#BUT BRUCE TURNS INTO A FUCKING BAT

[theredhoodedcryptid]

Me: *Watches a batman movie* That was a very good movie. I sure hope there's fanart and fanfics! It's in a popular fandom and it's been a year since it released, so there has to be something!

*There is less then five fanfics, only one of which is tagged to that specific movie and little to no fanart*

Me: ☹

[bbbbbbbbatman]

Gotham has so many rogues and most of them don’t actually cause that much trouble in the grand scheme of things, so other than the really big ones, like joker, news about Gotham rogues can get pretty muddled outside the city which leads the JL to believing that Batman and Manbat are the same person and that their colleague sometimes turns into a giant bat monster but they don’t bring it up bc they think it’s a sensitive topic

Which eventually leads to a scenario like this mid combat when they’re getting pretty desperate:

Green Lantern: I know we’re not supposed to talk about it or whatever, but it would be really helpful if you could turn into a giant bat right now, spooky

Batman, having zero context for this comment, pausing mid fight to look at Hal like he just grew a second head: What the fuck are you talking about, Jordan?

Green Lantern, suddenly much less confident: Um…you know how you…turn into a giant bat?

Batman, utterly bewildered, turning to the other members but finding that he is clearly the only one out of the loop: what is happening right now

[ew-selfish-art]

Dpx Dc AU: Ectoplasm is required for Ghosts to be visible to the human eye- And Danny creates his own ectoplasm.

Danny is visiting Jazz in Gotham and its weird how friendly everyone is. Like, the city gets a really bad rapport, everywhere he goes there is someone trying to strike up a conversation or answer his questions about getting around to the tourist spots. A few people even pointed out restaurants and ways to find off the beaten path gems! Jazz seems to role her eyes at him, but when he brings up her 'roommate' being kind of cute she flat out laughs.

Danny then comes to understand the Jazz doesn't have a roommate and that Ghosts in Gotham don't move far from their haunts- He's just been inadvertently turning these undead folks visible by accident of generating abnormal amounts of ectoplasm.

Which, is comforting in a way, he's never walking this dangerous city alone and really, most of the ghosts have been really friendly! They disappear once he's a few blocks away from them anyway.

---

Tim Drake is having a horrible day.

He'd been given intel that one of Black Mask's guys was going to snitch but that he'd died before given the opportunity to reach out to the GCPD. He tracks down the guy's last know whereabouts and yikes. Its next to the Theater. Tim was often grateful for his childhood obsessions, this time it backfired.

Tim and Bruce get into an argument about trust and respect and, worst of all, mental health. And even though Tim was vehemently against Batman accompanying Red Robin to the alleyway - that's exactly what happens.

They arrive and Bruce is closing up faster than a clam in the contaminated Gotham Bay- Clearly being in the Alley bothers him. No fucking shit. RR gets started on collecting evidence, there are a few extra blood splatters and a single left shoe... When a kid walks into the Alley.

"Uh, sorry to intrude-" The kid looks scared shitless, and runs away. And then, all of a sudden, Batman and Robin aren't alone in the Alley.

Tim can hardly believe his eyes as the dead man appears and quickly blabs Black Mask's bank passwords and what the plan had been- and While he's over joyed to have that closure, he turns around to Batman weeping in the arms of his parents.

The ghosts fade, and the emotions are certainly charged as this was never something Bruce or Tim would have ever dreamed of happening. Ghosts in Gotham. Talking, floating, granting closure.

"RR, Bats, come in." Oracle calls into their ears.

"Reporting in, but, uh, we need a minute."

"A minute? We have a case on 4th and-"

"O, we just saw the ghosts of the Waynes. It's going to be a minute."

"...Lots of Ghost reports lately then. Any chance you saw a kid looking like he could be adopted?"

"Yeah, actually, black hair and blue eyes. He was super polite before he ran away."

"We have work to do. Oracle, lets prioritize finding our person of interest and divert Nightwing and Robin to the case on 4th." Batman cut between them on the comms and he sounded... calmer than either of them anticipated.

---

Jazz is no longer laughing when Batman appears at her door explaining that he's looking for Danny (Who already flew away from town to get a good night's sleep before class on Monday). Turns out Danny reunited the man with his dead parents just briefly- and then the second guy appears and mentions how Danny had also given a guy who'd been murdered by a Mob enough time to explain the ongoing threats the city faced.

Jazz just rolls her eyes and says that it's not like the ghosts are going anywhere anytime soon and Danny will visit in another month. When pressed, she just explains that her brother is a weirdo. No of course he doesn't have powers. Gaslight and Girlbosses her way out.

And Jazz thinks that the game is up for at least another month, obviously when Danny visits more shit will stir up, but then this new guy appears.

Unlike the other Bats who are keen on watching her from a distance, the Red Hood knocks on her door. Are her eyebrows all the way into her hairline when Red Hood asks her to send his thanks along to Danny because somehow this whole situation led to his Dad expressing remorse for his actions and apologizing? Yes, yes they are.

But Jazz can smell Dissertation Data off of these vigilantes- Who is she to send them away? Jazz welcomes Red Hood into her place for a cup of tea and a small chat.

The story then devolves into Jazz getting shit done, Danny being cute by proximity and also bringing ghosts to the party, and the Bats having trauma resolve between them.

[dickheadcanons]

Your brain is literally gynormous. Do you think Damian's and Dick's relationship is paternal? Because, as someone who has actually had to raise their sibling (do not recommend) it looks more like a guy that had too much in his plate trying to be the best caregiver he could, but not really being a parent, if that makes sense. I feel like the idea of him wanting to adopt him feels like kind of a retcon, couldn't really see it in the og run. But of course, it could be because it's not exactly the same as my experience (abusive father, incapable mother, yknow the drill). What do you think? All your posts are so good.

Also while you're at it, what do you think of Dick as a parent? Some elseworlds have played with the concept, and main continuity did something too with Olivia but T*m Tayl*r fucked that up too. I also wonder how Damian would be as a dad, but I don't think I've ever seen any stories with it.

omg anon thank you and thank you for asking!! this is literally one of my favorite topics!! i was thinking about making a post on this and now you gave me the excuse for it!!

Long story short, I don't think that “parental” is a binary thing. I mean, I know several bio-parents who are just guys with too much on their plates, trying to be the best they can, you know? And people can see parent figures in all kinds of relationships that aren’t blood or traditional moms/dads, especially with people who didn't know each other from birth. There are a million ways to be parented, and a million ways to act as a parent.

The way I think about it is, is Dick Damain's John Grayson? No, I don't think so.

But is Dick Damian's Bruce Wayne? Yes. Totally. Absolutely.

More under the cut bc I have a lot of thoughts.

I think to talk about Dick and Damian, we have to start with Dick and Bruce. So much about Dick and Damian is a reflection of the original Dynamic Duo, and I think that's very much the case with this element as well. From the start of their very long comic history, Dick and Bruce have been dancing around their relationship. We get early comics that say they're "like" father and son, we have Bruce saying he couldn't care about Dick more than if he was Bruce's son, but we also have places where they call each other their best friends, where they act more like brothers, etc etc.

