#Cass. Cass remember when you blamed Steph for War Games?

[zahri-melitor]

I love when comics are clearly written by someone hallucinating plots.

I am so sorry. For not trusting you - of all of us, you have always had the most faith in the cause.

(Future State: The Next Batman #4)

Steph. You think STEPH has ‘the most faith in the cause’.

STEPHANIE BROWN?!?!!!

What cause are we talking about here? Because that’s a farcical thing to say about the Mission. More than Dick? More than Tim? More than Bruce?!?

This may actually be worse than BQM’s candle oath that ignored making any promise about the Mission and fighting crime and making the world a better place and instead revolved around Barbara believing in Steph.

And uh. That is a high barrier to break.

[bigskydreaming]

Imagine that Dick and Jason liiiiiive to synchronize their Let’s Be Shits schedules just in time for any posh gala the Wayne children are expected to attend.

Some Douchebag is like “So, Richard. What is it you do, these days?”

And Dick just plasters on the most vacuous smile in existence, like the kind that could only be engineered in a lab by combining Brucie with a Colgate commercial for sparkling teeth, special effects included.

And he’s like, “Oh, I’m an instagram model and social influencer.”

And then Jason appears out of nowhere, swaying on his feet and throwing an arm around Dick’s shoulder as if to support himself, hiccuping a little and splashing some of his wine over the edge of his glass (its apple juice, of course).

“So am I,” he says, punctuating with another hiccup. “But only like. Ironically.”

Dick leans in towards the Douchebag as if to confide a secret, as the latter tries to lean away whilst still figuring out what expression his face wants to produce. 

“He keeps saying that like it means something, but I’m not sure it does. I think he saw it on a youtube video and just started copying it. That’s not copyright infringement right? Bruce’ll probably be pissed if he has to pay out another lawsuit for copyright stuff after I just got in trouble for trying to sell tickets to my band’s show without getting permission to use all the songs we did. Like, how was I supposed to know you needed permission to sing songs? Isn’t this, like. America?”

The Douchebag starts stammering and attempting to edge gracefully away - hell, he’ll settle for not gracefully, he really was never even looking for an answer in the first place, just a soundbite he could reenact for his snobby friends later. This was more than he was actually prepared for.

Jason meanwhile surges forward and grabs a hold of Douchebag’s suited arm, acting like he still needs the support.

“Hey. It does so mean something, and I came up with it on my own, I didn’t steal shit. If I was going to steal stuff, I’d go for the silver, not words, how dumb do you think I am? He’s always doing this,” he complains to the Douchebag. 

“Just because I didn’t start school until the sixth grade and had to bribe our little brother to take all my tests for me, he acts like I don’t even know what words mean. But he’s the one who only passed his senior year of high school by getting Playgirl to do a photoshoot of him when he turned eighteen just before finals, and then most of his teachers just made sure he passed so they wouldn’t feel pervy because they’d gone gaga over his photos and then he got held back a year and they had to see him every day and feel sketchy.” 

Dick spreads his arms wide as if an extremely self-explanatory point has just been made.

“Hello? Is that, or is that not, a display of genius?”

“Really, I do have to be going, I think I see my old business partner waving at me from over there - “ the Douchebag says somewhat desperately. 

“Dammit Jay, look what you did.” Dick wails dramatically. He even stomps a foot for good measure. Jason’s struggling not to laugh. “You’re embarrassing us in front of one of Bruce’s guests. Now he thinks we’re low class and its going to be all over the news and this is gonna be the last straw and Bruce’ll get fed up and say we can never go to these things again and its going to be all your fault and none of this would ever happen if you weren’t always like. Ugh. What’s the word.”

The Douchebag is hastily assuring them he doesn’t think they’re embarrassing or low class and he’s not going to tell anyone otherwise, while still trying to pry his jacket sleeve loose from Jason’s iron grip. Jason meanwhile appears oblivious to anything the Douchebag says or does, as he fixates on his brother and starts waving his own arms around dramatically....which sends Douchebag stumbling in the process, all without either brother seeming to notice.

“Well I’m sure I can’t help you, since I don’t know words so good,” Jason hisses equally dramatically. “I’m just a fucking dumbass from the Narrows, isn’t that right. I’m not some fancy circus boy like you were, all I had to practice reading on as a kid was my rap sheet.”

