#BRUC

[doingbad]

Holmes and Watson just invented a new love language and it is terrible

The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans

The Adventure of the Devil's Foot

[..]

[jazzandpizazz]

[we-cross-universe-king-relate]

Batman

I'm pretty sure that no one ,especially poor Aquaman, want anything to do with your city. He tells the rest of the league to stay out of his City but that's not going to be a problem seeing as how his City might be too much for any of them to stomach or put up with.

[forest-enchantress]

Here is a #68 gifs of Astrid Berges-Frisbey as Gloria in Bruc. La llegenda (2010). All of these gifs were made by me from scratch, so do not redistribute or claim them as your own. If using, please give this a like and reblog!

[keepingitneutral]

The Bruc Apartment, Barcelona, Span,

Cometa Architects,

Photographs: José Hevia

[stephensmithuk]

The Bruce-Partington Plans

Published in 1908, this is one from the His Last Bow collection. The international context i.e. the growing tensions with Germany, should be borne in mind when reading this.

This is the second and final appearance of Mycroft Holmes in the canon.

This is our third Violet! ACD likes the name, clearly.

This video shows the development of the Underground over time. The 1894 map does not include some of the then "mainline" services, like the one going up to Epping and Ongar, that would be incorporated into the network later on.

The Woolwich Arsenal was a massive munitions factory and research site located on the south bank of the Thames. It peaked in size during the First World War and then declined after that. It ceased being a factory in 1967 and stopped being a military site in 1994. Much of the site has been redeveloped - the Eastern half becoming Thamesmead - or repurposed.

Both attempts at a museum on the site were short-lived, sadly.

Woolwich Arsenal station is today served by the Docklands Light Railway and Southeastern trains; the Elizabeth Line station at Woolwich is a 200m walk away.

The most notable cultural legacy of the site was its works football team. Originally called Dial Square on its 1886 foundation, it turned professional in 1891 (the first London club to do so) and eventually moved north of the river in 1913 due to financial difficulties. You may well be familiar with the club's current name - Arsenal.

Aldgate was one of the former gates of the London Wall and gave its name to the local area, but the gate is now completely gone.

Aldgate station is today the terminus of the Metropolitan Line served by the Circle Line; its platforms are under a glass canopy with gaps to allow for air to get in and smoke to get out. Pretty nice station, but not very convenient for anywhere major, as it's a bit of a walk to Fenchurch Street.

The London Underground is divided between sub-surface lines dug using a "cut-and-cover" methods (dig up street, build railway, put street back on top) with tunnel dimensions big enough for regular mainline trains and deep-level lines done by manually digging underground, with resulting smaller diameters.

A variety of "circle routes" operated on now-LU lines at the time operated by companies including the Great Western Railway. More info can be found here.

Train tickets at this time were generally small cardboard ones about the size of a thumb. You can find a history of London transport tickets here.

The Metropolitan Railway rolling stock at the time generally consisted of closed compartment carriages i.e. doors on each side with no link to other compartments. It was perfectly possible for a door not secured properly to come open and someone to fall out if leaning on it. The job of the guard and station staff would be to check all the doors were properly shut.

This also had safety implications for passengers, especially female ones late at night and women-only compartments existed because of this. The emergency alarm on British trains was fitted as a measure following the 1864 murder of Thomas Briggs, in such a compartment.

Closed compartment carriages remained present into the first-generation British Railways electric multiple unit designs. In 1988, a woman named Deborah Linsley was murdered in one, with an au pair being criticised at the inquest for not pulling the cord. Her murderer has never been caught. The remaining stock was withdrawn from late night service afterwards and marked with a red line on the carriage, shortly afterwards going entirely as sliding-door stock replace.

The Naval Estimates were basically the budget requests presented to Parliament for their approval, the Admiralty being its own department until 1964, when it merged with four other departments to become the Ministry of Defence.

The first attack by a submersible occurred in 1776 during the American War of Independence, with an attempt to attach explosives to a British ship by the American Sergeant Ezra Lee using a one-man vessel called Turtle. It and other attempts failed; the submarine's ultimate fate after the sloop carrying it was sunk is unknown.