When it comes to who our parents are, I think there is the responsibility, and the result. Certain people have the responsibility, the duty, to be our parents, and sometimes (because death or illness or being shitty people), they aren't able to meet those responsibilities. That never removes the responsibility; they don't stop being the parent. But they aren't able to create the result of us becoming good stable adults. That's where other people can step in, where the parental figure appears, and those are the people that we actually point to when we say "they made me the person I am today."

In fandom, we see a lot of Dick not wanting Bruce to replace his father, of him asking not to be adopted. I think this is a fine characterization that works with who Dick is, but Bruce is actually the one to say that he is not going to replace Dick's father. He says it completely unprompted, too. This is withholding the responsibility of being Dick's parent from Bruce, keeping him at a distance and reserving it as an honor for someone who can't hold it anymore, even as Bruce demands responsibility for literally everything else about Dick.

And I think that it's very telling of what Bruce's idea of a father is. The thing about having a dead parent at a young age is that the person of your parents is still tangled in the role of parent in your life; Mom is mom, not Martha, and because she's dead, the image of both Martha and "mom" is frozen. For Bruce, the relationship of father and son is frozen in the relationship of specifically his father and him. Of course Bruce is not Dick's father; Bruce himself is so different from what his conception of a father is. And as a fellow son, for Bruce, someone who just got back from 7 years abroad studying to be Batman, for whom the nearly 20 year old wound is still fresh, the idea of even wanting another father doesn't make sense, particularly for a boy that Bruce identifies with so hard that he becomes the third person ever to know who Batman is.

This looming memory is even worse when it's Dick's turn to be Batman. While Bruce looks at Dick and sees the memory of his own loss, the shadow of his own grief, Dick is looking at Damian and seeing Bruce. Dick knows very well who Damian lost; Dick is grieving what Damian lost more than Damian is. Bruce couldn't conceive of replacing a father, but Dick is struggling to imagining himself replacing Bruce at his job, much less who he was in his personal relationships.

But even if Damian isn't Dick's responsibility, Dick doesn't hesitate to care about Damian's future. "Who's going to save him if we don't?" At the start of the DickBats era, Dick isn't looking at Damian as a family member, really. He's looking at Damian as a victim, abet a very involved, very dangerous one. It's how Bruce looked at Dick too, before he had any reason to know that this kid would become something more to him. But, like Bruce, what Dick does to save Damian is bring him into the thing that is most precious to him; Batman. The mission. Saving people. A way to live in the world.

I know saying someone is the Batman to their Robin is like, a joke at this point. Something unbelievably cheesy. But you google "iconic duos" and Batman and Robin are one of the first responses. There's a reason for the joke. So imagine you are Robin, and your Batman is dead. And you have to go and find a new partner. Dick making Damian his Robin is heavy, just as heavy to me as adoption papers. Bruce made Dick his partner without any idea of what that meant. Dick, and the audience, had 70 years of expectation on what Dick and Damian could be. Dick making Damian Robin was a very specific claim, far stronger imo than just claiming him as a son would have been.

Because, to be honest (and speak to your other question), I don't think Dick thinks a lot about being a parent. I don't really think it's that important to him. Dick is a leader, a mentor, he deals with a ton of teenagers and kids through his vigilante work, he goes to Tim's sidekick parent's meetings and takes Jason skiing and more than that, he's also young. He's in his 20s. He should be at the club. I think he probably thinks he'll have kids in an abstract way, but it's not something he's looking for, consciously or unconsciously. He's not searching for connection, or to fix his mistakes or his past, the things that lead Bruce to adopting sidekicks. He'd be a great dad, and I think we see him being pretty good with his Elseworlds kids, but Dick is a very practical person, and him taking a kid in (vs finding somewhere else they can go) is not really the practical choice.

Except for one kid. There's just been one kid with legitimately no where else to go, where Dick is truly the only option, because going home meant only bad things for him. Dick made Damian part of his family in the ways that mattered to them both in that moment. With their lives, adoption doesn't really make a huge material difference on custody (if Damian wanted to leave, Dick couldn't have stopped him; Damian has access to basically unlimited money and can feed and clothe and wash himself. and possibly already has a phd.), and Dick wanted Damian to choose, anyway. If I recall correctly, Dick says he didn't think about taking Damian with him until Bruce comes back. He thought about taking Damian with him, thought that Damian might be better with Dick (his partner!!!!) than even with Bruce, his dad, the person Dick loves so much, only in the face of them being separated.

Meanwhile Damian, for all his blustering about how Dick needs to "earn" his respect, warms up to Dick startlingly quickly. For Damian, who had never known a father, who in his initial run hadn't even known his mother for more than two years, whose other male family is Ra’s al Ghul, his father is Batman. Even in Tomasi's kinder depiction of Damian's childhood, Damian only knows the Bat. And when he meets Bruce, the first thing he expresses is disappointment. Bruce the man is underwhelming and then goes and dies. So much for the mythic hero!

And then he meets Dick. Who manages to teach Damian something, who doesn't discount his skills even when he's wrong. Who proves that he is better at being Batman than Damian, and shows that he wants Damian around. And, even more importantly, who doesn't die. Dick is stable in a world constantly in flux. Damian screws up a lot in that run, and he leaves for long stretches of it, but Dick is always there when he gets back. There's no blame here, but the truth is that Dick is the one who stays.

Bruce was Damian's father, but what does that mean to someone whose never met a father at all? Bruce might have tried to connect with Damian before he died, but he doesn’t do it in a way that works. He doesn’t give Damian trust, he doesn’t encourage him in the ways Damian finds important…the first person to do that is Dick. Dick gives Damian responsibility, makes him part of the team. It could be argued that Damian didn’t deserve it, but we’re not talking about deserving. We’re talking about what worked. It sounds like as good an idea as making a tiny 8 year old acrobat a sidekick, but it undeniably worked for both Damian and Dick. Does that mean that either of these relationships were parental in the way that we think of it in the real world, in the way that a child psychologist would say is good and healthy? I have no idea. But they are the most parental in the absence of any other parents, and I think that means a lot.

Unfortunately, we don't get to actually see the dissolution of Dick and Damian's partnership. DC conveniently skips over showing us Bruce coming back and Dick becoming Nightwing again; preNew 52, Dick is still Batman with Damian even when Bruce returns, and in the New 52, he's been Batman "Before" and we don't really see the end, just a vague aftermath. But if it did take that kind of change to make them realize their relationship had a flavor of "parent and child", had the makings of something like a father and son, well, they'd just be following in the original Batman's footprints.

[themyscirah]

But look at us Luke, we're the ones left alone, holding some rich monster's pain. All of existence, built on his violence. All of space-time, humming to life with a single inviolate rule. Give the hero something to punch.

[sing-me-under]

The reason I like the idea that Bruce was a teenage idle then personally experienced some aspect of poverty in his time abroad is because if I ever found out that some privileged rich white man spontaneously decided to go out into the streets and fight criminals hand to hand, I would personally tear his neck out with my teeth. Absolutely the fuck not. If he has no frame of reference for starvation, addiction, or homelessness, he has absolutely no right to enact his so-called justice.

That motherfucker better have fucking empathy in whole ass wheelbarrows OR ELSE.

