#Batman: turning points | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hailsatanacab · 2 years ago

Note

"give me a fandom and a prompt and i'll give you at least five sentences"

Ok then.

Jazz, Danny and Bruce are in the same age range, and Bruce has been harboring a massive crush on 7'foot tall Jazz since just after he began his training journey.

His kids know about and are mercyless. Danny thinks he's a bit of a fruit loop and 100% knows Bruce has a crush on his sister.

Into the future his coworkers find out that batman has been quietly pining after the Ghost Kings sister for years.

Chaos.

love that this reads as a challenge. Ok then. Write it. i will, let's goooo!

(sorry i kinda took it so that Jazz, Danny, and Bruce were all old friends but in that horrible adult way where you can only hang out with each other once in a blue moon when your work schedules miraculously align)

——

"Respectfully, Batman, you can take your "it's not necessary" and you can shove it up your arse. There's a demon the size of a skyscraper heading towards Metropolis and we need reinforcements."

"Superman can—"

"Superman can't. You do remember the part of the report I made telling you this, right? Or did your stubborn little bat brain just shut down when I mentioned magic?"

"Actually," Nightwing interrupts from the side, a shit-eating grin on his face, "I think his brain shut down when you mentioned the Ghost King."

"Nightwing." Batman growls in warning, his jaw clenching so hard Constantine can swear he hears the bones creaking.

Nightwing just snickers, and turns away to press a finger to his ear, no doubt letting the rest of the bat brood in on what's happening here... Whatever that is. All Constantine knows is that Batman is standing between him and fixing this mess for no God-forsaken reason.

Luckily, some of the more reasonable members of the League step in to try and talk some sense into Batman. It gives him some time to calm down.

"Batman. We need him. I know you dislike working with unknowns, but he's our best shot."

It actually looks like Wonder Woman might be getting through to him, Batman even opens his mouth to actually explain some things—a huge step forward for this incredibly emotionally constipated man.

Instead, Nightwing snorts and beats him to it. "Unknowns? More like—"

"Nightwing, please."

"Oh, for Pete's sake, get your head out of your arse and let me do this. The Ghost King is our only hope. I'm summoning him, no matter what you say."

For a long second, Constantine thinks that he'll refuse and he might have to resort to more violent methods of persuasion—which, honestly, Constantine has fantasised about many times during the more boring JL meetings—but eventually, Batman relents and steps out of the way.

"Fine. Nightwing, go check in with Red Robin."

Nightwing has the kind of devious smile that makes John glad he doesn't have kids.

"Oh, don't worry about it, B. Red Robin's coming here. So's Red Hood, I don't need to go anywhere."

"Nightwing—"

"Sh, it's starting." So saying, Nightwing then very obviously ignores Batman's protests with a poker face that even Constantine envies. What he wouldn't give to be able to shut the bat out like that.

The summoning goes quickly, thankfully. The lights flicker, the temperature drops, and the chalk circle erupts in green flames. Standard summoning practices, sure. Even the impromptu appearance of Red Hood and Red Robin—"Did we miss him?", "No, not yet! I got 2:37, what about you guys?"—doesn't throw him off.

It does pique his interest, though. Just what the hell is going on with them? Constantine's weighing up the pros and cons of asking them once all of this is over when the ground splits open and the clawed hand of the Ghost King begins to pull himself out of the ground.

John's a seasoned summoner. It's practically his job, he's done it countless times.

The icey fear that grips his heart, that freezes his breath in his chest, is new.

Pure, unadulterated power floods the area and he feels small, so, so small, like a child playing with things he doesn't understand. When he finally tears his eyes away from the portal, he catches a glimpse of the other magic users in the room, the same horror he feels clear in their faces. Even Captain Marvel stares slackjawed.

The pressure rises, death magic screaming in his ears, almost forcing him to his knees, and suddenly he's not so sure this is a good idea.

Too late to back out now, though.

Sickly green light pours from the crack in the ground, growing brighter and brighter as the giant figure rises, until Constantine has to close his eyes and look away. The last thing he sees are eyes, teeth, horns, a crown so bright that it burns an afterimage into his retinas.

When the light dies down and he opens his eyes again, a humanoid man floats in the centre of the circle. The ground is whole, nothing is burning, the man doesn't even have a crown. Instead, other than the wispy white hair, slightly green skin, and the—you know—floating, the Ghost King appears pretty normal. Huh.

Constantine blinks, rubbing his bleary eyes, and checks around to make sure everyone's okay. Most of the League are doing the same as him, taking fortifying breaths and trying to appear as if they've not just been completely blinded.

