Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/505062.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Choose_Not_To_Use_Archive_Warnings, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Teen_Wolf_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Derek_Hale/Jackson_Whittemore, Derek_Hale/Stiles_Stilinski
  Character:
      Derek_Hale, Jackson_Whittemore, Stiles_Stilinski, Alan_Deaton, Erica
      Reyes, Allison_Argent, Scott_McCall
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_Fusion, Batman_AU
  Series:
      Part 1 of Who's_afraid_of_the_big_bad_bat?_Batman_AU
  Stats:
      Published: 2012-09-05 Completed: 2012-09-07 Chapters: 3/3 Words: 11137
****** Darkest before the dawn ******
by snoozingkitten
Summary
     It’s a story about love, vengeance, justice, and a cruel city named
     Gotham. Batman AU.
Notes
     I’m really not sure where this came from or why. It mostly just did.
     I feel I need to apologize to the Batman comics, I’ve taken bits and
     pieces and bastardized them horribly. Much closer to the DC comic-
     verse than the Nolan films.
     I have yet to find a beta for Teen Wolf, so if you find any mistakes
     please feel free to point them out.
***** Derek's Story *****
Perversely Derek wondered if he would ever forget that night. He stared at the
crash as if trying to sear all the gruesome details into his very brain. The
woman was practically sheared in half by the force of the crash, the man was
completely hidden from view, just a wet mess in the passenger seat that dripped
in a spreading puddle that reflected the weak lights.
And in the middle of it all, like a miracle the boy. He couldn’t have been
older than eleven with floppy gold hair stained dark and large luminous eyes
staring up at Derek from a gore-stained face.
“Help me.” He said in a voice that trembled, he was shaking like a leaf and
years later Derek would still be able to remember every eyelash, the way his
lips shook, and the way his striped t-shirt clung to his narrow chest.
Derek paused, the kid was okay and both the adults were beyond help now. What
else could he do?
“Stay here, don’t move.” Derek growled, and it was the gutter of town but he
was so close and every second he waited here his lead got further away. Derek
had waited months for this tip to pay off.
“Don’t leave me.”
He’d left the child standing there with only the bodies of his parents for
company. The Batmobile tore through the night (but through no more cars than
the one already). In his dreams the crash would always be his fault, even if
Harris’ car hit them first causing it to spin right into the Batmobile.
Derek would always wonder how life would have been different if he’d stopped
and helped Jackson (he wouldn’t know the kid’s name until later).
--
He lasted three sleepless days. Prowling around the house like an angry ghost.
Deaton would hover looking worried when he wasn’t actively trying to talk Derek
off the cliff of his guilt. It didn’t work. Nothing was making it better and
Derek hadn’t survived this long only to lose his mind now.
The lady stared at him. Derek tired his most charming smile.
She sort of fluttered.
Still it was against regulation. Single man, so early in his twenties that he
was barely an adult himself; even if he was a multi-billionaire and sole heir
of Hale International.
“I just want him to have the best future possible.”
She melted.
Derek became the legal guardian of a small damaged child. Deaton was not
impressed.
“You can barely take care of yourself, children need more than money. They need
attention and love.” Derek could read between the lines ‘do you even know what
love is anymore?’ He would have been insulted by the remark had it not been
probably true.
“You looked like you were getting bored now that I’m always so busy.” Derek
replied instead.
“Hardly.” Deaton frowned hard at him. When his family had been murdered Deaton
was the only thing like-family that Derek had left. He’d raised Derek in the
huge empty halls of what had been Derek’s family home and chased away the
ghosts from the corners.
“I know what it’s like to be young and angry and alone in the world. Only I had
you, I had money. He’s going to go into a state home.”
“Lots of children go into homes; bad things happen.” In Gotham a lot more than
in other places. Too many dark dirty streets to turn down and get lost in. Too
many children left without anyone to love them.
“I left him there.” Bloody and scared, staring at the dismembered body of his
mother, and for nothing another lead that didn’t get him closer to the people
who killed his family. “Besides it’s done. Jackson is on his way tomorrow.”
Deaton gave him a narrow-eyed look and Derek went to take a nap. He was going
out tonight, there were crimes to stop.
--
Derek wasn’t actually sure what to do with Jackson. He was small, thin in a way
that Derek never had been. The hollow-eyed sorrow was a familiar feature and
still Derek didn’t know what to do about that. He was pale with a soft
smattering of freckles and round cheeks. He was apparently actually twelve. He
stared at the house with a mix of terror and awe. Derek never thought about how
it looked to other people, sat upon the hill full of empty windows staring out
at the world silent and still like a tomb.
“This is where you’re going to live now.” He didn’t say home, because once you
lost home in a spray of blood it never came back the same.
“Okay.” Jackson said, blinking once at Derek.
Deaton offered him a hand but both of Jackson’s were twisted in front of him
like he was trying to pull his own fingers off. Deaton gave Derek a pointed
look. “How about I show you to your room? We’ll get it decorated this week, how
does that sound?”
Derek honestly couldn’t remember if Deaton had been that kind to him as a
child, certainly not when he’d been a surly teenager losing himself in
training. Still it didn’t take a genius to see that the kid was fragile.
Jackson was held together with gossamer strands of will power and sheer
stubbornness.
He tried to make himself be around, to sleep normal hours just in case. In case
Jackson wanted to talk to someone? Derek remembered being that age and the last
thing he’d wanted to do was talk about it no matter what everyone said about
it. Still he managed two days of Jackson seeing him pace like a caged animal
through the house. Jackson mostly was surly and stayed either in the kitchen or
in a far corner of the library like a new cat hiding under the sofa.
“He’s a boy, not a pet you need to take an interest.” Deaton looked pained, in
the dining room Jackson was playing with his dinner, eating it slow and
methodically.
Derek wouldn’t remember what he said, or how the conversation went. He would
always remember the part where Jackson started to cry almost silently ‘I just
want to go home’.
Jackson was in the best boarding school New York State could offer within two
months. It wasn’t like Derek didn’t write.
--
Jackson had a slightly morbid fascination with cars. If you pick the right time
of night you could speed down the freeway going so fast that if you crashed it
would be over in seconds, Derek knew this because he too was one of the
creatures of the night. Jackson liked to pretend like he didn’t remember the
crash the same way Derek liked to pretend that he was over watching his
parent’s murder. These things happen so fast, Jackson couldn’t possibly
remember the warm spray of blood on his face.
Derek had given Jackson a Porche for his sixteenth. It was ostentatious and yet
slightly more sedate than a Lotus.
Jackson had smiled at him, bouncing on his toes. Even Deaton couldn’t find a
fault with the gift.
It was a little unnerving how fast Jackson had grown. He was still slightly
short for his age and showed no signs of growing much taller but his face had
lost most of its baby fat. From his chubby cheeks came the sharp edges of his
cheekbones only highlighting the soft curve of his mouth. He was maturing
quickly.
“Please.” Jackson pressed against him with that lush mouth. Derek had a grip on
his hips keeping him just far enough away that they weren’t pressed up against
each other but not quite far enough away to avoid those plush kisses.