[benbamboozled]

It turns out that Alfred just has one million Bruce Wayne clones in cold storage like in the Venture Bros.

[hailsatanacab]

GUESS WHO’S BACK! this time, with a slightly different take on the prompt 🤣 Bio!Dad Bruce, Siblings Danny and Damian!! I know I said I was going to do twin!Damian, but it just fit better this way I think. I told you this prompt really gripped me, so please enjoy even more words on it!!

---

Look. The only excuse Danny can give is that he's tired, alright? He's so, so tired. Matchsticks propping up his eyelids kind of tired. Five quiet seconds away from face planting into the ground kind of tired. Mistake the coat rack for his mom again kind of tired.

Beat this ghost into the ground if he doesn't put him back in his bedroom so he can finish his homework and finally get some sleep kind of tired.

Seriously, what the hell? He'd only just gotten back to his room after souping the fifth ectopus of the night (apparently there was some sort of migration happening and it just happened to coincide with the worst case of homework overload he's had since freshman year) when he was enveloped in a swirling mess of green and deposited in an ectoplasmic cage in some random ghost's lair. It's just not fair! If it doesn't rain, it pours, and the only constant in life is that Danny doesn’t ever seem to have an umbrella.

So, when Danny looks down and sees that he's still clutching his textbook and homework packet to his chest, and then looks around to see a few more cages containing a few more blurry looking people all milling around and banging on the ectoplasm in confusion, sees the ghost up the front in the middle of a monologue that Danny just knows is going to take forever, he does the only reasonable thing he can think of.

He does his homework.

Yes, he knows he's meant to be a hero, he knows he's meant to be helping these people escape, but come on! He's also an overworked high school student with several deadlines and a dwindling amount of detentions he can get before exclusion, so what choice does he really have?

The ghost doesn't even feel all that powerful, maybe on par with Boxy? He's got a sense for these things now—an annoyance metre, rather than his normal ghost sense—and from the weak pulse of ectoplasm surrounding him, the cheesy Sigmund Freud-looking therapist getup, and the very fact that he's still monologuing, Danny just knows. More annoying to deal with than an actual oh-shit-the-world-is-ending kind of problem. He could take this guy in his sleep.

Or, more accurately, he could take this guy on close to three hours of snatched sleep for the entire week.

So, sue him. He's using this time as independent study. He's doing his homework and there's nothing this smarmy, two-bit Doctor Phil ghost can do to stop him.

Actually, please don't sue him, Danny has this all in hand, he promises. As soon as he hears the other hostages make a sound, he'll abandon his homework and he'll soup the guy. Just let him do most of it first, please!

Decision made, Danny settles down and cracks open his textbook. Math time!

Hey, so turns out, math fucking sucks.

It's not long before Danny thinks this whole thing was a stupid idea and he kinda wishes he would just get expelled. Give him something broken and he’ll fix it. Give him a lab and some scrap metal and he’s pretty sure he can build whatever, just like his parents. 

Getting these numbers into the right answer, however? Impossible! How in the name of all that is dead is he meant to do this?

He's sitting cross-legged on the floor of his cage, textbook split open and the pages from his packet scattered messily around him, head in his hands, when he hears a knock on his cage. A shiver rolls through him as a rush of ectoplasm powers through the walls, lighting it up in a pale glowing green.

“What? What do you want?” he grumbles, not even looking up. “Because if it’s not an easy explanation for the quadratic formula, I don’t wanna know.”

“Are you doing your homework?” The ghost’s voice is incredulous and Danny can feel him swoop down to the floor to get a closer look, but whatever, he still doesn’t look up. Instead, he focuses on trying to put the numbers into some semblance of order. “You should be concentrating on my game!”

“Oh, man, ordinarily I’d be so into blowing off my homework for whatever game you’ve got cooking, but if I get one more detention I’m pretty sure Mom will actually succeed in killing me and I don’t fancy going through that again, you feel?”

“Excuse me? I don’t think you understand the kind of position you’re putting your—”

“You have to do brackets before multiplication, right? But you’ve got to make it balance on both sides of the equation, so that means I’ve got to… Wait, no, balancing equations is something different, isn't it? Ancients, this is so fucked, where’s my calculator…”

The cage rocks back with the force of the ghost’s fists and Danny has to scramble to keep all of his scraps of paper in some sort of order.

“Dude! What the hell?” 

“Answer my question so we can carry on with the game.” The ghost hisses, his face pressed up against the glass walls of the cage.

Danny rolls his eyes. He’s trying to answer his own questions, thank you very much! Perhaps he should just bust out, end this quickly and get back home. At least there he’d have access to the internet—and more importantly, Tucker’s answers. To compare, not to cheat, of course. 

“Fine, what’s your question?”

“You weren’t listening? Do you even care about this at all?”

“All I care about right now is finishing my homework and getting back home at least an hour before my alarm goes off. So unless you can promise me that, I'm going to fight you now and finish off my homework in peace."

“Fight me? At least threatening bodily harm is something you all have in common. Please, you’re all stuck in there until this game ends, whether you like it or not.” The ghost sneers against the cage in what he probably thinks is an intimidating display of teeth, but instead just has Danny realising that he’s not brushed his own in two days. He's been so tired, he's not had time. It's still gross, though. “Answer the questions and you’ll be able to go home lickety-split.”

“Yeah, alright, whatever—as long as I get to answer my own questions, too. X doesn’t solve itself, you know.” As much as he wishes it did.

“Fine. I suppose this isn’t a test for you, anyway.”

Okay, well, at least it seems like Danny’s just a pawn and not an actual player in whatever kind of game this is. He’s not sure how he feels about that—actually, scratch that, yes he does. It’s really fucking nice to not be the one that’s one fuck up away from losing everything. 

Mind you, he’s still not off the hook for it, yet. Obviously, he’ll still be keeping an ear out for anything going wrong, but what’s the harm in letting it play out a little longer? At least he’ll get some more work done.

“Fine.” Danny parrots. “What’s your question?”

“What’s your name?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“What’s your name?”

“You don’t know who I am?” 

Huh. It’s not often that happens anymore. Weird. 

Instead of giving him any answer, the ghost just whips around and cackles as he flies off towards the centre of the room. The glow of his cage dies down as the supply of ectoplasm dwindles and he finally takes a proper look around.

“Did you hear that? Did you hear the shock in his voice, did you see the betrayal in his eyes? You don’t know who he is!” 

The ghost is swirling around a podium in the middle of the room, mocking the person in a voice that pierces Danny’s eardrums and stabs directly into his brain. Great, he’s entered the blinding headache stage of tired. He squints and rubs his eyes, but the heavy, blurring tiredness doesn’t leave.

He gives up on trying to guess who the hulking figure in the middle is. All he can assume is that he’s the reason they’re all here, what with the five or six other cages surrounding placed facing him.

Look, it’s unreasonable to ask Danny to do maths and hero work, let him just pick one thing to focus on.

“That’s your first point lost, I’m afraid! Let’s keep going, shall we? The questions are going to get a little harder now, good luck…”

With that, the ghost flies over to the first cage and poses another question. “When is his birthday?”

