I'm all used up, pretty boy, over and over again
My nail colors are wearing off
See my hands, pretty boy, what do they tell you?
'Cause I've looked down at them not knowing why
And after everything's done and I'm all undone
You can hear my high heels walking on
Clickity-clacking through the night
I'm carrying my bag of bones

Bag of Bones / Mitski

BEST VIEWED IN...
dark background,
times new roman,
smallest size.

+ + +

NIGHTCRAWLER is not known by many people. She is sly, invisible to the untrained eye of the masses. Nightcrawler is unidentifiable, and the Playground likes it that way. Their finest assassin and spy, eliminating anyone or anything that threatens them or any of their subjects.

The Playground only valued Nightcrawler, not the girl that filled the persona. Her body was a machine, her name was a number, her mind was a blank slate for their words and their words only.

It had not always been like that. A long time ago, Verochka existed. A nine-year-old girl with a sweet smile and big dreams. Then there was Verochka again, a ten-year-old haunted with the eyes of her dead family and a goddamned will to live. After that there was no more Verochka, only Nightcrawler was allowed to play. And she played well. Because if there was one thing Verochka was better at than Nightcrawler was, it is adapting.

She had come into the Playground when she was ten. Weak, and starving but with the unrelenting burn for survival. At this point in her life, Verochka had spent seven months living in the subzero temperatures of the Russian forest. Befriending a pack of wolves, living with them and adapting for survival. Then came Deathstroke, whose eyes flickered with interest when the weak girl tackled him into the snow. Mostly because he, with all his training and experience, had been completely unaware that he was not alone. Raw potential right under his nose, Deathstroke took her to the one place he knew her spark would be turned into a blazing fire—the Playground.

Years had passed and now Verochka had adapted to another freezing forest. She knew the routine, the instructors, the doctors, the handlers, and even the janitors. She learned who were her friends and who were not. What lines to cross, others bent, or simply stay away from. But there was one place where she had no lines, a stretch of a maximum of three days that her peers found haunting but she relinquished in. Missions.

Other subjects did not like going on missions, when they rarely did. Nightcrawler was the subject that went out of the suffocating compound most, frequenting outings at least thrice a month. Whether it was someone she had to assassinate, or a government she had to infiltrate. Verochka was grateful for whoever had sinned against the Playground, as their sins granted her a pocket of freedom.

During missions, the subject had to report every two hours to their handler in the wide span of time they had to complete their assignment. Fortunately for her, her handler had grown into the closest thing she had to a friend. Troian Sato ( or Trojan, for subtlety ) was the only person Verochka had grown to care for, or rely on in the Playground. So every time she indulged in her teenage curiosity, Troian took care of the encrypted message she had to send on the hours of her absence. Or when they got lucky, both Trojan and Nightcrawler were deployed on a mission together, becoming a two-people party.

It was in one of those missions, where the Playground knew Trojan needed to be close for Nightcrawler to extract information, when it all tumbled down. волчий глаз. It took all but two words that stared back at her from the computer of the billionaire as she hacked into the files of the research and development branch of his company. There had been silence, and then a circuit went off in her brain. Questions shot around her brain faster than she could process, it felt like a blinding lens had been lifted from her eyes.

What had brought her down to reality had been Troian, who had started to yell through her comms in a panic. The Playground lost connection—I cannot reach them—I have been shot out of the system. Her panic had turned into something else, somehow both knowing what the lost ties meant. The last sentence had come out in relief, because their cage had broken and they were free.

Still, Verochka stared at the computer of the billionaire. Her window of time before the security system kicked in ticking away. She did not believe in coincidences. Verochka did not believe it was a coincidence that the moment she is in her place of birth, just when she is let loose of the clutches of the Playground. It also happens to become the exact moment she discovered the nickname only her mother used to call her is the password for the most valuable branch of Wayne Enterprises.

+ + +

VEROCHKA VOLKOV | NIGHTCRAWLER
Suki Waterhouse

( devious , scarred , addictive )

JASON TODD | RED HOOD
Jacob Elordi

( compulsive , vengeful , driven )

&&&

TROIAN SATO | TROJAN
Devon Aoki

MAGNUS TORRANCE | IGNITE
Callum Turner

ANNIKA VOLKOV†                      Deborah Ann Woll
BRUCE WAYNE | BATMAN                      Robert Pattinson
DICK GRAYSON | NIGHTWING              Breton Thwaites
THOMAS ELLIOT | HUSH                 Michael Fassbender
REST OF CHARACTERS                             As Described

+ + +

DISCLAIMERS. i do not own DC, any of the characters, plot lines, or dialogue used from the comics/other media. however, i do own verochka volkov, omoi sato, magnus torrance, annika volkov, & their storylines.

WARNINGS. human trafficking, violence, death, mature language, descriptive injury, mental illness, sexual themes, alcohol & drug use, toxic relationships.

DEDICATIONS. this is dedicated to anyone who loves jason as much as i do <3

NOTES. alr lets get stuff out of the way. first, u should be aware that jason is lowkey (highkey) the villain in the first act, since you know the whole resentment shit blah blah. he is going to fuck verochka over. but it's okay she gets back at him don't worry ;) he's going to grovel and whine, as he should. but yes, their relationship is toxic. even if they work through their issues and get to a healthy point, relationships like this are not healthy in any way.

also, her relationship with bruce is complicated. you'll find out how they're connected as the story goes, but she's bruce's soft spot. so like his detective skills glitch with her. and bc verochka is a spy like, if someone is going to get away with anything it's her. as bruce's children say, "the extended family gets away with more."

& there's also her relationship w deathstroke. which is...weird. not pedophilic. but just weird. there's not much to say about it.

as for ages, the story takes place around 4 years since jason's death, 3 1/2 years since bruce is in verochka's life. (the months in between, you'll see through flashbacks along with hose they met.) so the ages change from canon (as a lot of stuff is going to change, no one takes canon seriously anyway) in the first act, jason is 22 while verochka is 21 making jason die when he was 18 & the dismantling of the playground when verochka was 17.

troian & magnus are both from the playground too. they're not a couple, btw. troian is for the girls only. & magnus will be gradually introduced, unlike troian who's there from the beginning. and yes. their names combined sound like the condom brand. i just thought it was funny.

regarding verochka, i should clarify that she's not an entirely good person. her actions are selfish. while she has a strong sense of family, but she turns to her selfish motives most times. she's a menace. i love her.

about the plot, it'll follow 3 different comics. batman: hush, batman: under the red hood, & batman: the three jokers. the latter is going to have a lot of changes, babs while be kept as oracle (bc who said her going back to batgirl was a good idea) & OF COURSE jason/babs (yuck) will not be a thing. i'm still unsure on adding more, but we'll see.

and the fact that jason likes girls that could kill him remains true in this book!

anyways, hope you enjoy!