The Way Bruce Is His Best Friend Because They Play Together, All Of Those Cases They Solve Might As Well

Midpollo week 2018 Day 6: Soulmate au

Apollo

The first thing he saw was white. The white of the walls, white of the coats around him, white of the bed he laid on and the sheets that covered him. Chatter filled the air around him, slowly coming into focus like breaking through water. He wondered where that thought came from, he can't remember ever being in the water.

They told him that his code name was Apollo, that he had chosen to leave his life behind to fight for a better future. He had abilities now, he could fly, punch through walls, shoot lasers from his eyes. He didn't feel any stronger, but he supposed that he didn't really have anything else to compare it to.

Flying was amazing, feeling the wind through his hair, the sun on his skin. It was indescribable. The longer he stayed out there the stronger he felt and the more he could do. He knew that his past self had made the right choice, though he longed for the knowledge of who that man had been.

Midnighter

There was a voice inside his head. A voice that analysed the sounds the people surrounding him made as he regained consciousness, perhaps for the first time. He couldn't remember any other time.

The voice urged him to move, to strike while they thought he was still helpless, even whilst his sight was not fully restored. The man he grabbed screamed, high-pitched and annoying. His head is so full of overlapping knowledge. The room in front of him played out in different scenes, then reset and repeated. Over and over again in the fraction of a second. His head throbbed, and the scream reverberated through the room. The voice told him to snap his neck, to stop the sound, and he nearly did, but another, outside voice interrupts him.

The man called himself Bendix and told him his name was Midnighter. Then he touched his shoulder and where his hand lay, an ugly bruised green print unfurled across Midnighter's skin. He tells him that it was a soulmark. That anytime someone who has an impact on their lives touches them for the first time it leaves a mark, and that the vibrancy of that mark indicates how powerful their effect will be.

The mark Bendix left was unmistakably vivid.

Midnighter wonders if this is a good thing.

Apollo

He met the rest of his team nearly a month after he woke up. It seemed that none of the others had ever met each other before either. All of them had the same story though, no memories but they were assured that they had known what they were signing up for. It was also the first time he put on his uniform, white and gold with a red triangle and eye in the centre. The Stormwatch symbol.

Later on, he remembers feeling proud and shudders.

He watched as they took turns sparring, just to get to know each other's abilities and how they interacted with their own. He watched as a man all in black except for the matching red triangle and eye blazoned on his chest fought against a woman possibly stronger than he was. And won.

Apollo fought his own matches, waiting patiently for the time to come that he could verse the seemingly unbeatable man. Midnighter.

Midnighter

The first time he saw him, he could think of little else. The rest of their team faded away into the background as he regarded the man in front of him, the man who was to lead him. The voice in his head, the computer that had been put there, didn't know what to do with the man, with Apollo. The Sun God. Throughout his other fights the man was a distraction, one that the computer yearned to destroy.

He grinned as he took his position across from Apollo, who returned it with a matching one of his own. Still undecided on his strategy, they circled each other. Neither of them wanting to make the first move.

Then Midnighter struck.

Apollo

He could feel the blood surging through his veins. He was so light on his feet, he was surprised that he wasn't floating. He dodged the first punch thrown his way, feeling the force of it rush past his cheek. He attempted to counter it with his own, but Midnighter had already danced out of reach.

Apollo settled into defence, willing to watch the graceful movement of Midnighter as he whirls around him. And in a moment of distraction, too focused on the bunching of muscles visible even under the black coat, Midnighter lands the first fit.

Apollo swore that the area he touched, his upper arm, tingled. He knew by now of the soulmarks, his body littered with pale, multicoloured fingerprints left by the scientists that worked with him. No doubt they had more effect on his life than others, but not enough to make a hard mark.

In the showers afterwards, he searches the whole area and is bitterly disappointed when no mark has appeared on his skin.

Midnighter

It didn't take them long to realise that the mission had gone to hell. The first sign they had of it was the poor bastard Amaze killed, with his deformed face. Crow Jane had raged that something was wrong but Apollo, in his calm way of his that drove Midnighter insane, determined that they needed to go on. After all Bendix had said that this was a 'proving' mission that was supposed to test them in the worst-case scenario.

The computer wasn't happy.

Still he stuck to Apollo's side, the unofficial second in command that he had appointed himself.

Amaze died first, a bullet to her brain.

Apollo shouted commands, but Stalker quickly followed her in hail fire. Midnighter pulled Apollo out of the way just in time to avoid the blast that killed Lamplight and Impetus. The thing they had seen in that room was monstrous and it was then that Midnighter realised that Bendix hadn't intended for any of them to make it back from that mission alive.

He and Apollo made it out, just barely, with him clinging onto Apollo's back as they flew. But Crow Jane didn't.

Apollo

He scrubbed at the mark on his arm, the skin around it turned pink from the force. Earlier he had tried branding it away, with the last of his reserves of sunlight for the day, but when the skin cleared, the hand-print remained. A yellowish-green reminiscent of a bruise, ironic really that Bendix would be such a colour. Admitting defeat, he leaves the river he was washing in.

For the past few days, he and Midnighter had been on the run, dodging Bendix's attempts to hunt them down and kill them. They decided it would be best for the time being to stay away from civilization, from the technology it brought and the civilians they would be putting in danger. They hadn't eaten or barely slept in that time either, but it barely bothered him, neither of them needed to really.