“Jackson no.” Derek growled. He couldn’t figure out how they had gone from
there to here. Jackson crawling into his lap in the sitting room (Derek hastily
shut down his tablet, Jackson was never to know about Batman. He couldn’t
know).
“I know it’s not because you don’t want me.” Jackson smirked at him. Of course
Jackson knew just how pretty he was getting, and Derek should look into that
school he’d sent him if this is what they sent back.
“Because it is wrong.” Derek managed to push him off, but couldn’t stop himself
from licking his lips, chasing the taste of the hot chocolate that Jackson had
been drinking from his lips. The sticky-sweet film just reminded him that this
was the worst of ideas. “Not to mention illegal.” He managed to get Jackson off
of him and on his feet again.
“Okay, good night.” Jackson bent over the arm of the chair and kissed the
corner of his mouth, pressing the edge of a small smile against Derek’s cheek.
Derek snarled wordlessly at the tablet, at the windows thrown open to that
showed Gotham lit up and looming at the bottom of the hill like a waiting
beast. He’d go out tonight, he needed to hit something.
--
Derek should have been gentle. He should have been caring.
Derek bit down on Jackson’s shoulder while he sobbed, knees shaking as Derek
shoved two fingers roughly into him. Jackson’s back arched, feet sliding
through the bedding as Jackson bit off curses. Maybe if Derek was rough enough
Jackson wouldn’t want this anymore. There was very little negative
reinforcement couldn’t fix.
“Is this what you wanted? Brat.” Derek said low, voice scraping along the
constants in a wet drag. He kissed Jackson’s neck, and Jackson had both hands
in his hair. His kisses were wet and sloppy, tongue clumsy but easily tamed.
Derek pinned him down with his own body weight, listening to the hectic stutter
of Jackson’s breathing and the rapid slam of his pulse where Derek was fucking
him with his fingers. He slipped a third in, Jackson ripped his mouth away
wailing softly as his hips jerked up away from the sensation. He was breathing
in soft sobs now, hands still curled in Derek’s hair like he couldn’t let go.
“You can still back out.” Derek mouthed wetly at the sharp line of his
cheekbone.
Jackson shook his head slowly. “No, I want this.”
“You sure?” Derek pushed his fingers in deeper and Jackson whined, shuddering
with his whole body. It was so wrong but Derek was so hard, thrumming and so
wound up that his eyes were beginning to blur with it, Jackson was so tight
inside there he wasn’t going to fit. It was all Jackson, mouth slack and his
cocky persona blown to so many little pieces and scattered around the bed.
“Because my cock is going to go a lot deeper than my fingers Jacks.”
“Yes.” Jackson grit out between his teeth, tugging on Derek’s hair hard and
pulling him up for another sloppy kiss.
“Split you open so wide around me.” Derek said against his lips, letting
Jackson taste the words and the flick of his tongue. “It’s going to hurt.”
“I want it.” He said fiercely.
Derek hummed finally giving into another kiss, controlling it with a hand on
Jackson’s jaw.
He pressed against Jackson’s prostate, and Jackson yelped. Then he moaned, a
filthy wet sound and his mouth was swollen and obscene and Derek kind of wanted
to stick his dick there, ride the soft curve of his bottom lip and see if he
could force his throat open the same way he was doing his ass. Jackson was
jerking, hips shifting so that he could rub his dick against Derek’s forearm.
It was hot and wet leaving dribbling lines of heat with every flex.
Jackson was babbling now, words all jumbled together, something you’d hear in
low-rent porn. Derek gagged him with his tongue. The lube was still tangled in
the sheets to his left, the condoms all the way in the drawer to his right.
“Have you ever done this before?” (He did send Jackson to an all-boys school),
Jackson sex-flushed and wide eyed shook his head. “Anyone?”
He scowled at Derek which was enough of an answer. It also shouldn’t have sent
a pulse of want straight from his brains to his balls. He was a sick fuck, the
kind of sick fuck he put in jail but the thought that he was Jackson’s first
made his dick twitch. It was the possessive thrill of it. There had been no one
before him and he was about to ruin Jackson for anyone else.
He slicked himself up, rolled Jackson on his front and pulled him up onto his
knees. There had to be something about not being able to see his face, would
make this feel less wrongbadsofuckinggood. Only it didn’t, there was the pale
sweep of Jackson’s back, dipping low as he grabbed at the sheets and holding on
like he’d fly away if he didn’t. “Look at you, so desperate for it.” Derek
pushed two fingers into his wet hole just because he could and Jackson groaned
low in his chest pushing back on it, all clinging heat and desperate tightness.
He pressed his hand to Jackson’s stomach, stuck like a skipping CD on the fact
that he was stuffed inside there filling up Jackson. The slight rub of his palm
against the soft skin on Jackson’s stomach was the only tenderness he allowed
himself.
Jackson dropped his shoulder and moaned like a shameless whore as he took it
over and over again. Derek was entranced by the flex of the muscles in his
shoulders, the way he writhed like he couldn’t decide if he wanted more or he
wanted to get away.
Jackson came all over himself with a sob when Derek leaned back on his legs and
lifted him up, pushing as deep as he could physically go. Derek smothered a
curse with Jackson’s shoulder shuddering hard and riding out the way that
Jackson’s body was shaking apart in his arms.
Derek pulled out and finished himself off against his lower back, watching his
come cool on Jackson’s skin. And knowing this wasn’t a habit he should get
into. Still he rubbing it into Jackson’s skin while Jackson shivered fingers
curling into the blankets with a small whine.
--
It was a filthy habit, but Jackson was so good when he was stretched out in the
bed eyes wet because Derek wouldn’t let him come thumbs prying him open and
eating him out.
--
When Jackson was fourteen he had been kidnapped. It wasn’t Batman related, it
was the fact that Derek Hale was a young multi-billionaire with a habit of
pissing people off. His corporate tactics were ruthless, slash and burn
strategies that left the competition ruined in his wake sobbing into their
broken cheque books and cursing his name.
One day he got a call from the school. Jackson couldn’t be found. Derek hadn’t
been too worried, at fourteen Jackson was still prone to sulking fits and
hiding from the headmasters in a ploy to draw Derek or Deaton out to see him at
school.
Hadn’t been worried until the photos arrived, Jackson in his school uniform
gagged with his own tie and looking terrified and yet still defiant.
Derek gave them the money. Then he put the four men he found holding Jackson in
the hospital. Severe cranial trauma with a baseball bat. He never did find out
who hired them. It was probably the first time he ever stopped to wonder if
vengeance was more important than family. (The answer was still yes.)
--
He hadn’t meant to accumulate stray broken children. Stiles was an accident.
Stiles was Commissioner Stalinski’s son. The commissioner grudgingly accepted
Batman as if not an active threat than at least a less of a hindrance than the
criminals he caught.
Stiles had being mouthing off, using the only defence left to him, tied to a
chair and being dangled like bait in front of the GPD. It had been the first
night that the Batsignal lit up the night. It blazed in the sky like beacon and
Derek had gone to investigate.
