Disclaimer - yeah like I own anything
Okay, so it's like that challenge where you turn your Ipod on and write; I've done it twice as practice/WBlock breaker. Not bad, some of these are very out there and others aren't that bad. Involves OC, guest appearances (of course Damian and Helena) a little slash, a few broken hearts and real chaos.
I was going to do five, then ten, and then thought 'I'll just put them all up while I'm at it'. Please feel free to review with your favorites.
Batman Beyond One-Shots
Figure it out, Lil Chris
No doubt life is never easy. Maxine would gladly testify to that when she fell asleep in class, when she forgot to get more milk because someone had hit her over the head, or when she got angry calls for forgetting to call her friends to cancel a study date. And yet she was still in the top of her class, was being offered a scholarship to wherever she wanted to go and still managed to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat when she was making things up to her friends. Of course, Max knows that Batwoman or not, if it wasn't for her loyal and quick tongued friend, ex-crook but golden hearted Terry, she'd never get half as far as she has.
Love, Don't let me Go
She was a strange girl; he had realized that not long after meeting her. Batman or not, Terry still couldn't figure out Danielle Queen. Blonde, shallow, pretty, brutal and sharp-the girl was nothing but contrasts. He could barely stand her manipulative disobedience yet he found himself more than happy to have her at his side, to dance the night away with her or even ask for her advice. Though his pride would never admit it, he found himself enjoying the time spent with that self obsessed, vain socialite, whose sarcasm and devious ways never failed to land them into more trouble. And get them all the way out again.
Stan, Eminem
The first piece of fan mail she got, she stared at for a few minutes before dismissing it as a prank. She didn't talk to Terry or Bart for a few days, to their insistent confusion. A week later, a man 'bumped' into her in a coffee shop, smiling and talking away – she smiled, nodded and listened politely for ten minutes before leaving. The first hints that something wasn't right was when she started to notice him during her day – they went to the same coffee shops, shopped in the same shops, walked the same streets. She wondered if she was imagining things when he makes a point of talking to her every morning but turns down his suggestions of going out. She realized she was over her head when he started to turn up at her work, insisting to her friend they were dating, turned up at her flat at all times. She thinks about telling the others when he punches a guy for bumping in to her. It isn't until she feels the knife at her throat that she realized why this feels so familiar. She feels bad when she sees Terry's eyes, how furious he is as the man holds her down the ledge, the wind blowing at them. Then she fell, he falls and everything is wrong way up.
It isn't until later, when she's accepting coffee from the police that Max realized she didn't even know the guy's name.
I'm Not Dead
The room was small, dark and trashed. Just looking at it made her feel depressed; in her dreams the sheets were satin, the furniture custom made and her clothes designer. Then she opens her eyes and everything is cheap, cheap second hand crap she got for a week's wage and crammed in. She wasn't a material sort of girl, but the poverty made her want to cry. Suddenly, she wishes she'd listened to her mother, wishes that she was back in the penthouse with her mother fussing over her new diamond jewelry and hair while she waited to get ready for another party. Instead she's waiting for another grueling shift when the customers are rude and gruff and the other staff looks down at her for not knowing how to wash dishes. She misses the life she had but when she looks at her purse and the meager money in it, she knows at least it's her own. She knows she'll get somewhere and that it will be hard earned.
Oopsy a Daisy
He doesn't want to hurt her, he doesn't like to see her cry and shout. He wishes there was some other way to make her smile when he isn't there. He loves her, but he doesn't have a choice. There was no choice, when he was called he had to go even when she cried. He knows Max is both right and wrong, he deserves all he gets but he still shouldn't have to take the abuse. He hates when she screams at him, but the tears and silence cuts deeper. He doesn't want to hurt her but its gets harder and harder to make her smile and easier and easier to make the tears leave her brown eyes. It's not intentional, but that doesn't matter. When he walks away, she might cry but he's the one who's crushed beyond believe.
Damn Batman.