There’s barely any hesitation from the man on the podium who gives his answer as “March 20th,” with a confident growl. It's pretty impressive, to be fair. Danny can’t remember what date his own birthday is half the time, let alone anyone else’s.

To be fair, Danny has two birthdays, so it's doubly hard.

He doesn't forget.

The first birthday, the one he celebrates, is the day he found the Fentons. He tells them he doesn't know his actual birthday and they believe him, so every April 3rd they celebrate the day he came into their lives. 

Or, at least, they do in theory. The Fentons aren't great at remembering birthdays either.

He reserves his true birthday for remembering where he came from. For mourning the life he left behind, the family, his brother. And when the day is over, he pushes it aside and carries on with his completely normal life as best he can.

Which is what he’s doing now. Carrying on with his life as best he can. Doing his homework. 

When this stupid game finally finishes, he’ll get transported back to his bedroom with his three sheets of (hopefully) correct answers and he’ll get some sleep. 

Then he’ll wake up, go to school, and do it all again.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watches as the ghost feeds enough ectoplasm through the first cage so that it lights up just like his did. Immediately, the man inside starts shouting, threatening the ghost with some very creative swearing to let them all go, but Danny just tunes him out because he’s doing what he does best. He's getting on with it.

He swallows and settles back down on the floor, trying to ignore the way his eyes are prickling. Cool. Entering into the “crying way too easily at just about anything” stage of tired. Lovely.

Right. Come on, you can do this. Take a deep breath. It’s just math. 

Solve 7x^2 - 25x + 2 = 0 using the quadratic formula. Give your answer to 2 decimal places. 

What the fuck.

He keeps an ear out as the ghost goes down the line asking the same question and receiving much the same results. Meanwhile, Danny’s getting nowhere fast. 

So, a = 7, right? Which means that b = 25 and c = 2, that’s good, okay, so plug that all into the quadratic formula—wait, shit, b = -25 instead! Does that make a difference?

Whatever, now he has to… fix all the numbers in the formula, so minus minus 25 which is… 0, right? Right. Then it’s all the brackets, so first he’s got to square -25 which is… fuck. Where’s his calculator, did he bring a calculator? How in the hell is he meant to do that in his head?

Danny’s halfway to pulling his hair out when he hears it. The ghost is laughing, congratulating the man on the podium for his three right answers even if it looks like he’s gotten this one wrong, judging by the reaction of the person inside the cage. Danny can’t quite make out what’s happening because all he can see is numbers and, having abandoned squaring -25, a square root that he doesn’t know how to deal with.

So it's understandable that the shout doesn’t quite register to begin with.

“—yal! Danyal!” 

But when it does, when the name finally makes it through, he freezes.

It can’t be real.

“Akhi, please!”

It’s not real.

His head whips up to the cage that’s glowing, but it’s too far away, too bright in the darkness, to really make out for certain that… It can’t be. He can’t be here, why would he be here?

Part of Danny really, really wishes he was paying attention to the monologuing.

“Danyal, please, answer me!” The voice is desperate, so, so desperate. Hoarse and wet and thick with tears, a far cry from the confident boy he used to know. The… the only time Danny’s heard his voice like that was when… But it can’t be him. “Let me go, let me see him! Danyal!”

“Answer my question, you little rat!” The ghost growls, face twisting in a snarling grimace that gets him nowhere. Of course it wouldn’t, there's no way that would scare him.

“Danyal! Please, akhi, please!”

It… Oh shit, is it really him?

Danny stands up, his pencil clattering to the floor, and he steps close enough to the glass wall of the cage so that he can reach out and touch it.

He hesitates.

What if it’s a trick? What if he’s in a nightmare dimension and the ghost is actually super powerful and this is all a trap? It’s not a game for the man on the podium, it’s a game made for torturing him—hell, it even had math in it! He hates math!

It can’t be real.

“Danyal, please, let it be you, please be alive, Danyal… Akhi, please.”

He lets his ectoplasm flood the cage, the walls blinding him as he pours in too much, far more than the ghost keeping them captive could ever hope to conjure. He wets his lips, regulates his ectoplasm to a trickle so that the light dims and he can finally see out again, and tries to say something. Anything. His heart is pounding and his mouth is dry.

“Dami?” he whispers, not daring to hope. Then louder, “Damian?”

“Danyal, is it really—”

“What are you doing?” The ghost snaps, taking his hand off of Damian’s cage so that the light dims and he can’t be heard, and shoots over towards him. “How are you doing that?”

Yeah, fuck this. That’s Damian in there, that’s really Damian, and Danny’s not staying in his cage for another second. He takes his hand off the wall and powers up an ectoblast, not even bothering to transform. He’s getting his little brother.

The glass of the cage shatters easily.

He steps out of the cage easily.

He… It’s not quite as easy to walk over to Damian.

It’s even harder to smash it open, so he just stands there, staring. Watching as Damian—and it is, it really is—stands there, too, his mouth moving as he's trying to call out to him but no sound is heard. Danny can read his lips well enough… 

Damian sniffs, wipes his eyes and nose on his sleeve, and smiles tentatively. It’s a small, fleeting thing. Unsure. Sad. Hopeful.

“Damian?” He still can’t believe it, it has to be some sort of trick, surely. Still… even if it is, he’ll get to hold his brother again. Even if it’s not real. He smiles back at him and readies an ectoblast. “Stand back.”

And then that stupid ghost fires one straight at him instead.

Damian’s gaze flickers behind him, shouting a warning that he can’t hear, and he turns intangible on instinct. The bolt flies through him, but it’s not even strong enough to break Damian’s cage. Yeah, Danny was right. This guy's just annoying, not even worth the time it'll take to fight him.

“You’re ruining it, you’re ruining my game! You’re… you’re a ghost?”

There it is, there's the realisation, finally. He turns to face him, anger boiling in his veins. Fuck this guy.

“You’re an idiot?”

“Excuse me? How dare you?” The ghost blinks, then puffs himself up, ghostly flames licking up his stupid, ill-fitting suit, still not fully comprehending what’s going on. Not knowing the danger he’s in. “In my own lair, how dare you call me that?”

“I’m not a ghost.” Danny interrupts, ice beginning to creep out from his feet. He takes a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. “I’m Phantom.”

“Wh—Phantom?” Immediately, the ghost loses all of his fire and shrinks into himself. “Oh, Ancients, I’m… I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Your Majesty, I didn’t mean to—”

“And yet, you did. Is this a challenge?”

“Challenge? Cha—no, no, of course not, of course not, I wouldn’t be challenging you, not at all! Here, I’ll just, I’ll… I’ll let everyone out and then you can be on your way, I’m so sorry!”

Danny doesn’t even bother to answer, he just turns back to Damian with a roll of his eyes and—he’s still there, he keeps expecting him to have vanished, for this all to have been a dream, but he’s still there—and he readies another ectoblast.

“Stand back, okay?”

Damian nods and moves away, his eyes flicking between Danny and the ghost behind him with undisguised contempt.

The ectoplasmic glass shatters easily and then Damian is out of the cage and in front of him, just an arms length away.

They stand there for a long minute, watching, neither of them able to make the first move. Danny should probably start explaining some things, right? Ancients, there’s so much, but…

It’s been six years.

