It All Starts In English, As A Surprising Amount Of Things In Wirt’s Life Do. They’re Reading Poems

Gwen would be characterised by anyone but herself as a prodigy with a sword. That would be, if she let anyone see what she can do.

She started beating Elyan when she was six. It took her far longer to beat her father for the first time but whenever she lost he would tell her that she just needed some time to get a little stronger. Some time to grow up.

Gwen beats her father for the first time when she’s fourteen. He smiles from where he’s lying on the floor with a knowing look.

“I told you so.” he manages, despite how winded he is.

She rolls her eyes and let’s the glow of pride set a fire in her chest.

~

Gwen is twenty-two years old and has been the Lady Morgana’s maid servant for a little under a year. She’s a prodigy at it and this time she does let people see. She spends all the time she has with Morgana and all the rest of it practicing with a sword in the forge’s yard.

It takes longer for anyone to notice than she thought it would.

She’s practising behind her father’s forge. Moving through the same jabs and cuts she’s repeated a thousand times before. It feels good, like it always does. It feels powerful.

“Well aren’t you full of surprises?” Lady Morgana calls wryly from the forge and Gwen almost drops her sword.

“You’re not supposed to be here.” she hisses, forgetting just about everything she’s ever learned about how to treat those of higher stations than hers. “Sorry.” she tags on the end, like that would stop a regular noble from having her beheaded for such words.

“Don’t be.” Morgana smiles slyly. “You could probably put Arthur on his arse with moves like those.”

Gwen is immensely lucky that Morgana isn’t a regular noble. “I’m sure that he would be a formidable opponent.” she says diplomatically.

Morgana grins, because she loves Arthur just like Gwen loves Elyan, but she isn’t meeting Gwen’s eyes and seems hesitant in a way that’s unlike her.

“Yes, milady?” Gwen prompts.

“I don’t suppose-“ Morgana’s eyes dart to the sword rack in the corner of the yard. “I don’t suppose you could teach me?”

Gwen smiles, relief flooding her. “Of course”

After all, it would hardly be proper for her to refuse a request from the Lady Morgana.

“Did you hear that?” whispers Callum to the more hardened criminals around him. They snort in derision at his caution, just the new guy being on edge about the job, but he keeps his gun held tight in his hand.

“I heard it too.” says Tony, the other new guy. He doesn’t look as worried as Callum because fine maybe Callum is a bit nervous about this whole ‘becoming a criminal’ thing but he can see that Tony holds his gun with just as tight a grip. “Sounded a bit like laughing, yeah?”

The rest of the gang goes very still and Callum feels like he might be missing something.

“Yeah,” Callum agrees cautiously, “like a little kid.”

Someone swears. Everyone turns so that someone else is defending their back.

“What’s the problem?.” Callum asks, also turning to keep someone at his back.

The laughter sounds again, clearer this time and that’s definitely a little kid. It makes even some of the more hardened men in the room flinch.

“Anyone here got a problem shooting a kid?” asks the member of their group that Callum thinks might be in charge.

What he really wants to say is yes I do have a problem shooting a kid that really isn’t what I thought I was signing up to here but Callum thinks that saying any of that would be a very good way to have the guys shoot him instead of the kid. He doesn’t want that either so he stays silent and pretends that he’s cool with everything that’s happening here.

Turns out that he doesn’t need to worry about shooting any kids.

Turns out that kids are more likely to shoot you.

They don’t even see the boy before there are sharp things knocking the guns out of their hands and, just as Callum tries to pick his up, tiny fingers are around his neck and he’s blacking out before managing to put up even the imitation of a fight.

~

Callum wakes up he doesn’t know how long later. He’s in the ally behind the warehouse he’d been in when he got knocked out. A kid in a domino mask is perched on the street light across from him.

“You should get a different job,” the kid says to him, “you’re too scared for this one.”

Callum would have loved to have said something cutting back, the kind of one liner the real bosses can come up with in an instant, but his throat is sore from being squeezed shut and his head is swimming so all he comes up with is a raspy, “am not” as he tries not to puke.

“Your hands are shaking.”

Shit, they are. Callum sends as scathing a look as he can at his traitorous hands. The effort of that actually does make him puke and he’s forced to ignore the somewhat pitying look the kid is sending his way.

“Yikes, you really aren’t suited to this kind of thing, are you? Maybe you should try and get one of those construction jobs going at that place round the corner. Oh! Or you could be a chef! I think you’d make a great chef.” The kid looks behind himself at something Callum’s vision is too blurry to see. “I’ve gotta go, but it was nice meeting you. Hopefully see you never, yeah?”

