#This is in a universe where the league never knows/meets any of the robins

[turtleshelf]

Fun fic prompt that has been plauging me for like a month that I will either end up writing or will fizzle out:

Contrary to popular belief, Superman and Wonder Woman weren't the first JL members to learn Batman's secret identity... it wasn’t even Martin Manhunter. To the shock of everyone who learns this, and they themselves when it happened, it was Flash and Green Arrow.

It went like this: Dick wanted friends. Really he needed a support system that knew him in and out of the mask. Because Bruce and Alfred? They're great, but there are just some things a pre teen/young teen wants to talk to kids his own age about. And sure he has friends at school, but there's a disproportionately large portion of his life that he has to keep hidden that makes it hard for him to get close with people who don't know.

So it's takes some comments from Dick about how cool he thinks Kid Flash and Speedy are, and probably some needling from Alfred too, but for the sake of his sons general well-being and development Bruce calls Barry and Oliver to the Cave one day and drops the bombshell that is his secret identity on them.

This leads to some funny situations as Regular Guy Barry Allen starts being seen hanging out with two billionaires he has no reason at all to know. Bruce lightens up on the two just a little bit in the League, and is generally more friendly towards them. Flash and Green Arrow start to get much better at different fighting styles and stealth that they have never used previously.

It drives the rest of the JL crazy trying to subtly figure out what is happening.

[thewanderingconstellation]

Dimensional traveling Prince!Danny Fenton & Obsessed but still somewhat sane and logical! Damian Wayne

Just a random DeadSerious prompt I thought of at like 2am :>

Clockwork stumbled upon a peculiar universe where a group of humans had been engaging in bizarre activities. Recognizing the need for investigation, Clockwork assigned the newly announced Prince Phantom, a 14-year-old named Danny Fenton, to venture into this realm. It was a training opportunity for Danny, preparing him for his future role as King. Through a portal, Danny found himself suspended above the Lazarus pit, with Ra's al Ghul standing below him. Fortunately, Danny was dressed in his regal attire, which inexplicably aged him to 18 years old, sparing him from too much embarrassment. Ra's began questioning him, leading to a discussion about the potential dangers of the pit.

During his stay, Danny crossed paths with Damian, who was in the midst of his training. The 8-year-old assassin-in-training wasted no time in challenging Danny to a duel. As expected, Danny emerged victorious, leaving a lasting impact on Damian. Danny revealed that he too was an heir to a throne, possessing strength, power, and a tolerable personality, as Damian had previously remarked. These qualities managed to thaw Damian's cold and unyielding heart, finding a special place within it. From that moment on, Damian began courting Danny using the rituals he had learned from secret books in the league's library. He showered Danny with small gifts, heartfelt letters, acts of service, and even presented him with his second favorite knife.

In the meantime, Danny had been well aware of the situation right from the beginning, and he wasted no time in creating distance between himself and the child. Forget about it! Sure, he might be clueless at times, but he's not foolish! When a child hands you a thornless Rose and affectionately calls you 'Habibi', 'Rohi', 'Hayati', 'Albi', and/or 'Ya Amar'—even though he may not fully understand the meanings behind those words, he definitely knows what 'Habibi' means—you can't help but have doubts, you know?! So Danny tried his best to keep the kid at arm's length, not wanting to give him false hope. After all, the kid was only 8 years old for crying out loud! But you have to give it to the kid, he was incredibly stubborn and persistent.

As time went on, two whole months flew by, and Clockwork finally informed Danny that there was no longer any need for him to investigate or keep an eye on the pit. When Danny asked for an explanation, the old man, true to his cryptic nature, simply delivered a mysterious message and left, much to Danny's annoyance. All he could do was leave a letter of explanation for Damian. Damian's heart shattered into a million pieces when he read the letter, realizing that he would never be able to see or even meet Danny again, as they belonged to different dimensions.

