#I NEED FICS WHERE HE DOESNT TELL THE TITANS WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM WHILE HE WAS WITH SLADE UNTILL TERRA JOINS SLADE

[m-o-o-n-f-i-r-e]

update:

I KNOW im a masochist, and i need more fics that make the apprentice arc longer

maybe im just a masochist but i wish the apprentice arc in teen titans lasted longer

[turtle-steverogers]

Team Bonding

fr when was the last time i posted like,,, a fic on here. like a tumblr fic. damn. anyway. ummmmmmmm this is just your.... typical steve freaks out and the avengers are awesome um yah ok ok 

warnings: panic attack, vomiting (basically steve watches the titanic and doesnt have a very fun time)

word count: 2575

-

If Steve was being brutally honest with himself, he was fucking tired of hearing about “the classics���. Irrelevant people butting their noses into his business, tipping him off to what movies were, “the best of the best!” and “absolute must sees!” He appreciated what they were trying to do, but after a while, it felt like people were more or less just trying to garner a slice of his 21st century experience, and quite frankly, he liked doing things better by himself. It was much more appealing to park himself in front of his laptop, nothing but his own quietude to keep him company as he combed through different wikipedia rabbit holes and caught up on movies and TV shows that were apparently crucial to his very existence.

Most were subpar and honestly, he preferred the copious amounts of popcorn he treated himself to on these solo date nights, but some things surprised him. Like Indiana Jones. He liked Indiana Jones. He was neat, and Marion reminded him vaguely of Peggy. 

Still, he supposed he should have seen it coming when Clint came to collect him from his floor one evening, that sort of eager-puppy energy he carried around with him vaguely prickling the back of Steve’s neck.

“C’mon, man,” he was saying. Steve leaned against the door jamb, tired. He was going to concede, but Clint was rambling and Steve knew better than to interrupt him. “It’s, like, certifiably the best love story ever. You need to watch it--”

And there it was again. That fucking claim. You need to watch this! You haven’t seen that? 

No. He hadn’t. He’d been a little busy, you know, being dead.

“--And the acting is all so raw and it’s just-- Leo DiCaprio-- you know who that--”

“--Yes. I saw Blood Diamond--”

“--Oh, you did? Well, anyway, he rocks in this and--”

“Clint,” Steve cut him off smoothly. “I’ll come, don’t sweat it too hard.”

Clint looked positively elated. “You will?” he exclaimed. “Awesome, yeah, it’s gonna be the whole team. I mean, that’s good right? You’re cool with that? You gotta be, you’re the one who mentioned team bonding that one time--”

“Yes,” Steve cut in again. “I’m alright with that. Give me a minute to change, and I’ll be right down?” He was still in his gym clothes from two hours ago. He meant to take a shower, but he’d sort of… ran out of energy. The sweat had cooled by now anyway. He smelled fine.

“Oh! Yeah, no problem.”

Which was how Steve found himself in a pair of sweatpants and an old SHIELD t-shirt, squashed in between Natasha and Bruce on the communal couch. Someone had handed him a huge bowl of popcorn and Steve was pleasantly surprised to find that it was flavored with some sort of cheese powder.

“White cheddar,” Bruce said, holding up a little blue shaker bottle when he heard Steve’s appreciative hum. “They’re, uh, sort of like seasoning, but for popcorn specifically. They come in all different kinds of flavors.”

“Oh, neat,” Steve said, around another handful of popcorn. He liked Bruce. He seemed to get Steve in that quiet, brutally raw sort of way. A quiet kinship. They didn’t talk about it, but he never made him feel condescended, so Steve decided that was okay.

“I think I fixed it!” Tony said, stepping out from behind the ginormous movie screen where, presumably, he’d been fixing a volume problem. The screen had been frozen on the first frame of the movie for nearly ten minutes. “Okay, okay, let’s see…” he pressed play. Music poured through the speakers on either side of the TV, loud enough so that everyone cringed and Steve nearly dropped the popcorn bowl in his haste to cover his ears. He always managed to forget how damn loud the world could be when he let himself get comfortable.

