#IWCTW (time travel)

[msfcatlover]

(Theoretical possible endgame)

“And how, exactly, did you all make it back here?” Bruce asks his children (children, not even all of them according to the Robins—Robins, that’s another thing that Bruce is going to blame his oncoming headache on. What were any of his future selves thinking?)

“A blood ritual,” Dick answers confidently.

“Alien cube,” Jason says at the same time, shrugging.

“Techno-magical chemical reaction,” Timothy says, raising his voice to be heard over the others.

“Iseki bullshit,” Stephanie & Damian say in perfect unison (as though that’s supposed to explain anything,) before turning to stare at eachother—also in perfect unison—with identical looks of shock. 

(Damian’s face splits into a wide smile as he holds out one hand. Stephanie glances at it, her lips pressed into a thin line, before passing Damian a quick low-five. They both flip their hands back up in fists to rap their knuckles against eachother.

“Hell yeah,” Damian whispers, his smile somehow even brighter than before. Stephanie’s mouth twitches and she gives Damian another tap.)

“…Of course,” Bruce says in the flat tone that only Dick should know means Bruce is utterly lost & out of his depth, but which has five mischievous sets of eyes sparkling at him.

[msfcatlover]

I just imagined what happens when my time traveling Robins realize they might all have been sent back, and are like, “OH SHIT, DAMIAN!”

(Cut to: The League of Assassins, actively on fire & at war with itself, less than one third of the forces it had remaining.)

Steph: *whistles*

Jason: “Damn. I’m impressed.”

Tim: “This saves me so much time & effort, honestly, you guys have no idea how stressed I was about having to take down two deeply ingrained, centuries old murder cults in a little over 10yrs.”

Dick: “DAMIAN!”

[msfcatlover]

Funny Time Travel thought:

Jason Todd, currently crashing at Drake Manor in order to keep an eye on his idiot younger brother who apparently goes around adopting random street kids (God, they really are all just like Bruce, aren’t they?) searching Jack Drake’s bedside table for the gun Jason’s sure Tim mentioned at some point in the future, because Jason’s not going to risk losing anyone he cares about just because Jason didn’t have all possible tools/options to hand: 

Tim Drake, walking out of his mother’s closet after finding her Owl mask, confirming what Tim had always hoped was just Bruce’s paranoia rubbing off on Tim, trying not to think about how Janet Drake was part of the group that schemed to strip Dick’s humanity away from Dick, or to think about Dick begging for death even with a blade to Tim’s throat, or the look on Jason’s face after he pulled the trigger:

[msfcatlover]

Fandom: Batfam

Complete oneshot, 1.5k

Rating: T (No Warnings Apply)

Category: Gen (no ships)

Relationships: None (Tim's all aloooone...)

Major Tags: Time Travel Fix-It, Past Character Death, Body Dysmorphia, hyperventilation (brief/non-graphic), vaguely alluded to suicide, (very vaguely), Tim Drake is Not Okay, (don't let his talented not-thinking-about-it skills fool you), Ambiguous/Open Ending

Tim wakes up choking on smoke. The first breath is a relief so powerful, it shocks him.

[msfcatlover]

IWCTW ramble

A commenter mentioned every Robin trying to warn Barbara about the Joker. And it’s thrown me into a complete disarray because… it makes so much sense, but completely cuts out so many plot lines I wanted to do.

Because it would be Jason.

Tim is too independent & wants to keep everyone else off the radar of, y’know, the cult he’s trying to join. Steph’s already made her attempt (leaving a voicemail) and doesn’t really know the details of what happened. Damian’s on the other side of the planet with no access to communication devices. Dick knows the exact timeline for what happened and knows he has a little more than a year before Barbara gets shot, so to avoid it it’s best to monitor the situation closely & try to stick to the original timeline as much as possible so that his info stays trustworthy.

But Jason… Jason would. Jason’s memories of this timeframe are a little hazy still, and he’s never going to let the Joker hurt his family if there’s a chance to prevent it. Jason doesn’t have anyone to hold him accountable right now. Jason can’t afford to waste what little money he has on a pay phone. Jason would just track Babs to her school and wait outside to give her the warning in person. With as much detail as he can give to make her take it seriously.

And Barbara Gordon is not going to look at a street kid with haunted eyes telling her he knows all about her being Batgirl & giving an in-depth breakdown of what the Joker is apparently planning to do to her… and not insert herself directly into that kid’s life to find out wtf is going on & whether/how she can help Jason out.