Time flew by and it was finally the moment to reveal his secret identity to his parents as Phantom. Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned and he ended up being captured by the GIW, strapped to a surgical table for three days. After escaping, he made a quick exit from home, promising his friends and sisters that he would keep in touch. Clockwork then whisked Danny away to another dimension, sensing that he needed a change of scenery. Dropping him off in a crime-ridden city with just a backpack of essentials, including a dagger from Damian. As he transformed back to his human form in Gotham, he pondered his next move. Suddenly, a young vigilante? Hero? appeared and whisked him away through the city with a grappling hook. Just when he thought things couldn't get any worse!

Damian, now taking on the role of the vigilante Robin, was out patrolling alone. His father wanted him to gain more experience on his own. As he made his way through the city, he noticed a faint but distinct bright light coming from one of the nearby alleys. Curiosity piqued, he decided to investigate.

To his surprise, he saw his beloved from years ago emerging from a strange green portal. Gone was the royal attire Damian was accustomed to seeing him in. Instead, he was clad in a black and white HAZMAT suit, with a symbol in the center. And astonishingly, he even held the second favorite knife that Damian had given him all those years ago.

In a matter of seconds, his beloved transformed into what Damian believed to be a Wayne adoption bait. Without hesitation, he sprinted towards them, landing in front of them and carefully assessing the situation. In one swift motion, he slung his beloved over his shoulder and shot his grappling hook, swiftly taking off with them.

Damian wasn't sure what he would do next, but one thing was certain - he would never let his beloved out of his sight again. He had lost him once, and he refused to lose him again. His possessiveness over the things and people he considered his had grown stronger.

Perhaps he would find a way for them to sign marriage papers, or at least become engaged, despite their young age. Of course, it would only happen if his beloved, Danny, agreed to it. Consent and trust were crucial in any relationship, after all. If Danny disagreed, Damian would resort to the courting rituals his mother had taught him. The conventional methods from books hadn't worked, so he would try his mother's unique approach. Granted, he was technically kidnapping him, but it was only a few steps ahead. Damian was determined to win his beloved's heart, no matter what it took.

[vigil-antes]

Do you like have any good comics recommendations or anything to do with the bat fam, I don't have many DC friends so idk where to start

hiii omg ive been WAITING for this. you didnt give me any kind of parameters for what kind of fics you want so im going to list some of those i like most. its going to be a long one so buckle up:

My DC Fic Best Pics:

Short & Sweet (Oneshots/Less than 10k words)

Send to All: Crack, the bats have a sex pollen release form

glucose guardian: Funny, Tim being the caped community's accidental sugar daddy

A Brief Interview: Sweet, Damian & Tim Ageswap

curiosity and the cat: Cute, Timbern Catlad AU

Dead Meme: Crack, Jason centric, Jason keeps referencing dead memes

Have I Told You About Minnie?: Sweet, Bruce&Steph

Multi Media Marketing Mistakes: Crack, Social Media AU

an inappropriate explosion: Funny, Superman calls Batman to reel in his unruly son (Red Hood)

though your eyes will need some time to adjust: so sweet GAH, Bruce&Steph

Girl what were YOU doing at the devil's sacrament?: Funny, Timbern after the disaster with the chaos cult

Tim Drake: Bisexual Awakener Extraordinaire: Funny, YJ experiencing the mandated Robin-Induced sexuality crisis

Brotherhood: Tim&Damian, Damian Time travels right into Jason's attack on Titans Tower

Priceless: Crack, Nightwing&The Bats messing with Bane

User SuperRob: TImBerKon. Need I say more?