“Sorry, sorry!” Tony hissed, turning the volume down to a much more tolerable level. “Okay, there. Okay, shh everyone. Gotta let Capsicle--”

“--Just Steve, Tony--”

“--Gotta let Just Steve get the full experience.”

Steve rolled his eyes, but settled in to watch.

The film was honestly better than Steve had been expecting, if not a little… itchy in that way period films tended to be for him. The themes of poverty and love were pretty well-rounded, but they hit just close enough that he almost cringed at the far-fetch’d beauty of it. 

Still, his fingers itched for a pencil as Jack guided a pencil over the worn sheaf of paper. The dim light, the faint scratch of the pencil, the forbidden love. It was familiar. Steve could almost smell the salty City air, afternoons spent under the dim lights of candles so they could see even with the curtains drawn-- a semblance of privacy amongst the compact vulnerability of his and Bucky’s shitty little tenement. 

Draw me like one of your french girls, Rose had said, and Steve’s eyes drifted towards the wall, Bucky’s voice echoing through his head.

“‘Course I want you to draw me. I ain’t denying my vanity, Stevie,” he teased, but his eyes were soft. “Pal, you could draw a stick of butter and I’d still wanna watch. It ain’t about me here.”

There was a soft touch to his arm and Steve blinked out of his reverie. Natasha was watching him, a neutral look on her face that Steve had finally learned to recognize as concern. He shook his head minutely, offering her a smile. She nodded and looked back at the TV.

The rest of the movie passed without much excitement. The acting was pretty good and Steve had even gotten to a point where he could recognize the filmmaking as something like revolutionary for the time it came out. He was quicker on the cultural uptake than people gave him credit for, but that was neither here nor there. He laughed with everyone else, let himself grow somber when the atmosphere lent that mood, and generally, it was a nice time. He hadn’t gone to any movie nights before this, but he thought maybe he’d start going to more.

And then the ship hit the iceberg.

Steve wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. Obviously, he knew of the Titanic-- he knew, historically, what happened to it. But for some reason, it hadn’t quite hit him while watching the movie that he was going to have to see the catastrophe go down.

There was a loud creaking of ice on metal as the collision occurred on screen and Steve felt himself go still-- body rigid and tense as the deafening noise played through the speakers. His heart slammed in his chest and he felt his palms start to sweat. He knew that sound-- he knew that--

--He blinked, shaking his head. Movie. Watch the movie. There was a panicked scramble on screen. Characters rushing to amend the situation, more metal creaking and groaning and breaking as dark, foamy water broke through the sides of the ship and Steve could taste it, he could taste the water flooding into the cabin, hitting him from the left as it took the plane down in a harsh--

--He twitched, shaking his head. He was being silly. There were moments of reconciliation as the scenes rapidly flashed between water flooding the ships cabins and peaceful moments of civility. A calm before the storm. A final dance before death.

I’m gonna need a raincheck on that dance…

There was a sudden crash as water blasted through into the work quarters and Steve jumped, watching transfixed as unforgiving torrents pushed workers over, flooding them, drowning them, and they were falling, slipping, sliding, panicking as certain death met them at the halfway point, and Steve knew it must be cold. So cold. Suffocating and unforgiving as it flooded their lungs, saltier than they probably imagined, heavy and awful and--

“Stark, turn the movie off.”

The room went abruptly silent. Steve realized his eyes were closed, chest heaving as he sat, hunched over his lap, hands fisted in his hair.

The popcorn wasn’t on his lap anymore. When had he moved? He couldn’t breathe and he was so cold and someone needed to save those guys, someone needed to--

“Steve,” a gentle voice cut into the roaring waves crashing in his head. Bruce. That was Bruce speaking. “Can you hear me, Steve?” 

Steve nodded, pulling his hair harder. He couldn’t breathe. Was he drowning again? Surely that was impossible. If Bruce was talking to him, he couldn’t be drowning again, but-- but the water-- and-- and the cold--

“Good, that’s good, Steve,” Bruce. Bruce again. It was Bruce. “Can I touch you?”