He moves to fling his arms over his head in exasperation, and tears the Douchebag’s suit sleeve with a resounding ripping noise in the process. Douchebag stares at the remains of the jacket that cost several thousand dollars that he doesn’t have, because he’s a pompous jackass who lives beyond his means in an attempt to fund his social ladder climbing expeditions.

“Now look what you did,” Dick cries, flinging his head back as if in total despair, the black locks of his hair flying from side to side in theatrical disarray. “Do you even know how much that poor man’s suit must have cost him? Probably more than my parents’ trailer, I’ll bet you that much.”

“Really, its quite alright,” the Douchebag tries to insist through clenched teeth. It wasn’t, in his eyes, not by a long shot, but he forced himself to remember that for whatever reasons, these two...peasants were still Bruce Wayne’s chosen wards....or well, worse yet...adopted sons. God, but that man’s abyssmal IQ was an absolute plague on Gotham’s high society. “It could have happened to anyone.”

“No, please, don’t try and cover for him, he’ll never learn that way. You must let us pay for the damage, Bruce will just take it out of his allowance, it’ll be fine,” Dick says, patting at the man’s arm feverishly as if he can smooth out the gaping hole left by the flap now hanging limply down the man’s sleeve.

“Oh, I’ll never learn? How about you, destroying Bruce’s grandmother’s antique china at the birthday party you tried to throw for Damian after Bruce specifically asked you not to try and play host anymore?” Jason gets in his brother’s face, liquid sloshing over the side of his erratically swinging glass and in the process splashing all over the back of the Douchebag’s neck.

“I was trying to actually do something nice for someone else, not that you’d know anything about that,” Dick hisses obnoxiously loudly. “How was I supposed to know you weren’t supposed to use steak knives to cut up food on china? Its not like plates come with instruction manuals!”

“Not like you’d know how to read them if they did!”

“Have you never heard of Youtube tutorials?”

“Have you never heard of shut the fuck up, you absolute dillhole?”

“Would both of you stop it? You’re causing a scene!” The two’s younger brother Timothy arrived on the scene, smoothly sliding between them and the ecstatically grateful Douchebag, who backpeddles out of the way at the first available opportunity. Tim throws him an apologetic glance, but the Douchebag barely notes it as he furiously makes for the side entrance as fast as he can, with the less people seeing his disheveled state the better. 

So much for the networking he had planned on doing the rest of the night. He firmly vowed to steer far clear of the eldest two Wayne buffoons at all future events Brucie insisted on inflicting the oafs on the rest of them.

All of which of course means he completely missed the way the brothers’ dramatics hushed into heated whispers upon Tim’s arrival, or the high five Dick and Jason slipped each other discreetly.

“Let’s see Brucie top that,” Jason says smugly.

“Oh god. You’ve finally done it. You’ve turned a charity event into a war games scenario.”

“Oh please. All of that money goes straight into the board of directors’ pockets,” Dick says dismissively. “The only actual money being raised for charity tonight is from the jewelry Selina’s liberating from the guests. And Damian and Cass already called dibs on helping her with that, and Duke’s already doing the scorekeeping for when that inevitably turns into a competition, so we were bored. And left alone to our own devices. So really if anyone’s to blame its everyone but us.”

“Sides, this is a time honored tradition for us,” Jason adds with a smirk. “We call it guerilla class warfare. We’re sleeper agents for the working class, see.”

“You’re the reason the Valentinos never show up to any Wayne Enterprise hosted events anymore, aren’t you?” Tim realizes.

“Some of our best work,” Dick reminisces fondly. Their little brother sighs.

“Please at least tell me you never actually posed for Playgirl.”

Dick shrugs. “Oh, they offered, but even when Bruce and I were at our worst, its not like I ever actually wanted to give him a stroke.”

“Continuity error,” Jason points out smugly. “Total amateur move.”

Dick merely arches a brow. “Not when I can simply claim Bruce must have paid to cover it up for the sake of the family image, and was absolutely furious at my besmirching of the good Wayne family name. And wait a second, weren’t you the one who introduced that into the scene in the first place? I just yes and-ed according to the rules of improv, like the professional that I am.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound right,” Jason says, completely unperturbed. Not an ounce of perturbed in sight. He continues on smoothly. “And if Sir Douchely of Douchington actually digs a little deeper and yet can’t seem to find anyone who recalls ever actually seeing this oh so salacious spread?” 