Red Dress
Clothes made a man, they say. In same way she knew they were right having seen what a black and red jumpsuit can do but honestly... Can it really work? The material brushes over her skin and is silky and softly. Her hair is pulled up and twisted, diamonds hand from her ears and throat. Her hands folded over Bruce's arm and she smiles, fake and plastic. Every eye is on her but no one sees her. She's naked but invisible. She flutters her eyes, giggles and shrieks and hates every second. The sneers dip when no one but Bruce is looking and the kill glare is sharpening with every smutty look at her. A nip and it's all gone behind jewels, makeup and designer labels. She's a well trained lap dog.
Terry will die before tomorrow night, Max promises as another drunk socialite stares at her chest as he tries to introduce himself.
Uprising
Gotham was a city of chaos.
And it had a King, whose word was law.
"Leave." The Jokerz scattered like sweets on a playground, fleeing in every direction. "You. Stay."
Blood splashes over walls and no one even notices the screaming, all too used to it.
"You're too brutal." The Commissioner leans back, eyes dark and sharp, frown several. Her hair's grey and her skin wrinkles, all he sees is bright, bright red and soft, soft pale skin on black and yellow. "He'll not approve."
The Prince smiles, "I know. But what's a brother to do?"
Red Robin laughs and Batman, invisible, glares helpless.
But Damian is the lord of anarchy.
Track 9
The sky is a surreal blue/purple in the dark. Battered and bruised but not defeated, the boy drops his head back with a sigh. He'd be sick tomorrow because there was no way he could face school. Literally. Absently, he traced the stars in the sky, stories after stories whispered through his head. Old stories. Ancient. But he had a great story teller and in the night, gods and heroes and monsters alike came to life.
Except in Diana's stories, the hero always won and the monster died.
In Gotham, the hero never won and the monster always lived. He had once asked why but the look on his brother's face (young, far too young brother) told him that that was a path not worth treading .
"If people cared, no one would die."
"They will one day, they will."
Bad Influence
The alcohol flows well, too well and Chelsea is laughing, loud and irritatingly. Dana is giggling with Blade and Nelson is drunkenly boasting. They're the only ones sober.
"Relax, the boss won't even notice."
They smile but it's painful because Bruce is going to know they were within the same room as alcohol and he'll kill them. The party gets louder and louder and everyone drunker and drunker and they're... not. They're the ones with work tonight, school they'll sleep through tomorrow and work they'll stagger to afterwards. They're the adults in teenage bodies, the ones who aren't like the rest anymore. It hurts to notice it.
"You scared of the old man?"
They exchange looks because really, they are. Who wouldn't think crossing one of Bruce Wayne's golden rules was scary? But they are teenagers and reckless and in their own way, not afraid by the Bat glare. Gotham's their city, literally and figuratively.
Wayne and Gordon will murder their prodigies, if the hangover doesn't but the vodka tastes all the better on the way down.
Genie in a Bottle
It's tempting, more that Max knows. More than Danielle knows. More than Dana will ever.
She's so nice and that good and different and totally unexpected. They dance because Merina doesn't know anything else and Terry doesn't like anyone else and she'd pretty in that dress and he's all too charming for a complete stranger. She doesn't know except that he knows Wonder Woman. He wants to tell her, whisper in her ear that he owes her so much.
Mask or not, she's the kindest woman he knows and while Batman turns to her with ease, Terry feels his tongue heavy and restricted as he spins her and spins her.
Teammates never work out anyway. But she might have just been worth it.
Pump It
Sundown, Gotham city shakes.
They move like shadows, alive and hungry. They are hunters, thirsty and quick, and the city is their prey. Around Jokerz and T's alike shudder at dark shadows, criminals start and corrupt jump. They're there even when they're not.
"Fun!" The red head shout as her fist shatters a man nose. Her partner, small but an agile like Robin laughs and round house kicks a man to the ground. Back flip, lung, punch, kick. They move and it's a rush.
"Fight me." It's more than a job. More than a lifestyle. It's a hunger, it's a thirst, a thrill. A rush and they're addicted to it. Left, right, up, down – constantly moving, constantly hunting.
"Too slow." They jeer. No drugs, no alcohol.
Just this.
Just now.