Touch. Touch. No touch. He was so cold. He wanted to stop being cold, but he was certain if someone touched him right now, he would lose his goddamn mind. More so than he already had.

“That’s alright,” Bruce sounded steady. Calm. So calm. Why couldn’t Steve calm down? “That’s okay. You think you can do something for me?”

Something… for Bruce? Could he? Could he do anything right then? If he couldn’t breathe, how could he do anything-- and he-- he felt sick--

He opened his mouth to answer and vomited between his feet, straight onto the carpet. Someone in the room hissed sympathetically. Steve wanted to crawl somewhere and die.

“Oh, Steve,” Bruce seemed to be talking mostly to himself, but Steve felt his shoulders climb higher towards his ears. “Okay, Steve, I need you to listen to my voice. Just listen. I’m going to count and you’re going to breathe in time with my instruction, okay? Can you do that for me?”

Steve shook his head, choking on a sob. His chest hurt. Like someone had taken all of his ribs and replaced them with weights, flooding his lungs with-- with water-- and fuck, now he was thinking about the plane again. He felt his breathing tick up higher.

“I want you to try,” Bruce said. “With me. In,” he sucked in a breath. “One… two… three… four…”

Steve tried to suck in a breath, but all he managed to do was send himself into a coughing fit. Bruce kept counting. Steve wanted to tell him to wait-- slow down-- shut up--

He braced a hand over his chest. 

Bruce was still counting.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed, but eventually he found himself matching Bruce’s counts, eyes closed and the heels of his palms braced on his temples as he sucked in greedy, measured breaths. His heart was still slamming hard enough to make him tremble and he could smell his own sick wafting up from the ground, but at least he was breathing on his own.

Bruce trailed off. Silence hung thick in the air, the only noise Steve’s slow, shaking breaths. Shame burned around his ears. He didn’t dare look up.

Tony, predictably, was the one to break the silence. “I’m sorry, Steve,” he said, and Steve was surprised to hear honest regret in his voice. “I was the one who suggested we watch Titanic. I should have thought for more than two seconds about that…”

Steve shrugged. Embarrassment climbed from his stomach to his throat, threatening to choke him. 

Natasha spoke next. “Why don’t you go wash up?” It was an escape-- a way out-- and Steve took it graciously, keeping his head ducked down as he stood on shaking legs and rushed to the communal bathroom.

Inside, he locked the door and braced himself over the sink, splashing warm water on his face. He drank greedily from the tap. His reflection looked like shit-- he’d burst some blood vessels in his eyes, probably while vomiting, and his skin looked sallow and pale. He was trembling, sweat matting his hair to his forehead. He looked how he looked after a nightmare. This, he supposed, had kind of been like a nightmare. Though, he hadn’t been asleep.

Nightmares, he was finding, weren’t strictly exclusive to the nighttime. 

He supposed he’d always known that, though. 

He closed his eyes, bowing his head again. 

His emotions had been fucked to high hell since waking up from the ice. This hadn’t been the first of those awful… fits, and he was certain it wouldn’t be the last, but to have something like that happen in front of the team was a whole new level of mortifying. Fuck. He’d gotten sick. And he’d left it.

He felt the ceramic counter straining under his grip. Scowling, he let go.

He could slip off to his room, lock himself away until he could find some way to sneak out of the Tower and never talk to any of the others ever again. Even in this state, Steve knew that wasn’t viable in any sense. He sighed. Besides, he couldn’t just damn the others to clean up his mess. 

Stowing his pride, he dug some spare mouthwash out from behind the mirror and chugged some straight down, keeping a mouthful and swishing it around before spitting it in the sink. He still felt and looked like shit, but at least his breath would smell like wintergreen. 

