisingly gentle about it? Lil bros about to start treating you like a cornered, wounded animal. He believes that if he could turn away from taking lives then you could too. He basically speed runs the whole, “Oh god you’re a monster that I helped create” and jumps right into “Ok, so I used to kill people and not feel bad about it. But then I learned that it's bad, actually. Now I fight for justice. Clearly I'm the most qualified to help guide my sibling to the path of good.”

Totally 180 from how he used to interact with you, unlike the rest of the family, who mostly just ignored you (or in Jason's case, dying before there was a positive lasting impact) you and Damian were at each others throats before you inevitably moved out.

 But he rarely ever rises to your goading and barbs now, doesn’t see it as productive for your rehabilitation. 

It’s such a whiplash from how everyone else is responding that you're genuinely stunned. But your bewilderment is quickly overcome by rage. He has the nerve to offer you a hand in grace after all he did? After he marred your own hands when you offered yours when he arrived. The audacity to preach of family, change and forgiveness after he spat in your face? When he was offended over having to dirty his sword with your tainted blood. All things considered, now that you've been exposed, you have a much harder time keeping your impulsive rage in check. 

But he’ll fix it. He’ll fix you. He has too. 

Cass: She can't look at you. It hurts too much. Even a glance sends her brain haywire, to many conflicting variables and movements and now none of them make sense and yet make all the sense in the world. She should have known, was raised and built to know, yet she missed this? Doesn't matter if she had spent the least amount of time with you or met you years later then the rest of the family, she should have seen it.

At every twitch of the finger and crinkle of your face, her mind screams one thing and her heart another, the choice of which to listen to would be obvious if she didn't know you could be kind. She’d seen it time and time again, you didn’t have to pet Titus or sneak him treats when you thought no one was looking, or let Alfred the cat sprawl across your lap because it was in the best sun spot, and you didn't have to take in that little girl when you had no obligation and fight for her the way the family never did for you. That was kind.

But you also didn't have to cut down innocent people and silently terrorize the streets of Gotham. You didn't have to carve your way through body after body, without a care in the world for who would get hurt. You didn't have to be cruel, but you were.

So you were cruel and you could be kind. She wasn’t sure what to believe. But she hoped.

Alfred: Cracks open a bottle of the hardest whiskey he owns and actually neglects his duties around the manor for two whole days, something he hasn't done since the deaths of Martha and Thomas Wayne or Jason. Can’t help but blame himself entirely, thinking back to all the things he felt should’ve been handled differently. 

 He should have pushed harder for Master Bruce to acknowledge you, never should’ve allowed that incident in elementary slip away without so much as a word about it, shouldn’t have let himself get caught up in the arrival of a new bright eyed little boy. He shouldn't have let the fights in high school go as mere grief wrapped up in teen angst. But how could he have forced Bruce to see the obvious signs that even Alfred himself never acknowledged?

How does he face you now, knowing just how severely he failed you. He knows the sleepless nights the family endured tracking you, endless case files filled to the brim with the blood and gore you left scattered across the streets of Gotham. How can he look you in the eye when he can no longer ignore what he sees there.

Regrettably, he feels a part of him always knew.

Okay this took way longer to write then I wanted (It’s Dicks fault) but hey! Reactions! Yayyyy! Lemme know what you think because I know a lot of people have been wanting to know the Batfams inevitable reactions and I hope I did it justice.

They see SK!Reader having some lil kid following them around is gonna make the tabloids go crazy

It doesn’t even occur to you that you probably should have been more secretive about this unceremonious (and not strictly legal) adoption, but things are always clearer in hindsight, huh? 

The kid won’t leave your side for barely a second (you really should try asking for her name, “kid” is only gonna get you so far) so it’s unsurprising when the very next day after taking the kid shopping for new clothes, the internet is flooded with tabloids about it, complete with various pictures of the kid sitting on your shoulders, or the two of you walking around with matching rabbit shirts. (you had seen her eyeing it in the store, getting one for yourself had been the only way the kid would admit that she wanted it) What WAS surprising however, were the headlines.

 “New Bruce Wayne adoptee??” 

“Bruce Wayne's newest ward?” 

“Mr. Wayne's latest addition! Adopted? Or a secret love child?”

Oh this…. This would absolutely not do.

Within the hour, you had rocked up to Vicki Vale’s building, complete with the kid, the matching shirts, smoothies in hand, and promptly walked past the receptionist and into Vicki’s office.

“You need to fix this,” is all you say while tossing your phone onto her desk, her latest article on the screen, “it’s wrong.”

Vicki, of course, was shocked, interrupted on her lunch break, “Excuse me?” was all she could get out as she watched the little girl glance up at you, then turning to face her, mimicking your pose and accusing stare.