His mistake was assuming that the punk guarding Stiles was down when he wasn’t.
The shot echoed all around him coupled with a fierce pain that threatened to
overwhelm him. Mr. Punk eventually went down but he’d been running on empty,
growing heavy with each drop of blood that hit the floor.
“Oh shit shit shit.” Stiles said, eyes wide and mouth round with stunned shock.
“You’re Batman. You’re hurt.”
Off in the distance siren started up, wailing in the night like so many
mourners.
“I’m fine.” He grit his teeth, his entire side burned like fire, everything was
slippery wet with blood. Just because the police tolerated him didn’t mean they
wouldn’t take the opportunity to unmask him if presented. “I need to go.”
Derek collapsed watching Stiles’ face like a pale moon over him. ‘Shit’
--
Stiles accepted a position at Hale Incorporated as an intern and Derek’s
personal assistant in training. Stiles was mouthy and hyper and possibly one of
the most irritating people that Derek had ever met. But it was accept him,
train him and use him as a weapon against the shadows he chased through Gotham
or kill him.
Not a day went by when Derek wondered if killing him wouldn’t be easier. Deaton
put up with him with the sort of long-suffering impatience he rarely showed
with Derek. He also had an inappropriate crush on Derek. What was he catnip to
jailbait? (Every day Derek told himself he wasn’t that kind of pervert but
after training hand to hand with Stiles when he was sweaty and flushed from
exertion he imagined getting his hands on those slim thighs.)
Thus Robin was born.
--
Derek honestly hadn’t even considered it.
Jackson came home like a storm, car pulling into the drive way with an
obnoxious crunch of hundreds of dollars worth of custom rubber and gravel, and
it was marked on the calendar; circled twice by Deaton. Still Derek hadn’t
really put much thought into it. Stiles was fresh from the shower after a round
of sparing, bounce to his step and liquid grace he soon seemed to completely
forget outside of a life or death situation.
Jackson stopped as if completely frozen. He went pale suddenly, causing the
faint smattering of freckles along his cheeks stand out. His mouth went hard
even as his eyes narrowed. “Hey.” Stiles grinned at him, flicking his eyes to
Derek, and he had to bit the inside of his lip to stop from cursing, he could
see the thoughts jumping around Jackson’s head coming to all the wrong
conclusions.
“Hey Dad, I’m home.” Jackson stalked through the halls all wounded pride and
teenaged fury. Derek grit his teeth, in all the years they had lived together
Jackson had never once called him Dad.
“What crawled up his ass?” Stiles frowned, crossing his arms defensively over
his chest.
Derek decided not to answer.
That night Jackson crawled into his bed the same way he did whenever he was
home. He was completely naked, and already slick, pressing his mouth against
Derek’s. “Please.” Derek let his thumb slip inside Jackson’s ass and his body
rolled with the sensation moaning softly while Jackson mouthed at his chin.
He really needed to stop this. Still he pressed a finger inside just to listen
to the way that Jackson’s breathing hitched.
--
Derek brought Stiles back to the house more often while Jackson was back. He
couldn’t just stop training him when Jackson was around, Stiles was smart but
still seemed like his mind had grown quicker than his body, like he wasn’t
always sure where his feet were. Derek wasn’t going to be responsible for any
more deaths. It was only logical.
“I don’t think Jackson likes me much.” Stiles sighed, he was lying on his back,
spread out across the floor, Derek was sitting next to him taking a long pull
on the water bottle before handing it to Stiles.
“Jacks doesn’t like many people.” He was a brat, and Derek would like to be
able to blame that on anyone else but he knew all of Jackson’s worst flaws were
his fault. He also touched Stiles more when Jackson was here too, a hand on the
shoulder there and a pat on the back here. He pat Stiles’ stomach absently.
“Maybe he’d like me more if he knew I was Robin, that’s like an instant cool
card. I have to be able to tell someone. I mean it is getting hard to make up
excuses to explain thing to Scott.”
“Jackson must never know.” Derek snapped.
“What? Why?” Stiles frowned.
“Because.” Derek bit the word out let it snap and flick in the air for a few
moments. “Then someone would need to explain to him that I killed his parents.”
“Oh.” Stiles stared at him for a long moment, “yeah, that would suck.”
He stood up; leaving Stiles spread out on the floor and retreated.
Jackson must have seen Stiles freshly showered and leaving again because that
night he crawled brazenly into Derek’s bed in only a clingy pair of boxers. He
pressed slick open-mouthed kisses too Derek’s shoulders and groped him through
his thin sleep pants.
“Teach me how to suck your dick.” Jackson mumbled against his shoulder.
“You do fine.” Derek grunted grabbing the back of his neck and digging his
fingers into the pale skin dragging him until he was sitting up and Derek could
watch the way the moonlight made Jackson’s skin glow. He rolled his hips
against Derek’s thigh shamelessly.
“No, I want you to teach me how to really take it. You know.”
Jackson licked his bottom lip and Derek could see it. Could hold Jackson’s
mouth open and fuck his throat until his eyes watered.
“Sure.” Derek tossed him onto his back and loomed over the careless sprawl of
Jackson’s limbs. Jackson gave him one of those irritating cock-sure smiles that
he’d developed some time when he was away at school. The one that drove Derek
insane. Fine, Jackson wanted to play it that way—Derek was going to enjoy this.
There was something horrible about the way that Derek loved the little gagging
sound that Jackson made, lips stretched obscenely wide around Derek’s dick and
nose pressed against his stomach. He loved the way Jackson would heave for
breath when he was given a rest going back for more before he was ready. He was
so eager for it tonight.
“Just a bit more.” Derek growled, Jackson’s fingers were digging into his hips
his throat constricting in the most exquisite way. He wasn’t gentle when he
shoved up, holding the curve of Jackson’s skull in his hands as he forced him
to take it over and over. His balls and Jackson’s face were coated in that
thicker slick saliva that come from fucking his throat directly.
Jackson came all over himself with a high-pitched whine, pressing his face
against Derek’s thigh as he sobbed. Derek waited it out before riding Jackson’s
face to his own end.
Jackson was filthy covered in spit and tears and come. He curled up next to
Derek all loose limbed and swollen-mouthed. The shame was a familiar friend by
now that same sweeping guilt that let him know he was doing something wrong. It
was all tangled up with all the other insurmountable guilt that he’d carried
around for so long that it had morphed into something else entirely.
Derek left him there and went to clean up.
--
“You should stop punishing Jackson for loving you.” Deaton said slowly while he
put breakfast on the table the next morning. “It’s not fair on Stiles either to
keep stringing him along.”
Derek stiffened.
Jackson’s voice was horse and scratchy but Derek hadn’t hurt him (more than he
could handle). “I thought you didn’t approve of our dalliance.” Derek said
slowly. They have had a million different iterations of this fight in just as
many words and judging looks. It wasn’t like he needed Deaton to tell him it
was wrong. He was well aware this thing with Jackson was depraved.
“I do.” Deaton agreed curtly. “But this is too much Derek. His only sin is
stupidity—he loves you.”