The others were still gathered in the communal living room, watching what looked like a kid’s cartoon on TV. There was a distinct smell of cleaner in the air and Steve’s eyes landed on the ground where he’d gotten sick. It was clean. He let his eyes drop to the ground, ashamed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. The cartoon paused. He didn’t look at any of them. “I was going to clean up.”

“Nah, man, the only thing worse than freaking out is having to clean up after yourself while you still feel shitty,” Clint said, and Steve looked up. There was no pity in his gaze, only understanding. 

“Yeah, we’ve all been there,” Tony said. “Sucks, but hey, least we know now that Titanic is a no-no for you.”

Steve flushed, swallowing a few times. “Um, I guess,” he looked at Bruce. “Thank you.”

Bruce smiled. “No problem,” he said gently. “We’re watching Phineas and Ferb if you’d like to join us, but we understand if you’d like to go rest.”

“Phineas and Ferb?” Steve asked, guilt replaced with genuine confusion.

“Yeah,” Clint said, shoving a handful of popcorn in his mouth. “It’s my go-to when I have a bad day. Nothing like some good old platypus drama to cure life’s woes.”

Steve blinked. “I genuinely don’t know what to say to that.”

Clint barked out a laugh. “Join us, man! Don’t gotta talk if you’re not feeling it, but being alone after shit like that sucks.”

And Steve hadn’t had someone there for him after a breakdown-- not since the war. Not since Bucky. Every ounce of him wanted to run. Hide. Smooth out his face and slip on that mask of stoicism. But maybe… maybe he didn’t have to. Maybe he could let himself have this, if only this once.

“Sure,” he said, voice a little hoarse. He awkwardly sat back in between Natasha and Bruce.

Tony pressed play again and Steve smoothed his hands over his thighs, feeling out of place and a little cramped and--

Natasha settled, casually letting her feet rest on his lap. On his other side, Bruce leaned into his shoulder, a subtle, grounding pressure. Clint caught his eye and offered him some more popcorn.

Steve relaxed.

Yeah. He could let himself have this.

-

thanks for reading, chiefs

yeah this was chatted about in one of the awesome discord groups im in so thanks guyysss lol

[sarah-sandwich]

✨u msgd me first so ill msg bacc!✨ is there a scene or moment youve written that just rlly stuck w u, and is there a scene/moment that lives rent free in ur head but doesnt particularily make sense, pfffft yeas- and What are they fjdjjdjf-

You didn’t have to but I’m glad you did!!! 🥰🥰🥰

There are scenes in all of my fics that are like The Scene that I think of when I think of that fic. For Don’t Freak Out it’s their first kiss in the backseat of the car but also when they’re stargazing and fall asleep together. That was *chef’s kiss* the Big Moment for me in that fic. For You’re Freaking Out it’s the final battle at the end. I put so much into that chapter and reworked it so many times trying to get it to come out right so that it was the big payoff that it needed to be to validate the 300k it took to get there. I still question if it’s good enough but like, it’s out of my hands now so it is what it is!

I know this isn’t what you were looking for with your second question but I wrote down an idea a long time ago for an endgame fix it fic but like...idk if I can make it work or if I even want to commit to something as big as it would be or that would hurt me personally so badly haha

but basically it would be broken into three parts: the snap, the return, and the reset.

The Snap:

Peter wakes up inside the soul stone after getting snapped and there’s trillions of beings from all over the universe in there right? So he sort of knows what happened and that they lost and this is the price but he doesn’t know what THIS is or who of his people might be here. So without anything better to do he wanders, trying to find anyone he knows but it’s impossible bc it’s an endless expanse of orange nothing and there are trillions of beings all trapped and wandering with him. So instead he makes a territory for himself that he safeguards as spider-man and people know spider-man so if enough people recognize him and talk about him then eventually his people might hear and come and find him. It works but it doesn’t. Over the five years he’s stuck in there a lot of humans find their way to his zone and a lot of them have various NYC accents and sensibilities but may, ned, mj, none of them ever arrive. Some of the avengers stop by and tell him he’s doing well but they move on, helping where they can and trusting him to manage on his own. He becomes friends with this boy who has a southern accent and insists he knew iron man but that’s beside the point