The kid backflips off the street light for no discernible reason.

Callum lies on his back and stares at his hands for twenty minutes until they stop shaking. For the whole time he thinks about how the construction place round the corner already rejected him and there aren’t any jobs for chefs in this part of town.

the most iconic squad on the entire boiling isles, actually

sensing a little bit of a pattern with you

I just watched the Batman 

Amity joins the Emperor’s Coven

Amity Blight is perfect.

She has perfect grades and a perfect family and is exactly the kind of person that’s going to grow up and fit in perfectly at the Emperor’s Coven. When Lilith isn’t busy being proud of her she can’t help but feel a little jealous of the child for never having to be second best to anyone.

That’s all until the human arrives.

Before Lilith can even begin to process the situation Amity is deviating from the careful path of perfection Lilith has so painstakingly laid out for her. She still has perfect grades and she’s still the youngest daughter of the Blight family, all that prestige and none of it tying her down, but suddenly her allegiances are questionable.

She’s spending too much time with the human. Too much time with Eda. Too much time with people who could steer her away from the path she must take.

So before things can go too awfully, before Eda can ruin this perfect little girl like she ruins everything else, Lilith makes a proposal.

“How would you like to become the youngest member of the Emperor’s Coven?” She says, all warmth and approval in the way she knows the girl’s parents never are.

Amity’s face lights up and Lilith tries not to think too much about how the guilt churning in her stomach makes her feel a little like when she cursed her sister.

“What do you want?” Barbara asks, voice crackling with static.

It’s a silly question. Tim wants crime rates to go down. Tim wants Gotham to be a safer city. Tim wants to be a part of making that happen.

“A code name that isn’t stupid.” he says instead.

Barbara sighs. It doesn’t sound like a sigh though. It just sounds like the static’s getting louder.

~

“Bernard Dowd, scholar of the ages.” Tim laughs, arm slung round Bernard's shoulder. “I thought you were meant to be the fun one?”

“I am.” Bernard groans, “as soon as these exams are done I’ll be back to the usual student life. Getting drunk, going on dates, Gotham won’t know what’s hit it.”

“Going on dates?” Tim asks jokingly, even as a well hidden part of him turns slightly panicked. “Any successes an old friend should be hearing about?”

“Not really.” Bernard shrugs, jostling Tim’s arm. “Just a couple of girls I was better off friends with.” He pauses, thinking, before continuing with his voice involuntarily going a little higher. “Couple of guys too.”

“Huh.” Tim suddenly becomes very aware of all the places where his arm is touching Bernard. He doesn’t move it. “Better luck next time.”

Huh.

~

Tim’s been avoiding Dick. He’s been awkward around him lately, Tim thinks that Barbara must have said something. He’s not stupid enough to have done something to send Dick spiralling without noticing it.

“What do you want?” Dick asks, curious, without warning.

Tim wants to ask if Barbara put him up to this but he knows it’s a genuine question. Dick isn’t manipulative like that, not with family.

What does Tim want? Isn’t it a little late for Dick go be asking that question? All the things that happened after Bruce’s death put a canyon of distance between them. It’s slowly been growing smaller but it hasn’t disappeared. Neither of them have had time enough to spend together for that to happen.

An awful, bitter part of Tim that hasn’t stopped screaming since Robin wasn’t his any more wonders if Dick would even be asking if Damian wasn’t out of town right now.

“For us to go train surfing.” Tim says. Petty. Just so Dick will say no and his anger can feel righteous instead of ill-deserved.

“Okay.” Dick says instead. Easy and confident. Himself.

“Oh.” Tim’s anger fizzles into non-existence. “Okay.”

The canyon grows a little smaller.

~

“We should go to a skatepark.” Bernard says, a little giggly from the beer in his hand.

There’s a matching beer in Tim’s hand although it’s still practically full. If there’s an emergency he’ll be of no use drunk. “What? Why?”

“Why not? You were so good in high school! And you had fun doing it.” Bernard’s tone turns a little less giggly. “You should do more things you find fun.”

Tim is surprised enough that the “Okay.” slips out of his lips unbidden.

So maybe the beer bottle is a little less full than he’d like to admit.

They borrow a board from one of Bernard's flatmates and catch a bus to a skate park Tim remembers using when he was younger. As they go Tim tries to remember why he stopped. He tries to remember when he stopped. He can’t recall the answer to either question and annoyance rises in his chest over it.

