vault 11389
i want to eat these fics in a full-course meal
(Open, Moderated)
Random works
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i’m no hero / starting back at zero by Forestfire34720
Fandoms: DCU, Batman - All Media Types, Teen Titans - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics)
15 Jun 2020
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Summary
“Once upon a time, Dick Grayson had made his own light. He was a light, a beacon of hope beside the bat, cutting through every shadow. A guiding star in the darkest of nights.
Nightwing is just a hollow shadow of the great man he might have become.”
Robin didn’t escape Deathstroke and Renegade was born. Eight years later, Deathstroke is dead and Nightwing has made his debut. But just because his master is gone doesn’t mean he’s free.
Series
- Part 1 of Die a Villain
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hand in unlovable hand (a chokehold) by britishparty
Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics)
30 Sep 2022
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Tim Drake is eleven years old when he’s grabbed off the streets of Bristol while he’s on his way home. It will be okay, he tells himself: they’ll call his parents, and they’ll pay the ransom, and he’ll get to go home.
There are pictures of Batman and Robin on the camera he was carrying. A lot of pictures.
They don’t call his parents. They call Black Mask.
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or: the one where Black Mask kidnaps Tim and tries to groom him into a ruthless heir, and Tim tries to figure out how to destroy him from the inside out.General warnings tagged, anything not covered by those is in end-of-chapter notes to avoid spoilers.
Series
- Part 1 of blackbird singing in the dead of night
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When Damian is nine, and his mother is visiting him for a fortnight, his mother brings someone to the compound where they live.
The stranger is tall, and strong, and injured.
His mother isn't showing it, not to anyone who doesn't know her, but she's worried.
Series
- Part 4 of Alley Business
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He stares at his own face, lying unconscious on the roof of his apartment building, mouth splayed open and the tiniest scrape from Miles’s claws on his cheek. Miles takes a halting step forward and lightly kicks the limp body with a steel toe.
“That’s my jacket,” Miles says flatly, because he can’t think of anything else to say. “That bastard.”
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or, legacies run hot, then cold, then hot again.
Series
- Part 3 of needless to say i—
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“Don’t you recognize us?” the large man asks him, a frown on his face.
“Well, we do all look very different than we did two decades ago,” the man in the hoodie rolls his eyes. “Of course he’s not going to recognize us.” The others ignore him, which Klaus thinks is quite rude, but he’s not going to say as much and risk getting stabbed.
“Klaus, it’s me,” the leather guy repeats. “Diego. Your brother.”
Klaus’ eyes bug out of his skull—that’s the craziest thing he’s heard all year.
or, AU where Klaus runs away from home when he's ten-years-old—just a few months later, his fully grown siblings fall out of a portal in the sky.
Random bookmarks
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The “seeing ghosts” thing didn’t really bother him.
Jason could do without the constant mother-henning from one in particular, though.
Series
- Part 2 of dead man's party
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What Makes A Hero by patrochilles_trash
Fandoms: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
06 Apr 2021
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Standing in front of Mrs. Davis, handing over a stick of plastic and circuitry, he wondered how Tony even talked him into making the video in the first place.
“Thank you, Mr. Parker. You may return to your seat,” she said with a smile.
Peter nodded in response and turned to walk back to his desk, ignoring the feeling that he was walking to his death sentence.
He fought down wave after wave of nausea as she plugged the flash drive into her computer and scrolled through the files until she found the one that he titled ‘Hero Project.’ Neither Ned nor MJ even knew what he had done for his project. He had refused to tell them out of fear that he would lose his nerve.
Mrs. Davis casted her screen to the projector in front of the board and pressed the play button.
There was no going back.
OR
The identity reveal in the least likely format I have ever written. This might be crack? Sort of? Idk.
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Jason Todd's Guide to Traumatized Teenagers by britishparty
Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics), Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010)
09 Dec 2022
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“What did he do to you?” It’s the only thing Jason can think to ask.