The Return:

Then between one blink and the next he’s alive and on titan. In the soul stone they didn’t age, hunger, or tire. Everything had a muted, distant quality like your head was stuffed with cotton and there was a thin layer of nothing and yet something separating you from everyone and everything. Like you weren’t quite there. So suddenly coming alive with no warning and having all of his sensory input come flooding back for the first time in 5 years has him on the verge of a panic attack when Dr. Strange grabs him by the shoulder and tells him they need to go now, that the big fight is underway and they can’t be late or they lose for real this time. So he stumbles through a portal with the guardians and arrive in wakonda and then they’re all getting ready to make the big jump together to NY when D.S. takes him aside and is like, "Things will get worse before they get better. Keep in mind, this isn't the end. Not yet." And they go through and endgame happens. tony dies. Thanos and his minions get snapped. the end, right?

No not yet.

The funeral. Meeting Harley. Harley stays in NYC bc while mama and Abbie didn’t get snapped... well he was driving them all to church when he got dusted and he always did take those backroads too fast. When he came back it was in the middle of the road next to a faded white cross in the ditch (do you see what i mean about hurting myself oh goddd). They bond and fall in love and share their grief. And there’s something familiar about Harley. He can’t figure it out but when he really strains his memory he gets glimpses of orange and the impression of dust that doesn’t stick to clothes or hands and the feeling of being trapped like a bug in a jar. After awhile he stops trying to remember.

okay so this is where it gets sketchy. Peter goes back in time to fix everything so that the snap never happened in the first place. Not just to save Tony and Harley’s family that he never got to meet, but to save the entire universe from this grief and depression and lost feeling trying to move forward and figure out how to recover because like harley knows, like wanda knows, like everyone who loved natasha knows, not everyone was brought back by the snap. He would have to go back via magic, otherwise he’d just create a new timeline and abandon all of his people to go live in it and that would be fucked up. So magic. But how? Why wait? idk bud I’m just the author

but anyway he goes with harley’s blessing (or maybe not?? maybe he vanishes not knowing whether or not harley would try and stop him but knowing it would make it so much harder to go through with it if he knew harley disapproved) and promises to make everything right and that brings us to

The Reset:

So obviously this is where he’d fix it right? He’d make sure they won and that Thanos didn’t snap and that he was soundly defeated and you know, incarcerated or whatever (you can tell that’s the boring part for me haha--it’s also been done a million times so like, i feel like it doesn’t need to be fully hashed out, you know? b r o a d s t r o k e s)

Only like...he only met Harley bc he came to Tony’s funeral and they were the only two people their age there and there was that weird magnetic familiarity that they both felt and later deduced was because they knew each other somehow someway while they were in the soul stone (although no one has full memories of being in that place). With Tony alive and well and expecting baby Morgan, there’s no reason for Harley to come to new york and no reason for him to even know his name. He misses him.

But then Harley does comes to new york like he always planned once abbie graduated high school. He bullies tony into getting him an internship position while he attends nyu, same as peter. Peter's a mess "meeting" the boy he's in love with for the “first time”. To Harley, he's a stranger Peter's seen him at his darkest and lowest point. A point that he stopped from happening so thoroughly that, not only does Harley not know the first thing about Peter, he’s never even experienced his own darkest and lowest point. This Harley is different from the Harley he left behind. They don’t share the same hurts. They don’t have the same bond. It hurts it hurts it hurts so badly to be around him and have to constantly stay on guard, careful to keep track of what this Harley knows Peter knows about him. It hurts that he has so utterly lost the love of his life and his most trusted confidant.

This is the other part that hurts me. Idk how to make it a happy ending. Idk how to get them both on the same page again. I don’t think I can unless I pull some magic mumbo jumbo and let Harley dream walk Peter’s memories. Which would be COOL but again idk how to make it happen.

SO ANYWAY this is absolutely not what you wanted but here it is anyway. Sorry I love you I hope you have a good day after you wake and read this monstrosity 😬✌✨💛💖😘

[screamting]

I knew i had a good follower base.