Leaning down, you tap the phone screen, “Your article, it’s wrong. The kid isn't Bruce's. She’s never even met him. So,” pointedly taking a sip of your smoothie, you slide your phone to the edge of the desk and into little hands, “you need to change it.”

Glancing between the two of you as the sounds of electric gunfire echo from the device in the girls hands, Vicki quickly puts herself together, smiling as she clasps her hands together, “Oh I’d be happy too,” tilting her head as she adds, "if you would be so kind as to clarify who she is?”

Straightening from where you’d been leaning over her desk, you smile as you turn for the door, “That's a dumb question,” you wave away Vicki's protests as you slide the kid out of the office, 

“She’s my kid, obviously.”

You wait a second after you close the door, listening for the shout of “WHAT!?” from the other side, before tucking the kid under your arm and hightailing it out of the building.

Halfway home, your phone beeps, a new tabloid from Vicki Vale has been published in record time.

“Exclusive interview! Bruce Wayne; Grandfather?”

Ugh, It wasn’t great… but it’d have to do.

.........Ooooookay, I guess yall really liked my serial killer!reader? I guess I'm honor bound to continue??? Oh noooo, the horrorrrr. But seriously, I'm glad! Because it only gets worse from here! >:}

Anyway, this was really difficult to write because I literally could not find good starting and stopping points, I tried to make my thoughts flow into each other as seamlessly as possible but there's SO MUCH I wanna write for this, it’s eating me alive, (also like, feel free to send asks bc I get sidetracked a lot in my writing and looove just answering questions as jumping off points, so please gimme gimme)

That being said, enjoy!

WARNING for disturbing imagery, untreated mental illness and trauma, blood, and depictions of murder (seriously)

So obviously, this M/c is a serial killer, so how do they go about keeping this hidden while simultaneously living with the world's greatest detectives?

Simple, ya don't.

Okay so that's not completely true. Compared to the average criminal, you put in a lot of effort to not get caught, but the average criminal doesn’t live with THE Batman either

Compared to the rest of your family though? You basically put in the bare minimum required to hide your… unsavory activities

Of course, you'll wash your blood soaked clothes yourself, in the lesser used washrooms of the manor, but once in a blue moon, when you’re too tired to care or your catch of the night put up a greater fight then anticipated, you'll throw your tainted clothes in with the rest of the families

And they just… don't fucking notice.

Or when they do, they just assume that one of the others had an unfortunate run in with some criminal while in civvies 

You've overheard many admonishments from Dick or Alfred over the years, telling Tim or Jason to “Please stop putting bloody clothes in with the whites, there's a basket for them two feet away!”

It was always pretty hard trying to keep a straight face when hearing those scoldings, but you always did, you didn't want Damian demanding to know what was so funny and dampening your mood

Or Cass giving you one of her calculated looks and suddenly getting nosy, that would make losing your clothes to Tim’s closet a lot less worth the laugh.

It’s just that, this assumption is waaaaay more plausible then say, the serial killer they've been tracking relentlessly for literal years, is just…tossing their VERY incriminating evidence in with the family's laundry, then passing out on some couch in one of the many sitting rooms of the manor, while the family goes out and discovers their latest victim

It's just easier to assume it was one of the others, Dick would never connect you, of all people, to the gore tossed haphazardly in the hamper, it's way more likely to be one of the many crime fighters of the family, not the soft spoken hermit of the manor, and even if that was a possibility in his mind, you don't even have a scratch on you

Not that he’s ever bothered to check you for injuries before, like he does almost religiously for the others

And Alfred? Well he's of the belief you'd grown out of your… tendencies, that it was a one time thing. Despite his reputation as an omnipotent presence in the manor, he never did realize just how deep your mental issues ran. Not until it was far too late.

You don't even have a specific weapon either, half of the time you'll just take one of Alfred's steak knives and hit the lower levels of Gotham, wandering around the decrepit streets till you found someone suitable 

Other times, when you’re in an exceptionally bad mood, be it because Damian said something particularly venomous or Alfred missing an important event for you because something came up with one of your siblings, or even when your classmates decided it would be funny to key your car-

Or it's just one of those days

Those days when the abstract voices simmer louder in the back of your mind, pushing and nagging. Images that you desperately want to forget but can't help the need to recreate. All threatening to boil over until you either crumble into a sobbing heep on the floor or go out and do the one thing that has always been able to shut. them. up.

Those days you’re… forgetful

On those days, you forget to grab one of Alfred’s pristine knives, but that's fine, Gothams streets are littered with dangerous items, so there's no shortage of tools at your disposal. You're creative, resourceful, you can use whatever's on hand at the time, whatever's in reach.