Most of them, that is, aside from the Gotham vigilantes.

Batman himself stands upright, arms crossed, looking completely unbothered by the whole thing and John's got to admit, he wishes he could do that, too. That was... a hell of a show.

The others, however, are waving frantically with huge smiles on their faces.

What?

There's a brief, taut silence, as everyone else tries to catch their breath.

As much as he would rather take a bit of a breather, John should probably start making introductions. Unfortunately, he only gets as far as opening his mouth before the Ghost King beats him to it.

"Oh, Ancients, hey guys! It's been forever, how are you? Look at you all, so grown up, wow—Nightwing, buddy, do a flip!"

It doesn't take much to get Nightwing going, and he certainly doesn't leave it at one flip. The whole of the Justice League and Justice League Dark watch with open mouths as Nightwing performs for the Ghost King.

What, and John can't stress this enough, the fuck?

As soon as Nightwing rights himself, Red Hood swats him across the back of the head and calls him a show off.

The Ghost King just laughs as he claps. "There's my little monkey, look at you go! And I'm loving that leather jacket, Hood, is that new? Looks good on you, really your colour. Brings out the red in your helmet."

"Thanks, Uncle D. At least someone around here appreciates fashion."

"Are you kidding me, you know I breathe fashion, need I remind—"

"Need I remind you of the Discowing incident?"

"That was era-appropriate and you know it! Uncle D, tell him it was era-appropriate!"

"It was era-appropriate, but so are crocs and it doesn't make them fashionable." The Ghost King—and holy shit, is this actually the Ghost King? Or did Constantine just accidentally summon a deceased family member, what the fuck is happening here?—turns to look at Red Robin with a smile, resolutely ignorning the argument he created. "How you doing, Double R? You get that tablet Tucker made for you?"

"Yes, thank you! It's so cool, how did he—"

"How's Tucker doing?" Batman interrupts, his hands now hidden underneath his cape.

As soon as the question leaves his lips, everyone groans. Red Robin makes a show of lifting up his wrist and staring at it intently.

"Incredible," Red Hood mutters with a shake of his head.

Even the Ghost King seems put out, rolling his eyes and answering in a flat tone as if he knows Batman isn't interested in what he has to say.

Not for the first time, Constantine feels like he's missing something.

"Tucker's doing very well, thank you for asking."

What follows is the most awkward silence Constantine has ever had the pleasure to be a part of.

All three of the Gotham vigilantes, including the Ghost King, are staring at Batman, waiting for something. Batman's cloak shifts as if he's moving his hands, fidgeting. If Constantine didn't know any better, he'd say he was nervous.

"Good. That's good, I'm glad to hear it."

Instead of saying anything else, the Ghost King just raises his eyebrows and continues to stare at Batman. Has he offended him in some way? Are they all going to die because of this?

After what seems like an agonising few minutes but could only really be a few seconds, Batman's shoulders dip and he takes a breath. "And Jazz?"

They all erupt into shouts, the Ghost King being the loudest. The only thing John can make out is when the Ghost King throws his hand in the air to point at Red Robin with a shout of "Time!"

"1:30.91, we got 1:30.91 on the clock, who's closest?"

"Did you even try to hold it in at all, old man? I'm so disappointed in you. People think you're cool. People think you're suave, I don't understand how they could be so wrong."

"Thank you for that, Hood."

"No, thank you, I won. Again. Because you're so predictable. Actually, I had one minute seventeen, so you held out longer than I thought you would."

Batman pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs loudly.

Constantine feels like doing the same thing.

Whatever. He's going to have to interrupt... whatever this is. There's still a rampaging demon heading their way that they've got to bargain for. He can untangle Batman's personal connection to the Ghost King later. Or he could leave it alone and forget everything about it.

Yeah, he'll do that one.

But before he can actually open his mouth to say anything, the Ghost King, again, beats him to it.

"So, B-Man, did you summon me here for a particular reason, or was it really just so you could ask about Jazz?"

There's a beat of silence before Batman mutters, "I asked about Tucker, too. We've not seen each other in so long, it's only polite."

"And I'm sure you meant it, you're the paragon of manners." The Ghost King nods slow and wide-eyed as if he doesn't believe him at all.

At this point, even Constantine doesn't believe him.

"It has been forever, though." The Ghost King muses, bringing his hand to his chin and folding his legs underneath him. "We should all get together sometime! If you get Alfie to make some of his cookies again, I'll get Clockwork to lend us a pocket dimension where we can spend as much time as we want, deal?"

"It's a deal."

No hesitation at all, incredible.