But then Dick is just one conversation with Babs away from finding out about Jason. Jason probably wouldn’t move in with Tim, because he’d already be crashing with Babs—and even if Jason was already staying with Tim (which he wouldn’t be, because Tim’s not going to go looking for Jason for at least a month & Jason would be approaching Babs about this in a matter of days probably) well that just draws Barbara’s attention to the Drakes, which means she’ll figure out about the Court of Owls subplot. And once Jason finds out what Tim’s doing, they were always going to have a big fight about it (which is how they realize they’re both from the future) but now it’ll be in a less time-sensitive situation and with Babs there to get Dick on speed dial to ask if he’s been acting weird because of the future thing. At which point you have a pattern, time to track Steph down to see if it holds.

And I’ll have to throw out Damian’s entire “joining the Superfam” plot, because Jason would not have a conversation with Barbara “The Woman Who Would Be Oracle”/“Current Active Superhero” Gordon and not find some way to let her know Damian probably needs rescuing.

It makes sense for Jason to reach out to Barbara. It doesn’t make sense for Babs not to get involved the moment she realizes there’s a kid in some sort of trouble, especially if she knows that kid knows her secret identity. But Babs is too smart & too nosy not to pull this whole thing apart in a matter of weeks once she does get involved.

I don’t know what to do with this realization.

[msfcatlover]

Fandom: Batfam

Series: "If Worst Comes to Worst"

Complete oneshot, 1.8k

Rating: T (No Warnings Apply)

Category: Gen (no ships)

Relationships: None (Though Steph's past relationships are alluded to.)

Major Tags: Time Travel Fix-It, Hurt No Comfort, Past Character Death, Panic Attacks, Self-Harm as a grounding technique, Stephanie Brown is Not Okay, Open/Ambiguous Ending

Once Steph has her feet under her, she takes the first steps towards fixing the future. And you know what they say: Two steps forward... one giant leap back.

[msfcatlover]

IWCTW!Damian having to relearn how to suppress his stims, because his grandfather doesn’t like it, after nearly 20yrs of learning how to feel comfortable with expressing himself. 

(Clark catching Damian stimming, only for Damian to immediately try to bluff his way out of it, because it’s been months back with the League and Damian’s relearned that stimming is dangerous. Clark starts showing up with potential stim-toys, being super-casual and even framing some of them as requests. Like, “I’ve been thinking about giving something like this to my son, can you test it and make sure it both works and is safe please? Oh no, you can keep that one. I’ll get Jon another.”)

[msfcatlover]

*slams hands on the table in sudden realization*

STAR SAPPHIRE DAMIAN WAYNE

[msfcatlover]

….Damian in the time travel fic needing to pick a new surname. He won’t be so presumptuous as to claim Kent. Wayne or Grayson is an obvious giveaway to his ties to his family, and he’s a little unclear on the timeline, so it’s probably best to avoid Todd as well. Drake or some variant of it should be clear, but Tim died before the war even started, so Tim just… doesn’t feel as close thanks to the march of time. 

Damian rubs his arms against the cold, stares blankly into the middle distance, and says, “Brown.”

The best woman I’ve ever known.

[msfcatlover]

Damian getting a Violet Lantern ring and being like, “…I can work with this.”

Clark finding out and thinking it’s absolutely hilarious that one of Earth’s representatives to the universe is a baby. (Clark not knowing whether to be proud that Damian is so full of love despite everything he’s been through, relieved because—even if there’s nowhere safe on Earth from the League of Assassins—Damian is officially not limited to Earth in his options anymore, or horrified that the little boy he took in just got dragged onto the front lines of the hero scene whether they like it or not.) (Will the Sapphires let Clark go along on Damian’s missions? As a chaperone, like a school field trip? That seems reasonable, right? Can Clark justify leaving Earth for that? Yes. Yes he can. Easily.)

Clark saying he can’t wait to tell the Justice League, and Damian just. Stops. Goes very still.

“Yes, I suppose we have to, don’t we?” Damian says, in the resigned tone that means he’s really hoping Clark will say no.

“They’ll love you,” Clark tries to reassure him, “The biggest concern is that Batman might try to adopt you away from me.”

Damian wants to laugh, but he’s worried it might come out hysterical. “Does he have a pattern of doing that?”

“He’s been on a kick lately,” Clark says, fondly exasperated.

(Clark manages to maintain formality in Damian’s introduction, giving a whole speech about Earth’s newest Lantern and being welcoming, yada yada. He’s really looking forwards to everyone’s faces at the end of it, when Damian steps into view and barely reaches Clark’s hip.)

(And it is very funny.)

(Except instead of looking delighted by Clark’s prank, all the color drains out of Nightwing’s face. Under the cacophony of heroes yelling at Superman for pulling this on them, nobody notices Dick silently mouthing, “Dami?”)

[msfcatlover]

Me: *looks at my time traveling Robins* 

Me: “…But what if I hit literally any of them with fear toxin?”