Okay so, I did actually write some trans!bruce fic here when I was Real Upset last year and it has a lot of these ideas in it but I'm gonna go through them individually here all the same so it's not necessary reading

The Problems

There are a couple to list out before we talk about how trans!bruce fixes them.

1. Bruce's chronic paranoia and stubbornness surrounding it, and how no one accepts He's Just Kinda Like That You Just Need To Ask Specific Questions.

Like..... I make a lot of PTSD jokes and mental illness ones, but there are constant plot points about how characters feel they know bruce so well that they get BETRAYED when they think he's hiding something from them is.... Weird considering how often that's happened. And yet they still always feel like they're the ones who would know? Or how often Bruce DOES in fact keep quiet about plans, even with people he's obviously trusted and lived with a long time. No matter what, there's always a feeling of mistrust, pretty much just to create some amount of tension or be like "well Batman DID solve this in act one but didnt tell you."

2. The wildly different treatment each robin gets, especially Stephanie, whose short run made it look Kinda Sexist even if that wasnt the intent.

3. I don't actually consider his secret identity keeping secret an issue but Some People Do So Here It Is

that comes to the big one....

The problem with damian wayne.... Is damian wayne. Someone talking about this thread elsewhere expanded that "there is no problem Damian solves which he hasn't also caused." Not in a tony stark way, thankfully, but in a character sense.

We know that doylist wise (our understanding of how irl wrote the work) that Dick Grayson/Robin was introduced to cater more to kids. As his popularity grew on the Titans and people wanted him to be able to grow up, Jason Todd was created so that Dick could go off as an adult but Batman still got a very peppy robin companion. One writer didn't lile Jason Todd much and got him killed off after a couple "hm maybe hes a bad kid" issues. Batman spirals into a depression the writers can't pull him out of, so they introduce Tim Drake as a replacement who argues his way into being robin to fix the status quo and again have a character for kids to relate to. Stephanie comes in as a one-story character who is brought back to popular demand, and knowing that she's supposed to die at the end of the arc the writer decides she should be able to be robin for a while. As a treat. I have no idea why cass was brought in but that's ok bc she doesnt have to change at all for this shes gold. And Damian is introduced for???? Idk drama.

Which is sort of the issue. Like. All the other characters come in one after another to support or tack onto where someone else was (besides cass, who has escaped relatively unscathed and can travel between groups without changing dynamic otl) .

The common fan interpretation of these events (which are somewhat incorperated into canon sometimes) are: Bruce doing his thing and finds a kindred spirit (dick) who makes him happier. Dick goes off to do his own thing after a fight and bruce is extremely lonely and meets Jason. Jason dies and Tim breaks into Bruce's house until Bruce stops throwing him out; sometimes he brings Nightwing over too. Tim meets steph, who jumps in as robin while Tim is in boarding school, then dies. Cass is just doing her own thing. And then Damian shows up one day out of the blue and demands Changes be made.

Now obviously Cass and Damian have something similar here: they both come out of left field and need to solve an issue.

The difference is that Cass's issue is that she was raised by an assassin father, admires batman, and needs help. She gets a plotline from there and eventually gets adopted and goes off to do things.

Damian shows up, and his problem is that he's the son of Batman so he's destined to become Batman.

....you see the issue. Damian's mere existance 'causes' the problem. The issue is he's going to be Batman. But we have a Batman. We have two batsmen. So obviously he should be a robin instead and that boots Tim out of the role, and the issue is that Damian exists and cannot grow out of Robin until hes batman but bruce will never die and dami will never be "good enough" to be Batman and so the only source of tension is the methods for dealing with crime and so it's like a constant argument between Bruce and Jason except now Bruce can send Jason to his room and jason uses swords inst oh wait huh

(note: do NOT hold swords this way.)

...so yeah. Damian.... Doesnt offer any solutions. He doesnt prop up the next arc. He's just... There to exist as the next batman who will never come, and be trapped as a very difficult preteen until the end of rebooted time.