The first successful sinking of a vessel by a submarine was in 1864, by the Confederate vessel H. L. Hunley on the USS Housatonic. The former was lost with all hands shortly afterwards. It was found in 1995, raised in 2000 and is now part of a museum.

Hugo Oberstein is mentioned in "The Second Stain", which chronologists generally put in 1888. The "vibes" putting it in the 1900s don't work in light of the ending of this story.

Various openings were built in the underground bit subsurface lines of the Underground for ventilation purposes; in fact a majority of the network is open-air. The deep-level lines relied on various ventilation shafts and air being pushed in the trains, with the result that many parts of the networks are today pretty warm in summer.

Gloucester Road station is today on the Circle, District and Piccadilly Lines, the last of these arriving in 1906 in two deep-level platforms. The most notable feature of the station is the disused platform with unusual temporary art installations on it.

Underground steam locomotives were fitted with condensing boilers to reduce steam emissions, but this did nothing to deal with the soot and conditions could be fairly unpleasant by any standards. The sub-surface lines would be gradually electrified from the 1900s; the deep levels had to be electric from the get-go.

Pierrot is a stock "sad clown" character from pantomime and comedic theatre. He still turns up in various guises today, including a notable turn in Cowboy Bebop.

The "certain gracious lady" who gives Sherlock Holmes the emerald tiepin is generally assumed to be Queen Victoria herself. She was reluctant to use Buckingham Palace following her husband's death in 1861 and conducted most of her official business out of Windsor Castle instead, becoming known as the "Widow of Windsor".

[sansfeargaldin]

4x33 Grandes misterios; Montserrat

Buenas a todos, quedáis invitados a nuestras jornadas el 11 de mayo a las 18h en el parking del hotel del Bruc, en Montserrat. Esperamos que os guste y os esperamos en Twitch; saga_galdin, donde grabamos el podcast en directo. Síguenos en instagram @sagagaldin para enterarte de cuándo y qué estamos preparando. Saludos. Podéis acceder a este contenido en nuestra sección de Podcast o directamente…

[thenightwolf51]

"Danny was born a Wayne" AU except he's Bruce's grand uncle. The result of a one time drunken affair, shortly before Kenneth Wayne's death, to a young unmarried woman who gave the baby up for adoption.

(Whether the Fenton's, and therefore Amity, were just ahead of their times or the DC timeline is shifted a bit so that DP happens in its cannon era is up to you. Dealers choice, though now that i know about her i just love badass widowed prohibition leader Laura Elizabeth Wayne)

Danny grows up knowing hes adopted and loved by the Fentons but something (dealer's choice) happens and he loses his family and friends (maybe the whole town goes too?). In an attempt to avoid a Dan situation he flees into the Infinite Realm and doesn't stop.

He just wanders, time passes in its weird Realms way, not that Danny truly notices. A protector spirit thats lossed everything it protected. Its a wonder he doesn't fade and he actually might've if it wasn't for his human side.

But its a tug at his core that brings him from his near catatonic wandering. Gone before he can even understand it but enough to shake him back to himself. Enough to know that hes nowhere near ready to go anywhere familiar so he continues on, his wandering no less pointless but at least he's aware again.

What feels like a relatively short time later he gets another tug, and this time he manages to follow it.

He follows it invisibly through a natural portal that drops him somewhere in New Jersey and all the way to a fancy hospital room in the gloomiest city he's ever seen.

In there he sees his half brother Patrick Wayne, though he wont figure out their connection for a few more years, holding little Agatha. She's adorable in her little dress and pigtails and her sweet face causes that familiar tug he recognizes from what must have been six years ago given the girls age.

Then a nurse comes in and hands a little bundle to what must be the mother (whos name i cant find) and Danny takes one look at the little core tugger who brought him here and just melts. Even without knowing yet that this is his last remaining family, his instincts latch on and he vows to protect and care for the Waynes.

And he does.

He finds his forgetful brother's documents and keeps Aggy company when everyone else is busy and soothes baby Thomas so his poor sister-in-law can get some more sleep. He ices fevers and bruised knees and helps on later games of hide and seek.

He very rarely becomes visible and only to the children. His grief over the Fenton's convinces him its better to protect his new family from the shadows.

