#Batman trying to protect Robin always backfires because of this

[farshootergotme]

Batman 'firing' Robin will never sit well with me because having the authority to fire someone implies they applied for a job, and a job includes payment.

So, Batman firing Robin is like saying he's paying Robin for doing his job. Except, is he paying? The simple answer would be no, but then the next logical option is assuming that the payment comes with everything he does for a Robin.

Since Batman provides the equipment he has the right to take it back and that's not the part that bothers me. What bothers me is that there's another crucial thing that Batman does for Robin: provide a home.

And while, yes, Batman's intention isn't to take away the safe space of Robin or to make him believe he's making him leave his house, intentions don't matter in miscommunication.

Firing Robin means not 'paying' him anymore. It means taking away what he's giving him because he isn't doing his job correctly.

For Robin, it means losing his home.

[lazerswordweilder]

Bruce doesn’t understand why the League has a problem with his ‘fraid fighting crime, yes he knows they’re babies but why would that stop them from fulfilling their obsessions? What do you mean get injured, he wouldn’t let that happen, they’d come back to him if they’d found someone they couldn’t beat.

Alfreds not dead. Let’s get things straight first: he is still a father figure to the entire batfam, now he just coparents with Danny. Okay so explanation, Clockwork saw the timelines and makes a deal with Alfred, he’ll stop aging right before old age becomes a serious problem (hence being immortally an old man) in exchange he helps his ‘fraid, always a butler for them, always a father, Alfred takes the chance to be with his totally-not-sons for eternity without a second thought.

Okay now Steph, Steph absolutely HATES her Dad, this is canon, but let’s make it more! (I am so so sorry please forgive me I promise she ends up okay) she slowly dies, starvation, thirst, she puts them off while going fully into her Spoiler persona, she dies, her beating heart slowly replaced by a core, becoming a ghost, her obsession? Spoiling evil plans, mostly her dads, but everyone elses too. While she takes up the mantles of Robin and Batgirl, her focus never shifts, and her name continues to be spoiler (imagine how Greek gods had titles like Aphrodite and Aphrodite Areia who was a god of war as well, Steph is Spoiler and Batgirl, or Spolier and Robin). But how Batman finds her? He looks into whoever this is because he can sense the lingering hate and ectoplasm, and finds a ghostling driven by hate to the point where she forgot herself, at first Steph was completely serious putting her heart and soul into everything she does, while she still puts her heart and soul into everything she does Batman helps her realise that rage and revenge isn’t right for her, while they are still motives they are minor ones, she becomes light and care free instead of heavy and oppressive. Occasionally when someone pisses her off she becomes a ghost made of anger and driven by rage her core turns blood red and revenge is her goal.

The Justice League identity reveal and Batman freaks out so hard, it takes them days to calm him down. “YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE MILITARY BACKSTORIES?” “PLEASE TELL ME SOMEONE TAUGHT YOU HOW TO FIGHT AND YOU JUST NEVER MENTIONED IT!” “I THOUGHT YOU’D BE LIKE 60! YOU’RE ALL NEWBORNS! I’VE BEEN FIGHTING WITH NEWBORNS!!!” Batman is sobbing, at least he trained his ‘fraid and they have powerful allies to rely on if things go wrong. He promptly declares the Justice League under his protection, they aren’t his ‘fraid but they need some help, every new hero joint the League gets at least some basic training both in battle and medical stuff.

Vlad and Al Ghul (Talia or Ra’s you chose), they worked together, and clones Batman, Vlad says he puts in Talias dna but he puts in his own, he really should of learnt from Dani that making clones doesn’t mean they’ll love you and be the (grand)child you want, in fact this very scenario (Dan is half Danny and half Vlad) had happened only it wasn’t a clone it was the originals and that backfired on everyone. Anyways Damian is born/made, both Vlad and Talia try to manipulate him individually and together, one day a trial he gets put through is too hard and for the first time he unlocks his ghost side, crying out and Bruce happens to be in the area (courtesy of a quest from Clockwork) and hears it. Ghosts are empathetic and emotional so Damian warms up to his new ‘fraid much quicker even if he still finds it hard to show that love they can feel it.

