#(not enough people talk about the fact that as of Nu52 cities in DC are canonically sentient

[jupitermelichios]

Gotham is a pocket dimension, I will die on this hill

Over time the doorway gets bigger, more and more people can get in, but to begin with, only the weird and the magically inclined can enter, and their descendants are the ones who shape the city (ask me how Gotham and Klarion the Witchboy are connected, sometime). But even now, if you're solid and sensible and real enough, it's entirely possible to leave Metropolis on the New Jersey road and find yourself in Bludhaven without even having seen Gotham. You can pass right by the most densely populated city in the USA without even noticing, because leaving reality, stepping through the bleed into a new dimension, takes a special kind of person.

Which is a long winded way of saying I adore this idea, but I would like to suggest; this only happens in their home dimension. When the Robins are with the Titans, they're just people with a lot of training. The things they can do are impressive as all hell, but not superhuman. There are Olympic athletes who are bendier than Dick, thieves who can blend into the shadows better than Tim or Bruce, soldiers and martial artists who can shrug off more damage than Jason. Other non-powered heroes like the Arrows who can do all the things they do. Outside of Gotham.

"They're different in Gotham," is a common talking point on any team with a Bat on it, especially the Titans. And people who've never been think they know what that means. Everyone's different on hom turf. If you're one of the heroes who's primarily solo and only a team member on the side, missions with the Titans or the Outsiders or the JLA are basically field trips. Of course your attitude is going to be different.

Sometimes someone older, someone who's known the Bats longer, will say, "No, you don't get it, they're different," but they never want to elaborate, and most people don't notice.

And then a mission will take them into Gotham (superheroes, being naturally extremely strange, never have any problems passing through the dimensional gateway, although it sometimes takes Barry a couple of tries) and usually they don't notice the difference at first. Yeah the Bats are different, but only in the ways to be expected. They know this city, care about it. Of course they're different here, it's in their blood.

It's in their blood.

Some heroes never notice the difference. Some chalk it up to imagination. And some, the ones who know the Bats best and the ones who know magic and dimensions and weird best, well...

Bruce is very very good at fading into the background anywhere in the world, or finding a shadow to lurk in, good at timing things just right so you're always looking away when he leaves a room. But once you know what he's doing, it's easy enough to spot. Supes and the Flashes watch him leave. The Lanterns make a game out of maintaining eye contact to see how long it takes for him to cave and just walk out in plain sight. But in Gotham, it's like he can teleport. No matter how high up your meeting, he drops from above. Even when there's nothing above you but clouds. No matter how closely you watch, he disappears, like instead of waiting for you to turn away, he vanishes between eyeblinks.

Dick is an incredible gymnast and one of the best aerialists in the world, but every Titan has seen him fuck up and faceplant at least once. Every flying Titan has had to carry him across gaps too wide for every him to jump. They've all helped him ice at least one strain from jumping too far and too fast with only human shoulders to take the weight. They've all wondered how he still doesn't seem to fully know his limits, after twenty years of practise. And then they follow a lead to Gotham, and it all makes sense, because in Gotham, Dick and gravity have an understanding. In Gotham, Dick opperates on cartoon physics, child logic. In Gotham, as long as he shoots his grapnel before he hits the ground, there's no drop too far, no gap too wide. Every child in the city believes Nightwing can fly, and in places like Gotham, belief has power.

Jason once said that being Robin gives him magic, and maybe that's true, because people who've patched up his wounds in the real world, who've seen him bleeding and delirious and in pain out there, have also seen him shrug off injuries that should have laid him out when he's on home turf. Everyone in the Burnley and Robbinsville districts Uptown knows Red Hood can't be killed, and maybe they're right. Maybe the way Roy just shakes his head and refuses to make eye contact when anyone asks him about it means something.