[msfcatlover]

Realizing every one of my time traveling Robins has one of the others rendered completely unrecognizable to them by the change:

Steph lived through a Jokerized future, and stopped smiling & laughing as a result (half out of survival, because everyone learned to look on it with suspicion; half out of trauma, because the sensory experience of doing so became associated with her worst memories.) Jason, Tim, & Dick all saw their Stephs become more grim as time went on, but Damian’s Steph actively worked to maintain her light & humor for his sake as much as anything else. Damian cannot conceive of a Steph who doesn’t laugh in the face of every hardship.

Damian takes nearly 30yrs of experience (nearly a decade of it a seemingly endless war) back to his 5yr body & brain chemistry. Steph & Tim saw Damian worn down by war, while Tim & Jason saw Damian destroyed by guilt & loss. But for Dick, Damian is both younger & older than Dick ever got to see him; younger, brighter, more tired, & more worn simultaneously. Dick feels so lost trying to find the boy he helped raise between the true changes & the lies Damian sticks to to protect them.

Dick watched his entire family slip through his fingers like water, accident after seeming accident claiming them one after another. Damian, Steph, & Jason have all dealt with Dick’s near-manic, grief-driven protectiveness before, all know how to recognize the way Dick’s communication skills start to shut down even as he clings hard enough to leave bruises on anyone he loves. The closest Tim has come is the fallout from Bruce’s fake death, when his own grief & coping mechanisms crashed headlong into Dick’s in the worst possible way. The way Dick hovers nearby with a nearly-perfect smile & haunted eyes, the way Dick fusses & triple-checks every chance he gets that his family is okay, the seeming lack of trust in how often Dick needs to see for himself rather than just take their word for it… It makes Tim’s skin crawl, and he doesn’t know what to do about it.

Tim hasn’t changed so much himself—not that far off in age from Jason’s timeline, trauma not too different from what Tim dealt with in that timeline (just more of it)—but Jason never really got the chance to get to know Tim in the first place; from Jason’s return to Tim’s death were the two worst, roughest years of Tim’s life, and Tim was either out of Gotham or avoiding Jason for more than half of it. Getting to know the absolutely insane, wild, creative, brilliant, idiotic badass that is his little brother is a roller coaster Jason is in no way prepared for.

...Which I guess leaves Steph unable to recognize Jason. I’m still puzzling out Steph’s future, so I’m not entirely sure how that works yet. (I can see how being surrounded by Joker-zombies could seriously impact Jason, obviously, but part of my point here is that they’re not just unrecognizable as the version that other Robin lost, but that they also aren’t recognizable as the person that Robin knew before their timeline went completely off the rails. It’s not, “Oh look, it’s my sibling before everything went horrible! Gosh, I almost forgot what they were like back then.” It’s “Who are you, and what have you done with my sibling?”) Still, I like this motif, so if I can find a way to make this work then I’m sticking with it.

[msfcatlover]

*lays on my back & stares at the ceiling thinking about Damian & Steph’s reunion in IWCTW. Because for Damian the last thing she did was tell was tell a joke to make light of things before being lead away to die in his place. But because Steph lived through a Jokerified apocalypse, she now has a completely flat affect and never laughs or smiles; she can’t express herself in the ways Damian looks to her for reassurance anymore*

[msfcatlover]

I'm spit between frosying at the mouth and sobing over your "If Worst Comes To Worse" time travel au. Some incredibly galaxy brained ideas. Is Bruce affected by any of this? I feel like if, and thats a BIG if, he notices anything "off", any further investigation would just send him tumbling down multiple sortaconnected rabbit holes of confusion. (Maybe the universe let him sit this one out. He's gonna be upset enough learning about his children's deaths in other timelines)

Listen. Every single Robin knows the secret Robin motto: “What Bruce doesn’t know, Bruce can’t make more problems out of.”

(Bruce does notice Dick being weird—hard not to, when they went from not speaking at all, to one very pleasant family dinner, to Dick picking a fight, to “I’m moving back to Gotham for a little while for a case. Stay out of it, stay out of my business, this was a courtesy call.”—and once Bruce finishes with his, “Was it me??? Did I do something???” moping, he’ll be engaging detective mode.)

…Let’s just say, Tim “I Can Fix It By Joining A Supervillain Cult” Drake is not the only one who might have Batman as an antagonist for a little while.

[msfcatlover]

More time travel musings

Steph & Dick reunite properly first. By which I mean, they realize they’re both from the future within a few minutes of meeting back up and that it’s different futures right around the same time (hard not to when Steph’s so very, very different now from how Dick ever knew her.) 