Cass (contrary to what you might assume) does not have ghost empathy above average or the ability to read emotions in any ghost way, this is her training.

Dan is taking a break and Bruce is fulling in for him as a type of Psychopomp, the job is to find people who should be dead and for whatever reason managed not to be (this is mostly just a weird oddity rather than anything like Sisyphus) and then kill them. Bruce does this then he finds Cass, a girl who’s being pushed to her limits by her dad, beyond her limits actually, but she hangs on, unlike most she’s still active rather than on a death bed, Bruce finds her in the middle of the wilderness as a test of her survival and decides absolutely not this will not do, Bruce speaks to Dan (Ancient of Death and a Psychopomp in this because why not) and Clockwork, the best timeline and/or course of action is to kill Casses father and spare Cass, she becomes/was a death-touched.

Bruce 110% autistic, he was autistic from birth, autistic role modle (Danny is autistic and trans, fight me over this).

Time, Space, and Reality

Clockwork, Phantom, and Batman

Grandfather, father, and son

[bigskydreaming]

Hi! I’m confused on how to reconcile dick’s origins and his loving family with the haly’s circus is a tool of the court of owls info. How does dick’s childhood not become horrifying and fake if the court of owls were using the circus the whole time? Ppl that dick knew and friends with were probably evil right? Idk... have a great day, sorry for my rant lol-confused anon

Honestly, as many times as the circus comes up in canon, its very rarely been explored in detail so it really just depends on how you play it, I think. For me, the difference is complicitness. If the Court of Owls is heavily invested in Haly’s Circus and manipulates where they go and when and uses it as a training camp for their future assassins in a lot of ways, that unmistakably casts a pall over Dick’s childhood, it lends it a certain air of grim destiny....BUT that doesn’t have to equate to his childhood being a LIE....not if most of the people he loves and values from it were just genuinely good people who loved him and had no idea about the darker side of their circus. I think most of Haly’s performers had no clue, or don’t have to be portrayed as having one, and thus just because they were there, doesn’t mean they were complicit, and if they weren’t complicit, that’s what really matters when it comes to them.

That said, we know that numerous performers died young under mysterious circumstances, or disappeared when in their teens, and that these were the eventual Talons of the Court. BUT we also know that the Court wasn’t like....disappearing multiple performers at a time, and that the real secret of the Talons’ large numbers is their longevity and the fact that the Court had been doing this for a LONG time. So its not like Haly’s performers would have all been oblivious to a lot of their number just vanishing under mysterious circumstances, its more that the scarcity of it happening means it could very easily for a lot of the performers Dick knew as a child, been like, their own personal urban legend? Like, there’s an awareness that there’s something spooky or creepy associated with the circus, but not what exactly it is or why its that way, and there’s just enough deniability to it that for most performers, their personal reasons for staying with the circus outweighed the occasional reminder of this potentially creepy side of things, as a reason for them to leave.

I could easily see this playing into like, superstitions about Gotham in general, because performers who’d been with the circus their whole life or a long time or just had a stronger awareness of the disappearances in their history could’ve like, identified that these mysterious deaths or disappearances only seemed to happen when the circus went to Gotham, and like.....maybe there wasn’t enough info to know what it MEANT, exactly, or maybe some of them had connected some dots and had SUSPICIONS about it maybe having something to do with the creepy rhyme they heard when they were in Gotham once, about the Court of Owls, but without being sure who was safe to talk about this with, nobody ever really explored that idea in depth.....like, its one of those things where I feel like it could’ve been that the disappearances and ideas people had about what was behind them and all that, it was a Big Unsaid. Something that was present and there throughout the atmosphere of Haly’s at times, especially for older members of the troupes, but nobody really ever talked about it because just because they knew something was going on there doesn’t mean they knew what to SAY about it, or to whom....and these are the kinds of undercurrents that as a kid, Dick would likely have been oblivious to....or only aware of in hindsight. 

Like, I could see him years later reflecting on how now that he thought about it, the others always got weird and nervous about shows in Gotham or even the possibility of them, and nobody seemed to like Gotham for some reason, but he never knew WHY....and then when his parents were killed, that could have very easily slotted into just like....affirming that vague idea of ‘only bad things happen to the circus and its members when we come to Gotham’ without him ever consciously feeling a need to further explore that idea or awareness around Gotham....because on a gut level, it felt like he’d already gotten confirmation about something that he and the rest of his circus had always known as a kind of truism, even if they didn’t know why, y’know?