The Mystery of the Superboy Shirts: TimKon, Tim keeps stealing Kon's SB Shirts

Thicker Than Water: Funny, Batbros slice of life-ish

Big Bird, Commence Attack!: Crack, Jason's revenge plan involves dressing up as Big Bird

World’s Saddest Breakfast Club: Sweet, Batkids Bonding

red chrome: Funny, Tim's health is concerning enough to stop Jason from attacking him in Titans Tower

Hot Dog, French Fries: Tim&Damian, Damian gets dosed with truth serum

#SoftRobin: Funny. Damian-centric Social Media AU

Hurry Up Don't Take So Long: Sweet, DamiJon through the years

Paris vs Gotham: Crack, Social Media AU Ladybug crossover (no ships)

Can I tempt you?: TimKon, Light angst, Sweet

Bedtime Stories (15-50k Words)

Baby Birds and Bat Caves: SO funny, genuinely one of the best fics ive read, Tim-Centric, Meta(?)/Cryptid Tim, inspired by Welcome to Nightvale

Gotham Knockoff: Tim-Centric, Alley Kid Tim pretends to be the Drakes' kid to get closer to the Bats

In This or Any Other Universe: Nightwing ends up in the The Batman (2022) Universe

Dangerous and Noble Things: Kid Tim gets kidnapped by the League of Shadows. No one realizes until, four years later, the Bats notices something wrong

In this Town We Call Home: Kid Tim attracts Batman's attention to get adopted

With Violet Light: Jason finds a ring of power and becomes a Star Sapphire

Little Birds’ Wings: Jason&Other Batkids, Jason comes back from the League to a drastically different Gotham

the pact of our youth: Reverse Robins Au, TimBerKon after Tim dies (and comes back different)

Pretty Boys and Identity Problems: Sweet, TimKon, To get away from his crush on Robin, Superboy gets entangled with Gotham pretty boy Tim Drake

let's get mischievous: TimBern, during the chaos cult ritual, Bernard gets possessed by Dyonisus

It Wouldn't Be Make Believe (If You Believed In Me): DamiJon fake dating AU where they don't know each other and meet while Robin is investigating a case in Metropolis (they're uni aged btw)

I’m Pretty Sure Tim Steals Clothes: An Elaboration In The Form Of A Long Fic: Cute, TimKon, Tim keeps stealing Kon's SB shirts

Into the Deep Dark Night: Tim-centric, Tim&Jason, Tim dies as a kid and loses a bit of his humanity

Alcatraz, But On Hardmode: Sweet, Tim-Centric, A YJ mission goes wrong and Tim has to rely on Jason to get him and his team out.

His Head is Bloody, but Unbowed: Jason-centric AU where he never stole the batmobile tires, but ends up meeting the Bats anyways after he saves Robin

A Good Place: Very soft, Damian&Bruce, Damian time travels to Batman's first year of activity.

Fairy Godbrother: Sweet, The batboys time travel to each others' pasts and help their brothers when they were younger

best laid plans: Tim&Jason, Tim finds Jason after he crawls out of his grave, bt they get goth taken by the league

Mystery Man: Cute, BirdFlash, The bats aren't known to the JL, Different first meeting

One Eternal Round: Super original, Bruce&Robins, My Hero Academia crossover where Aizawa, Midoriya, Kirishima, Todoroki and Bakugo remember their past lives as Gotham vigilantes

A Meditation on Railroading: Tim-Centric, Tim's dad leaves him stranded away from Gotham with no way back. Jason finds him and brings him home

the ship of theseus: Jason-Centric, Percy Jackson crossover, Jason and Percy are secretly twins

Why They Shouldn't Have Social Media: Crack, Social media AU

Cracked Foundation:Soft, Jason&Damian, They get stuck under a collapsed building together

Monolith: Bruce&The Batfamily, The birds aren't known to the JL, The JL meeting each member of the Batfam for the first time

Loading and Aspect Ratio: SO GOOOOOOD, Batfamily, The bats use wing prothesis but everyone think they're metas

Three’s a Crowd (But I’m Here if You Are): Cute, Funny, TimBerKon

A Softer Gotham: Steph&Bruce, Steph-Centric, Steph time travels to a time before Batman, becoming Gotham's first vigilante

greatest of ease: Dick-Centric, POV Outsider, Dick Grayson as seen in the eyes of the people surrounding him

Yesterday's Voices: Bruce&Batkids, Bruce's memory of the past five years gets erased leaving behind a softer man, one who doesn't remember Jason's death

show me yesterday, for i can’t find today: Jason-Centric, Jason&The Batfam, Robin!Jason and Red Hood switch places

Eat Your Heart Out, Social Life (50k+ words)

Vultures, Squirrels, and Other Flying Menaces: So good, AU where instead of becoming Robin, Tim hires Deathstroke to kill Joker, leading to the assassin adopting him and the other Batkids.