Derek snarled wordlessly at him. “I never asked him to.”
“Suck it up.”
***** Stiles' Story *****
Chapter Summary
     +Scott's and Erica's too
Chapter Notes
     Some comic-science going on, and I apologize for non-linear time-
     lines.
This is Stiles’ Story:
When he was young his father was promoted to commissioner of the Gotham Police
Department. They had cake and celebrated the promotion him and his mom and dad.
He hadn’t thought everything was perfect then, he was too young to understand
the concept.
No he understood much later looking back. That’s when his mother took a sniper
bullet to the head intended for her husband.
The funeral was on a cold bright day in December. They ate cake but no one was
celebrating.
The rage was like something alive in his stomach. Everyone kept telling him
they were sorry and that everything was going to be okay. How would anything be
okay? How was this fair?
He knew it wasn’t what his mother would have wanted, but what was that tiny
flare of guilt against the rage that threatened to consume him? It was a dark
night in May when Stiles lit the match, watched it flare to life. It reeked of
petrol where had made a pattern out of it. He’d done his research, this
building was set just far enough apart from the others that the fire wouldn’t
spread. The city owned the old warehouse and no one should be in it.
Stiles watched the match fall through the air tumbling end over end until it
hit the edge of the petrol and combustion. In that moment he realized he
couldn’t take it back, couldn’t stop this from happening. Stiles panicked and
bolted.
He wasn’t sure how long he ran just that his legs felt like rubber and his
lungs actually burned with it (note to self, don’t use B-word). It wasn’t
helping the desperate tangle of ‘oh god what have I done?’ and ‘They will all
pay.’ that tumbled through his head. He couldn’t see past the tears.
He ran into the person at full tilt as they dropped from the sky suddenly.
Stile bounced off him and hit the ground hard. He lay there winded while a
faint groan filtered through the tears and the snot. Rubbing at his itchy face
with torn hands Stiles pushed himself into a sitting position still struggling
for breath.
He’d run into a person. He had dark hair and a bright red hoodie on.
“Where did you even come from?” Stiles wheezed.
The boy blinked at him, gave him a one-sided shrug. “Up there.”
There was a low cat-walk across the side of one of the warehouses that had to
be on the next floor up. A bent rail where the boy had apparently just crashed
through the whole thing.
“Seriously?” Stiles shook his head and the world swayed alarmingly with it, he
scrubbed at his face until everything sat steady.
“Hey, are you okay?” The mystery boy asked him. His jeans were ripped at the
knees but he seemed to be ignoring it fine.
Very much not so. “Yeah, fan-fucking-tastic, what were you even doing up
there?”
The boy got to his feet and reached down to help Stiles stand as well. He gave
Stiles a goofy smile that caught in the moonlight and flashed. “Dude, running
like an animal.”
With that he did something that seemed physically impossible, running at the
wall so that he kicked off of it, twisted through the air to catch the bottom
of the catwalk and pulled himself up onto it smoothly.
For the second time in so many months Stiles life changed. Sirens split through
the night, fire engines wailing towards the warehouse district. Scott (he’d
learn that later breathless and laughing on the roof of a small lot of self-
storage), crouched on the catwalk so he was tipped over it regarded Stiles
through the mop of dark hair. “Want to learn?”
--
The third time his life changed radically it was another cold spring night.
Things with Scott had been odd lately. Stiles understood the attraction to
girls. Girls have boobs and if you’re really good they will even let you touch
them. It’s a time honoured and noble pursuit. But dude bros before hos. It’s
just Allison this and Allison that constantly. It’s enough to drive a man
insane.
So Stiles was alone when he was kidnapped.
One moment he was kicking a discarded ball of newspaper down the street in a
make-shift one-sided game of soccer. The next it was guns and yelling and he
didn’t even think of fighting back when he was hustled into a panelled van. He
did manage to scream like a little girl, but he was planning on denying that
assuming he lived through this.
They didn’t tell him anything. Just the inside of a black mask and the steady
click of a camera taking photos every five minutes on the dot; and you better
believe that he counted the seconds between the first 10 to make sure. At least
it let him keep track of time even if the stretches between each seemed longer
and longer he sat there in the cold dark.
“You know, I’m a horrible hostage. I’ve seen it in films hostages are always
like ‘I won’t tell you anything’, I will seriously tell you everything you want
to know. If you don’t hurt me I will tell you everything.” Nothing moved, just
the sticky stretch time between one whirl-click and the next.
“When I was nine I caught scarlet fever. I thought I was going to die.”
“I went to primary school in Gotham Central. There were bigger fourth graders
with hand guns there buddy.” Stiles continued to yammer.
“By middle school I went to a private school, let me tell you about the pricks
they had there.”
It was exactly 68 clicks of the camera when something different happened. Five
hours, 40 minutes and somewhere between half way and two thirds towards the
next click there was a scuffing sound. Stiles was actually about to piss
himself. Seriously, bladder bursting about to piss himself. “It’s about to get
Water World in here!” Stiles called out into the darkness.
The scuffle came back again.
Stiles began to struggle. “Be still.” Someone growled. Stiles stilled
automatically. All the hair on the back of his neck stood up like there was a
predator breathing down his neck.
“Hell no.” Stiles snapped.
“Seriously kid, shut the fuck up.” The character growled. The blind fold was
removed.
Holy shit, Batman. “Holy shit Batman!” Stiles yelped in a girly fashion.
Which of course was what alerted generic-baddie-of-the-week that something was
up. Stiles was half-untied when the shot rang out. Batman grunted stumbling
forwards and landing in an awkward bleeding heap at Stiles feet.
“One bait, two fish.” The man grunted, re-cocked his weapon.
Now Stiles really panicked. Two fish. Dad.
The rope had been mostly undone and one quick hard jerk got his hand free.
GBoftW didn’t see it coming, Stiles was a skinny scared kid, but he’d been
learning how to dangle off the edges of buildings with Scott in his free time
and he had surprising upper body strength for a normal kid. He was still tied
to the chair with one arm so he used it to hit the GBoftW with it. He staggered
sideways with a grunt arms flung out comically to balance himself.
The gun levelled up at his face once more with a snarled ‘you’re going to die
for that kid’ and Stiles had one very clear thought ‘Oh shit, I’m an idiot.
Stiles you’re an idiot’ followed by ‘Mom, I’m sorry, we’re going to meet a lot
sooner than I planned.’ Only Batman wasn’t down. Not really.
Something small hit the man’s chest sending out tiny coils of snapping blue
electrical energy that caused his body to seize and dance like some sort of mad
puppet. The shot went wide sudden and loud unlike gunshots in films-- but he
went down twitching on the floor.
Shouts.
Stiles swore low and colourfully and very very expansively, with a few made up
words that sounded foul thrown in for good measure.
It was some miracle that Stiles managed to drag the limp body deep into the
shadows because Batman was bulky and ridiculously heavy. Some sort of guardian
angel that meant that for once he wasn’t all left feet and avoided knocking
over everything between him and the exit. In fact Stiles barely even remembered
the flight from the warehouse just the throb of adrenaline and the quiet
conviction that he could do anything he put his mind to.