The only real sticking point in all this (well actually there’s two) is first of all, Haly and his family. We know they had some awareness of all this, and there was the Book of Names, and like, Haly and his grandfather knew about the Court in actuality rather than just theory, but its very doubtful that there was anything sinister to this knowledge on Haly’s side of things at least, and it seems pretty clear he was just a pawn operating under duress. That’s my take anyway, like, and it doesn’t make it OKAY for him not to have said or done more, but it makes it a tragedy rather than a betrayal, kinda? Like, he was stuck between a rock and a hard place, and though there’s things he could have said or done to defy the Court and their using the circus to draw their Talons from, he was probably painfully aware that any expression of defiance was going to simply get him and his loved ones killed as an object lesson to whomever they replaced him with, without much more than a slight hiccup in their plans.

And this is where being aware of the transformative power of fanfic and using it with INTENT rather than just going with the most utilized fanon tropes, like, is your best friend. Because thanks to all the gaps and superficiality in how a lot of this was touched on and dealt with in canon....you can make whatever you want out of it, all the more definitively if you know precisely what you want TO make out of it. 

For instance: do you want to preserve Dick’s memories of Haly as a kind, grandfatherly figure in his life, someone who would never have stood idly by and allowed the Court’s intended fate for him to happen? You can do that....by playing up the idea that Haly saw an opportunity come out of the tragedy of the Graysons’ death, to separate Dick from the circus, and thus the Court, like lean into the idea that he was all for notable public figure Bruce Wayne taking in Dick and thus keeping him in a new, bigger kind of spotlight the shadowy Court wouldn’t dare try and steal him from. Unless of course, he suspected that billionaire and old money Gothammite Bruce Wayne WAS a member of the Court, and that’s why he wanted to take Dick in, in the first place. Crap. Just thought of that, that’s an obstacle.

UNLESS unless! You have Haly trying all the more to get Dick to stay with them, at least until they’re out of Gotham again and he can end up in the CPS system of some other NON Gotham city, once Bruce does express an interest in taking in Dick, BECAUSE he thinks Bruce is a member of the Court, and so he’s so clearly afraid of Bruce for some reason that Bruce simply can’t reconcile with his own public image and can’t simply be simple fear of the upper class when Haly’s Circus is used to catering to such crowds and Haly’s always displayed an ability to navigate the currents of such shark-infested waters as the Circus’s ringmaster....no, this has to be something other than just public perceptions, Haly’s fear of Bruce and his intentions for Dick feels PERSONAL. 

Which perhaps makes Bruce come to Haly then as Batman, reassure him from that angle....which could in turn make Haly open up to him then and there about the Court and their obsession with the Gray Son, when he’s aware then that public figure Bruce Wayne isn’t a member of the Court and CAN offer the somewhat dubious (and double-edged) protection of that spotlight, AND at the same time, that he’s not some dumbass, but the Batman, with superhero connections and resources all his own that he can use to hunt the Court from the shadows and protect Dick that way too.

Thus giving Bruce forewarning about the threat of the Court (and hopefully Dick too, as I don’t think with this kind of storyline, keeping him in the dark his ENTIRE childhood would be fair or a good idea, even if it is understandable, like, there’s different ways to play this, but that seems doomed to backfire if that’s the road taken there).

Another thought about Robin and his bright colors and impossible-to-deny presence here though, actually.....what if part of why Bruce allowed Dick to be Robin at all was because it enabled him to kinda....extend the public spotlight Dick was in, as a barrier against the Court taking him....to more than just their civilian personas? Like, if Bruce KNOWS that Dick never had even the possibility of a normal life because even without him coming into his life, the Court was always going to be there, waiting for an opportunity to claim him.....then training him as Robin, giving him field experience as Robin, suddenly takes on a WHOLE different perspective as its Bruce actively giving him the tools to protect himself from an extremely SPECIFIC threat and fate....one that could strike at any time, one that wasn’t guaranteed to wait until Dick was an adult to try and take him so Bruce felt he couldn’t afford to wait until he was older to try and prepare him to be able to fight back, if they ever did come for him. Plus, as Robin, he was a BRIGHT figure in ways that are completely contrary to Bruce’s early start as an urban legend himself, something that could just as easily not exist as exist as rumored. From the moment Robin was a confirmed quantity, however, people were going to notice when and if he disappeared.....thus making it all the more impossible for the Court to quietly disappear Dick Grayson or Robin, without the rest of the hero community noticing too.