I’m alone here, I think: TimKon, Witch Tim, Tim is erased from everyone's memories and leaves Gotham. Kon finds him anyways.

You, Me, and the Humanity in Between: Soft and sweet, Bruce&His kids, Non-Human Batkids

cards on the table: Tim-Centric, Tim&Batfam, Tim's parents fake their death and leave Tim behind. He uses his stalking skills to become a fortuneteller scammer. Against his will, he ends up befriending the Waynes

Roasted: Funny, Cute, Dick-Centric, Talon AU, Dick&Batfam, Recovered Talon Dick opens a coffee shop that ends up becoming Rogue-Vigilante neutral grounds

Code Bat: Batfam, The bats aren't known, they have an emergency code to only be used in emergency case when revealing affiliation is inevitable (idk how to explain but its good trust me)

Minimum Height Requirement: SOFT, Bruce&His kids, Batfam, Batman doesn't let his kids become vigilantes before they turn eighteen

Running Headlong into My Arms: Soft, No Capes AU, even without Batman, Bruce finds his family

Liminal Space: Tim-Centric, Tim&Bruce, Tim&Batfam, Tim ends up in a softer and kinder version of his world

Robins and Other Flightless Birds: Bruce-Centric, Bruce&His kids, A Batman without kids is visited by another version of himself. He finds tha he, too, wants kids.

Laughter Lines: JayRoy, Soft, Jason helps raise Lian, before and after his death

Stars of the Forgotten: Bruce-Centric, Meta!Batkids, Bruce&His kids, on the search for a missing Barbara Gordon, Batman stumbles upon five metahuman kids in need of a home

Latchkey: Sweet, Tim-Centric, Robin!Jason, BatWatch!Tim, The Waynes get concerned with their lonely neighbor, Tim Drake

Ain't No Compass, Ain't No Map: Funny, Tim&Jason, Borderline abandoned Tim Drake gets taken in by Crime Lord Red Hood. CPS tries investigating, with little results

And that's it for today. If you're still here, thank you so much and seriously, some of these are so good, so read them, trust me!

Sorry i took so long to get back to you, i had to organize the mess in my AO3 bookmarks and compiling this took me ages.

Let me know what you all think, and if you ever want more!!!! (Yes i have more. It's a problem)

[fanfic-obsessed]

Rebellion of the bats

Ok, here’s another one that’s going to get a little wacky. As a reminder never look for canon here, for I do not know her. 

We are going to start today's madness with some build up before the main event. It is important to me that you understand that in this one, Tim Drake does not take after Bruce Wayne. Tim Drake takes after Alfred (feral planners, whose truest love and calling is to care for their loved ones, coated in a veneer of respectability). In fact it is Alfred who teaches Bruce how to prepare for any eventuality. 

And the Tim of this universe is prepared for any eventuality. Including having a plan for ‘Jason has come back from the dead, has been lied to, appears to hate the family, and is trying to attack me for taking Robin’.  So Jason attacks Titan’s Tower and is very surprised to find that, instead of beating up Robin, he finds himself being dragged back to that Manor by an excited Tim Drake (No matter how long or short after the fact, Jason is still not sure how they got from Jason wanting to beat up a teen to being convinced to come home). 

Jason, Dick, and Bruce all bond over the abrupt realization that Alfred and Tim are absolutely feral and that if either decided to go rogue the universe was screwed.  They also realize that it is part of their Vigilante assigned duty to keep Both Tim and Alfred from needing to take over the world.

