another dumb headcanon: superman is nice to birds because of course he is, and helps out birds who are in distress. also he can fly around with them. birds see a lot more of superman than they do of most people, basically. the unexpected consequence of this is that the crows of metropolis recognize superman as a friend. sometimes crows just follow him around like a weird flock, or try to give him shiny things. but mostly please just imagine luthor trying to gloat while threatening superman with kryptonite only to have a crow steal it. or just, generally, lex luthor getting attacked by crows. if that does not improve your day i don’t know what to tell you.
“What is that?”
Superman followed the direction of Batman’s gaze. A crow had landed on the rooftop beside them, and dropped a bottlecap near Superman’s feet. “Oh! Hey Francis. Is that for me?”
“Caw,” said Francis.
“Do you have a pet crow?” Batman asked.
“No, I don’t have pets,” Superman said as he bent down to retrieve the bottlecap.
“You named it.”
“Not this specific one,” Superman explained. “I just call all the crows Francis.”
“… why.”
“Caw, caw,” said Francis with a flap of its wings.
“I don’t know. Just calling them ‘crow’ felt rude after a while. I’d name them individually but I can’t actually tell them apart. Except for Old Francis and One-Eyed Francis.” Superman tucked the bottlecap into a small pocket on the back of his pants.
“Why Francis?”
Superman shrugged. “It’s gender neutral. I don’t want to misgender them just because they’re birds.”
“Of course you don’t,” Batman sighed, looking back out at Metropolis.
“Caw,” Francis added.
“Do you keep dog treats in your utility belt?” Superman asked.
“Why would I do that.”
“… in case you meet a dog that needs to know he’s a good boy?” Superman suggested. Batman shook his head, but opened a small pouch on his belt and held out a small treat. “See, it was a yes or no question, I don’t know why everything has to be such a production with you,” Superman said as he took it. He tossed it over by the bird’s feet. “Here you are, Francis. Keep up the good work.”
“Caw, caw,” Francis said. When it realized no more treats were forthcoming, it flew away in a flutter of black wings.
“You’re unbelievable,” Batman said, shaking his head again.
Superman took his eyes off the departing crow to look back at Batman, and frowned. “You know,” he said, “it’s really weird seeing you in costume during the day.”
“Don’t start.”
“It’s like seeing your teacher at the mall.”
“Don’t think I won’t take care of Poison Ivy without your help, if I have to.”
Superman shrugged. “I’m just saying.”
But…what if the crows also recognized him as Clark Kent? This mild-mannered reporter who doesn’t seem to do anything in particular to the crows that would make them like him, but they’re not afraid of him at all, and they keep trying to give HIM things, and Clark being a nice guy, he just. Accepts the bottlecap. Says thank you. Keeps walking. Lois adds another factoid to her “Weird Stuff About Clark Kent” file.
Maybe he tries to convince his coworkers that everyone is friendly with crows in Smallville. That the farmers discovered how smart crows are and decided to make friends with them instead of chasing them off.
Maybe he tries to talk the crows into palling around with him as Superman but going their separate ways as Clark Kent.
Please imagine Superman on top of a building holding Clark Kent’s glasses and trying to explain the concept of a secret identity to a flock of attentive birds.
@vixyish needs to see this.
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What about some kind of Ricstar in 3, if you still write them?
Far Rockaway:
Up until today, the strangest thing Julio Richter has seen wash up on this beach was a bumper from a 1965 Ford Galaxie. Granted, it was shoved through the eye socket of a Sentinel head, but still.
He’s lived a quiet life here, fixing cars, computers and the occasional marriage, since he buggered off from X-Factor. None of this child-soldier-protecting a world that hates and fears blah blah blah. No Right trying to make him into an earthquake machine, and certainly no FUCKING TELEPATHS all up in his shit No Offence Jean but COME ON.
He’s never been happier, taking his lunch through the overgrown wasteland that had been a residential neighbourhood before Hurricane Sandy screwed the pooch and clambering up the dunes to eat while the sea rolls in. He can feel the bedrock beneath the sand, hear the song in the jettys, and life is good.
It’s good until he sees something brilliant red-gold wash up in the grey-green tide, and at first, squinting against the sun, he thinks it’s a traffic cone. Until it’s not and he sees that it’s *hair*.