All Tim's friends will tell you his brain works a little faster than other people's, that he's crazy smart and spent his formative years learning to keep up with speedsters and that's maybe fucked him up a little bit. Former YJ members will roll their eyes and tell you how he loves to bitch about how much sleep he needs on missions (he must be so stressed with Batman breathing down his neck, it's no wonder he doesn't get enough rest at home) and how there's only 24 hours in a day. Kid Flash!Bart hears him complaining about how time moves so slowly and thinks foldly that hanging out with Impulse really did a number on Baby!Tim's brain. And Kon never talks about why he doesn't like visiting Gotham, about the way 24 hours with Tim there can feel like it's lasting a week (he shouldn't need to eat that often in just one day, tells himself they're just naps but knows he's slept at least twice and yet somehow it's still Tuesday), doesn't talk about the mission they did together that took three hours, only once he was far enough out of Gotham that he could see NYC, suddenly his phone was blowing up with messages from Ma and Pa wanting to know what the hell he was playing at, skipping two days of school.

Jon likes to tease Damian about the way he expects the world to obey him. The way he'll say things like 'that bad guy should trip and fall' and be amazed when it doesn't happen. But he's met Batman, and his dad has told him a little about Talia, so it's not exactly surprising. His mom is basically royalty, and his dad regularly bosses around entire rooms full of people who could squash him like a bug if they wanted. Obviously that's going to rub off on their son. But then again, maybe it's the way that in Gotham, things always seem to work out in Damian's favour. Nothing huge, nothing life changing. Nothing that isn't deniable. But the vital information is always on the first computer he checks. There's always a convinient pile of boxes at bottom of every drop. His distractions always work, and when he tells the bad guys to listen to him, it's like they can't help but pay attention.

Barbara remembers everything she's ever seen, and she trained herself to pay attention. When she gets back from Belle Reeve, she notices that the Clocktower's computers respond to her in a way Waller's hadn't. Notices that she can always intuit hardware problems that ought to take her months to fix, crack encryption that ought to be impenetrable. And she notices all the other things too. Notices the way Bruce comes and goes, and the fact that he can see in darkness that ought to blind a mere human. Notices that Dick moves like flowing ink not flesh and blood. Notices every time Jason walks off an injury that should have laid him out, every coversation with Tim that lasts a day or no time at all, every time Damian solves a problem with tools that hadn't been there a minute ago.

And because she remembers - because no matter what Gotham does to her that will always be her real superpower - Barbara is the one who takes the train to Uptown, to the street now called Crime Alley, and it's Barbara who knocks on the door of Jason Blood. Barbara who asks the question, and listens carefully to the answer, and goes home with a bag full of borrowed books on dimensional travel and magical radiation and how even the most magical beings are bound by the rules of the dimension they find themselves in.

(The books raise more questions than they answer, but it does at least make sense of the way her dad used to loose all sense of direction any time he went on holiday and take three tries to find the Gotham turn on his way home. And why that doesn't happen nearly as often now as it used to).

And so, when Cass begins talking about working with Batman Inc, about seeing Hong Kong, learning a new city, it's Barbara who sits her down and explains that it will be different there. That she'll always be good, but reading people doesn't work the way she's grown used to, not out there. That she needs to be prepared for the fact that she'll be fighting deaf and blind compared to what's become her normal on home soil (and no matter where she was born, Gotham is Cass's home soil, she and the city were always meant to find one another).

Cass still goes, because learning to fight at a disadvantage is a useful skill to have, but Barbara's right.

There are pieces of her, pieces of all her family, that never make it past the city limits. Pieces of themselves they have to leave at home, waiting for to come back to the place they belong.

Because the Bats are different in Gotham.

I love the headcanon that none of the Bats are supers, but over time? Gotham is slowly messing them up, one by one.

Bruce smiles at Clark one day in the Cave, and his eyes reflect the light back like a wolf's

Jason suddenly has tiny fangs, but nobody has the nerve to mention it

Alfred literally doesn't die

Dick can jump higher and faster than ever before, but barely notices it

Tim is awake for three days straight and doesn't blink

They're all subtly, but noticeably different. Gotham-blessed, or cursed, or something in between.