This helps stabilize the relationships among the Batfam, this common goal.  So by the time Damian arrives, their relationships are much stronger. Bruce, Dick, Steph, Cass, and Jason each try to talk Damian out of his assassination attempts (more for Damian’s health than Tims). Tim, because Damian is now his brother and is 10 years old, allows Damian two assaination attempts without consequence. Damian’s third, and final,  attempt ended with a finger broken on Damian’s non-dominant hand…and no proof that Tim caused it. 

Because of this stronger, more stable relationship Tim was actually able to pass Robin on to Damian before the Darksied happened. Tim took up Red Robin with Jason’s approval. 

Darksied sends Bruce on his bounce through time. There are still rumblings of what could become a war for the cowl (including Cass, this time because grief can do weird things to people and I think she should get to throw her hand into the ring), but instead Tim finds the clues Bruce had been leaving. And this is where the biggest departure comes. 

Because all of the Bats are there, and they believe Tim. They have no reason not to (I will get to that in just a minute). In fact, they all treat this revelation as a relief and begin to work out a schedule for keeping up the Batman pretense until Bruce can be retrieved. 

Dick as Batman goes to the Justice League (during a JL meeting) with the news that Bruce is lost in time, and they need substantial Justice League resources (and realistically it would need to be substantial and/or unique resources, or Tim would have used WE industries or his own resources) to retrieve him. And look, Dick looked at none of Tim’s evidence so when asked how the Bats know, Dick as Batman answers immediately with ‘Oh, Red Robin said’. 

The other members of the Justice League glanced at each other. It is Diana that very gently brings up that Wonder Girl had told her that Red Robin had been very intent on cloning Superboy, trying to avoid outright saying that it seemed like Tim might have lost touch with reality in his grief. Everyone very kindly ignored Superman’s flinch at the mention of both his dead mentee and cloning. 

The Justice League gets to watch as Dick misses the point so completely that they can practically see it over the pointy ears of his cowl.  He actually perks up and goes ‘Oh yeah, he mentioned having Ivy check over his methodology for that. She said it looked good but her specialty is plant genetics’. Like that is not an objectively insane thing to say. 

From Dicks, and in fact most if not all people who spend enough time in Gotham, perspective Tim was not insane for his attempts to clone Conner. He had a plan to mitigate harm for innocents (potentially viable clones who were not Conner), was not attacking/involving other people, had another affiliated expert look at his work before he pushed the big red button, and he even stopped when it was pointed out that it would have been against Conner wishes. To a Gothamite that means Tim is practically reasonable in his 99 attempts to clone Conner. 

The Justice League can only conclude, after some carefully phrased questions, that the Batfam have unfortunately lost touch with reality due to grief, understandable grief but also very out of touch. Dick does not realize this is what is being thought, as he is just so relieved that they are on track to get Bruce back that he does not hear the incredulity in the questions, until a majority vote rejects the use of JL resources for the purpose of searching for the former Batman in time (it should be noted that The Flash-Barry- and Superman both voted to try. Diana abstained).  

We are going with the idea that it is more than just massive resources or expertise that the JL would provide, but some resource, item, or device, that is unique to the Justice League that cannot be procured by any individual member. 

So Dick has to go back to 3 family members (Jason, Cass, Damian) who have all had significant exposure to Lazarus water, which is known for emotional outburst overriding common sense, Steph the daughter of a supervillain (Arthur Brown may have been a d rate supervillain, he was still a supervillain), Barbara the all knowing Oracle (whose morals have adjusted to working with former Rogues) and her cadre of Birds of Prey, and possibly the 2 most frightening people on the planet (Tim and Alfred) with the news that the JL will not help them. This is also Dick, whose anger issues and need for revenge built Robin. 

The only restriction that Dick manages to get them all to agree on is that they will not make trouble for Superman, Flash, or Wonder Woman (Jason throwing his own support in no trouble for Diana). Then, with full and loving knowledge of what he was doing, Dick set them all loose upon the world (making it clear to the JL that Bruce is the only one who could reign them in). 