It wouldn’t be until much later that Derek told him his father had been
desperate, the thugs wanted the evidence against the Iceman contaminated and if
they didn’t they were going to kill his son. With either compliance or the
death of his only family the only options Commissioner Stilinski chose the
lesser of two evils in a desperate man’s gambit.
He’d developed the bat signal and began a tentative partnership.
--
“You can’t kill me, you went through a lot of trouble saving me.” Stiles
wheeze-shouted. Batman had a strong forearm across his throat threatening to
cut off all his air.
Batman may have been pale and weak from the blood loss but still a fuck of a
lot stronger than Stiles.
“Come on, I’m sorry.” Stiles whined, kicking his feet out uselessly.
“Just couldn’t help yourself could you?” He snarled inches from Stiles’ face.
Stiles recognized that too-pretty face from the television. Derek Hale. Derek
Hale was Batman. What sort of weird Twilight Zone shit was this?
“I’m sorry.” Stiles hadn’t been able to help himself, he had been unconscious
and Stiles was naturally too curious for his own good. There was a metaphor
about cats in here somewhere. Now he was going to die just when he’d managed to
be saved, then save himself and back to being very dead. “Still I saved your
ass back there. That has to mean something right?”
“Where are we?” Derek growled, resting more of his weight on Stiles. Maybe if
he twisted he could get out from under him and escape? The chance was slim.
Impossibly slim. Like paper thin.
“A near-by warehouse.” Stiles answered, that was when his impossible burst of
strength gave out, he’d managed a near-by tramp hide-away. “And we’re going to
get out of here, just let me finish patching you up. You’re bleeding all over
me.” Ew.
“I’m fine.” Derek pulled something from a pocket on his hip and popped it into
his mouth. “Let’s get a move on kid-Stilinski.”
“I have a name. It’s a shitty name so call me Stiles.”
“Whatever kid.”
--
The thing was that Stiles couldn’t leave it alone. Not even after he had been
returned to his father’s grateful and almost-crushing embrace (he seriously
hadn’t been able to breathe and nothing had ever felt so amazing.
He couldn’t help it. He picked at it like a wound that wouldn’t heal properly.
He kept a scrap book of all the Batman news he could print from the Gotham
Mail. Read through everything he could find on Derek Hale as well because
surprise surprise they were one and the same.
Orphaned as a child he dropped out of the media once the feeding frenzy had
finished and moved onto something shinier and full of gore than the brutal home
invasion and murder of the entire Hale extended family. Then he returned when
was eighteen announcing his intention to take over the running of his company
instead of just living on his sizable trust fund like a good spoiled rich kid
really should. There was the whole media circus that followed him adopting one
recently and violently orphaned Jackson Whittmore (he’d been a wide eyed little
nymph-like little thing the poster child for reasons to adopt). That too soon
settled, and they would occasionally appear in photos for charity functions
together.
Jackson was beautiful the way people in magazines always were. While Stiles had
seen Derek pale and bleeding to death on the floor and yet somehow still manage
to look amazing. Maybe it was something that came with having way too much
money.
--
Jackson was just as pretty in real life and how was that fucking fair?
Jackson was also an epic douche-muncher. Riddle me this, just how was that
fair?
--
Stiles liked being Robin. It was a good gig. It wasn’t easy lying to his father
(who was working on bringing the word coddle to a whole new level), but he
rationalized it to himself as he was helping make the city a better place. He
was making sure bad things didn’t have to happen to good people any more. Now
he was the one with the power.
Stiles felt bad about lying to Scott. Scott was sweet and honest-- like
puppies.
“It’s hard not being able to tell anyone.” Stiles said; they were sitting on
the edge of a building watching the streets below. The police scanner was just
background noise. The usual domestic disputes that made Stiles’ stomach twist.
“So quit.” Derek said, as eloquent and supportive as he always was.
Stiles pulled a face.
Burglary in progress. “Let’s go.” Derek grunted.
Later when Stiles had pulled himself out of leather and Kevlar then literally
peeled himself like a banana out of the clingy spandex under suit. Now normally
Stiles wouldn’t be caught dead in spandex but damn did he look good in it, it
outlined the fact that despite how much he ate he was still skinny but he was
filling out. He was looking the best he’d ever looked if he did say so himself.
There was a bruise on his jaw where he’d been too slow to duck when the
Generic-Baddie-of-this-Week threw a pop at him. Stiles thought it made him look
dashing, like a motherfucking super hero. (He’d have to tell his Dad he messed
up when running with Scott, which where was Scott any way?).
“Derek?”
He swept into the shower room like a shadow, scowling but not saying anything.
Stiles found himself pushed up against the shower wall covered by Derek’s
larger body. He was still wearing the stretchy under-suit of his own. Stiles
yelped, the shower wall was cold and Derek’s body was too-hot and thick behind
him. Stiles couldn’t breathe. The thing about one-sided crushes was that they
were one-sided.
Derek didn’t say anything, Stiles didn’t need him too, he babbled enough for
the two of them. Swearing and biting at his lips while Derek wrapped a hand
around his dick. He’d gone from zero to hard so fast he probably gave himself
whiplash in his balls.
“Derek, what the fuck. How? What---why?”
“Shut up. Seriously kid.” Derek growled. Stiles could feel him thick and hard
against the small of his back. His skin was all clammy from the steam from the
shower and the sweat that broke out over his skin as he tried not to just lose
his cool right there.
He was wiggling and squirming in Derek’s hold. Gasping out small half-words and
curses.
He came with a bitten off curse. Shaking hard and knees turned to jelly. Derek
pressed a small and light kiss to the bruise on his jaw. For a moment all of
Stiles fantasies were coming true, and he turned his head for a deeper kiss but
Derek let him go taking a half-step back. Stiles sagged boneless against the
wall.
“Clean up and get home.” Derek said his voice softer than usual.
It was the closest to an apology that Derek ever gave.
--
Nothing else happened between them. He tried to play it cool and to act normal.
Stiles was pretty shit at acting normal on a regular day and it was like the
worst kind of train wreck-- but he tried. Derek was surly, but to be honest he
was always surly so it wasn’t anything big. In fact Derek was a master at
pretending like nothing was wrong at all.
Stiles was trying not to replay the feeling of Derek’s dick rubbing against him
while they sat on the roof of the Gotham Bank watching the late-night traffic.
“There is a commotion in the west end.” Derek growled.
“What is it?”
“Some sort of creature, we’ll check it out.”
The creature was fast. Too fast, it scaled walls like a lizard and moved like a
monkey. Batman was having trouble following it, growling and snarling as he
tried to follow it.
Somehow the movements seemed familiar.
Stiles could track the movement, the path was right there practically shining.
Obvious. He broke off (he was trailing behind Batman anyways, breathing hard).
Stiles picked the roof top that would be the next target and used the grappling
hook to cheat.
He slammed into the creature knocking them both off of the edge of the
building. Stiles wrapped his arms around both of them and used the hook line to
slow their fall. He dropped the creature from high enough to stun it and it
made a sound like a wounded dog.
