Capes are multipurpose!

Bat Pack

Read on AO3: Here

@bunnvoid Thanks for the inspiration!

“Oh my gods,” Stephanie chokes out, eyes scrunched happy and wide. “Oh my gods.”

Dick laughs, too. Bounces Damian a little higher on his shoulders and finishes tying the cape in a secure knot. Then, tentatively, he lets go, bracing himself to catch the kid if the tie doesn’t hold. The kid’s been pretty complacent, but there’s no way he’d continue to let them get away with this if Dick accidentally dropped him on his ass.

Nothing. Everything is secure.

Stephanie wheezes, and Dick grins at her, swaying a little bit and feeling Damian’s weight sway with him, tucked up against his back like a koala. The cape, wrapped around the way that it is, has essentially become one of those baby carrier things.

“Bat Pack!” he mock-whispers at Stephanie, and she snorts, high pitched.

It’s hilarious, in that sleep-deprived way these things are. Laughter bubbles up inside his chest and he lets it fly free, shoulders shaking. Spoiler swings her feet higher to brace against the wall of the worn apartment building she’s sitting on, leans forward to cover her face and muffle her own laughter. 

Not enough: he feels Dami’s head dip low and then lift again, hair tickling the back of his neck. Awake, then, and probably disoriented as all hell after his little impromptu nap. The kid must make some sort of face at Stephanie, because she cheerfully grins and offers a little wave.

“Tt.”

Small nose, soft cheek, pressing against his shoulder through the padding of the Nightwing suit. This whole affair, apparently, isn’t worth Robin’s attention. Dick shifts, re-settling Dami’s weight into something more comfortable, so that legs hitch higher on his torso. Stephanie scrambles and then raises her phone, the armoured purple of her gloved hands glinting with the light from the streetlamps below. 

Dick throws a peace sign. Damian gives a muffled grunt but otherwise doesn’t protest, probably half-conscious already.

“Stop fooling around. Your brother has a concussion.”

Nightwing swings around, winces when Damian gives a quiet groan in protest and jabs him in the side for the jarring movement. In apology, he pats one of those thick green combat boots. 

Robin’s forehead comes to rest against his neck again: apology accepted.

Batman watches with a rather unimpressed look on his face. Behind him, Stephanie makes a low ‘Ooooh‘ sound that Dick flaps a hand at before turning his best charming grin towards Bruce. The slump of the Bat’s soldiers implies mild exasperation rather than any outright annoyance, so Dick decides to push his luck.

“But B,” he says, giving a slow turn to show off the true ingenuity of the Bat Pack, “He doesn’t mind. Isn’t that right, Babybird?”

There’s a pause, and all of them wait out the slow processing time.

Damian doesn’t disappoint.

“....fuck- fuck you.”

Dick’s smile, if anything, gets wider. Damian still hasn’t lifted his head: that insult was purely a matter of principle rather than a sign of any real vindictive emotions.

“See? Perfectly comfy-cozy.”

A wild Stephanie appears by his side, pats the kid on the back of his head. The look on her face is a pinnacle example of a shit-eating grin if he’s ever seen one. 

“Soft kitty, warm kitty,” she sings-songs, voice hitching on a laugh as she goes along, “little ball of fur.”

Nightwing feels another exhausted chortle building in his own throat. “You’re right, you’re so right-”

She winks in response and continues on, elbowing him in lieu of verbally inviting him to join in.

Which he does. Happily. Joining in on these sort of things is a part of the big brother code. He’s just doing his duty. Really.

“Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr, purr, purr!”

They turn to face Bruce after their little impromptu performance, who is trying his best to seem unaffected but has a little twitch to the corner of his mouth that gives him away. Dick accepts the not-at-all subtle high five Stephanie gives him, refusing to wince even as Damian jabs him in the side again for revenge.

Oracle’s voice filters in through the comns, sounding vaguely amused.

“If you’re done with your shenanigans for tonight, your ride’s waiting for you downstairs.”

Stephanie whoops, throwing her hands in the air. He doesn’t blame her: it’s been a long patrol, and they’ve been waiting for almost forty five minutes now, for someone to come and pick them up. He’s excited to get back to the manor and sleep. 

….After they get Dami checked out properly, of course. 

Apparently working on the same train of thought, Batman comes closer, doesn’t quite touch his fingers to Robin’s head. “Are you okay.”

A nod. Dick feels the slide of Damian’s cheek shifting up and down.

It’s enough to convince Bruce. One after the other, Batman and then Spoiler vanish over the rooftop, moving on to another conversation. Dick catches the telltale end of Steph’s question, something about stopping for milkshakes, but Bruce’s answer is swallowed by the wind. 

He shifts, glances over the edge of the apartment complex, and hesitates. Damian lifts his head again so that his bony little chin is digging into the chink of his suit’s kevlar, a dull pressure.

It’s a long way down.

“One second, kiddo, let’s rearrange a little, okay?”

The only answer he gets is a grunt. He takes it as acceptance and works on shifting the Bat Pack so that Damian is pressed against his front rather than his back, resettling the cape so that it continues supporting most of the boy’s weight. Satisfied with his handiwork, he glances down and tries to catch Robin’s eyes. There’s a bandage stretched across his hairline, a glaring reminder of the blow he’d taken to the head only a couple scant hours before. 

It feels a little more secure, like this. If something happens, Dick will be able to catch him. 

“Ready?”

The kid blinks up at him, once, twice, the widened lenses of the mask giving away how disoriented he must be. Dick smiles, and Damian squirms to get comfortable. Places his small head into the crook between Dick’s neck and shoulder and sighs, quietly. The wind whistles loudly around them, and somewhere in the distance a car blasts its horn loudly. Below, Stephanie laughs.

“...Get it over with.”

“Okay. Hold on tight.” He smirks. “Kitty.”

Damian groans. “Jus’- Just…. shut up.”

“Oooh, what a comeback.”

“Hate you.”

He still hasn’t lifted his head. Two small hands curl around his waist.

“Uhuh. Sure you do, kiddo.”

“Tt.”

And with that, Dick swings himself over the roof and starts to grapple down the waiting earth below.

I cannot write fanfiction to save my life but just-

empath Reynie AU

That is all.

these hollow bones

@cronch-goes-the-weasel​

Read on AO3 here

Reynie Muldoon has always been a little bit odd according to the others in the orphanage. He reads instead of sitting in front of the telly, and enjoys tea over sweets, and has an uncanny way of knowing exactly what anyone is feeling at any moment in time.

The children call it being nosy, and this isn’t true in the slightest. The caretakers call it perceptiveness, and Reynie is indeed a very perceptive little boy, but that isn’t it either. Miss Perumal calls it being empathetic, calls it being kind, and she is perhaps the closest of them all.

He thinks.

Reynie isn’t quite sure what to call the emotions that linger around people, all the days of their lives. They’re not quite colours and they’re not quite shapes, but perhaps something in between. There’s an emphasis to them, and most of the time he can just watch the way the emotions dance around the people who carry them, but sometimes he can’t. Sometimes the emotions seem to curl up into the hollows of his bones, the hollows of his chest, and there’s nothing he can quite do about it. 

In an orphanage full of isolation and children’s particular brands of cruelty, this is both a blessing and a curse. He wonders if it is harder or easier to bear bullying and snide comments when you know exactly how much your peers are aching underneath their anger.