It takes six weeks before the decision to help find Bruce and retrieve him from the timestream is approved. In that time:

Cass and Steph become the rulers of a small country, ruling with an iron fist but enough morals that most of the populace loved them. 

Jason, with the Outlaws, managed to take out the League of Assassins (and incidentally managed to humiliate not one but three different Green Lanterns, mostly by accident). 

Damian met, became offended by, and dismantled a faux government organization in the midwest in possibly the most attention attacking way he could. 

Oracle wrote and released a highly tailored virus that released random ‘scandalous but not overall dangerous’ secrets on a schedule for every politician in the world. Her Birds of Prey kept Gotham running, along with Batman!Dick. At some point during this time the Joker ended up dead, but no one is admitting to who did.

Tim and Alfred did indeed become a major world power within the first three weeks. It wasn’t until week four that they gained nuclear power status, but quickly had a seat offered to them at the UN. They had just started considering if they should be expanding into the reaches of space when the JL capitulated. 

Bruce is brought back into a world where his kids are more feared than he is.

[laughingesper]

DP X DC Prompt

In the aftermath of Gotham War, Jason Todd is just... done with everything. He's tired of trying to change himself to meet the expectations of a man who won't even try to meet him half way. How the rest of the Batfamily, while not as bad, usually take Bruce's lead in regards to interacting with him. Even in his altered state, he manages to make his way to Amity Park (pretend this is a universe where the Justice League are mostly ignorant of the shit that goes on there).

Coincidentally, Desiree is out and about at the same time he arrives. He's terrified and pissed at the same time. He can't even be depressed in peace without being dragged into some kind of BS! So in the midst of his mental breakdown, he wishes for a better life where he'd never met Bruce Wayne, not that he's actually expecting anyone to be listening or do anything about it. An Amity Park native would know better.

Desiree: "As you have wished it, so it shall be!"

Jason: "Wait what?"

And because Jason isn't wearing Fenton anti-ghost tech when his wish is granted like Sam was, he doesn't remember making a wish in the first place. As far as he knows this is how it's always been. A world where Jason Todd is living a normal, peaceful, happy life. However, Desiree isn't capable of making grand sweeping changes to reality like this without a few hiccups (yet). Her power grows in proportion to how many wishes she's granted and lessens whenever she's not granting any. She actually got it 99% right, but there is still some physical evidence that things weren't always the way they currently are, like in the actual episode. No one remembers the truth except her, but certain smart people are able to notice the inconsistencies.

Such as Danny and friends, who can tell that a wish was granted but not who made it and what for. Usually it's way more obvious.

Meanwhile in Gotham City, how do things change without Jason Todd? Did someone else become the second Robin? If so, who is it and how did they differ from Jason? It's meant to be a sort of examination of how the Batfamily and DC themselves treat Jason as a character. How would someone else deal with that? Would they rise above it all in a way Jason never could or become a full on supervillain? Ideally, like in the episode itself, Jason would eventually remember the way things are supposed to be and wish things back to normal, but would he even want to do that?

This idea was inspired by this one panel from White Knight, and it just made me think 'well Comics Jason has even more of a reason to wish he never met Bruce lol'.

[rezonan]

Would the Bat-Clan/Family really be better off without Bruce?

You know. I often hear the critism that Batman raises child soliders or whatever and I happily.... Agree, I mean it's obviously what they are. Kid vigilantes are something that should have become extinct in comics since the 70s but DC kept them. I don't really care cause I love them so much and I don't like to push realism into comics in a world where aliens exist and vigilantes actually work as a method to bring Peace.

What I'm hear to argue about was that Bruce was probably a GOOD(kinda?) thing for them honestly. So let's imagine a world where Batman faced with the opportunity to take in any of these kids as Vigilantes and give them training and tech/supplies refuses or just ignores them or just never even meets them.

You have

Dick - who tried to hunt down Tony Zucco by himself

Barbara - had gone out as Batgirl on her own

Jason - lived on the streets in Gotham, we meet him trying to steal Batman's tires.