“Oh, motherfucker.” Julio curses, shoving the rest of his ham sandwich in his mouth as he scrambles down towards the water. Facedown in the surf, sand crusting torn white leather, the man doesn’t move until Julio prods him with his foot.
There’s a wheeze and a cough and he pushes himself upright as Julio takes a step back. His face is pale and bruised, but the inky, star-like mark around one silver eye is anything but and Julio promptly falls on his ass in the sand under that sharp stare. “Are you ok?” He asks dumbly. In the back of his head, he hears Cyclops telling him to ready his powers for a possible attack, but he can’t even bring himself to try.
The redhead’s first response is to lunge for him, and suddenly his internal Scott seems vindicated, but the motion abruptly turns into a stumble and another faceplant in the sand. And then he rolls over and squints up at the sky, then back at Julio, muttering in something that sounds like Russian, except played backwards, in a voice that’s almost too deep and raspy for someone with an absurdly pretty face and enough hair to qualify as a My Little Pony.
Fuck the bumper in the sentinel head, Julio thinks as the redhead picks himself up and starts clearly cursing in that weird cheese-grater language again. This is the strangest thing Julio Richter has ever found on the beach.
Maybe just ever.
!!!
RicStar! ♧:One character playing with the other’s hair
Shatterstar’s hair doesn’t feel exactly like hair, Rictor thinks as he scowls down at the diagram. They’re sitting on the roof of the building that houses Murderworld, and it is a muggy, suffocating East Coast summer day. Ric has taken to wearing a bandanna to keep the sweat out of his eyes, and ‘Star’s hair weighs about a hundred pounds. It’s too thick, too soft. Almost like a pelt of some massive, exotic animal bred for it’s coat and he pauses in the braid, looking at the fiery strands between his fingers. The thought twists in his gut a little bit because that is a little too on the nose.
“Your hair is really hard to braid.” He says instead. “And… are you sure you want me doin’ this? I mean, some of these styles are kind of..”
“Julio.” ‘Star tips his head back to look up at him in the scant shade of the rooftop. The humidity doesn’t bother him. Mojoworld, to the best of Rictor’s recollection, is basically a swamp – and the worst effect the weather has on ‘Star is the fact that his ends get wildly curly in the damp. “When I was in the arena, I wore that ridiculous headpiece to try and keep my hair out of my face. They only let me cut or braid it where it wouldn’t be seen by the audience. The spineless ones liked how my hair always signaled my location on the field. But it was a..” ‘Star pauses, chewing on one scarlet coil. “A liability at times. This. This is my choice. And I do not want anyone else touching my hair if I can have a say in the matter.” There’s a tiny wrinkle at the corner of his silvery eyes and Ric’s heart skips a beat. That minuscule tic of a smile that he only does for him.
“Ok, but if Jimmy says you look like a pretty princess…” Ric starts again as ‘Star resettles himself.
“I will thank him and tell him to get on his knees. A princess deserves respect.” ‘Star replies, perfectly deadpan and Ric doesn’t have to see his face to know that he’s smiling.
😀
And then there’s these dorks.
Shatterstar sleeps, but no one’s really sure when unless it’s after a
mission and he’s curled around Rictor. It’s tradition, even though they
all pretend to not notice the two boys slumped together on the couch
and Ric, for his part, can come up with a million excuses as to why
they’re napping together instead of anywhere else. He used his powers
like five times, which drains him, and I made a new crater you can see
from space so we’re just tired and we don’t wanna go upstairs….Except
Ric sees the flaws in this– for one, Shatterstar has showered and
changed before curling around him. The warrior was fastidious about
being clean, something Ric wouldn’t have figured. It was having running,
clean water at his disposal, let alone hot running water. It was still a
novelty and ‘Star admitted a tad sheepishly that he liked being able to
clean off properly after a battle to get the gore and dirt off.