Six years without his brother.

Six years of only allowing himself to remember on one day, because otherwise he’d break down, otherwise he’d go back and…

Six years.

“Hey, Dami.” He tries to smile, tries to step forward, tries to do something other than stand there stupidly, but he just can’t.

“Are you… Danyal? Is it really you?”

“I feel like I should be asking you that,” he laughs, but it comes out weak and watery.

He’s definitely in the crying stage of tired now.

“Are you—” his eyes flicker over to the ghost again and Danny knows what he’s going to say with just as much certainty as he knows he’s not going to like hearing it. “Are you alive? Truly?”

He shrugs, puffs out some air in a sardonic grin, and spreads his arms wide. “Depends on how you define it, I guess. It’s… kind of a long story.”

It’s not comforting, from the look on Damian’s face, but then he hadn’t really expected it to be. He couldn’t lie to him, there was never any lying to Damian. Even when they were children together, he always saw through him.

Damian brings his arm up, towards him, but falters before they actually touch. Danny can feel his core twist and he so desperately wants to reach out and bridge the gap, but… 

“Can I? Danyal, can—”

Ah, screw this, Danny hugs him. 

He hugs him and the solid warmth of his presence, the familiar scent, the feeling of weight, of rightness, of home makes everything truly click for him.

It’s real.

It’s Damian.

Danny clings on tighter and a second later, he feels Damian’s arms circle around him, grabbing fistfuls of his hoodie and pulling it taut in his effort to hold on. Damian’s shoulders start to shake and he can’t help but laugh softly, his heart fluttering in his chest. At least he’s not the only one crying.

“Akhi, it’s really you, it’s really…”

“I’m here, Dami, I’m sorry, I won’t leave again.” He pushes his face into Damian’s shoulder, sniffing against the fabric. Yikes, he hopes Damian won’t be mad at the pretty obvious wet patch. “I promise.”

They stay there for a few minutes longer, clinging to each other, trying to breathe through it, when Danny feels a shifting in the ectoplasm around them. He groans, he just cannot catch a break! 

This guy really does not know when to stop, does he? It’s always the weaker ones, too, the ones that have absolutely no hope in defeating him that never know when to bow out gracefully. It’s annoying. If this ghost isn’t careful, Danny will have to update his annoying list and finally move Boxy out of first place. At least he knows when to make himself scarce.

With a sigh, he conjures up a shield just as the ghost lets the blast loose. If he was alone—he’s so glad he’s not alone—he wouldn’t have bothered with the shield at all, but it’s not like he’s going to let Dami get hit.

“You’re really starting to piss me off, you know that, right?”

“You ruined my game! I don’t care who you are, no one leaves until my game is finished!” The ghost—Danny doesn’t even feel bad about not knowing his name any more, this guy sucks—snarls and throws another ectoblast which Danny knocks away with one of his own.

With one last squeeze, he lets Damian go, already feeling the loss of it. Fuck this guy.

“Last chance, let everyone go and I’ll let you go. Call it a thank you for reuniting us.”

“I already told you,” he spits, both his hands glowing with ectoplasmic fire, “no one leaves until the game is finished!”

Danny pushes Damian behind him and pulls a thermos out of thin air, still not bothering to transform. He knocks the ghost back with a strong blast of ectoplasm and soups him before he can do anything but groan.

At least it was over quickly. 

"I win."

He throws a smile over his shoulder at Damian and pops the thermos back in the pocket dimension it came from. The ghost can stew in there for a couple days, really think about what he did. It’s just rude.

Then he lifts both his arms up and shoots five ectoblasts in quick succession at each of the remaining cages, finally freeing the rest of the ghost’s hostages. Let them get themselves together while Danny can go back to giving Damian a hug.

It’s been so long.

He goes to grab Damian again, but stops when Damian hisses sharply and pulls his hand back.

“You’re hurt?” 

Oh, Ancients, he’s hurt! Did Danny do that? Is it bad, was it an ectoblast? What happened?

Before he can spiral too far, Damian lifts up his wrist to reveal a splint already protecting his injury.

“I sprained it a few days ago, it’s nothing terrible. That’s why I’m me and not, you know.” Damian shrugs and gestures, presumably, to the guy on the podium. Danny has no idea what that’s meant to mean.

“Not what?”

“Not patrolling as Robin. I have been benched until I’m sufficiently healed.”

“Yeah, sure, that makes sense—I’m sorry, wait, what—you’re Robin?” He follows Damian’s outstretched arm towards the guy on the podium and… “Holy shit, is that Batman?”

“Mother never told you?”

“Told me what?”

“He’s our father, Danyal.”

“That’s our… That’s our Batdad? Fatherman? Dadbat? Dad-Dad Bat… man? What?” He shakes his head a little, trying to make some of his thoughts actually connect because nothing is actually making any sense right now. “What the fuck?”

His face burns as he hears the barely stifled laughter coming from pretty much every broken cage. He swivels his head around, eyes wide like an owl, and tries to place the names of the audience he’d forgotten about.

Nightwing—that’s the Nightwing—waves with a cheery grin as he makes his way over to them, and there’s Red Robin with his hand clamped over his mouth, nowhere near successful in silencing his laughter. Black Bat, Signal, Red—is that Red Hood, the crime boss, over there? Holy shit!—all wave at him, too, but mercifully they stay where they are.

Batman steps down from the podium.

“Sorry, I think I missed just about everything earlier. What the hell is going on here? What kind of game was this? ‘How Embarrassed Can We Make Danny?’ Because that’s what it feels like.”

“Nah, but if it's any consolation, you’d certainly be winning that game!” Nightwing laughs as he stops a few feet away from them.

“It was my fault,” Batman says, his voice low and gravelly. He gestures towards the thermos. “He wanted to test my ability as a father. My knowledge of my children.”

“Oh… How did you do?”

“I mean, not great,” Red Hood laughs from behind him. “He didn’t even know who you were.”

“Well, that’s fair, can’t really blame him for that. I’m meant to be dead.” Danny says cheerfully, nodding with a smile that he hopes is reassuring. “I mean, I am dead, but that’s unrelated. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Red Robin asks.

“Don’t worry about it!” Danny waves him away and slings an arm around Damian, just like he used to do when they were young. He feels like he’s buzzing, his core vibrating happily out of his skin, and he’s pretty sure he’s got the goofiest grin on his face. “It’s all good!”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” Red Hood says as he picks his way towards them, cutting off whatever Batman was going to say, thank goodness. There’s no way he’s awake enough for a proper, actual conversation about his death(s) and everything that came after them, not at all. “We have bigger things to worry about, after all.”

All of them groan. Guess he’s not the only tired person here.

“What’s wrong now?” Red Robin asks, already pulling up a dope wrist computer that looks slick as hell but obviously isn’t going to work in the Ghost Zone.

Red Hood brandishes a load of papers and turns his head towards Danny. “Danyal here thinks adding 4 and 7 makes 10, which isn’t a great start, but you should actually be multiplying them there, and then multiplying all that by 2, not just… leaving the 2 out? I don’t know what you’ve done with half of this, but it definitely doesn’t make 10 though. I can also tell you that 25 squared is not whatever this squiggle is meant to be. Pretty cool picture of a horse, though, great job on that!”