Then Bernard is saying something and it has Tim snorting with laughter and he forgets his irritation.

Once they arrive Bernard settles himself at the top of one of the ramps like it’s a throne. “Entertain me!” he calls, “Impress me with your wheel-board magic.

Tim manages a kick-flip on his first attempt and Bernard makes a loud noise of approval.

A lot of stuff comes back to Tim fairly quickly. Most of skateboarding had been muscle memory for him and that’s something that being a vigilante hadn’t exactly hindered. As things return to him he regains some faint memories of why he’d stopped. Nothing specific, just that feeling of not having enough time. Of thinking that going to the skatepark wasn’t a particularly useful way to spend his hours while there was still real work to be done.

Tim’s always been a vigilante first, but he thinks there must have been a point when that wasn’t the only thing he was. Well, when it wasn’t the only thing he was that mattered.

“Come on!” Bernard shouts, teeth flashing white against Gotham’s grey-black sky. “I was promised entertainment!”

Tim laughs. He seems to do that a lot around Bernard these days.

He starts moving on the skateboard, deciding to leave the existentialism for another day.

~

First Dick and now Bruce. Tim’s family has really been making a habit of being weird around him lately.

He would normally think that the Bruce was worried about him, that Dick had passed along some bullshit about his mental health and Bruce was practicing some silent vigil. The problem with that theory is that Tim’s been getting better recently, so there wouldn’t be much point. At least he thinks he’s been getting better. It’s difficult to tell sometimes.

Bruce has definitely been acting weird around him though, so maybe he isn’t getting better. Maybe Bruce spotted something Tim didn’t and he’s on the road to insanity.

“What do you want?” Bruce asks one day as they’re both working in the cave. Not Batman. Bruce.

It’s a far stupider question than it was when Barbara or Dick asked it. Bruce is the person who made Tim’s desires what they are. He’s the one who took Tim’s obsession and carved it into a goal.

“What?” Tim asks, loud and confused and maybe a little angry. “What do you mean ‘what do I want’? I want the mission! What else am I supposed to want?”

Bruce stays silent for a moment and Tim imagines him turning the words over in his head. “Nothing else?” Bruce asks. He sounds sad and it makes the anger drain from Tim’s body. “Just the mission?”

“I don’t need anything else.” Tim says hollowly.

Bruce just nods, thinking. It makes Tim want to scream even as satisfaction rises in his chest.

It’s always been a point of pride that he can to lie to Batman. He’s hardly going to change his mind about that now.

~

“People keep asking me what I want.” Tim says, sat on Bernard's bed. “I don’t like it.”

Bernard's turns away from the laptop on his desk so he can look at Tim. “You ever tell them the truth?”

Tim shrugs. He isn’t sure what else to do. “Ish?”

Bernard smiles. “Anyone ever tell you you’re impossible, Tim Drake?”

“Only everyone I’ve ever met.”

Bernard barks out a laugh before sobering up and looking at Tim with ill-disguised curiosity. “Do you want to tell me the truth about it? Or did you just want to say the thing out loud?”

“I’m not sure.” Tim admits, and he has to stop himself from acting taken aback by the fact he actually said that. Tim never says when he’s uncertain. There isn’t room for it. Bernard must know that too because he looks at Tim in surprise, then scoots his chair closer to the bed so that he and Tim are almost touching.

Bernard looks very cautious. “You know that’s okay, right?”

“I-“ Tim starts, because is it? Is uncertainty the kind of luxury he can afford? “I want to want things. But it feels like I’ve forgotten how.”

“You’ve had a rough couple of years.”

“How do you-“

Bernard smiles knowingly. “You’re not as hard to read as you think, Tim. Well you are. But it’s not difficult to tell that some bad things must have happened since I last saw you.”

“Yeah.” Tim says hoarsely, thinking back to the burn of his muscles as he dug up Kon’s grave, the stinging of desert sand in his eyes, the moment of confusion when he woke up in a league of assassins base unsure if he’d had to die to get there. “Yeah. Bad things happened.” He shakes himself a little, because those aren’t the thoughts he wants lingering. He focuses back on Bernard who’s closer than Tim had realised, worry creased between his eyes. “What about you?” Tim asks, trying to exert some measure of control over the conversation. “What do you want?”