Of course, then you have to reconcile this with Bruce firing Dick as Robin....but there’s ways to do that too. *Shrugs* Just musing as I go here, tbh.

Or you can take the road I’ve dabbled with few times, the idea that a big part of why Dick ended up in juvie in that origin, could fanfic-wise be explained by connecting that backstory to the New 52 presence of the Court, and mashing them together so that the Court actually pulled strings after the Graysons’ death to get their Gray Son placed there until ‘they were ready for him’ and in the process wean him away from the morals his parents instilled in him and hone his willingness to fight and even potentially kill, by placing him in a pressure-cooker of an environment aimed at making him into a weapon. But the point here, is this is another more concrete way that Bruce could have even unknowingly thrown a wrench into their plans, by encountering him when he escaped from juvie (something the Court might not have been expecting, having underestimated him) and this leading to him taking Dick in himself, no longer trusting the city or the system to do the job they’d promised to do when they claimed to be taking Dick away from the circus for his own good. 

Here, even without knowing about the Court or its plans, you can lean into the idea that Bruce steered Dick away from their intentions for him simply by being a source and a reminder of kindness and kind people. Kinda play up the theme that rather than grow up to be their greatest asset, Dick grew up to be their greatest enemy instead, all due to the introduction of the one variable the Court hadn’t accounted for when trying to forge their ideal weapon....the kindness of a stranger.

My point with both these directions is.....even with the Court having a hand in Haly’s Circus and thus Dick’s childhood, that doesn’t HAVE to make Dick’s childhood, or his destiny, inherently a tragedy, because despite all the Talon fics out there, the fact remains that in canon, in the main timeline....Dick’s never actually ever been a Talon....he exists, much like he’s always aimed to exist....as a defiance of expectations, of determinism, of a fated destiny. And thus he embodies something he’s embraced over and over again, the idea that only he truly gets to decide who and what he is.....and by utilizing one of the above ideas in his backstory, you can put Haly or Bruce or both firmly on HIS side, and give them active roles in giving him the tools he needs to subvert the Court’s destiny for himself, and choose his own path.

So, ultimately IMO, the Court’s connection to Dick’s past really is just one more way in which his story can be what its always been....that of retaining his core self even in the face of tragedies, making a triumph out of resisting the world (or specific people in it)’s attempts to make him other than a hero.

(The other sticking point I mentioned, aside from Haly, is one I’ve never really been able to reconcile myself, because it relies so much on the ages DC tried to force down our throat with the New 52, and to which I say NAY, NAY DC, DICK GRAYSON WAS NOT SIXTEEN WHEN HE MET BRUCE WAYNE, THIS IS NOT A JOEL SCHUMACHER PRODUCTION AND YOU DON’T HAVE THAT WACKY AND INEXPLICABLE CHARM.

And that’s the presence of other acrobats who aren’t part of the Flying Grayson family act, like Raya and Raymond, who we ultimately see as being very aware of the Court of Owls by the time Dick becomes aware of them. And like. There’s a lot going on there, and I don’t entirely know how to make it work but largely because I’ve never been all that inclined or inspired to try, so I mostly just let that be, and lift elements of the Court of Owls and transplant them into and over pre-Flashpoint continuity, which I prefer overall anyway).

[notstars-doors]

i saw you like trans wally..... do you have some headcanons about him? i dont know much posts about it, and you always make v nice headcanons!!