Danny slumps and hides his face in his hands with a half-hearted sob. He’s so screwed. “It’s meant to be a cat.”

“Oh.” Red Hood turns the paper on its side, tilts his head, then turns the paper upside. “That’s a really crappy cat. Sorry.”

“Do you know how to get us out of here?” Batman asks gently, drawing Danny out of his shame spiral.

“Yeah, that’s not a problem, I can portal us out. At least I’ve got that down.” He rolls his eyes and rubs at the back of his neck with weak laughter. He’s really not making a good impression right now, is he?

“Let’s go, then. If you’d like, I can help you with your homework when we get back somewhere safe.” It’s so weird, Batman sounds so uncertain, not at all like the fearsome crusader he’s seen on the news. And then he smiles, soft and warm, and Danny can’t help but return it. “Damian can help you with the drawing.”

“Yeah… I think I’d like that. Thanks.”

"Let's play a game of 'How well do you know your kids?'" The being shouted, eyebrow still twitching from Robins latest remark.

"I know all my children perfectly." Batman growled at the entity. He held his ground as the spirits (demons?) smile sharpened, "Than you won't mind!"

A puff of purple glowy smoke engulfs then entire area and the next thing anyone knows is that all of Bruces children, even the ones who weren't with them previously, are locked inside magical cages while Batman is trapped in a invisible mime box with a podium and a microphone in what is quite possibly the most garish game show set up ever.

Why was everything neon green and purple? Why was the guy neon green and purple? Who were these other kids-gdi Bruce! You have more kids?

Danny could just transform and beat up the ghost. Its a pretty weak one after all. But this one doesn't seem to recognize him as a halfa and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to do his homework without being attacked.

Jason stared at the kid next to him. What kinda life did this kid have to calmly get out his math homework and start solving problems while being held hostage by an unknown entity?! And with the bats no less?!

All the while Batman is getting peppered with questions about his kids and is realizing he doesn't recognize a few of the names.

[thedevilundercover]

The bat kids should threaten to get adopted by Tim every time Bruce is being a dickhead or just an inconvenience in anyway shape or form. Tim is paranoid enough to have his foster license and probably overthinks it enough to have Gotham CPS under his control. (Some people are bribing the cops while this man is bribing CPS smh.)

And like when Bruce over steps, they’re like “ok then, Tim’s my new dad now. “ Then they go camp out at Tim’s place for a while.

Usually the younger ones (+Cass) do this but it’s even more hilarious when Dick and Jason catch on to this. I think that Jason would do it first tho

Like imagine if Bruce refused to give Jason money for ammo or smth:

Bruce, literally so tired bc of this: Jaylad, for the last time, I’m not giving you money to buy real bullets. I'd be happy to buy you the rubber ones.

Jason, the most extra, dramatic younger-sibling-turned-older-sibling: Ok then, I get it, you don’t love me anymore. I can take a hint. You know what? I’ll do you a favour and get myself adopted by Tim *cue fake sniffles and dramatic exit*

Bruce, so so tired this has happened like twenty times this week already and it’s Wednesday: Oh my god why does he keep stealing my kids what the fuck

Tim also has no concept of money so he just shrugs, hands them his black amex and lets them do whatever the fuck they want

[glitter-stained]

Okay but wouldn't it have been funny if Jason came back to life and just straight up told the truth

Like, I understand why that's a terrible idea (we don't want Ra's al ghul wannabe immortality enthusiasts targeting traumatized innocent civilian Jason Todd who has "easy prey" written on his forehead) but still, this is a world in which people have come back to life several times, the mystery of Jason's resurrection is mysterious, but it's not unbelievable, and nothing about it compromises the bats. I can so see it backfire on him too.

Picture this:

Jason: What's the funniest way I can come back to life?

Duke: Tell the truth.

Jason: ??

Duke: Like, leave the compromising bits out obviously, but other than that, be 100% honest. They'll never believe you, and it's gonna drive Bruce crazy. With a little luck, we can get the vein on his forehead to jut out.

*****

Later:

Interviewer: So, why did you fake your death?

Jason, trained spy, theatre kid, shakespeare nerd extraordinaire: *puts on his traumatized young man face*

Jason: *ashened complexion*

Jason : *knee trembles*

Jason: *hand wraps around a rope burn scar around his wrist like reminding himself the rope is not there* (he let himself get kidnapped by BM's men to destroy that base of operations a week ago)

Bruce: Oh no

Jason: I know this is gonna sound crazy, but I did die. I don't - I remember it very well. I went to Ethiopia to find my birth mother in the hopes of learning to know her, but she took advantage of the situation to traffic me to- to a dangerous sociopath. He tortured me for hours, then turned on her, tied us up and left us to die in the explosion. I'm not sure how I came back... I woke up in my coffin, and then, well. I just dug my way up.

Interviewer: But why only come back to the public eye now?

Jason: Before I could make it home, I was taken in by a cult... They found me desoriented in the streets and I don't know, I guess they decided to take advantage. I... Sorry. Sorry, I'm not trying to- I didn't mean to cry. Um, please just-yeah. It's been a couple of difficult years, I guess.

Interviewer: I understand, this must have been very difficult for you. Thank you so much for sharing this with us, and I think I speak for all of Gotham when I say we believe you, support you, and are very relieved and happy you finally came home.

Jason: I'm sorry what?

The crowd: *enthusiastic noises of agreement*

Jason: what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck

Duke: lmao I can't believe that worked

[haveihitanerve]

My favorite thing about the bats is that… they are gothamites. And sure they scare the shit out of people… but they are in Gotham. Superman is loved by his people, Flash is adored, people pray to Wonder Woman, Green Arrow is feared. But the Bats? The Bats are like all of Gotham's weird older brothers/sisters/parents. Superman and Green Lantern are visiting Batman in Gotham and all of a sudden he gets smacked in the face by a banana and they turn and find a group of teens skateboarding away and one kid calls over his shoulder ‘eat the fucking potassium you absolute brick.’ and Batman doesn't even do anything. Barry is chilling with Nightwing when a girl runs beneath the building they are sitting on and screams “Nice ass Night! But get it the fuck down here, my cats stuck in a tree.” And Nightwing does a flip off the building and just?? helps her?? Wonder Woman and Black Canary are passing through Crime Alley on their way to the Batcave and spot Red Hood standing in an alley, being lectured by a woman who is half his size and she ends the lecture by throwing two sandwiches at his face and walking away. Red Hood just takes his hood off and starts eating. Superboy is helping Red Robin defeat Scarecrow and while they’re hiding, waiting for him to walk into their trap, RR is casually conversing with a Gothamite about Hogwarts Houses, and when he says the Gothamite looks like a Gryfindor he pops his head out and screams “Yo scarecrow hes right fucking here!” J’onn is heading to the Manor to discuss League business with Bruce when he spots Robin(Damian) fighting Riddler all alone and is about to intervene when three teenagers show up and just fucking deck him instead. Damian doesn't thank them, just glowers, and one of the guys goes “you're welcome you fucking brat.” And the girl even smacks the back of his head and goes “manners.” Clark is sent to go find Tim and Steph and Damian and finds them at this girls birthday party, in full costume, eating cupcakes and drinking punch, jumping on the bouncy house and is like “errr, B-Batman needs you home.” And as one the entire birthday party group went “Fuck Batman.” Spoiler was spotted painting these guys nails, Black Bat was seen teaching calculus to a group of teenagers, Batgirl(Babs) was running after a group of kids screaming “Give me back my laptop you fucks!” Just- just the batfamily and Gothamites being annoying to each other and appreciative yet bitches. 