How Trans Bruce Fixes Things.

Going a little out of order since they do blend together some:

1. It makes a lot more sense for people who are considered close to feel like you’re willing to constantly hide things from them if you’re in the closet, technically hiding things from them.

Now, to be clear, I do feel a little bit weird using ‘hiding’ or ‘lying’ in the same sentence as ‘staying in the closet’, because being closeted isn’t a negative thing. But neither is lying or hiding something when you’re feeling unsafe. So please think of it in that light, and not in a Ready Player One “it’s okay i forgive you for not telling me details of your life that other people might hurt you for” way.

Now, obviously, this does hinge on.... you know.... being closeted and trans. So the kid Martha and Thomas left behind was presumed female (from here on referred to as “Ms Wayne” ) and obviously young ten year old bruce wasn’t able to tell his parents any feelings he may or may not have been having about gender at that age. So his parents’ deaths haunt him also because it’s hard to know what they would’ve thought of it, personally. Publicly, he’s perscieve do as the last heiress of the Wayne corporation, not really expected to get too involved in it, etc.

It also makes it very hard to connect him to Batman because no one would think “Ms. Wayne” would be Batman, because, like. Assumptions. Any league people who may potentially know think it’s just a very clever ruse.

But it also it makes things weird for his friends who like. KNOW where he lives, and his birth name, and that he’s literally batman, and yet for SOME REASON their ‘he is lying’ senses start pinging off the hook at random innocuous things like “ah yes this is my name” and “well yes as a representative lesbian” and “yes i support trans people” (a WEIRD AND UNFORTUNATE thing to feel the ‘is this a lie?’ Ping about) . Like. Things that they are PRETTY SURE ARE TRUE and yet..... something about his heart rate or w/e feels off about it. Which isn’t... ILLEGAL or anything, but.... for people who every other time that sense has pinged it’s been right, it is a weird subtle strain on an otherwise trusting relationship.

2. I definitely made this one more clear in the fic bc i had more room but I’ll try to summarize like.... each different Robin has a different reaction to the “Batman’s a woman” thing. Dick is pretty chill about it. He knows about playing a character and takes it very very seriously when Batman’s in costume to use he/him pronouns. Jason..... has MOTHER ISSUES........ you think his dad issues are bad, wait until he thinks he has THREE MOMS. Tim things it’s very strategic and v clever how batman ‘disguised his identity’ by pretending to be the ‘opposite gender’ and accidentally makes just a bunch of microaggressions even though Bruce loves him and is doing his best but Tim really does just. Bull rush right the hell into their lives and doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.

Cassandra is the same. She sees movement. She get it. Bruce fucking loves that he doesn’t a) have to explain anything to her and b) she doesn’t say anything out loud about it because she doesn’t use pronouns while speaking. They just talk about regular justice stuff lol.

Stephanie.... changes a lot because of this, though. Instead of girl under grizzled old manly man mentor, Steph things she’s under basically mortal Wonder Woman, not a guy who’s been expected to be a girl his whole life. She is instantly a lot more comfortable with Bruce than Bruce is with her (or anyone) and he reacts by being chillier and trying to push her away, even while training her for being Robin. There’s maybe some jealousy that he didn’t have with dick about how comfortable she is in her skin and BEiNG Stephanie, while Bruce has essentially just been repressing harder and harder as the years go by since Jason’s death and now Tim being distanced. It still turns out badly.

And then there is Damian.

As said above, Damian is the problem Damian solves. There’s no issue in the narrative that Damian’s existence fixes, except for the ones his existence caused.

But if Bruce is trans and biologically has ovaries and shit, that’s a very different hen house, especially in regards to Ra’s al Ghul.

Ra’s is. Like. Sexist, guys. Ra’s is super sexist.