Hold on. Wait. John has to fight the urge to pinch himself, because this has to be a dream, right? Is Batman actually smiling? He didn't even know he could do that.

An itch niggles at the back of John's mind. He's starting to get an inkling of what's going on here and it's... weird, to say the least.

"Oooh," Nightwing singsongs, like a child in a playground tickled by the very idea of romance.

But then, who's he to judge? John's no stranger to strange bedfellows, that's for sure. Whoever this Jazz is, she must be something incredible—she'd have to be, if Batman can't even go two minutes without asking about her.

"Batman and Jasmine sitting in a tree," Nightwing continues, with both Red Hood and Red Robin joining in for the rest. "K—I—S—S—I—"

"Stop," Batman growls, completely drowned out by the Ghost King's laughter, but...

But.

It all suddenly clicks for John.

The Ghost King Phantom.

Her Royal Highness, Princess Jasmine Phantom.

Jazz.

"Holy shit, mate," John breathes, unable to stop himself as everyone looks his way. "You have the hots for the Princess of the Infinite Realms?"

The Justice League meeting room has never descended into chaos quicker.

#dpxdc #danny phantom crossover #danny phantom x batman #hoooolllyyy mackeral #it was hubris thinking i could keep anything to five sentences really wasn't it?#fucking played myself with that didn't i???#anyway here's even more words on this i hope you enjoy!!#some things that didn't make it in:#duke doesn't come to see danny because he's too bright when he's in his ghost form and it gives him a migraine - he still plays the game #though and is second closest!#damian is there he's just biding his time. it's become a tradition for damian to try and stab danny whenever he turns up #he hasn't managed it yet but danny keeps encouraging him to try again! you'll get me next time champ!#it infuriates damian to no end - no he's not doing it because he's having fun he legitimately wants to kill him shut up!#danny loves cass so much and when they do all get together they always sit together - it often ends up with cass curling up around danny #ellie turns up every now and then! she's like an honourary wayne at this point #she's always down for any pranks and shenanigans #thank you for the prompt!! it was very fun. as you can see i got rather carried away haha #thank you i hope you enjoyed it!!!#my writing #cab writes

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phoenixcatch7 · 1 year ago

Text

Open up

Based on this wonderful art of @puppetmaster13u for the dollhouse au!

It had been a long day, and was destined to be even longer.

The original plan had been bad enough; the league had a media conference planned for three o'clock, one that involved foreign presence and thus required pristine presentation.

Then, as all perfectly good plans that could have been left alone by the universe did, it was derailed by a villain attack or several. He said several because it seemed almost a dozen separate villains had individually had the bright idea of sabotaging the well publicised event. Though they'd failed, the accidental collaboration had done what each alone could not, and now the league was dragging themselves to base to hurriedly patch up the thankfully minor wounds and try and rush to meet the deadline.

Each league member on the list had a formal version of their usual super suit - flash's main change had been a bowtie before it met almost unanimous disapproval, and on the other end of the effort spectrum was Bruce. Not of his own will - he quite envied Flash's staunch faith in the single black bowtie - but he not only had been raised for the fast and critical world of the upper class, but was currently in a metal plated marionette held together by glue and screws and wires, which meant changing attire was more of a debacle than it would ordinarily be.

He flipped open the toolkit with the best approximation of a sigh the doll body could manage. The chest inflated and deflated, which was in fact a rather worrying sign because it wasn't supposed to be able to do that. He grabbed a screwdriver and a pit of tar glue and approached the mirror. He'd just have to go into the globally broadcast meeting stinking of sulphur... Perhaps he could borrow perfume from one of the girls, cologne combined dreadfully.

The chest cavity opened with little tugging, and he held one side in place as he attacked the bent hinges. An odd feeling, for sure. He took a hammer to the dent, imagining it was the penguin's face and praying Clark didn't decide now was the time to approach him on his self soothing metalworking hobby. He'd been entrusted with the override code for the door and Bruce was now quietly regretting that.

The chest cavity doors creaked back into place, which enabled him to finally pull out the costume change for the evening and dump it on the side.

Now for the leg, having been crushed under a tank penguin had smuggled into Gotham. It now bent the wrong way, and hiding it under his cloak had been a pain, but at least it hadn't come off -

There it went. Batman watched, almost despondent, as it toppled free of his body and crashed to the ground. The unhappy static that raced up his spine at the sight was expected - he'd be paying for the lack of care for the Patriarch Doll in nightmares tonight.

Joy.

He tipped into the nearby stool and kicked the lost limb closer with his remaining foot, squinting. Just a cracked screw and torn spring at the knee, thank goodness. He'd have it fully attached again within the hour.