Mojoworld water came from a trough in the slave pens and left a chalky
residue on his skin and if it was hot, it was because the outside was
murky and humid. And for another, Ric had done the same thing, wearing a
smudged tank top whose words had long since flaked off from the many
washing it received.And if Shatterstar’s face is half turned into
Rictor’s hair and if Rictor has melded his shoulders back into the
couch (and ‘Star’s torso), then it was only because they were tired and
didn’t want to go upstairs. It had nothing to do with Rictor’s hair
smelling like fresh shampoo and Shatterstar slept soundly with the t.v.
on and Rictor close by. And nothing to do with Rictor not dreaming of
Hodge whenever Shatterstar leaned against him, satisfied and satiated
after a good brawl with an enemy he was free to trounce. They were tired
and they didn’t want to go upstairs.
❤
Art by @blithefool, who is, as always, super awesome. also thanks go to @nobiliorpomis because without them, this crack ship would not be half as good as it is.
Doug had been disappearing for the better part of three weeks. On the one hand, he had told Jono that he was working on a surprise, and that was the reason, but it didn’t quiet the niggling thoughts in his head that this was Doug trying to let him down gently into a break up. Never mind that Doug had ended up explicitly saying that he was not going to break up with Jono, it was still a thought that refused to go away from where it had burrowed inside Jono’s head. So when Doug signed that he wanted to speak to Jono, well… Let’s just say that Jono took a good minute to pull up an emotional wall before he followed Doug.
When Jono opened the door to his room, it took him a minute to process what he was seeing. Doug stood there with a guitar borrowed from the music room hanging across his shoulders by the strap. There was a soft smile on his mouth, something shy and sweet, but unnoticeable if you didn’t know how to look for it. Jono knew how, after many minutes and hours of watching.
“Most languages I’m fluent in, don’t even have to try. You know all about those. But some they… just don’t click, and I’m slower than everyone else. But I want to try.” Doug said, looking down at his hand as he strummed the guitar. “And I am trying, I promise.”
Jono remembered the incident that had preceded Doug hiding out. Let it be known now, that Doug, at one point, was objectively bad at playing the guitar. Not just un-taught, but bad. When Jono asked Doug to try to play a section of original music he had written to see how two guitars would sound…? Well, Jono’s ears still weren’t quite recovered from it.
Doug started playing that same song. It was halting and off beat, but that Doug had tried to understand something that made up a big part of Jono’s internal life? That meant everything.
Eventually, Jono held up a hand to Doug to stop and gestured for Doug to turn around with a twirl of a finger. Some of the reason that Doug was having trouble was that he was half trying to hold up the guitar from the strap not being right. Jono adjusted it, coming up behind Doug’s shoulder.
Doug leaning into his touch, a somewhat recent development, and one that Jono cherished. There were a lot of things that were pot holes and pitfalls between them, and Doug’s aversion, almost fear, of touch was one of those things. The universal acceptance? That was something that Jono reveled in becuase he was the only one of two being allowed to touch Doug freely. Doug’s other problem with teh guitar was that his fingering wasn’t quite right. Tips of the fingers, not the pads, so that you only touched one string with each finger.
As Jono was adjusting Doug’s hand, Doug swooped. That was what Jono would call it later. A swoop. Becuase one moment he was just having his hands on Doug’s and the next he was standing stock still while Doug pressed a kiss to the scrap of skin between Jono’s ear and the top of the bandages around his face. Unexpected. Completely out of left field. Doug was lucky that Jono didn’t blow up the dorm.
It was an accomplishment, in more ways than one. ‘I’m trying’, Doug had said. Jono should have realized that there was more meaning to it than just learning the guitar. It meant touch too, both accepting it and giving it.
:’)
Alternate universe where Kal-El’s baby pod comes down behind Wayne Manor after the deaths of Bruce’s parents. Alternate universe where 15-year-old Bruce Wayne pulls an alien baby from the flaming wreckage and hikes across that big ass miserable lonely estate back to the house, listening to Kal cry the whole way, not sure if he would die in Earth’s atmo or not.
Imagine a young vigilante in the making having no idea what to do, but knowing – just knowing – that he can’t turn the kid over to anyone and then imagine Alfred realizing this after a few hours just… “You’re holding him incorrectly, Master Wayne.”
I’m just saying, there’s less moral ambiguity to bringing your bouncy/floaty adopted younger brother on patrol with you when he happens to be bulletproof.
Justice League meetings in this world would be interesting, to say the least.