Tim - followed Batman and Robin around with a camera for years before being Robin

Damian and Cassandra - both trained assassins since birth

Stephanie - was already already a vigilante before Batman took her in and is the daughter of Cluemaster

Duke - was a member of the Robins gang that tried to keep the piece during Batman's absence.

Leaving out Batwoman and Huntress because I have yet to read through thier stuff(forgive me). Will get there eventually though

Right of the Bat(Pun intended)

Dick is likely dead, let's be real. No 10 to 13 year old is taking down a small gang of criminals without training outside acrobatics. In some versions even his father who had the same exact training plus actual muscle couldn't take them down.

Jason is a 50/50 there is a big chance that he becomes either another criminal in the endless see of early Gotham or a vigilante protecting crime alley and die eventually either way. Sadly there's a bug chance he becomes one of those faceless mooks Bruce punches every now and then. You could argue this is a better fate than his time as Robin and Red Hood but I disagree

Tim probably has the best ending here. He could literally just stop following Batman and have a completely normal life. That or he dies eventually following Batman around.

Barbara has police self defense training and is insanely smart. I actually genuinely think there is a solid chance she survives her time as a vigilante if she plays it safe and picks her battles. Heck if she survives long enough she could even hook up with Huntress or something.

Damian if Bruce rejected him and with no Dick in this world. Not only doesn't become a Robin but either goed back with his mother to satu with the league or becomes a sorta frank Castle style vigilante trying to prove himself to his father.

Cassandra is interesting. Not exactly sure but I think she has a chance to be picked up by some other hero out there that or she straight up gets found by her dad or mom. But if this was a connected world kind thing she probably gets picked up by Huntress and Barbara maybe?

Stephanie imo doesn't last particularly long without sufficient training. Good chance of her dying in a similar way to war games actually (god I hate that story). Again if you see this as a whole world, she probably gets picked up by Huntress and Barbara too.

Duke unless he gets his metahuman ability is pretty surely gonna die eventually. I know the least about him so not much to say here.

I'm incredibly open to arguments against my opinions tho. But I genuinely think Bruce did more good than bad here. Especially with Dick. Who while being dead would never be able to reform Damian or help Bruce chill out during those early years. To talk about how his death would affect stuff like the titans and the wider DC universe.

Damn maybe the guys who say he's the heart of the DC universe have a point.

[jacqtacq]

Ok, but to add to this terrible angst train: what if the Civilian Bruce doesn’t have any of his children. He never became Batman, so he never met Talia. He was in Smallville with Clark and Ma and Pa Kent on vacation instead of at the circus. Tim Drake is the random kid in the next door manor. Jason didn’t have anyone step in to help him off the streets. No Tim, no Steph. No Batman, no BlackBat. Barbara Gordon is the kid of a guy he occasionally meets at specific fundraisers. No Batman, no Duke or Carrie or Harper or Cullen or Terry or any other ones I may have missed.

Now, it’s not all terrible! With the Wayne Srs alive for years and Bruce being a huge force for change in Gotham, things aren’t awful. Dick was put in a good foster care program, with pretty easy contact with Haly’s and stuff. He’s in university for math and advocacy or something, he’s doing great because of the changes the three Wayne’s have made to Gotham’s systems. Jason did go in and out of prison a few times as he was on the streets, but again the Wayne’s systems have made great programs for underprivileged kids who were pipelined into criminal activity and he’s getting his PhD in Literature or something. Tim is branching out and making his own business, with some trauma from his parents but a typical kinda rich kid coming of age stuff. Duke’s family is still with him and they’re all basically fine. So on and so forth for them. So Batman sees this and it hurts so much to see “proof” that most of his kids are better off without him. And then there are those that are definitely worse off, like Damian and Cass (and Terry, though he doesn’t know that?) but you get into the whole “better to love and lose or never love at all” for Damian and for Cass, it’s like (and he hates the thought, but he is a terribly pragmatic man in all ways except family so the thought comes): Is one-two of his children’s happiness worth all the rest of them? He gets to torture himself with that question with real data points from another world now.