Danny explores every inch of the manor, including secret passages and an underground cave system. He claims a forgotten room in the back of the attic as his own, which over the years fill up with knickknacks, heirlooms, and pictures of the family. Even a gift or two from Agatha, who hadn't stopped believing in their shadowy guardian like her brother did when Danny felt they were too old to see him without drawing suspicion.

The manor becomes his haunt and he always knows where each family member is within it. And when any guests have some no good intentions.

And when baby Bruce is born tugging at his core and with the bluest little eyes, he welcomes the fussy little thing. And makes sure dear Martha never knows just how fussy baby Bruce really is, otherwise she might've never had a full nights sleep.

Danny blames himself for not being there when Thomas and Martha die, and promises to never leave Bruces side, practically becoming the boy's living shadow. Watching over him as he gets older, secretly aiding him in his training. Danny feels a bit of pride when Bruce takes some inspiration from the old stories Thomas told him of the shadowy Wayne family protector when creating his Batman identity, glad his nephew still remembers him even if he hasn't shown himself since the now young man was six.

Danny continues to protect and care for the family in a variety of ways over the years even as the family grows.

Lightening Alfred's workload, softening Dick's falls, calming Jason's temper both pre and post pit, hiding Tim's coffee when the boy hasn't slept in far too long, providing plenty of shadows and hiding nooks for Cass, helping Damian hide the litter of kittens he found.

And no one seems to know he's there, except maybe Cass and he's pretty sure Alfred has been know since he first started working for the family. No one knows, that is, until Duke Thomas moves in and lookes right at him watching invisibly from the sidelines.

(@omnicrafts @dcxdpdabbles @hdgnj @ailithnight @nelkcats @im-totally-not-an-alien-2 i dont know, the main point of all this is that Danny's been protecting the Wayne family for decades and no one, except maybe Alfred, knew until Duke moved in)

[lowpolybread]

Are you sick of fighting your own battles? Well, don’t! Here at Boxmore, we build quality robot henchman. Box ’em up and ship them right to your evil lair, where they’ll take the hit so you don’t have to! But don’t take it from me!

OK KO shorts: Boxmore Infomercial

[girluimfailing]

DEMONCAT IS NOW CANON

LOOK AT MY GIRLS😭😭🙏🙏🙏 THEY KISS ON SCREEN AFTER THIS I SWEAR

[useless-catalanfacts]

Photos by Marc Rovellada Ballesteros published in La Mira and Happyxais.

Daniel is a shepherd who has been hired by the City Council of El Bruc (a town in Central Catalonia) to graze in the natural areas between the area's towns. Like other shepherds who work in the traditional way, he practises transhumance (seasonal nomadism to take the animals to the best pastures), and when the herd comes to El Bruc their grazing is this job. In modern times, this job is usually done by the municipal brigade with chainsaws and string trimmers, but Daniel's herd can do it just as well. It consists of 150 sheep, 130 goats, 4 dogs and 1 donkey, as well as the shepherd himself. Grazing in this area, they keep the vegetation to a controlled level, making it safer and reducing the chances of a wildfire.

Shepherding and grazing have been used in this way for millennia, uninterruptedly in many places, and now a few urban areas like El Bruc are joining again in what is being called "silvopasture". Grazing in urban areas is more demanding for the shepherd, because he has to be careful with cars, domestic animals, and neighbours, but in the end it is a mutually-beneficial arrangement.

Daniel shares snippets of his job in his Instagram account Happyxais.savall.

[ofbakerst]

...and there was Mathews, who knocked out my left canine in Charing Cross station...

[xxgoblin-dumplingxx]

How did Doting husband! Bruce get busted as Batman? It had to have been ridiculous

You were in danger. And Bruce, who thought he'd mastered fear, was afraid. His heart beat reverberated in his chest and he pushed the anxieties out of the way.

They wouldn't help you.

And as he crept closer, keeping to the shadows, he could hear you. Your voice was calm... mostly. And he could see your phone on, hanging out of your back pocket. Had you called him?

No. You wouldn't have called him. Not in an emergency. You'd called someone else. Anyone else who might have been able to help you- Not Bruce Wayne. You didn't need your nails done. You needed to not die.

He'd love to see you talk your way out of this. He'd love to hear you mindfuck this hitman but- he saw blood on the floor. Your blood. And he couldn't stand back anymore. It was time for Batman to go to work.