But if there's nothing? No sharp objects, no discarded bricks or loose pipes or even a half empty beer bottle, well… you're no stranger getting your hands dirty

Those times however, are pretty hazy in the aftermath.

You’ll forget certain details, like how they gripped your arms in a vain attempt to draw your own blood as you drew theirs, in the event that if they dont get away, at least you'd be caught, (all it leaves are dark, tender bruises along your arms, that you'll spend weeks poking and prodding at, in the hopes of reliving that moment)

Or how they'd flail their legs, inches from the ground, trying to kick your legs out from beneath you (it was kinda cute, how much shorter they were then you, how little their attempts to free themselves did when it mattered the most)

Even their last, warbling pleas for mercy were lost to you. You know they said something, could vaguely recall that they spoke, too absorbed in watching their bloody lips turn blue as the oxygen in their body slowly ran out (No no please please…My girls are waiting)

No, no you don't remember much but what you do remember, what you always, always remember, are the eyes 

You remember the tears, the fear, the acceptance, the rage, the refusal, the disbelief, the confusion, the indignation, and most of all the recognition. 

Whether it be them recognizing just who you are or realizing that this is who will end their life, you don't know, you’ve never bothered to ask. 

You prefer to think it’s the latter, it's hard to explain, but it makes you feel so so important

When it’s over, and the adrenaline in your veins soften, your breathing calmer, the blood rushing through your ears no longer so deafening, and you can feel the pleasing ache in your limbs, you sit, and asses the damage, as you always do

You always make sure to grab their wallet, take out the ID and memorize it, before gingerly putting it back, and finally walking away, head clear and numb in the cold Gotham air

There's no real reason why, its mostly force of habit at this point, it started with your very first kill, you don't feel like breaking the little ritual now, or anytime soon

It just feels wrong, to take a life and not even know whose life it is...was.

Later, long past any reasonable hour, you lay in bed, fresh out of the shower and thumbing the bruises, listening to the voices over the family's communicators (you stole one of Dicks, he has a nasty habit of leaving them around the manor) as they patrol the Gotham streets for crime and mayhem

You honestly can't help the small smile that graces your face, falling into sleep, as you hear the quiet, defeated sigh over the highly protected com link, “B, I've found another one, it's…it’s pretty rough tonight”

The pause is long before a small, gruff, “I have your location, ETA in 10 minutes”

You slept pretty good that night

Damn, sometimes the shit I come up with scares even me, again, feel free to send asks (shh I'm not begging), the brain worms are always hungry and I have sooooo many thoughts about this thing. lol 

It would be an easier pill to swallow if they were like Jason and killed criminals , but no, they kill innocent people.

dozens of people gone and the culprit not being stopped because they just…didn’t see the signs?!

imagine she sheer chaos that would come about if people found out their identity as a Wayne? There is absolutely no way that people would believe that Bruce just allowed this to happen, he’d go from brucie Wayne the philanthropic himbo to another morally bankrupt billionaire who let his kid kill people for funsies.

even if the public believed the truth everyone would -rightfully- blame him for literally having a Chinese parade's worth of red flags in the damn face, in his own home and not seeing it

Not me giggling smiling and kicking my feet over this, the worms are eating gooooood today ya'll.

So, like I said in my last post, before even writing most of this stuff I made sure that I had a whole timetable of important events and how old the characters are during them and what not, so I DO know how the MC gets caught. Though that could be subject to change if I find something more interesting

 That being said, I never really planned for the general public to find out about readers' crimes. Once the bat fam finally catches on and tries to huddle them away, as far as the rest of Gotham is concerned, this major serial killer is still at large.

I also really really wanted to make it clear that y/n? Is not a good person.

 Be it by circumstance or their own making, they simply just aren't. Yes, the hand they were dealt by fate was cruel and painful, but they chose which direction they went in based on their life experiences. Reader is fully aware of that, and is rather peeved with the batfams pity party on how it’s “all their fault you’re like this”

 Because??? No? It's not??? Sure, they definitely didn’t fucking help, and most times made it worse with their actions, but you already had a slew of mental issues that were left unchecked, genetic ones inherited from your mother and father, and those formed by early childhood trauma and neglect. But you chose this, they didn't hand you the knife and or force your hands around your victims necks. It was all you. You wouldn't let them take the one form of control you had left.

Obviously you were not inherently evil because of forces out of your control, but you did choose it, and you will not let them delude themselves into thinking otherwise. Hurt people, hurt people, as the saying goes.

 But does that make what the batfam are doing okay? Keeping the reader locked within the Manor, the family taking on the roles of Judge, Jury and Executioner and thus denying the General Public and the victims families the right to Justice, as well as denying the reader the right to a fair trial.

SK!Reader: The only thing I will be waving is your decapitated head on a stick in front of your weeping mother.

Dick: …… good lord