When he flashed his light on it, it was Scott stared back at him.
“What the fuck?!” Stiles yelped eyes wide. “Scott?”
“What?” Scott stared dumbly at him. “Stiles. Why are you dressed like Robin?”
“No time. Fucking run you idiot.” Stiles hissed as the sound of Batman’s cape
flaring as he jumped off the edge to glide down.
Scott ran.
Later. “We lost him.” Derek scowled. Stiles shrugged and was glad the mask hid
most of his face and that he already had a reputation for being a spazz.
--
This was Scott’s story:
He’d been walking home alone when the attack happened. It wouldn’t be until
much later that he was able to correlate the shape and the growls with the word
‘Werewolf’ at the time it had been fear adn claws and stunned disbelief. They
had fought because Scott was scared, fight or flight pushed up to the extreme.
It had tried to slam him on the pavement but Scott wasn’t about to go down
without a tight, he grabbed it’s arm and twisted, kicking at its knees and
fighting dirty.
That was when Scott got the bite.
That was also when Scott met Allison so he counted it as a win over all.
The arrow whizzed through the air and jammed right into the creature’s
shoulder, followed closely by a second. It roared, the sound burrowed down into
his chest and twisted; Scott screamed curling up in a ball on the pavement.
Something sizzling through his veins like fire.
“I’m so sorry.” She said, kneeling over him in the pavement dark hair falling
like a curtain protecting them from the world for a moment. “I tried to stop
him. So far no one has survived the bite.”
--
Stiles had set up a demilitarization zone between him and Jackson. He wouldn’t
say they were friends. He wouldn’t even say they didn’t hate each other. But
they usually managed to avoid each other or actively not argue when they saw
each other.
Jackson had a flashy car and perfect hair.
Oh, Jackson had such a sob story, Stiles would feel bad for him if he wasn’t
such an epic asshole.
“Derek isn’t here.” Jackson said low and snapping.
Stiles stiffened. He’d been coming up from doing research in the Bat-cave,
Derek was actually here, but he was working down in the cave that Jackson could
never know about. “I must have got the schedules mixed up.” Stiles lied.
Jackson glared at him. “What does he even see in you? Is it because you’re the
commissioner’s son? Because you’re a shitty PA.”
“Wouldn’t you know all about father privilege?” Stiles snapped back.
It was difficult to tell which one of them threw the first punch. Only that
Jackson was swearing at him and they crashed into an end table. Stiles
helpfully forgot that he was stronger and faster now than he ever was, and that
Derek had drilled him in hand to hand while Jackson was a douche-y little rich
boy.
Stiles punched him in the face and Jackson brought his hands up to defend
himself.
It was oddly cathartic.
The relationship between Jackson and Derek was nothing but pain and that much
had been obvious from the first day. It was poison and Stiles wanted nothing
but to rip Jackson into little pieces for every snide remark and every cocky
smile. It took Deaton pulling him off of Jackson, and they were both bruised
and bloodied. (Still Stiles’ knuckles hurt but probably not at much as
Jackson’s face so he was going to count that as a win.)
“Jackson. Wait.” Deaton called as Jackson stomped out of the room, slamming the
door behind him hard enough to echo through the empty mansion.
Deaton looked at Stiles for a long moment and Stiles glared at him. He wasn’t
going to apologize now.
“Are you going to tell Derek?” Stiles crossed his arms over his chest. Deaton
shook his head slowly.
“He will probably figure it out.” (Stiles got the shit beat out of him in their
next training session but Derek never actually said anything.)
“What is up with them?” Stiles said after the silence stretched on long enough
to get really uncomfortable.
“That would take a group of psychologists a life time to answer.”
--
Stiles got his answer one day when he dropped by early.
He was getting better at knowing where his feet were and what they were doing,
at moving like he was the master of his own body and not just a renter. The
last growth spurt had really thrown him for a loop.
Derek must have not heard him, or maybe he was just distracted by the way that
Jackson was splayed across his thighs like an obscene centre-fold.
Derek was dressed in a pale grey suit. Jackson was completely naked and
straddling his hips on the low couch in the morning sitting room. There was a
familiarity in the way that Derek held his hips, holding him up and fucking
slowly up into his body like he had all the time in the world and Jackson was
whining low in his throat. Stiles could just see the slick wet place where they
were joined rubbed raw and shiny with lube.
Jackson leaned down, kissing Derek hard, muffling the little moans that escaped
his throat for a moment.
“Please, fuck me.” He begged, humble like Stiles had never seen him.
“I am.” Derek rumbled his voice scraped raw.
Stiles should have left, but he was stuck to the spot horrified.
“It’s not enough.” Jackson whined, and he was trying to move but the muscles in
Derek’s arms tensed under his suit, obviously holding him in place right where
he wanted him.
“You get what I want to give you.” He said, biting at Jackson’s mouth. Jackson
made this filthy desperate little whine like Derek was hurting him.
Later Derek appeared wearing a different suit and his hair re-styled and Stiles
mostly hid from him. It made a sick sort of sense in a ‘you break it, you buy
it’ kind of way.
--
“Don’t hurt him!” Stiles screamed. His voice was raw from shouting and throwing
up. His head ached from the hit that had knocked him unconscious but nothing
hurt more than the way his father’s eyes barely focused, blood coating his face
from a gash high on his forehead.
“Little Robin.” The Fear crooned, black mask so dark it seemed to suck the very
light of the space around him like a self-contained black hole. After the whole
thing with Jackson and Lydia Stiles had learned why Gotham really needed
Batman, so people like Fear couldn’t be free. He struggled with the ropes that
kept him immobile. (Lydia attacking him while sobbing something about spiders,
Jackson curled up under the table sobbing uncontrollably. Their greatest and
most private fears used against them.)
Batman would be looking for him. He would find him and he would save him. Then
Stiles was going to kick Fear right in the face-- then he was going to light
him on fire and watch the fucker burn. “I didn’t know you cared so deeply for
the commissioner. Or is the sanc—ti--ty,” he popped each syllable like
bubblegum, “of life such a big thing to all you mask and cape types?”
Closer he whispered against his ear, “or shall I tell him your secret little
bird? Do you think he’d be proud of you?”
“What do you want?” Stiles snarled.
“Tell me who Batman is.”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you do.”
“I don’t.” Stiles could do this all day if he needed too. He’d been the master
of this game in pre-school.
“That’s a shame, because if you don’t tell me, I’m going to kill him. So you
had better think of something.”
Stiles broke. He couldn’t, no matter what, see his Father hurt. Not when his
father was all he had left. The Fear threw back his head laughed when Stiles
finally told him, laughed like something was hurting him deep inside almost
hysterical.
“I guess I should have told you before that I was going to kill you any ways.”
He said fake-cheerful.
Stiles was tied to his father and left in the middle of the spillway. Every
morning after the rains the drainage system for the plant were flushed. It had
pissed down all through the night and if Stiles didn’t find a way to move this
morning he was going to drown.