He heard the gun go off. And it was over before it started. All his worry and fear channeled into eliminating the threat to you. To his girl. His north star.

"Ma'am," he said, knife slicing the ropes that were holding you, "Are you alright?"

"More shaken than hurt I think," you tell him. Swallowing hard.

Bruce froze. Waiting for shock to give way to tears. Waiting and mentally cursing himself for not putting a handkerchief where he could get to it. But you don't. Tears glisten but you look up at the light for a second and take a deep breath. "The police are on the way," you tell him. "I called Gordon as soon as they grabbed me. Snuck my phone out when they let me use the bathroom... Rookie hitmen, I think."

"Lucky break," Bruce said, fighting the urge to wipe blood off your face.

You nod silently and look away. Still fighting for a calm you don't feel. "Thank you, Batman," you murmur.

"Anytime," he said, smiling just a little now that you aren't looking at him. "Can't let an asset like you get murdered."

When you look up at him he can feel his heart pound. He can see the gears turning. Getting traction. And he wonders what he said. And he watches you end the call on your phone as sirens draw closer

"You might want to switch your cadence up a little," you tell him.

Bruce coughed and felt himself flush. Wondering what he could say. If he should say anything. And he'd never been more thrilled to see lights on a cop car in his life.

"Pick me up for a ride home?"

And all Bruce can do is nod, making good his escape so he could come and play the worried lover who'd been thinking he'd been stood up only to find you'd been kidnapped on your way.

[forest-enchantress]

Here is a #68 gifs of Astrid Berges-Frisbey as Gloria in Bruc. La llegenda (2010). All of these gifs were made by me from scratch, so do not redistribute or claim them as your own. If using, please give this a like and reblog!

[darchildre]

(Okay, I had intended to wait on this till we got to CHAS but I forgot that the Letters from Watson chronology would get to BRUC first and BRUC also has a fun burglary sequence.)

Friends. If you enjoy reading about Victorian dudes committing burglary while being extremely in love with each other, please go read E W Hornung's Raffles stories. E W Hornung was ACD's brother in law, the Raffles stories are him going "what if Holmes and Watson but criminals though?", and there's some fun intertextuality between them and the Holmes stories. (For instance: is CHAS Raffles fanfic? Maaaaybe. Did ACD borrow ideas from Hornung for FINA/EMPT? Could be!) I don't know, man, I just think that's neat.

The main characters are:

A J Raffles: cricketer, man about town, jewel thief. ADHD icon, has no impulse control and a death wish you can see from space. Engaged in a constant battle with John Watson for the title of Most Bisexual Man in Victorian Lit. Thinks tricking someone into robbing a jewelry store together is romantic. Deals with the majority of his problems by theft, barefaced lying, or faking his own death.

Bunny: our narrator, sometime poet/journalist, also a jewel thief (not as good). He's not going to tell you his actual name till the last damned story, but he's really such a rabbit that you aren't going to mind. Drinks too much, angsts constantly about a) the immorality of crime and b) not being able to grow a proper mustache, only crossdresses in one story but talks about it in a way that implies he's done it before. Is dreadful at pretty much everything, but in a very endearing way.

(I love both of them so much.)

Together, they fight commit crimes! Often while holding hands.

There are three collections of short stories and one novel, plus a variety of adaptations of varying quality. The short stories are pretty consistently delightful (except for "The Fate of Faustina" imo). The novel is perhaps not as good - some things don't work as well when you stretch them to novel-length - but I haven't finished it yet so who knows? It might improve. In any case, the plot isn't great but Raffles and Bunny are still very enjoyable.

Anyway, go read Raffles and then please come and talk to me about it. If you'd prefer to wait until you can get the stories in your inbox, Letters from Bunny is starting up in March 2024 (on the Ides, natch). It's going to be a fun time.

[mid-nightowl]

untitled lil fic #1 (jason todd and gotham war)

here's some gotham war rewrites i needed to get out of my head, the brainrot was killing me omg

warnings for violence, cursing, whatever the hell Bruce is doing (just Bruce as a full warning tag, the man is more unhinged than Joker in this)

---

“Oh Jason. How I’ve missed you, my sweet boy.”