Friend of Mine
In the background, Nelson boasts to a pretty young secretary. He regrets getting Nelson the job but what was he meant to do, let him end up on the street? It's not like he doesn't do his job, it's just the rest of the package that he can't stand.
Loud and shouting piece the calm of the big office and the CEO of Wayne-Power Enterprise grimaces as he breaks the pen from his tablet. Damn. Nelson laughs. His eye twitches and Jared wants to scream. It's only fair. Terry was the reason he had this job. Terry who got him into the best Business School, who encouraged him to experiment with other business, who took him on when no one else would touch him. Jared knew why and his lips were sealed.
They were their fathers' sons in more than one way.
But Nelson...Nelson. Nelson had to go or Jared would.
Yo Soshia S'Uma
It was very crazy. But what could he do?
"Have you lost your mind?" He knew his mother would react badly, but hearing his father shout was unexpected. "This is your life, how you could throw that away for – for –" He didn't say anything but cancel the call. Not that it mattered; John and Shayera Hol would be making their way home as soon as possible, with every intention of knocking some sense into their son.
He didn't care. He didn't.
"I don't care," he wrapped his arms around his partner, in more than one way, shoulders burying his face in the black material. Bruce hadn't approved, but only because he didn't think teammates worked. He would let them stay at the Manor as long as they needed to.
Terry closed his eyes and sighed.
"The League is gonna miss you."
"I'd miss you more."
Who knew the world could be so homophobic? They'd save lives but the League couldn't accept two people in love?
He didn't care, not even as his world crashed down.
Rumor Has It
You hear the strangest things. Danny heard the strangest things, through the League and through the social vines. Terry had left his long time partner; Batgirl had left Gotham and moved to Bludhaven. In the morning, their covering backs as they took down intergang with the League and in the night, they swung across the ballroom as the two darlings of their cities. He didn't say a work at his shadow's absence or his attachment to her and she doesn't mention it either but leans on his shoulder. Strangely, she misses Batgirl and Max too. Rumor has this, rumor had that. League says this and socialists that.
None of them had realized she was one he left her for.
Who's that Girl?
The first time they are together, she doesn't think about it. When he has Danny instead of her to a ball she doesn't even blink. When Green Canary covers Batman's back on a raid, it's easy enough to explain away. When he...when she...when they... No, it's not easy. She had stood by and watched him for so long, covered his back, his sides, his front. She knows him and it hurt but she saw.
She saw when he didn't look for her after a fight but for her. And she knew before he did. Who the hell was Danielle Queen? Who the Hell was Green Canary? Did she make him smile with he lost an innocent? Wipe the tears when his heart was broken again? Hold his shoulder when he was out of control? Nudged his back when he slowed down?
But she was the one he wanted really, after Max had given him everything, her life, her future, her soul as Batgirl, Batman still didn't notice.
When she left, Max swore she didn't care anymore. Nightwing's offer was still there and Bludhaven was in need. She ignored the eyes begging to stay and the soft hands.
That's what Canary was for now.
Cops and Robbers
People think family rivalry is silly nonsense.
The Bat family made it a bloody specialty. Terry got a crash course in sibling rivalry when Damian and Helena Wayne crashed through town, guns blasting, and explosions galore. Bruce couldn't control them and Terry found it was all too easy to be sucked into the chaos and whirlwind of violence as the conflict turned into a three-way, two front war. Then Jason kicked up the dirt and Dick and Tim knocked the dust off their boots, courtesy of their spitfire daughters.
Barbara screamed so loud, the stun grenades shorted out as she roared at them, mama bat in full swing. Guns, Batarangs, whips, sticks and other weapons hit the ground and they ran.
They weren't going to make it very far before the fighting broke out again.
Okay, there are seeable gaps between writing. My favorites? The first one, a very cute switch, Bad Influences because it was fun to write and Yo Soshia S'Uma which is one of my fave songs anyway, it's the Russian version of 'All the things she said' by t.A.T.u. about a lesbian romance and ignoring how other's disapproval though it hurts. Utterly brilliant and I never indented it to be TerryXRex but that's how it worked out (a bit AU but this is all in good fun).
Tell me what you think? I might do more.