“Come on Commissioner, wake up.” ‘I could really use you right now’ He wiggled
but his Dad was well and truly out, Stiles couldn’t stop to think about how
many times they had hit him in the head because hysterics were not going to
help anyone.
Stiles wriggled and pulled to the point where his wrists and ankles were
bruised and painful. Just when he’d slumped down, trying to pull his scattered
thoughts back together for one last effort or at least a good cry. (Was The
Fear going to strike right away? Did Derek even know he was gone?)
“You look like you could use some help.” Sitting on the edge of the spill-way
outlined in starlight she was a vision of black leather and curves. Stiles
swallowed thickly. The hero was only ever saved by super hot superhero babes in
comic books. Stiles laughed high and nervously, almost hysterical.
“You could say that.”
She moved like a fucking cat, all stealth and grace and power. Or maybe it was
the cat ears on her head and the black mask over her eyes that made the imagery
work. Either way it was bad ass. Blonde hair spilled down her back and Stiles
was finding the attempt to not notice that her boobs were barely contained by
her bodice actually was calming. It felt normal.
The ends of her gloves had little knives and he cut through the ropes easily,
and Stiles spilled out onto the cement. She was a little more gentle with his
Dad but not by much. “Who are you?” Stiles asked, pulling himself to his feet
through force of will. One of his ribs was probably broken.
“Me? I’m just a stray.” She winked at him. “Can resist little dangling birds.”
Her laugh was kind of cruel. “Well, thank you anyways.” Stiles said with a
mocking kind of nod.
She shrugged. “Call me Catwoman.”
“Don’t you have a normal name? Like Sally, you look like you’d be a good Sally,
maybe Lucy. It’s not Kitty is it? That would be too much.”
“I like you, you’re a lot more fun than the Bat.”
“He had his sense of humour removes when he was fitted for the spandex.”
Between them they managed to get his father to safety. She turned around
probably ready to do the dramatic fade into the shadows routine. Which meant in
this bad comic book rendition of real life it was Stiles’ line: “Wait, will I
see you again.”
“You’ll see me around Bird-Brain.” She waved over her shoulder and was gone.
--
This is Erica’s story:
When she was a child she suffered from seizures. They medicated her but it
didn’t stop them like her brain was one big electrical storm that would not be
tamed. Everyone knew that it could be the next one that killed her or left her
catatonic. She lived with that every day. Hated it. Resented the fact that she
would never be able to be the things that other girls were.
Her Dad, a scientist with Hills Inc. (mega producer of just about everything)
worked on genetic engineering. They were trying to unlock the hidden potential
of the human genome. One day her Dad hugged her close and asked. “Hey Princess,
do you want to be free?” He was haggard and looking wild around the edges with
too much coffee and not enough sleep.
Erica who couldn’t do much more than read books knew that being free was what
every good Princess really wanted. “The procedure will hurt, but it will cure
you.”
“Yes.”
He’d turned her into something else. Something better than normal. She could do
all the things that normal girls did (found this boring and realized that she’d
never wanted to be normal anyways) and so much more as well. Just when she was
beginning to get the hang of her powers (stronger, faster, better vision) Dad
was killed in a car crash and their house burgled in the same night. They went
for the study where her father kept his notes, but she had burned them in the
bin in the back with her father the week before. Dad clinging to her and
kissing her hair telling her that he’d only wanted to help people but they were
going to use it for evil.
Erica vowed vengeance on Hills Inc. that same day. She would train her new body
into a weapon and she would find out why her Dad had to die. She would make
them pay.
She ran into the Batman while stealing documents. It wasn’t so much of a paper
trail as a paper maze. Her fight wasn’t with him. But if he got in her way
again she was going to have to do something drastic.
Stumbling upon the Robin had been simply dumb luck. Erica got restless at night
and was out training, trying to find the limits of her strength when she’d come
across him. Almost left him there too, being kind never helped anyone.
“Dad please.” He’d said sagging down into his bonds looking defeated and Erica
wasn’t so jaded that she could just walk away from that. Maybe she could even
get the Robin in her debt. That had to be worth something to someone.
--
“What do you mean you told him?” Derek snarled at him.
Stiles flinched but held his ground. It had been the hardest thing he had ever
done just dropping his father in the A&E and leaving him there bleeding and
unconscious in the ambulance bay because he needed to get back to Derek.
“I had no choice.” Stiles said back tears burning at his eyes. “He was hurting
my Dad.”
He’d found Derek pale and staring at a photo when he got back. The picture
showed Jackson’s posh school and nothing more. The threat didn’t even need
words.
“We’ve got to assume he has Jackson already.” Derek punched the wall shouting
something full of anger and hurt.
God Stiles was lucky he hadn’t actually managed to get involved in the hot mess
that was Derek and Jackson’s fucked up relationship. He bowed his head.
--
Jackson was missing for two whole days. No one knew where he went, he had
vanished from his room in the middle of the night and just never came back.
Stiles spent a lot of his time at his Dad’s bed side trying not to feel guilty.
Scott came and sat with him, just shooting the shit and taking Stiles’ mind off
the fact that his father hadn’t woken up yet and god knows what was happening
to Jackson.
The police station was a mess, the Commissioner was out and they had been
handed Jackson’s kidnapping case. Like the police could do anything about the
maniac that had him.
“I didn’t know what to do.” Stiles said, him and Scott were sitting on the roof
of the hospital looking out over Gotham. “What happened to the days where
nothing was fucked up?”
“Dunno man.” Scott shrugged. “We just got to make the best of it. I mean, once
I get control of this, maybe I can help people too.” He flexed his fingers like
he could feel the claws sitting there just under the skin waiting for his
heart-rate to spike.
“It’s not worth it.” Stiles admit. It felt good to finally say it out loud.
“It’s always worth it.” Scott replied fierce and without room for rebuttal.
Derek called him at dusk on the third day. “Come to the mansion. Fear has left
a message.” Derek paused, “I need your help.”
The video rocked around for a moment before focusing on a damp little room. The
Fear stood in the middle of it all. “Imagine my surprise when I found out who
Batman really was.” He spoke to the camera. “Derek.”
He pulled the mask off. Stiles would have placed money on him looking like a
serial murderer, like the whole fucking freak show rolled up into one. The
elephant lady’s nose with the lizard man’s skin condition. Instead he looked
like a normal middle-aged man with slicked back hair. “Long time no see.”
“You know him?” Stiles gawked and Derek looked pained.
“He’s my uncle, Peter Hale. He was dead. He died with everyone else.”
“Well it looks a lot like it didn’t take.” Stiles snapped, while they had been
speaking he’d left the frame. He came back with the limp form of Jackson. His
perfect hair was wilted and he was man-handled like a rag doll his head lolled
weakly to the side.
“He’s fine, just a little drugged right now. Isn’t that right Jacks?” Jackson
whimpered and tried to push Peter off of him but it didn’t work limp hands
pushing at his chest. He took Jackson by the back of his neck and shook him
until he was still again, whining low in his throat. “Hush boy. By now, you
already know I’m up to something. You’ve been sniffing around for weeks now. So
I’m going to give you a choice. You can try and stop me. Or you can save the
kid here.”