The words are sickeningly sweet, poison-saturated words falling from bloody red lips. Delivered with a crooked smile, Joker looks up at him, uncaring at his position. His fingers curl in the clown’s suit collar, lips curling with a snarl.

Jason punches him again, the clown’s jaw cracking and his body straining against the ferry railing. Joker merely giggles, head lolling around through the air before his mismatched eyes meet his mask. 

“Shut the fuck up!” He snaps, unholstering his gun and digging the muzzle into Joker’s cheek.

His murderer raises his hands, waggling his fingers in surrender, grinning and smirking and smiling. 

He hates it, he hates it, he hates it. 

“I want you to think about this real carefully,” He digs his gun into his skin. “This could be the last joke you ever make, you understand? That’s what you want to go with?”

“You know,” His nightmare giggles, chuckles like a wind-up toy before he wipes the amusement off his face. The clown looks up at him, head tilted, pleased and patient and thoughtful. There’s not a single sliver of hate and destructive menace, or anger or disappointment or suspicion. 

Wrong, wrong, wrong, he thinks. There’s something wrong here. There’s something wrong with Joker—and not in the usual way. 

“The best jokes deliver a difficult truth, but hide it with a fun fiction,” Joker explains, smushed but coherent words strung together despite the gun halfway in his mouth. “Without humor all we have left is being mean and lying.”

“What?” He can’t stop the words before they stumble out of his mouth. He doesn’t let the gun go lax in his hand despite the way the clown’s words throw him off guard. 

Off-kilter is a genuine feeling that digs into him, shocking him to the core. The clown does this, he knows it. He knows this is how he does things, how he worms his way out of every situation and every attempted manslaughter, he knows how the clown operates, intimately. 

Jason knows him. 

Joker, historically, has been so many things. But he’s always been a psychotic, impulsive mass-murderer. Someone without restraint, without limitation. 

It’s why he’s always been Batman’s true nemesis. Bruce, he needs a fine-tuned control of everything and everyone. He is someone who has limits and restraint. 

Controlled, focused, and without limitations—Jason is almost the happy medium to both of them. 

Almost.

The three of them are similar, different, opposites and identical. It’s like walking in one of those mirror mazes where you can’t tell who the real you is. 

Who is the real Bruce Wayne? The man who cherishes his children or the one who maims them?

Who is the real Joker? The cold, purposeful mass murderer or the dumped-in-acid man who can’t tell the difference?

Who is the real Jason Todd? The bloody crime lord or the declawed crowbar wielding vigilante?

Joker simply smiles and pats his arm, as if Jason’s not trying to kill him.

He slams the clown against the railing again, snarling. 

“Enough games!” He growls and flips the safety off. The noise doesn’t even phase Joker, if anything he grins harder. His mismatched eyes—one red-brown, one green—flick above them before returning to his. 

“Are you really going to use that big bad gun of yours with Daddy watching? He’ll be so mad at you.” His murderer grins, letting his head hang limply in his grasp.

“What? Batman-!” He jerks back, head snapping up to the ferry roof cover. 

Empty. No looming monster demanding a painful compromise is here.

Joker’s hands push him back, and he grunts, stumbling into the ferry wall. The clown tumbles over the railing, disappearing from view. His laughter haunting the air. 

“No!” He shouts, dashing to the railing. 

The clown is gone under the waves and ice, sinking into the dark of Gotham Harbor. 

He’s not dead. He can’t be dead, Jason thinks, gripping the ice-cold railing, I haven’t killed him yet.

He’s not dead.

But that was mean. 

--

The last words Jason hears remind him of his grave. 

No, not the one he was buried in. Six feet of dirt above him and smothered in satin, watched over by that stupid weeping angel.

There’s a memorial in the cave with his name. ‘Good soldier’ and nothing else but his name. Both of them: Jason Todd and Robin. 

A monument to Bruce’s failure, his greatest mistake, a grave to his complicated teenage years, his love. 

“You’ve always been a good soldier. Rest now.” Bruce told him, jabbing him in the neck with the needle. 

A grave, a memorial, a monument. It makes him sick. The reminder that he will always be the dead Robin, the sad Robin, the angry Robin. 

Dead, dead, dead.