[transcript: born into the highest echelon of the ancient and patriarchal league of assassins, Talia could have had all the power in the world if not for the unfortunate happenstance of being born a girl. For most of her life, Talia was led to believe that the only way to secure the power lost to her by birth was to find a suitable male partner, and to produce a con. But having accomplished both romance with her perfect man and the birth of a perfect heir, Talia was still found wanting. End.]

This does not change with Bruce, partly because Bruce ain’t come out to HIM of all people??? But also because I’m pretty sure that even if Ra’s was Muslim [/doubt] [/he worships himself as a god if anything] he still wouldn’t be super down with the trans stuff, and so bruce is......... just another random ninja who was super good and then fuckin Ditched.

I like to pretend he and Tals knew each other a little bit while he was training (unlikely, but I LIKE it, though) and from there, you get........ ✨ the clone shit.

So Damian is a splice between Bruce and Tals still. But of course, Ra’s found out Talia was Doing Genetic Stuff and was like “make that a boy” and probably multilated one of the X chromosomes to make it a Y (this is not how it works) and if anything, Talia sends Damian to her old friend Ms Wayne to PROTECT her beloved son and keep him further from anymore of Ra’s doing weird shit, because now he’s definitely gotten the idea he could probably clone an heir instead. And if you REALLY want Heretic, that’s........ how you can get heretic and rationalize Talia hating him and stuff.

But now there’s an issue that Damian is introduced with. We still dont know exactly what makes someone trans, and I’m fine to put those questions on hold until we chill out some of the eugenicists and stuff, but I’m fairly sure that this does put Damian squarely in the ‘intersex’ category, and therefore someone who has gender/sex shit to work out, who is directly Bruce’s responsibility, who cannot be sent home to ask, or go ask superman, or anything.

Damian is still an assassin. Damian still grew up as a (bad) ninja. Admires his grandfather’s great foe Batman. Totally believes the patriarchy.

....but now instead of just things to argue about, Bruce and Damian have something to talk about that Bruce has never spoken with anyone about before. Because. You know he is not talking about anything until someone is either a) dying or b) otherwise being harmed. So this sets up something very specific for them to work on that Bruce needs to work on, and that Damian can also be helped by. It’s not Cass Cain deprogramming herself and looking for help, it’s a kid who doesn’t realize how much he’s hurting or struggling with identity and the way he was raised, now with something more inherent to him to feel the pain with.

Because, like... look. You can learn to empathize. You can learn that life has value. You don’t need to suffer to figure those things out, you just kind of need to have some amount of skin in the game, enough that things start to matter to you. When Dami bonds to Dick, his skin in the game is Dick’s opinion of him. Which works, but it does end up feeling a little bit forced and shallow since they never let him evolve much past that.

Like. Dick and Cass agree w Bruce that all life has value and you should struggle for correction over punishment. Jason thinks that accidentally getting a few extra people caught up in things justifies the ends. Tim is just straight up okay with killing people, but doesn’t do it out of respect for Batman’s wishes. Damian is just sort of..... like that, but with Dick, instead.

(I have no idea what Steph and Duke’s stances on the matter are. I don’t know enough about Duke to talk about him in this.)

Again, that’s sort of just... Damian repeating a niche previously filled by a different character and trying to act them all out at once while still being ‘Batman’s son’ and stuff. Gleason’s story tried to pull him out of that, but he’s apparently been put right back in the loop since then.

If you add in Bruce and Damian having a shared secret, then it bonds them. It gives Bruce something to mentorship Damian on other than patience (lmao), and it gives Damian a very strong reason to not go back to Ra’s—and a more complicated relationship between him and his mother, as he has to continue to pretend to be with Ms Wayne while also knowing that Batman/Bruce is a valuable secret.... that only he has been told. He’s been entrusted with this, his other mother’s legacy, now his father’s, and Batman.

It gives him something to learn. And to grow into. Not something he’s been bred for at birth, that writing will never let him escape, in an eternal Robin loop as writers try to add other characters in on the side, because they cannot write him out of this corner he’s been born into.

........................so is now a good time to talk about how Bruce Wayne being a trans man would fix a lot of the narrative issues with the batfam