But he was pretty sure he couldn't bend that far over without his jaw falling off, so face it was.

Hood off, wires unlaced under the chin, hidden screws loosened. The gas mask came off. The velcro on top of his head took good old fashioned yanking, but eventually peeled off with reluctant crackling, revealing the unpainted grey metal beneath.

As expected, his jaw was almost entirely loose, unable to close now without the structure of the mask. The nutcracker mouth in the lower jaw fell to tap against his throat, leaving either side of the actual lower jaw to hang in the air. Experimentally, he opened and closed his mouth, and watched all three parts swing and clink like a robot body horror wind-chime.

This was going to need a finer touch, and so he stripped off his gloves to access the sharp points of his talons - capped while with the league to keep the prick of steel rending claws to a mere suggestion.

He felt bared, now, all his top layer removed and abandoned, the door to his room at his back. He feels the paranoia to double check the lock, reassures himself that even if he'd somehow forgotten in his haste to hide away none of the members were mad enough to try and get in. Outside Superman, of course, but he always knocked.

Still, he hurried through repairs, running diagnostics in the back of his mind as he daubed glue into the cracks and set about restructuring his own jaw. Ears swivelled. Neck rolled. Glider snaps curled.

The jaw pieces were setting nicely when there was a noise at the door, and batman whipped around, cloak flaring behind him. The pliers dropped from suddenly weak fingers.

Captain marvel stood in the doorway, eyes wide as he took in the room, face pale as he saw Batman propped up in middle, bare of his many obfuscating layers. Black tar speckled his lap, wires hung free like veins, blank eyes glowed, his jaw gaping, skinless. Glinting claws and spikes in full view, a limb discarded on the floor like garbage. His chest a dark hole, void of organs, of machinery, of anything that could make him run. A decades old terror gripped his heart.

HE SAW!

Both froze. Time stretched interminably.

The captains chest heaved for a scream, and batman was moving before he knew it, grabbing his fallen leg and lunging.

Captain marvel fell with a crack. Batman caught himself on the door. Five seconds before short term memory entered long term, had he reacted in time?

Hm.

He considered the body of the champion of magic laid in front of him, idly rebalancing the eternal tally graph of potential energies the dolls might run on in the back of his head and as always coming up none the wiser. This was a very inconvenient place for a body. Perhaps he could nudge marvel into the hallway to wake up. He glanced up and down the empty corridor, staying out of view of the camera.

Maybe he had overreacted slightly.

Bonus:

Billy and Green Lantern sat in the monitor room, ostensibly on duty but really checking out the watchtower camera feeds of the day before. Lantern was pointing at the screen.

"Here," he said, with a glee Billy didn't honestly appreciate. "Look at that. You go down like a sack of bricks and then -" he clicked forward two frames, "- this silver hand thing appears on the door frame. Look at that, that's a proper horror movie hand curl. The claws! Just missing the glint of a blood covered axe appearing from the shadows."

Billy shuddered, but couldn't help moving closer.

"What do you think it was? Can't have been batman, right?"

"You were there, you tell me." Lantern patted him on the shoulder before he could retort. "I mean, doesn't look much like him. Doesn't really have claws and his are black anyway. Pretty sure his gloves are sewn into his skin at this point."

"I didn't need that mental image," Billy said, because he really didn't.

"Could be another Robin variant? Like that black bat thing?"

"Dunno. I mean, unlikely. Maybe it was batman. Maybe he can shapeshift a little."

"We've had that on the list of possible powers for ages, still nothing firm one way or the other."

"It probably is batman -"

"But the claws -"

They trailed off.

"We'll just add it to the list. I'll save the file, hang on. We can talk about it at the do next week - you're coming right?"

"Yeah, but I've got, uh... A diplomacy thing with the yetis at nine, so I'll have to bail then."

"You always have the weirdest personal missions. Hey, maybe you can ask them about batman, pffft. Maybe he's one of them."

#Not pictured: batman in Victorian-esque drip complete with a black full face phantom of the opera mask in a brightly lit room.#Bundled up in as much cloak is polite and just a dark splotch on camera between a very bright superman and wonder woman #Alfred sarcastically pretends to shed a tear of pride #Also not pictured: batman spending five minutes straight making sure his doors locked while on one leg #long post #batman #dc comics #bruce wayne #cryptid batman #Possessed doll au #Remind me to do a Halloween one because the bats would 100% do a scare competition with the poor goons as targets #Bonus points if you freak out a rouge. It gets harder every year.#Pretty happy with how this turned out but my first plan was to have it the start of the Reveal™. The vibes were right.#Maybe once I've got more done for this au

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