Hoo okay. Well, thank you for the ask! I’m glad you like my headcanons :) I’m gonna give this my best shot but I’m only just dipping my toe into the pool of gender identity myself, so if anything in this list comes out as insensitive or incorrect, please please please tell me. Here we go:

So we all know that Wally doesn’t have the most supportive/attentive parents, so I don’t think he’d would be hugely comfortable coming out to them

Luckily he has the best aunt in the world who supports him in everything he does, who also happens to be a reporter and helps him do lots of really in depth research

Aunt Iris’s house is his safe space, where he can present how he wants to, and where he’s most comfortable with her using his correct pronouns

Wally loves Iris’s boyfriend Barry, and eventually he becomes comfortable enough with him that he decides to come out to him

Barry takes it upon himself to do all the father-son things with Wally that the kid doesn’t feel comfortable asking his own father for, and they get really close because of it. Eventually Barry decides that since Wally had trusted him with such a huge part of himself, that he would finally reveal to Wally that he’s The Flash. Of course, that backfires when Wally wants to be so much like his uncle that he recreates the experiment and almost blows himself up

After his powers manifesting and getting over the euphoria of it, Wally panics over having to wear a skin tight Lycra suit and how that would affect how he presents. Barry, with Wally’s permission, enlists the help of Batman to create a suit that can safely bind him while allowing him to run freely. Bruce also creates a custom voice box for Wally that deepens his voice when he’s in the suit (after he hits puberty).

When Kid Flash and Robin meet and become best friends, he’s conflicted about coming out to him. But when Dick finally reveals his identity to Wally, he decides it’s time to tell him. Dick, of course, is hugely supportive and loving. He even designs Wally a new binder for his civvies that’s less restricting and easier to move in, like the one in his suit.

After forming the team, Wally finally has a group of friends he can really be himself around. He doesn’t come out to them at first, but when he does they’re all supportive and fiercely protective. Artemis in particular. 

M’gann already knew (Wally was trying so hard not to think about it that he ended up projecting it as loudly as possible, but she knew not to say anything until he was ready), and so did Conner, who’s hugely perceptive and managed to be quite tactful about it. 

I’ve got some more ideas banging around in my head, but this is getting long already so I’m gonna stop here. Thank you for asking!! :D

[spyral-agent37]

character name: Richard ‘Dick’ Grayson

codename: Agent 37

character age: 26

faceclaim: Cameron Cuffe

species: Human

status: Hero

occupation: Secret Agent

home earth: E19

biography

past:

Richard Grayson started his life as part of a loving family, he was the youngest member of The Flying Graysons, who toured with The Haly Circus. When the circus came to Gotham City, his family were the main attraction, which ultimately sealed their fate. Dick overheard "Boss" Tony Zucco, a well-known and feared crime lord, threaten the performers unless the circus's owner paid protection money. The owner refused, and that night he watched in horror as his parents' high wire snapped, sending them hurtling to their deaths. He felt completely responsible, because he failed to warn his parents in time.

Dick was placed in Gotham's juvenile services system, on the grounds that social services was full. He got beaten up by a number of the inmates, and he was later sent to a Catholic orphanage, where it seemed he would stay until an unlikely guardian stepped forward. Bruce Wayne. Things didn't get off to the best of starts between the two, as Dick was still consumed by vengeance for his parents. One night he sneaked out of Wayne Manor to solve the crime on his own - only to run into Batman. After waking up in the Batcave, he was shocked to learn that Bruce and Batman were one and the same. Working together they proved Zucco's involvement in the crime and Bruce offered the Dick the opportunity to train as his partner. He accepted and chose the name Robin, after the nickname his mother gave him.

When Robin was 17, he was shot in the shoulder by the Joker, and this scared Batman into ending his career for good. Now completely independent Dick went to work with the Teen-Titans, leaving the Manor and moving to New York. Unsure of who he was meant to be, now he was no longer Robin, Dick turned to Superman for advice. The Man of Steel told him about a Kryptonian hero named Nightwing who protected the helpless and wanted a world ruled by justice.

As Nightwing, Dick spent the majority of his time with the Titans, Outsiders and then later, alone in Blüdhaven. He made firm friends with his Titans teammates and considered Wally West aka Kid Flash his best friend. When the speedster was lost in the battle against Abra Kadabra; Dick felt as if a part of him had gone along with Wally. He didn't fully understand the depth and meaning behind this huge sense of loss until much later. While in New York he was approached by Tim Drake and eventually helped him become the third Robin. When Batman was injured by Bane, suffering a broken back, Dick stepped up to fill in for Bruce while he recovered, developing a strong bond with Tim both as Batman and as an older brother.