Dick’s shit remains unphased.

“I’ll simply flip the script and release the hounds aka Steph, Harper, Cullen and all three dozen of their twitter handles, wondering all over the Gotham social media highways just why someone of his standing is so intent on tracking down the homoerotic depravities of the eldest Wayne heir, given that despite his unjust leapfrogging up the social ladder, he is still ultimately a....commoner.”

“Ah yes,” Jason nods sagely. “And as all Gothamites know well, if you prick us, we doth not bleed blue. Just a terribly pedestrian red.”

“Oh the humanity,” Dick sighs. He joins his younger brother in nodding the slow, steady head-bob of the intellectually validated, their seeming rivalry melting into sibling synchronicity.

Tim eyes them and shakes his head side to side instead.

“You two disturb me.”

Jason shrugs. “Well, that does make sense. Don’t get me wrong, you’re our little brother and we’re terribly fond of you now, Timmers. But when the revolution comes, we will have to turn on you as well.”

“Fair is fair,” Dick hums in agreement. “We can’t play favorites. That’s how you get an upper class in the first place.”

“Yeah I don’t know what to do with this,” Tim sighs and heads off in search of Steph.

“Just FYI, your girlfriend’s Team Proletariat too. She’s got the T-shirt and everything,” Jason calls after him.

Tim swerves in mid-step and redirects himself towards Kate. At least their cousin slash-aunt-slash-nobody’s-bothered-to-parse-the-actual-relation-there could be counted on to be somewhat normal. Her idea of making a scene was to simply start a brawl, and Tim had overheard Bruce specifically elicit a promise from her earlier in the evening that she would throw no punches or kicks or headbutts or judo throws, nor any manner of actual or improvised weaponry.

[incoherentbabblings]

As someone who loves the timsteph relationship i hate what new 52 robbed us of. Tim had previously been a dick to Steph by telling her to never be a hero again and Steph had been a dick to Tim by faking her death and lying to him but they still obviously cared about each other and i feel like they would have gotten back together if new 52 hadnt happened

Oh for sure!

I’ve always been on the fence with their interactions when Steph came back because on the one hand it’s just plain bad writing in that, Steph had no reason to follow through on Batman’s bizarre plan to make Tim a better Robin.  She had nothing to prove to Bruce since she’d survived being tortured for god know’s how long and still came back to help people once she’d healed.  She even asks Bruce if she’s welcome back and Bruce affirms yes ‘if you want it’.  And then she notices straight away that Tim is acting and behaving far more coldly and assigns herself her the mission of basically bringing joy back into his life.

So even though ‘she was hiding in Africa and lied to everyone about it’ there were ways round it where you could address it but also remember that the poor girl had been through a lot and I wouldn’t blame her for wanting to disappear.  The fact that she realised she wouldn’t ever be able to stop helping people and she needed to go back to Gotham I feel is really important to her character and something her and Tim (and the batfam in general) have in common, like a chronic need to protect people.  It’s an important part of her character which people tend to ignore for wanting to spite her dad or Bruce or any of the people who doubted her.

Tim’s behaviour is also really cold and annoying to read but I think it’s just showing that he was shutting down emotionally and just that he was terrified for Steph.  I wish they’d more of a big deal of why Tim was a bit shifty around Bruce after War Games, after all Bruce didn’t let Stephanie and Tim talk to each other while she was Robin, he hid that Stephanie had been kidnapped as long as he could and he stopped Tim from being with her when she was dying (EVEN THOUGH she was asking after him.  She was terrified he hated her and yes Bruce reassures her that Tim adores her always has always will she should have had a moment with Tim, to hear it from him.  She just deserved better.  Every part of those arcs. She deserved better).  Bruce massively bungled how much the two were reliant on each other but dead dad and dead best friend meant she got lost in the shuffle and was just one of many dead loved ones.  Which is bad writing and bad editorial for a character that was fridged to make Bruce and Tim sad.  But we all know that.    