“Sionis?” Tim looks surprised—but so politely surprised, so neutrally surprised, that he’s almost not surprised at all. “He kidnapped me, then he tortured me, then he taught me to run a criminal empire. And then I killed him.”
Jason hears the words without really processing them. Tim’s delivery is so flat that it makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
Something’s wrong here, every part of Jason’s brain is telling him.
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Timothy Drake, the kid who's spent the last five years being groomed by Black Mask, shows up in Jason's safehouse asking for help to interrupt Scarecrow's plans. he's allegedly just a kid with good intentions, but he's got more red flags than personality traits and Jason shouldn't want to help him, but. well. he's Jason.Series
- Part 2 of blackbird singing in the dead of night
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 21,842
- Chapters:
- 3/3
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- 732
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Bookmarked by aerois
31 Jan 2023
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“Sionis?” Tim looks briefly surprised—but so politely surprised, so neutrally surprised, that he’s almost not surprised at all. “He kidnapped me, then he tortured me, then he taught me to run a criminal empire. More or less in that order. And then I killed him.”
Jason hears the words without really processing them. Tim’s delivery is so flat, so unbothered, that it makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Something’s wrong here, every part of Jason’s brain is telling him. Tim doesn’t seem like a supervillain but his demeanor is so disconcerting it’s hard to remember he’s a good guy.
It’s hard to remember he’s a kid.
But part of what he said, Jason hears loud and clear. “You didn’t kill him. I did.” He remembers that well enough: the gun, the kid. The anger. And the blood that came after.
Tim considers his next words for a few seconds. “You were the weapon I chose to kill him,” he says, after a pause. “I’m not going to let you take credit for all three of us being there at the right time, when he was mad enough that shooting him was your best option.”
Wait. Wait, hold on a damn second. “You were the one that set up everything that night?”
Tim just says, “Oh, didn’t you already know that?” He adjusts the string of the tea bag in his mug, and continues, “Well, I’d spent so long setting Black Mask up, that it wasn’t really a decision about whether or not to leave his organization intact. You were easy to get into the right place at the right time. And when you revealed yourself to me afterwards—well, I knew I could use you to distract Batman and Nightwing for a while.”
Jason—Jason feels his jaw tighten. Jason served a purpose for Tim. It was—the guy who told Jason where to find Tim, who told him Tim would be in danger. Tim—
He set Jason up. He—it was a trick, all of it, even the fucking fear in Tim’s eyes. Jason remembers the crawling discomfort when he watched Tim’s eyes go dark, go cold, once Black Mask was just a body.
That's why he came to Jason to ask for help with Scarecrow. Because he knew playing the part of the nervous kid asking for help would work.
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Finders Keepers by TaraLaurel
Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types, Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics)
15 Feb 2023
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Summary
"So, here's how it's gonna go. You're gonna pay for two tickets so I can take you all the way home and tucked in like good rich kids should be. Then you're gonna give me the money for a ticket back here, and maybe some more for a sandwich as payment for this good deed."
"Don't people usually do a good deed, like, because it's good? Not for a reward."
"Most people got sandwiches. Most people don't wander around Gotham in the middle of the damn night."
OR
When a young Tim gets lost late at night in Gotham, an older boy finds him, saves his life - twice - and takes him home. And then just...doesn't leave.
Series
- Part 6 of Tim Joins BatFam AUs
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 12,057
- Chapters:
- 3/?
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- 278
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- 2,725
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- 626
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Bookmarked by aerois
12 Feb 2023
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Tim's eyes blink open.
The man is leaning toward them, round, large body blocking the alley's only exit. The kid stands between them, his back toward Tim. His body looks loose, but there is something tense in his back and arms. The arm that had grabbed Tim is stuck out behind the boy, an extra barrier as if the rest of his body isn't enough. The hand is in a fist. Tim has the stupid, sudden urge to reach out and grasp it.