With such a hectic Vigilante life, it was a wonder Dick managed to build any kind of civilian life, but somehow he did. Initially he went through Police Academy and joined Gotham PD before transferring to Blüdhaven. However, his desire for justice didn't match with the departments he was placed in, as both Gotham and Blüdhaven were rife with corruption. Dick made the decision to leave and re-skilled as an EMT, he was still helping people, just in a different way.

Batman was seemingly killed during his final confrontation with Darkseid, leaving Dick orphaned again. Bruce leaves a message for him pleading that Dick not take up the mantle of the Batman, due to his belief that Nightwing and Robin can protect the city as they are. Dick agrees with his guardian's last wish, until Jason tries to take the cowl for himself. Dick becomes Batman, with Bruce's son Damian as his Robin, until Bruce Wayne returns from the 'dead' (Tim had actually been right all along, Bruce wasn't dead, just missing).

Damian is murdered by The Heretic, which hits the family hard. Even though they didn't always see eye to eye, and he was constantly being ridiculed by the youngster, Dick is deeply grieved by the loss, being reminded forcibly of when they'd had Jason stolen from them. Bruce resurrects Damian with the chaos shard and things return to some semblance of normality for a while.

Shortly after this Nightwing is captured by the Crime Syndicate. They threaten to unmask him and hook him up to the Murder Machine which would detonate if his heart isn't stopped within a set amount of time. Batman tries to break him free, but to no avail and is forced to allow Lex Luthor to stop Nightwing's heart. Once he is revived, Bruce brings him home to the manor to recover in secret. 

No sooner is Dick back to full health than he's out on another mission, this one more dangerous than any he could find around Gotham or Blüdhaven. Nightwing died on camera, the world thinks he's gone, giving Bruce the perfect opportunity to send someone he trusts undercover into Spyral, a spy ring he had been tracking for some time. Even though it means lying to his family, Dick does as his mentor asks and leaves the manor, heading to Europe and Spyral. Nobody but Bruce knows he is alive.

present:

Still with Spyral, Dick has been working alongside Matron to try and weed out all the corruption from the organization. Stumbling upon an experimental facility which tracked the Speedforce in an attempt to access it. Dick stuck around, working with the researchers in the hopes of finding a way to bring his childhood friend, Wally, back from the mysterious plane of existence. Successfully seeing the missing Speedster in the energy, the attempt to extract him backfires and instead sends Dick hurtling through to the other’s location. Stranding him on Earth 1.

positive traits: Resilient, Kind, Courageous

negative traits: Bold, Selfless, Secretive

para sample:

So far his plan of avoiding other participants in this experiment had gone well. He’d managed to pass through the Cornucopia again without incident; aside from stumbling over a coil of rope and two skyhooks that he hadn’t seen amongst the rocks. Now he was headed down a deserted tunnel, sparingly using his flashlight as up ahead he could swear he saw natural light. Faint, but most certainly there. Unless of course he was hallucinating. Which if he was honest, he wouldn’t discount totally. He was definitely lacking some Vitamin D after spending so much time underground.

This cave was very much preferable to the one where he’d refilled his canteen and bottle (with water, thankfully, not pee), no skeleton for starters and it didn’t smell like a sweet shop exploded. In fact, as he stepped further into the cavernous space, he actually felt almost at home. A familiar rustling came from above, and the somewhat annoyed chitter that followed as his light swept the roof caused a smile to come to his face.

“Hello everyone,” Dick responded to the bats, “nice place you have here.”

Moving forward, his eyebrows shot up in surprise as saw the tree, leaves upturned toward the distant sunlight filtering through the mass of bats at the cave’s roof. Further inspection resulted in him picking a rather odd looking banana. But it tasted fine and was a welcome break from fish. His curiosity kept drawing his attention back to the light far above and the temptation to climb up there grew stronger. It was a tough ascent, he’d have to use all of his skill and his new sky hooks, but would beat sitting around in guano.