Bus driver: stop getting thrown at my fucking bus, i got places to be and my insurance only covers so many shatter windshields and person sized dents  Batman: I don't really control where I get thrown Bus Driver: well you better fucking start otherwise theres gonna be another fucking villain on these streets *drives away and almost runs him over* Superman: *gaping* yo-you're just gonna let him do that? Batman: *shrugs* Gotham insurance aint what its cracked up to be Superman: *staring dumbly*

[erinwantstowrite]

Halloween AU!!!

hey so. i put SOOOOO much effort into this au and for what? at least it ended up looking cool? anyways Halloween is my favorite holiday and i just HAD to make something for them!

i had a LOT of ideas for what everyone would be, but i really wanted to stick to a certain theme cause it's based around Halloween. i knew i had to have a vampire, werewolf, and a witch. cause like... obviously. iconic Halloween stuff!! but i took some liberties with everyone else and i think they turned out pretty cool!!

Jason was originally a fox shifter (which i still love and might draw art for some day) but i went with a bear in the end. is that because i thought about tiny bear cub Jaybin and wanted to cry? yeah. yeah it is. i KNEW Steph was going to be my werewolf though i started doubting myself when i went to draw her. turned out to be my favorite drawing on here which makes sense cause she is my light my love my daughter my will to live and all that jazz

Tim was actually gonna be a harpy but thank god i didn't go for that in the end. Duke was the one that was a bitch and a half trying to figure out BUT!! comments on the post asking what y'all thought led me towards Psychic so THANK YOUUUU everybody that commented!! (specifically those who thought of ghost!! Duke and Tim ended up being a perfect duo in this au)

Babs was pretty easy to figure out what I wanted for her. I read somewhere that they are seen as protectors of forests/ are considered spiritual authority figures and also.... she looks cool as fuck. Did not expect how easy it was to find a ref for a deer in a wheelchair though? I can never find the right hand or face angle reference but that was super easy???

For Bruce there was literally no question he HAD to be human. it's literally so funny that everyone who knows Batman thinks he's a spooky vampire but he's human. his first son, however?????? THAT'S the vampire. I knew Dick had to be a vampire too. A little nod towards that one comic run but in my au nothing bad happens ever 🥰 Damian also being a bat shifter is very on purpose because how funny is it that he's a bat man. Literally not a single person in the League thinks that Bruce is telling the truth about being human. Bruce you are NOT beating the secretly a vampire allegations.

adding in Jay's hilarious joke it's so fucking funny:

Alfred is actually a demon. I CAN NOT remember who made this post so if someone can help me find it, it would be appreciated!! because this was inspired by them!!! but somewhere i saw someone talk about Alfred being a demon that Thomas and Martha made a deal with (i think it was for an au idea?) and I just HAD to put it here. Alfred looks so human and everyone expects it, but he's definitely not. I put the ??? because it's so fucking funny. see if you can spot the 1 hint i put on his drawing that something is amiss!!

Peter is from an alternate dimension still, but it is not a world of creatures like him, it's just the same as LoF canon except Peter grew some extra limbs and eyes. He finds that it's actually pretty easy to fit in with the Waynes. Hard to feel like a freak when a guy can turn into a fucking bear, or your dad is a vampire, and the teenagers in the family are trying to summon ghosts or make potions.

additional doodles for this au:

i am still debating whether i am going to draw something for this au or write a oneshot, but i DO want to do something with these for Halloween

[nightingale-prompts]

Danny lives in a horror movie-DC x DP prompt

Based on my favorite book series "tales from the gas station"

It's not every day that a mission requires the league to travel to middle America in a bid to obtain a highly cursed artifact but it certainly is today.

Locating the Seal of Silent Ashes was a task usually given to Justice League Dark but Constantine was currently busy. So that meant it was left to the poster boys to get this done. They dressed in civilian attire to investigate the last location of the seal starting with the first building on the edge of town. A small dusty gas station near the woods.

The inside had an awful smell, like death and cleaning fluid. The lights gave off a greenish-blue tint. Rats could be seen out of the corner of your eyes. Most of the chips were offbrand and crappy.

Behind the counter was the teenage boy chewing gum. He looked up at the group before going back to reading his book. He had clearly seen better days but didn't show signs of caring about the state of his hair or bags under his eyes. He drank his coffee.

The air felt off.

"Hey kiddo, do you mind giving us directions?" Clark started.

The kid narrowed his eyes as he popped his gum.

"You're not from here. That or you're from that cult in the woods. Listen I'm not joining. Seriously, cosmic nihilism and fatalism sounds doomed. Hey wait-" the teen checked his notes " No, the cult killed themselves in that mass suicide 2 weeks ago. I forgot, sorry."

The teen didn't say anything else as he went back to his book.

The horrified look of the adults shared was almost hilarious. At least to the teen if he looked up.

"Oh, and stay out of the woods. I don't want the police to come back and ask about who saw you last. Seriously if whatever is in there tears you apart I won't feel bad. I put those signs out forever ago and if I get one more girl covered in blood running in here screaming about her dead friends I'll get a headache." The teen shrugged turning the page.

"What do you mean?! Why would-?! Who's killing people?!" Barry asked frantically as Bruce serched for more reports of missing people in the area.

"I don't know. Why would I know? If you want to go in the cursed forest go ahead. I mean that's how they all die. It isn't my job to stop you. My job is to sit here and watch this store." The teen huffed in annoyance.

Before anymore questions were asked the signal of the radio was disrupted and a demonic howl screeched through the radio.

"God damnit. That cunt is back. Stay here." The teen growled as he grabbed his bat from under the counter and walked out the back door. "String bean! Get off the fucking roof you bastard! You know that radio is all I have here!"

A chattering laugh like a death rattle was heard and the sound of 2 sets of feet was heard on the roof then they lept down.

"Come here so I can beat you to death!" The teen ran around the building towards the front of the gas station chasing-what the fuck is that!

It was like a human that was twisted to crabwalk on all fours backwards. Its face was contorted into a black stretched-out smile with no teeth. It had no eyes just black sockets. All its limbs were stretched out to an extra meter in length. It was a skinwalker of some kind with chalk-white skin. It was skittering away from the teen who was swinging his bat at its head.

"Stop running! I told you before what would happen if I found you fucking with me again!" The boy meant it as he finally landed a hit and began wacking it over and over it.

The skin walker screeched and tried to run for its life but couldn't.

After reducing the monster into a black puddle the black-stained teen came back inside to sit back down not paying anymore to the monster blood he was covered in.