But he had missed being clean and so convinced Midnighter that near the stream was where they should camp for the night.

Midnighter

He didn't dare make a fire. It would be like a beacon daring Bendix to find them and while Midnighter couldn't wait to but a fist through the fucker's face, he knew that it wouldn't be Bendix that he and Apollo would be facing.

Apollo joins him in the small clearing, uniform stripped to the waist with the arms tied around his torso to keep it from dangling. Midnighter had eschewed his coat and gloves to give them time to air a little.

He didn't need the computer to tell him that something was wrong. He approached Apollo, a question in his eyes.

"They're going to find us." Apollo said hollowly. He looks at the mark on Midnighter's shoulder, "We can't escape him."

"We can."

Apollo shook his head.

"We're going to hide and we're going to plan and then we're going to kill that bastard."  Midnighter cupped Apollo's cheek with his hand. "Do you trust me?"

"Yes." Came the reply, barely louder than a whisper but they both heard it perfectly.

He gave into the urge, pulling Apollo into a kiss.

Apollo

It was anything but gentle and all Apollo had wanted it to be. He poured his desperation and longing through it and into Midnighter, feeling the same pushed back at him. He reached up to grab Midnighter's neck, drawing him closer still.

Midnighter responded in kind, pushing himself up to cover the small distance between their heights.

Midnighter

Finally, Midnighter pulled back. His hand slipped from Apollo's cheek. A deep blue imprint left in its place. Apollo laughed, breathy and delighted.

Apollo

There was a hand print wrapped around the side of Midnighter's neck, a bright, brazen yellow.

they barge into justice league meetings saying they have something very important to show them. and do stuff like this

I drew a boy

[ Guy & Hal & Kyle & John]

Trying to get used to a different drawing tablet and I was softing pinterest for a meme to draw over and saw the guy in the fridge and I was like "guys what if I put Kyle in the fridge..."

And now we're here ! :D

after patrolling, unwinding in a diner somewhere ...

throw the man a bone batman geez

more eddie 🫶

The real tragedy of the whole “Batman contingency plans” thing escaping containment into the wider cultural zeitgeist is that it’s become completely divorced from the original context of, you know, the Tower of Babel story-line happening after a beloved member of the Justice League did in fact go mad, become all-powerful, and destroy all of reality.

Which is devastating because it loses so much when you take Hal Jordan out of it! In both adaptations and fan discussions!

Despite only being mentioned by name once in the story, Hal haunts the whole narrative in how unspoken he is. The whole theme of the story is the failure to communicate and how it destroys trust, and an essential part of that is how the whole League won't (and can't) talk about Hal.

When Kyle finally tries to bring him up, Wally shoots him down. He is the forbidden topic at the heart of the League's breakdown of trust!

When the contingency plans plot is removed from the context of Hal's fall from grace, isn't proceeded by a JLA founding member doing what was supposed to be unthinkable, Bruce's actions lose their emotional core. It becomes just "Batman is the coolest and smartest and also a huge untrusting asshole" instead of "Bruce was already on the knife-edge of crippling paranoia regarding his powerful allies, and then one of those same allies started slaughtering people and he couldn't do a thing to stop it, confirming all his worst fears and sending him right over the edge"

You take Bruce's feelings of very personal betrayal out of the equation. He's not operating on just hypotheticals, but fears that were heartrendingly justified!

Bruce claims the reason for his plans on some past mind-control incident, but Clark calls Bruce out on it being an excuse.

Maybe that's how it started, but there's a reason the fail-safes aren't against mind-control and possession. The fail-safes are ways to permanently stop your friends should they willingly or unwillingly become a threat.

And they both know it. They've argued about Hal several times before.

Bruce has a lot of unresolved feelings about Hal. He's still hurting.

The contingency plans are not some cold, clinical necessity. They are the product of pain.

I think all readings and tellings of the Tower of Babel should be followed by the JLA/Spectre story.

It provides the necessary emotional conclusion to the unspoken conflict! Because they finally have to talk about it! They heal the broken trust! Bruce admits how much Hal's betrayal hurt him and his faith in heroes, and gets past it! Instead of letting a former and potential future threat be eliminated as his fail-safes say he should, he invites the threat back, even if he can't guarantee it won't happen again, because he chooses to believe in his friend!

The contingency plans are a cool and interesting concept, but again, you can't just...take Hal out of it. You can't make it about some evil alternate versions, or about Clark. By doing that, you lose the most heartbreaking part of the story. Batman isn't in the right or the wrong, but he's not heartless. He's brokenhearted.

Dick and Jason: Why couldn’t he be an understanding father for me 💔

Bruce to Cass in the other room: 3 people died during you 10 minute power nap what are you going to do about it

HSKSJDDHH the worst part is Cass is 100% like "No you're right. This is on me. Ugh I love how much you understand me ❤️" She and Bruce come back into the other room bonding over the shared guilt of not being able to stay awake to fight crime 24 hours a day while Dick and Jason sulk in the corner because look at how he pats her shoulder, he was never that understanding when we messed up 😔.

barry’s adventures in mapping the multiverse