Bruce is like 40 years old and Kal is like 25 and as set out on his own as Superman. It’s the same: the Justice League is headed by the world’s beloved Superman, Bats is funding it from the shadows. The world’s greatet hereos, lalala. The primary difference is just Batman says odd things to Superman sometimes like “Did you eat this morning or just pretend you don’t need caloric intake again?”
And instead of just chuckling magnanimously Supes gets all like: “I’m not having one of your gross protein shakes, Batso.”
*Batglare*
Supes drinks the fuckin shake but he does NOT enjoy it.
Okay, this got enough notes that I did write a fic for this verse. just FYI.
Muffled, from the other side of the door? RicStar? / : )
(ah! I haven’t written these dorks in too long!! <3)
“Go away.” Rictor says for the fifth time. “I can still hear you breathing on the other side.”
They are living in the ruins of Camp Verde, and outside its a hundred degrees in the shade. (It’s a dry heat,) Rictor thinks, vaguely hysterical. (You can barely feel how hot he is when he brushes past you.)
The bathroom Ric has ensconced himself in is cooler, marginally, but the grubby blue tile doesn’t help the burning, shameful heat in his chest.
“Your hearing is not that good. I am a very quiet breather.” Comes the voice through the heavy door, all wavy glass and chipped wood. “Feral might hear me. Or Theresa. But not you.”
“I still knew you were there, asshole.” Ric sinks further down onto the tile floor, back pressed hard against the door, as if he might have the strength to keep ‘Star out if the redhead really, truly wanted in.
“Julio, I don’t understand what I did.” ‘Star says and there’s a soft rasp and a shift of wood just slightly as he leans against it as well.
“You were thinkin’ about me. About us. In front’a fuckin’ Cable. You know he can read minds, right? I saw that look he gave and.. fuck. Dios FUCK. He’s gonna know that you an’ I .. That you. I’m not. I’m just.. WHY DID YOU HAVE TO THINK SO HARD? WHY DID YOU SAY ALL THAT SHIT ABOUT NOT HAVING ANY FEELINGS IN THAT FUCKING ARENA WHEN YOU FUCKING VERY CLEARLY HAVE SOMETHING.” Ric’s voice strangles into an enraged squeak and the room shudders in sympathy with his powers until, panting, he reins them back in, watching the plaster dust drift from the ceiling in the slanting, golden light.
He doesn’t realise how ridiculous it all sounds, though, until he listens to the echoes, and he covers his face in a fresh wash of shame. “Just go away, Shatterstar.”
“I will not. But I will attempt to stop breathing for a while, if that will give you some solace.” ‘Star says as if that is an actual, reasonable solution. “To show love… to show anything in the arena was something that could be used against a gladiator. But.” There’s a long pause as ‘Star tries to gather his thoughts, punctuated by soft muttering in Cadre that Ric doesn’t understand, not yet. Not the way ‘Star is learning Spanish for him and Ric wants to punch himself in the face for being a coward.
“But I think loved some of them, Ric. And.” His voice grows softer, head tilted away from the door and Ric can picture him chewing on the end of one of his long braids. “And I think. I think I may love you too. And.. it frightens me. But if it upsets you. I will stop. I will try. I don’t.. you are my friend and I ..”
Ric wonders if ‘Star can hear his own words, muffled through the faded wood. “I think I love you too.”
*my heart!*
Favorite Joker and Harley fanfic?
I can’t pick just one! How about a couple of favs?
Snuff– theprincessbee
It’s the Thought that Counts– Gladrial
The Villain – XMarisolX
Five Things That Never Happened to Harley Quinn– Risquesno
I think you can still find all these on fanfiction.net. Several (or all) of them also resided on jokerxharley.net which no longer exists, sadly.
I totally forgot to link this. Me and @guapet wrote a thing. Well, actually, they did most of the writing. I started a drabble, realized it was taking a turn for the smutty and panicked. Luckily, where I faltered, @guapet endured.
And, if I can ever reclaim my free time, we’re gonna do and little Jono and Angelo road trip story.
Like Sauza for Old Crow – BlitheFool, DoubtingRabbit – Marvel (Comics) [Archive of Our Own]
A Beautiful Monster 