"Sorry about that. Most of the freaks around here have learned to stay away from this place. That one is new and he doesn't listen. You'd think they'd learn but Sting Bean thinks he can torment me. Petty bastard." The teen sighed "anyways are going to buy anything or are you going to waste what oxygen we get in here with this shitty ventilation.

Diana couldn't help but admire the boldness of the boy. He had no hesitation or fear against the beasts of this area even if was crude.

"Does Constantine have a cousin or something? Just a more angry one" Barry whispered to Hal.

[starlight-storytime]

essay in tags :p

[redsray]

Batfam AU where Jason never dies, so Tim doesn't join the family the standard way. Instead, he continues pouring most of his time and energy into his photography, eventually becoming known as a popular photographer for events and all that. So now, picture this: Tim gets hired to be a photographer for a Wayne gala. Obviously, he's ecstatic, because he can take pictures of Batman, Robin and Nightwing and be in their presence for a whole night. Since Tim is so naturally talented in stealth and taking pictures unnoticed, the second one of the fam realises this they're like: this kid is good. Tim manages to go unnoticed by all 3 of them (all bat-trained, one literally batman) multiple times during the night, and even when he is noticed, he disappears before they can manage to get a good look at him; to the sheer amazement of Dick and Jason.

Jason, (very discreetly putting snacks in his suit pocket): i know you're under the table, kid.

Tim: don't mind me, Mr. Todd-Wayne, sir, just taking a few pictures

Jason: right... Jason's fine, and what pictures were you taking from under the table?!

Tim, showing him perfectly good shots of him: these.

Jason: how did you get that. it looks like you took it from the rafters

Tim, nodding: I did.

Jason, glancing at the ceiling: ...what?

Tim, gone:

Jason: no fucking way.

Dick, hearing a very, very faint camera shutter from behind him:

Dick, turning around and finding no one there: what the actual...

Dick, getting the feeling of being watched and whirling around to find Tim staring at him from across the room: ... huh.

Jason, pulling Dick aside: you see that kid too, right?!

Dick, nodding: the camera kid, yeah?

Jason: who is that.

Dick: he's one of the hired photographers, apparently. one of the best in his field, despite his age.

Jason: he's good. like, really good. snuck up on me 4 times already, the little bastard.

Dick: you too? i swear he's constantly watching. it's creepy how well he can sneak past both of us.

Jason:

Dick:

Jason: you don't think...

Dick: no. B would've told us.

Jason:

Dick:

Dick: did he get another kid and not tell us somehow

Bruce: what do you mean another kid?

Jason: you heard us. did you adopt another kid and not tell us?!

Bruce: no?? how would I even?? ... what's this about?

Dick: one of the photographers has managed to sneak up on both me and Jay multiple times already

Bruce: what.

Jason: he also can't be more than like. 15 or 16. so forgive us for assuming you took another one in.

Bruce: do you know his name?

Dick:

Jason:

Bruce: really?

Dick: in our defence, he's very hard to catch. i wouldn't be surprised if he's snuck up on you, too.

[camera shutter noise]

All of them, whipping their heads toward the sound only to find nothing but air:

Tim, smiling from the other side of the room:

Jason: do you see what we mean?!

Cue an entire night of shenanigans where it's just Dick, Jason and Bruce trying to catch Tim and learn about him. Upon finding out who he is and where he lives, Dick immediately asks to keep him as an honorary member of the family. Jason is hesitant at first but at some point Tim calls Bruce Batman instead of Mr. Wayne on accident and Jason laughs so hard he's basically won over. Bruce can do nothing but watch as Tim proceeds to come over almost every night for sleepovers and is coddled by both of his sons. And he can't deny, the kid's investigation and stealth skills are top tier. By the time Dick and Jason both start referring to Tim as 'their younger brother' Bruce has just accepted his fate.

[deadsetobsessions]

Danny’s Wayne adoption bait. The guy that owns the bodega knows it. Everyone and their mothers knows it. Danny, on the other hand, had no clue. To be fair, he had just crash landed in this dimension a week ago and his back was still sore from the weird design the car had.

(It’s only three weeks of homelessness later does Danny realize that he crash landed on the Batmobile. Whoops. Oh well. He’ll blame it on Clockwork if the vigilante asks after repair costs.)

(Bruce, on the other hand, is scouring the streets for this kid the car cams caught- oddly static filled footage- because his mind jumped to the worst case scenarios: a suicidal meta or a meta being threatened or a meta in a trafficking scheme or even worse all three at once and Bruce just can’t because there is a child in danger, he doesn’t have time to sleep.)

Danny rubbed at his back, eyes going watery at the memory. Sure, his wounds have healed over by now but the- heh- phantom pain is no joke. He shuddered, huddling closer to his threadbare hoodie. His only saving grace from getting jumped while walking the streets of Gotham at night is his invisibility and intangibility. Also, he’s floating, so “walking” doesn’t apply to him.

He’s gotta check on the kid he saved yesterday from a mugging, so Danny hurried along to the depilated apartment complex the kid was squatting in. Turning visible and tangible as he turns the corner, Danny glanced around for Amy.

“Danny!”

“Hey, kiddo. Doing alright?”

“Yeah! Come meet my gang!”

Danny felt his eyebrows rise to form Jazz’s exasperated look. Ouch. Waving the pain of losing Jazz away, Danny smiled at the excited girl.

“A gang? I wasn’t aware I was being brought to your almighty group.”

“Yeah! Uh, you actually helped a bunch of us so…”

Danny thought back to all those times he punted crooks away from robbing kids and shrugged. Yeah, what Amy said was likely.

“Kay, kiddo.”

She scowled, and Danny didn’t have the heart to tell her it looked more like a pout.

“You’re just a teenager.”

“Well, you’re a just a kid.”

Danny cackled as she chased him down the street, trying to kick his shins.

Life is good, even if he’s homeless and hungry.

——

“Jason.”

“Old man.” Jason mocks back, pausing his tasks. He waits as Bruce struggles to put his thoughts and feelings into words.

“There’s… a meta.”

“In Gotham?” Jason tilts back, hands halfway to his guns as a silent offer. Bruce shakes his head.

“A child. In Crime Alley.”

“In my turf?” Jason’s disquieting demeanor quickly swapped to a protective one.

“Trafficking, I think. Male, black hair…”

“Shit. Get Dickwing back here, he’s good with traumatized kids. I’ll go look for him.” Jason’s already moving, mind filtering through the kids he knows might have information to offer.

Bruce nods, shoulders relaxing. Jason smacks down the lump in his throat at the subtle sing of trust. “I’ll get Oracle and Red Robin on it.”

Jason morphs from Jay to Red Hood in one smooth step, helmet firmly placed on his head. He grunts in agreement, slinging his legs over his motorcycle. He roars off, mind half filled with tearing apart whatever traffickers dared to shit near his territory and the other half filled with worry for this possible kid.

——

Danny, as the Bats become aware of his existence, hands Amy and her kiddie gang a bag of fancy beef jerky.

“Try these with peanut butter, it’s kind of good.”

Amy stares at him, the judgement of an eight year old more piercing than anything he’s ever experienced.

“You’re fucking weird-”

“Language!” He squawks.

“-but sure, whatever you say, boss.”

“Boss?!”

The kids ignores his alarmed face.