“Thought we were talking about you?” Tim might have let it go with that if not for the note of nervousness in Bernard's voice and the red creeping up the back of his neck.

“We can talk about both of us.”

“It’s not important right now.”

Tim reaches out then. He takes Bernard's hand in his because Bernard makes him laugh and he looks so nervous and Tim wants to. Bernard looks down at their hands in surprise and Tim doesn’t actually feel worried. Just expectant that Bernard is going to squeeze their fingers together more securely. He does. “You sure?” Tim asks.

Bernard just looks at him. Mouth parted with shock. He seems to come back to himself though and his expression of surprise turns into something more confident. More familiar. “What if I wanted you?” he asks, hesitancy and confidence rolled into one voice.

“Give me some time to remember how to want things, and I think I’ll want that too.” Tim replies, just as unsure and utterly certain.

Bernard tangles their fingers together a little more firmly in response and Tim feels more hopeful than he has in a long time.

New fic oop-

If you like the young justice one shots I have on here it’s just more of them but compiled better. Also I’m trying to keep them all in the same continuity so you might get some followups to previous ones.

John Constantine is seventeen, angry and entirely ready to lose himself in the occult.

The open book in front of him details a particularly nasty ritual, but not one he’s unwilling to pay the price for. He bought the book from the shop on Eaton street, ‘Occult Exposition’. It’s not a nice shop. The clientele tend to be even dodgier than John and the owner always goes out of his way to make him as uncomfortable as possible.

John supposes that that’s just the price of authenticity.

The book is authentic. He knows that. One of the first things John learned was that the fakes always do well when it comes to flair but never quite catch the essence of a true ritual.

Fully set up in the back garden, John begins his ritual.

He chants and moves and shifts his thoughts in all the right directions. He slits the throat of a rabbit and cuts out the eye of the hawk that caught it. He spins a web of spider silk around the remains and watches it turn into a spun glass cage that contains something entirely different.

John lifts the same knife he used to cut out the hawks eyes and slit the rabbits throat, ready to plunge it into the beating heart the glass now contains.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” a voice calls out from behind him.

John spins around with his knife at the ready to defend himself. Instead if someone attacking him all John sees is a beautiful girl leaning against the dirty wall of his garden shed.

“Are you sure you want to stick around until the police come arrest you for trespassing?” he snarls, caught off guard.

The girl has the gall to roll her eyes. “As if you would call the police.” Considering the garden stinks of weed John supposes that the girl may have a point. “And anyway, I’m just giving you some sound advice. Nothing malicious about me at all.”

John narrows his eyes. “There aren’t many people who offer advice for free.”

“Well maybe I’m just feeling generous today.” the girl says with a grin. The smile drops promptly. “The blood rune won’t work, so you’re just going to be compelled to rip your heart out and eat it. Do you want to rip your heart out and eat it?”

John scoffs even as he sends the blood rune an uncertain look. “The rune is fine.”

The girl shoots him a withering look. “It has to be virgin's blood.”

“It is vir-“ John pauses. Resets. “Oh shit.”

“What? Are you still feeling lucky?”

“Fuck off.” John says on reflex. Then, “Thanks for telling me though. That could’ve been nasty.”

The girl finally smiles properly. Broad and shining and even John is forced to admit to himself that it’s a beautiful smile. “You’re very welcome. My name's Zatanna.” she says, sticking her hand out for him to shake.

“John.”

“I know,” she says with a wink as they clasp hands. “If you ever want a little more sound advice then just give me a call. Promise I’m a better option than you ever you got that book from.”

John raises an eyebrow. “Not that I don’t appreciate the offer, but what’s put you in such a sharing mood?”

“I said I was feeling generous.” Her expression softens. “I think you’re going to be powerful. The kind of powerful that’s going to get people killed if you don’t know how to handle it. Call me when you’re in trouble.”

When she finishes speaking a wind summons itself up around her. Twisting and twirling until she’s stood in the centre of a spinning tornado. The speed of the wind reaches a climax and dissipates all of a sudden, leaving behind no sign of Zatanna.

John takes a step towards the space she used to occupy and spots something on the ground. It’s a business card. Pristine white with edges sharp enough to cut through flesh. On the card is a name, ‘Zatanna Zatara’, and a phone number.

There are two ‘x’s handwritten below the number and they make John feel oddly warm.

“Fuck.” he says to empty air. “Fuck.”

He turns back to his aborted ritual and starts cleaning up the blood.

Just started mr robot and what the absolute sHIT is Tyrell