Dick by that point has his own apartment in Gotham (to aide his “Jason is missing, oh gods, search the whole city!” efforts, and his “don’t let Bruce realize I’m different to avoid being locked up, tested, and lectured about responsible time travel (like he’s one to talk)” ones.) Finally having someplace else to go, Steph strong-arms her mother into going to rehab and moves in with Dick.

The fold-out couch is a queen size and Steph insists on taking it. They still both end up in Dick’s bed most nights, because waking up alone in the dark leaves the last few months feeling so surreal compared to their memories that they need to go check that the other one is there. Steph’s too hypervigilant not to wake up when anyone (even another Bat) enters her space and Dick always feels bad for waking her up, so they both get hot chocolate, Steph walks Dick back to his room (so he doesn’t walk straight into a wall,) and stays to ease his anxiety. Dick wakes up when Steph moves to the side of the bed to check his breathing, but has so much experience soothing his siblings after bad dreams that he just lifts the blanket up on autopilot, allowing Steph to crawl in and feel him alive & well right next to her.

(Dick asks if it was a nightmare or a memory. Steph is silent for a very long moment, before wrapping her arms around him and whispering, “They shot you.” She does not elaborate. He does not ask her to.)

(When Dick wakes Steph up after that, she asks the same thing. Sometimes he’ll talk about it. Sometimes he won’t.)

[msfcatlover]

You’re all going to be seeing these back to back (thank you queue,) but I wrote the Star Sapphire Damian post last week and have been doing more research on the corps. And honestly, I like it even better now?

First of all, ever since I found out how Lantern rings work (that is, being drawn towards the entities most filled with/fueled by/capable of inspiring the emotion the ring represents,) I’ve been really curious about what happens if someone doesn’t agree with the main philosophy of the corps, but the ring was drawn to them anyway. Because the Green Lantern ring only cares about strength of willpower, but the Green Lantern Corps is a political faction with its own rules, principles, etc. What if someone had one of the strongest wills in the multiverse but when they find out about all the other stuff they’re just like, “Nah. I’m good.”  …I mean, in the case of the Green Lanterns, I’m sure they all team up to take that person down and take back the ring. But literally what is stopping the ring from just flying back to that person? Or one of the other rings just flying about? And some of the other corps seem to place a much higher value on their core emotion than the rules they have in place, so would they let that person keep a ring that had decided that person was worthy even if that person wouldn’t follow their rules? (I am 100% certain this has been addressed in the comics at some point, but I don’t know where to even start to look for it.)

What I’m saying is: Damian doesn’t have to agree with the Star Sapphires’ policies as an organization to get the powers. Which is good, because Damian definitely would not be down for the whole brainwash-recruitment strategy. But he is still full of love & loss, he’s still driven by it, he’s still willing to make huge sacrifices for the sake of those he loves (case in point: as far as Damian’s concerned, none of his family even know he exists at this point in time, and by pursuing such a dramatically different path Damian can never recover even a facsimile of those relationships—the context is just too different, there’s no way they’ll ever see/treat him the same way they did before.) (Which is just some delicious dramatic irony. Especially because I get to reward Damian with people who did live through many of those things with him, and who care about him & understand him the very way he thought he was giving up forever. Much more damaged, scarred, and emotionally shredded versions of those people, but those people all the same. Who will be just as happy to see Damian as he is to see them, because each & every one of them lost him before and probably thought they had again when they found out the League was burning & Damian was fully MIA.)

BACK ON TOPIC! Damian is filled with love & loss, and could absolutely draw in a Violet Lantern ring. And the Sapphires seem to be one of those corps who care more about the purity & power of the emotion felt rather than the rules they follow, so there is a solid argument for them letting him keep it. And it would give Damian the equipment to personally stop the invasion, because he could force the generic Evil Alien Overlord to experience all the pain they made Damian go through. Not in a brainwashy way, but more in a, “Let me help you make a more informed decision by showing you what you actually do to people in your quest for conquest. Let’s see if you still want to pursue the same path after witnessing the other side,” sort of way. (Is that more of a compassion thing? Yeah, but you can’t tell me the Sapphires can force feelings of love into people to bend their wills and not expect me to believe they can make them feel other emotions tied to love, especially when having loved & lost is one of the things the rings prioritize.)

This requires me to make the non-green Lantern corps a much longer-standing thing than they canonically are, but fuck it, that’s a retcon that should’ve been made long ago; it does not make sense for the Green Lanterns to be this centuries-old organization and all the other (supposedly equally powerful & important) emotions only getting rings & corps in the most modern last few years.  Plus, it means Earth’s primary Violet Lantern would be a very, very small child, and I think that’s hilarious. He’s gonna adopt Dex-Starr, and then they’ll both make Hal Jordon look like somehow the least competent Earth representative.