The violence done to him, inflicted and imprinted into his skin and bones was more important. The guilt and the lesson were more important than his cries for justice, for his life’s blood.

The monument and altar, raised after his murder, were never for him, but for Bruce.

He was dead, why would he care?

The story Bruce will tell would never be the truth, just excuses and wrong-doings. He would take accountability after the fact, but not before. 

Bruce would let his murderer walk and let him rot. 

Maybe that was why he buried Jason six feet under, so he wouldn’t have to face the decay and decomposition. That he could keep this golden, blurry image of him as Robin, as the straight A student, the good son. And not a weightless body splinted a thousand different ways to look human. 

But now that he’s resurrected—not in Bruce’s image, but as something broken and jagged, something lost and filled with dirt and green-green-green—Bruce refuses to acknowledge him. Refuses to believe this is who he is. 

Refuses to believe that he remade (destroyed) himself from the ruins, from the broken bones and empty veins and black thread that mended his corpse back into the image of Jason Todd. Refuse to think that if a girl can come back as a soothsayer, that a boy can come back as a gun. 

“Hnnng…Bruce,” Jason groans softly, heaving himself off the couch. 

Batman turns to him, looming with his face mask in his hands. The fluorescent lights, a nauseous lime-yellow, cut over his figure, his face, his mask. Almost a green-green-green, almost a pool of rage, almost a pit of madness.

His mask crackles alive in Bruce’s hands, Selina’s voice wavering between annoyance and worry. 

“Red Hood? Hood, please check in and let me kno-” Batman clicks his comm off. 

The resounding silence smothers him. 

His exhale comes out shaky, his heart beating too fast behind his bruised ribs, a chill crawling over his exposed skin. 

Something’s wrong. Something is very wrong. 

“...Batman? You…” He swallows roughly, mouth filled with dirt and blood and thread. “Wha…What did you do?”

“Nothing I’m proud of, Jason.” 

His heart sinks and skips a beat at the same time, stomach twisting with anxiety and fingers trembling against the ugly brown couch cushions.

Inhale. 

He pushed too much.

Taking Selina’s side?

He went too far.

Hood didn’t kill anyone?

Exhale. 

“Hh! Ho…” Jason croaks, getting his boots on the ground. “Y-you…you..”

“Take deep breaths, Jason.” Batman turns back to the computer hub glowing behind him, ignoring his attempts to speak, to demand answers. 

His arms shake as he holds himself upright, but when he tries to stand instead he chokes, falling to his knees in front of the couch. Gasping for air, he lays his palms flat against the cool tiles. His legs are quivering, heavy and unable to hold his weight. 

His whole body trembles with it, this feeling unfolding through his blood and bones, engulfing his head and voice. 

Fear, fear, fear.

“Years ago I created my backup personality, Zur, using techniques I learned from an old mentor and this machine that I built,” Batman starts, monitoring the screens in front of him with one hand on the keyboard and the other on his belt.

Bruce doesn’t turn to look at him, to face him, someone he calls son, someone he considers family, and explain what he’s done to Jason.

He never has. 

“I can’t change your personality with it, Jason…” Batman sighs, low and quiet. “But I can add to it. A small thing: your failsafe.” 

Failsafe. He slams the heel of his palm on the floor, cheeks tingling with his telltale sign of tears. A failsafe?!

Because Red Hood needs a failsafe instead of justice.

“What?!” He tries to snarl, to hiss and yell and scream his rage. But his voice fails him, anxiety chewing at his throat and tongue, voice tilting too high, too unsteady, too weak. 

“Now when you have heightened adrenaline, when you’re about to do something dangerous, your fear kicks in,” Batman continues explaining. “It…I’m sorry Jason. But it’s the only way.” He clenches his eyes shut—inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale—and tries to ignore his rabbit heart battering against its cage, pounding to the frantic rhythm of fear, fear, fear.

“I love you.” 

The words feel like gunshots, the knuckle prints on his skin after the two of them fought over Penguin, the smack of Selina’s whip against his fingers, the crowbar on his skull, his legs, his ribs, over and over and over. 

“I love you, but you are a murderer,” Bruce condemns him, over and over again. “You’re a bull in a china shop and I go round after round with you, trying to figure out how to help make you a better man, to heal you.” 