Stiles watched the way Peter pulled Jackson up closer to him, emotionless
little smile. “He’s a pretty one Derek, surely you want him back?”
The video dissolved into static leaving Stiles in the room with Derek who
looked like he wanted to hit something again. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” Derek admit. “He’s planning on blowing up the central sector, I
need to stop him.” Stiles paled. There were a lot of people there. Innocent
people who didn’t deserve to die. “I’ve been tracking suspicious activity for
the last two months and I’ve finally worked out their plan. I know Peter and I
know The Fear. He will kill Jackson to punish me for interfering with his
plans.”
Derek rarely looked uncertain. He was singular in purpose. Never wavered.
“Why is he doing this?” Stiles finally said in a small voice. He was scared.
This wasn’t stopping muggers on the street.
This got a hard smile from Derek. “The same reason I am. He’s going to make
Gotham pay for what happened to us.”
In that horrible moment Stiles could see how Derek might have turned into
Peter. How he could have lost his way and began to care less and less about the
price of his vengeance and more about the results. Stiles had read the early
articles on the Batman, and he’d read the one where Batman left a child with
the dead bodies of his parents.
“Well. What are we going to do about it?” Stiles asked firmly.
Derek looked startled for a moment before he nodded. “You’re going to get
Jackson, I’m going to stop Peter.”
Once fear had a name, it wasn’t so scary.
--
“So, still want to try and do good?” Stiles asked into the phone.
“How can I help?” Scott answered immediately.
--
“I gave you my number so you could ask me out for dinner.” Catwoman answered.
“Please. I need help.”
“Fine, but you owe me.” She said finally.
--
“No.” Lydia, code-name Red (but that is another story), answered. Stiles knew
she avoided anything having to do with the Fear. Not after the last incident.
“Please?”
“No.” She snarled.
“For Jackson?”
There was a long pause. “What do you want?” Wasn’t that a kick in the balls.
“Just some information.”
--
Getting Jackson actually wasn’t nearly as hard as Stiles had thought it would
be. Of course he could have never done with without Scott. Scott who was some
sort of werewolf thing and Allison who showed up with him in an all-black
outfit, purple mask and a large deadly looking bow. Stiles had took one look at
her and said ‘yep, okay.’ Not even going to argue.
Catwoman dropped down from the rafters landing on her improbable heels.
She’d looked Allison up and down, flipped her hair and proceeded to ignore them
until Red’s voice was coming over the comm. telling them about the layout of
the building, breech points and probable places they could be keeping Jackson.
“Go team?” Stiles said tentatively only to be met with blank stares.
Scott shrugged. “Go team.” Catwoman rolled her eyes and Allison just blinked at
him.
“Good enough.” Stiles agreed quickly.
They managed to sneak in. Jackson blinked at him, slow to startle and weak.
“It’s déjà vu all over again.” Stiles mumbled as he picked Jackson up under one
arm. Made it all the way down the hall before he was surrounded by goons.
Jackson whimpered trying to pull away from him.
“Not very smart Robin.” The head one stepped forward looking slick in a bowler
hat and waist coat.
“Ooh, it’s a trap is it?” Stiles said, dropping Jackson who simply crumpled
like a sack of potatoes. “Like I didn’t see that coming.”
“Hey boys.” Erica hung from her knees from the rafters, golden hair falling
around her and gravity doing amazing things for her tits (focus Stiles).
“I suggest you surrender and no one has to get hurt.” Scott lisped the words
through the fangs distending his jaw flanking them from the opposite side.
The first man made a move towards Stiles and an arrow stuck in his thigh
dropped him to the ground with a cry.
Like the starting bell of the race it was on.
Stiles managed to stay close-ish to Jackson, and well no one stepped on him,
he’d mostly pulled himself against a wall and ducked down like a startled deer.
Scott was vicious, mostly animal all claws and teeth and Allison moving nimbly
through the rafters spotting him as if they had been doing this forever.
Catwoman cut a literal swath through her enemies grinning like this was the
greatest day ever the whole time. It was just as disturbing as it was hot.
When they were left with the groaning and incapacitated bodies of their fallen
enemies Stiles picked Jackson back up again. “Okay, let’s leave the rest to the
police.”
“Is that Jackson Hale?” Catoman asked.
“Whittmore.” He slurred at her, she grabbed his chin to get a better look at
his face. He blinked fuzzily up at her. “M’names Whittmore.”
“You are prettier in real life. How is that fair?”
Stiles figured she was a girl after his own heart.
--
Jackson threw up most of the way back to the mansion. “Seriously, if your
father wouldn’t murder me I’d leave your vomcano ass on the side of the road.”
Stiles bitched as he pulled over to let Jackson throw up out of the side of the
Batcar again. Jackson just moaned weakly, heaving bile all over the asphalt.
Towards the south something exploded with a muffled boom lighting up the night
in a flash of orange. Stiles’ fingers tightened on the steering wheel. He had
to believe that Derek would be okay.
Jackson flipped him off. Well at least he was feeling better. How nice.
--
Stiles waited in the Batcave once Jackson had been safely dropped off with
Deaton, got changed quickly and came out as Stiles again. Jackson was still
mostly too drugged to even notice that Deaton had washed him and dried him off
and bandaged the few surface wounds.
Stiles sat curled in the same sitting room (but not on the couch he’d seen them
have sex on. Never that couch), Jackson sat curled in a ball on the other
couch.
Deaton sat with him petting his hair absently. At one point he got up and
Jackson grabbed at his arm, “don’t leave me alone. Please.”
“Okay.”
Derek came home when the dawn was just kissing the Gotham skyline. He came up
from the Batcave bruised and looking broken around the edges.
He went straight for Jackson. Derek pulled him into his arms and Jackson, all
loose limbed and accommodating, pushed his face into Derek’s neck while he
Derek rubbed his bruised face against his hair. They stayed like that for a
long moment just clinging to each other.
Stiles felt like he was intruding on something he shouldn’t be; Deaton had
removed himself as soon as he’d seen all his charges were safe but Stiles had
nowhere to go back to but his vigil at his father’s bed and he wasn’t ready to
deal with that yet. Derek collapsed against the couch; crumpling like he
couldn’t stay standing any longer and Jackson crawled clumsily onto him.
“Stiles?” Derek asked.
“Yeah?” He said quietly.
“Thank you. You did good. I would have picked an easier first mission for you,
but you did it. Go, see your father.”
“In a little. Then I will be back..” Stiles said low and exhausted.
“Of course you will I can’t get rid of you kid.”
Derek held up a hand and Stiles pushed forward until it was a hug, Jackson
mumbled testily from the middle but didn’t move.
***** Jackson's story *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
This is Jackson’s story:
He knew Derek was Batman. He’d been a kid-- not an idiot.
Chapter End Notes
     Again I feel like I should apologize for this.
     Thank you if you've read through the whole thing.
      
     Stay tuned, same Bat Time, same Bat Channel for The Fear.
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