Moving to when she came back, their conversation on the rooftop after Battle for the Cowl has Tim inform Steph that a) he’s leaving Gotham b) he wants her to stop wearing the costume because c) he’s scared for her and of her actions.  So it’s pretty ‘this is us done for real’. And yet they are drawn doing this

Which is part of why they had such an interesting dynamic because their body language is always having them stand close together with lots of hand holding and face smushing.  Which you normally don’t do with an ex or someone you don’t trust.  One of the first posts I made about these two was showing how often they are drawn with their hands reaching out to the other during their batgirl and red robin run.  It’s near constant in the batgirl issue and crops up a few times in red robin too.

Also all throughout his RR solo Tim’s gutted that he feels like he can’t trust her anymore until he grows up a little and is like yeah I was wrong actually she’s doing so well and meanwhile she’s doing her own thing trying to cement down why she can’t ever stop doing what she does and it’s not to spite her dad anymore and it’s not so she can maybe on the off chance run across Tim anymore.  At the same time, I think Miller wrote during their crossover that Tim and Steph’s relationship is one which he describes as “comfort and familiarity” hence why Steph stopped them getting back together at that moment.  She was in a transition stage in her life and needed to focus on grounding herself before she could ‘fall back in’ with Tim, and I think Tim understood that.  Also he was dating Tam so he shouldn’t have tried it in the first place but Tim is forever dating Ariana/Zo/Tam/Cassie and then smooching Steph and realising oh no that one that one I like that one more and usually Steph is like lol ok sure I like you too.

By the end of their respective runs you have Steph in a very good place whereas Tim’s work at building himself back from the ground up is shaken in that final issue with him essentially trying to murder his father’s murderer, and Bruce’s response to his actions makes Tim sort of… shut down again, after everything he put himself through to convince others that Bruce wasn’t dead.   Tim’s growth came mostly from re-connecting with Dick and Cass, Stephanie, and the Titans.

So I guess if I’d had my way what would have been the best way for these two to find their way back to each other would have been post Bat Inc when Steph gets back from England and Tim has a proper sit down with Bruce and Dick and is like ‘the past two years have been really hard and I think I’m getting there but need a bit more help’ and like… put himself together first.  I kinda like to read Steph and Tim’s final interactions during their crossover as a sort of ‘wait for me a bit longer okay?’ line of thought.  Steph doesn’t say ‘I’m not doing this with you anymore’, she says ‘This isn’t good for me right now’ which just goes to show how emotionally intelligent she is, especially regarding herself by the mid point of her batgirl run.  Tim needed to work on his own crap first before they could meet halfway.  

Anyway I really recommend Sorry I Bruced You by quipquipquip which is how I headcanon them growing back together.  Steph did a lot of hard work looking at why and how she was going to be a hero after being physically and emotionally wrecked by her torture.  Tim had started to do so but stumbled at the end of Red Robin, and I think he needed to do a bit more work on himself.  Ultimately it wasn’t Stephanie’s job to make him a lighter person.  It would have been nice for them reuniting to be a ‘look how far we’ve come apart and yet I still at the end of the day want to sit and talk with you on your mum’s old couch because you’re warm, safe, gentle and alive’.

But HEY thanks reboot for dropping all that and wiping Steph from existence and breaking Tim away from what made him that gentle boy in the first place.  Don’t get me wrong I actually really love the way Tynion wrote them together but to like properly love it you have to read it with all of their pre-War Games interactions in mind which is an understandable but still not great cut off point. I’ve always wanted Tim and Stephanie to be the one couple of the batfam who just kind of do their own thing and live in their own bubble and get on with their own lives whilst the rest of the batfam romantic relationships are more than welcome to be full blown melodrama any given day of the week.  And I think DC sees it that way?  The number of hints in other universes where Tim pops up in the future tend to imply Steph is a presence too (Batman Beyond, Nightwing New Order, Tom King’s Batman Annual… the exception is the original Batman of Tomorrow Arcs, where Steph was dead and LOOK HOW THAT TURNED OUT FOR EVERYONE and in even in Tynion’s run where she isn’t dead in the future BatTim is like…haunted by her disapproval, she really is his anchor when given the chance to be) and this has gone on long enough look what you’ve done anon(!!!)