"Hey, hey," and there's the gravel, "I was just offering -"
"I've seen you 'round," the kid interrupts, "your offers usually sound more like threats." A small hand reaches into a pocket and in one fluid motion, the older boy has a knife out and brandished in front of him. "Wanna example?"
The man's Adam's apple gives a satisfying bob. The small stranger is half the guy's size, but has twice the bite behind his words. It would make Tim shiver if it wasn't being pointed as a weapon to defend him. Instead, it just makes him warm.
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“Okie-dokes.” Kuroba shakes himself, and then turns to wave at the waiting group of suspects and witnesses with a reassuring smile. They stare blankly at him.
“They’re traumatized, Kaito-san.”
“I know. That’s why I’m being nice.”
Shinichi grabs Kuroba’s jacket and starts yanking him toward the group, ignoring his annoyed muttering. In Kuroba’s defense, he’s very good at looking reassuring. It’s just a lot less effective when he’s standing next to the corpse.
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When a magician seemingly murders an audience member in the middle of a show, no one but Conan can even begin to figure out all the tricks of this case. Naturally, Megure talks to Nakamori, who recommends the one and only magic expert that he knows: Kuroba Kaito.
- Language:
- English
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- 22,016
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- 3/3
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- 190
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- 1,539
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Bookmarked by aerois
02 May 2024
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Shinichi is drawn to details. Always has been. He’s a detail-oriented person, sometimes to a fault, always overwhelmed by the little things, because the little things give him the greater answer. Because the little things keep him alive, long past when he’s supposed to be dead, with his head caved in on the concrete edge of an amusement park.
First, light. The regular lighting was restored to the theater after the police arrived, so the ceiling lights are on, and the stage lights are off. A thin beam of light comes from a door beyond the wings—a quick glance reveals that it leads outside, likely to some sort of loading area for larger props.
Second, dust. The stage was swept before the show, but dust has begun to lightly settle on the floorboards again. The wood is old, the stage is probably just as old. The newer venue was likely built around it, a theater of Theseus. There are pale dust patterns on the curtains where they fold, faded pink in places where the red fabric has been exposed to stage lighting for too many years. There aren’t any footprints to note, but the dust isn’t as thick in the center or the left side of the stage.
Third, anything out of place. Despite Endou’s claim of a wire trick in the rafters, there’s no sign of it anywhere above. He’ll have to check backstage with Kuroba later. The floorboards are loose with old warping, so much so that it’s a miracle Endou didn’t trip during his show. The curtains are a hair fraction off-center, but that can be explained by the relative newness of the staff. There is no organic material onstage that Shinichi can find, not even hair. There’s some residue near the center that marks some familiar tricks—the sort of faint dark smudges left behind by smoke and flash bombs. Scratches mar the wood where equipment has been dragged around. A single wire lies abandoned on the stage, unclipped, snaking down below the back curtain.
Kuroba, for his part, flits around the stage like a hyperactive butterfly. Or maybe a particularly fluttery bird, with the way he tilts his head at every curious sight. He’s entirely comfortable up here, paying the watching audience no mind, even as their eyes track him and Shinichi both. At one point, he even waves to the little girl he gave the flower to. She waves back. Both of them ignore the corpse of Hirai Yuka, who is lying, throat exposed, in the second row.
Shinichi can’t quite figure out what Kuroba is looking for. It must be something specific. He’s got an expression of scrunched-nose focus on his face that looks, for some reason, incorrect—like it’s not how his face actually looks when he’s concentrating, but the emotion underneath is the same. A mask of a feeling to obscure the same feeling, entirely purposeless.
Kuroba’s eyes track the ceiling and the wings of the stage, slowly, looking at something only he can see. He shakes the curtains, waves his hands in the air, and at one point even flips over into a handstand, like he’ll be able to see better upside-down. Fluttery, flighty. Butterflies and birds.