“H-heal me?” He whispers, rage cut off at the roots. “This isn’t…this isn’t you, Bruce.”

Batman, finally, turns to Jason. He looms, tall and foreboding, darkness dripping around him, drenching him in fear, fear, fear. 

Batman takes a step forward and he crashes back against the couch, spine digging into the wooden frame painfully. 

He can’t breathe. Batman moves and he knows it in his bones, knows it down to the scars Gotham and its guardian have left on him, that he’s not here to save him, to help him. 

“I got you a new identity. A place in Metropolis.” Batman keeps walking forward, despite Jason’s growing hyperventilation, despite the way his blunted nails scratch at the floor. Despite the way he shakes, black stitches snapping apart, the pieces of him falling to the floor of this slaughterhouse, at the feet of his butcher. 

“B-bat…Batman,” He whimpers, hand twisting into the fabric of his suit. 

“You can live a normal life. Fall in love, do meaningful work. This isn’t punishment, Jason,” Batman kneels in front of him and removes the cowl. “I love you.” Jason shrinks back, shoulders back and legs curled to his chest. Bruce’s face is sharp and pale, with bags under his eyes and days old stubble on his jaw. 

His eyes are dark with absolute rage. 

Batman is going to hurt him. Batman is going to hurt him.

Bruce is going to hurt him again. 

“This is a gift. Any way you look at it, you should be in prison for all the people you’ve killed,” He chokes at Bruce’s words, barely smothering the terrified cry in his throat. “This is me saving you from that. Save you from yourself.”

Jason can only stare at the man before him—the man who took him in, who raised and trained him, who loved him—does his best to bury him.

fear, fear, fear. 

--

“Please..don’t…please,” Jason pleads, covering the girl with his frame, caging her in with his bruised and burnt arms.

“Let’s begin.” Scarecrow’s voice reverberates, it shakes through air to match his erratic breathing.

“P-please, I’ll do anything you want, anything,” He begs, fear, fear, fear burning in his veins. “Please. Just stay…stay away.” 

Scarecrow closes the gap between them, rocking back and forth on his crooked, long legs. His mask distorts and mutates, a familiar green-green-green splashing over the darkened void of his gas mask.

“You’re going to die tonight. I know you know this,” Crane looms over him, green-green-green trickling out his eyes, gushing out like an open wound. “But we can still have fun, can’t we.” 

The girl trembles underneath his chest and Jason tries to smother the whimper begging to pour out his lips. It’s gnawing at him—rabbit heart frantic in his chest, hands trembling from the burning pain and anxiety, smoke and ash gathering in his lungs—fear, fear, fear.

He can’t think of anything else. 

“Those fools were right. Your terror…it’s real and it isn’t mine,” Scarecrow sneers, kneeling in front of him. “There is no thrill in driving terror into the heart of a baby bird.” 

Scarecrow takes his jaw in his hand, needles tickling at his exposed skin, forcing Jason to look at him. He can’t help but jerk his head at Crane’s touch, needles pricking into his cheek when Crane holds him tighter, another inescapable cage around him. 

His chest heaves with every shaky inhale-exhale, his anxious fear fanning over the rogue’s mask. Scarecrow leans in closer, the glass over his eyes gleaming, reflecting the fire roaring around them. Jason can hear the screams in them, watching the shadows morph around them and the straw on Crane’s shoulders wiggle. 

“This is my moment of triumph, and it is snatched away from me by..by him?!” Scarecrow shakes Jason’s head in his hand, needles scratching into his skin but still not drawing blood.

Scarecrow lets his head drop, needles disappearing from his sight before they’re clawing at his throat, wet and cold against his clammy skin. Jason whimpers and clenches his eyes shut, unable to do anything but beg. 

He knows praying for someone to help him is futile. 

No one is coming to save him. 

“Never let it be said Scarecrow has no pity,” Crane says, voice cutting in and out his head like radio static. “I will quickly finish what your daddy started.” 

“Doesn’t mommy get a say?”

A voice slices through the flames licking at his skin and the fear smothering him. And when Jason’s gaze finds him, he can’t help the tears. 

“Step away from the vigilante, pervert.” Joker grins, dark red lips stretched too wide, too thin. Ash rains down on his green-green-green umbrella, rolling down the crooked dark patches and shamrock-colored nylon. 

“You’ve already killed him once. It’s time you learned to share, Clown.” Scarecrows speaks with thin, razor-sharp disdain, glaring over his shoulder at the newcomer. 

“You should know this by now, Doc. I don’t play well with others.” The clown throws aside the umbrella, knife materializing from thin air as he descends upon Scarecrow.

“You’re not even really him, are you? Do you think I don’t know about you? Delusions and megalomania with-” Scarecrow baits and taunts the clown, before the two of them are ducking and weaving and slicing at each other with barely concealed rage and annoyance. 

“Blah, blah, blah. Do you know why you’re always going to be a C-List villain, Johnny?” Joker jokes and Jason can imagine the sharp grin on his face. “Because doctors aren’t scary. They’re annoying.”

He ducks his head down and curls tighter around the girl. She cries underneath him, hiccups soft under the roar of flames closing in on them, the screech of metal on metal and creaking of deteriorating wood. 

He can’t move. He can’t do anything but try to breathe. But all he tastes is smoke, choking him, billowing down his throat and in his lungs. His heartbeat is so loud, jumping under its bone-cage, a heady, heavy thing—badump-badump-badump-badump. It’s too fast, erratic, out of control.

“You’re a bull in a china shop and I go round after round with you, trying to figure out how to help make you a better man, to heal you-”

Always out of control. Jason whines, hands scrambling against the wood below him. It burns, seering through his fingertips. It hurts-it hurts-it hurts, he can’t do this. He can’t.

He can’t breathe.

“Ahhhh! Ack! Achhhhh!” Scarecrow screams, guttural and wobbly and when he looks up, Jason can only watch as Crane crashes through the fifth story window. 

Tears continue to stream down his face, his heart trembling in his chest and the realization strikes him then, cracking down on his skull like a crowbar, over and over and over. 

Joker saved him. Joker saved him. Joker saved him. 

His murderer saved him.

 “A-are you real?!” Jason cries out, fingers curling into the withering floorboards. “Is this real?!” 

“Oh, don’t worry about him. I didn’t even give him a real dose of Joker Gas. I ran out. Heh!” Joker laughs, rubbing at his jaw. Blood and green-green-green stain the edges of his mouth, smeared down his chin and throat before disappearing under the orange sweatshirt he’s wearing. 

“But now, it’s just you and me. And…your daughter? Did you have a daughter and not tell me?” The clown tilts his head in question, tucking away the green-green-green gun in his hand. He steps closer, uncaring of the flames licking over his pale skin.  

Jason can’t tell if it's real or an illusion, can’t tell if his murderer is here and saving? rescuing? tricking? him. He can’t tell if this is just another nightmare he’s trapped himself in, or if this is the real punishment Bruce promised him. 

“She’s just a kid. Please…don’t,” He pleads, the tears searing down his ash-stained cheeks. 

Joker leans down, bringing his face close to Jason’s. His mismatched eyes—one green, one red-brown—bore into his and the clown smiles, too wide, too cracked and broken, too bloody and green-green-green. 

He sobs, cracking under everything. He can’t do this, he can’t. 

“My, my. Even like this you still think you’re the hero. Batman would be proud if he didn’t hate you,” His murderer says, before his bony hand is cupping Jason’s face, calloused fingers dancing over his skin. 

Jason clenches his jaw when it threatens to wobble and tremble, but knows the fear is shining in his eyes. Knows the clown can see it, knows he recognizes it in his baby-blues. He’s been here before.

They’ve been here before, together. 

“But don’t worry my sweet boy, I’ll find a way to fix you. Nobody is going to hurt you. I won’t let them. Because I need you.” His voice is honeyed and threatening, curling and clawing and cloying into his head like a sickness. Joker pets his hair, gentle and caring, and Jason knows he means it. 

He’s going to fix him. He’s going to heal him. 

He’s going to save Jason.

“Don’t worry, sweet boy. We’ll see each other soon,” Joker pats his cheek with a crooked green-green-green smile. “I promise.” 

His heart beats frantic to the words—fear, fear, fear—eyes unable to look away from Joker.

Jason believes him.