[Also though, not all of his kids are ok. Dick never got to put Zucco away. When the system finally caught him Zucco, it was years later and the murders of John and Mary Grayson were not even on the list of convictions because it had been too long and there had never been proof. This Dick never had someone look him in the eye and say, “I believe you. I will help you.” when he told them about Zucco.

This Jason never experienced the magic of Robin. He never had a home of people who were undeniably behind him. He eventually goes back into the programs that helped him to help kids like him, but he has no close adult friends, no personal support system because the only people who told him, “I think you’re worth it” were random strangers funding a bill after he was too old to care.

This Tim is so freaking lonely. He is rich, smart, driven, successful. He is self- and spite- motivated. He has never had friends.

This Cass did escape her father. She travels the world as a ghost, keeping away/ahead of her father and the league; helping people when/where ever she can. She has no home.

Maybe they’re successful and have found good purposes. Maybe none of their lives revolve around Bruce. And maybe they didn’t technically need him in this world. But none of them have a father.]

{Also! Before ppl argue w/ me- I think that in a world where Tim’s parents aren’t murdered/dead, he would grow up and be like: Wow. You were kinda horrible parents. And as mentioned, Duke and his family are happy (though I think Duke’s bio dad or whatever might or might not be some sort of powered being? IDK man). Idk about a lot of the others though, but for the sake of it I was focusing on the ones officially adopted (as adults or children)}

I am sitting on the angstiest superbat fic idea I’ve ever thought of,,, I feel so devious rn.,,twirling my mustache evily,,..

[thephantomlizard]

So I had a prompt idea because of a art I did and because it took me a bit, this post is a bit on the longer side. Arts at the end sorry it's blurry made it to big when I was drawing when you click on it, it should become clearer.

Danny minding his own business about to get into bed gets summoned ( I know its very over done by this point but hear me out)

he is not summoned by anyone who knows what they are doing or actually would think it would work

instead he is summoned by a bunch of kids who appear to not have any magical abilities ( kids who aren't any of the various child superhero groups)

He would have been fine if not for the fact that Billy batson was in this group of kids

who was pressured into doing the summoning with the other homeless kids he was staying with

It was Halloween after-all the best time for summoning's and one of the kids has found a weird scroll in the house they where staying in

What could go wrong

the summoning only barley worked, because billy was unintentionally using Captain Marvels powers for it (captain marvel is shazams original name for those who don't know)

I say it "worked" because of two things

One billy wasn't captain marvel at the time

Two He is a very power magic user being the champion of magic but he is not in complete control of it

These two things lead too Danny's summoning going wrong

The summoning succeeded in bringing Danny to the same dimension as Billy seeing as they where from different ones

But it failed on a few other major things such as the fact that when Danny was summoned he was no where near the summoning circle

Nor was he in his normal ghost form but a inverted bluer version of his human form

I imagine when he was summoned Billy's confused magic fused the two forms together tighter so now his ghost from mirrors what he is wearing in his human form

I think this happened because Billy's magic didn't know what to do with human Danny but did know that this was the person it was looking for.

So as it summoned him it made him shift into his ghost form but since it was a unknown power making Danny change it caused Danny and his ghost half's appearance to change (idk if that makes sense)

Though he does flicker back to his normal hazmat suit self on occasion like when he is in danger or fighting with a lot of his powers

When Danny got to the DC universe he arrived no where near Fawcett city instead he was in the middle of a Gotham street

Him getting there was not the end of it though because the summoning was never technically completed since he never got to the summoning circle Danny will teleport to a different location on the DC earth or around it whenever captain marvel uses his powers

This of course makes it so a lot of funny moments can happen such as Danny popping into league meetings, the middle of super villain attacks, or various superhero hideouts then immediately disappearing

This happens regardless of whether he is Fenton or phantom

He will probably have to resort to stealing to get food because he will not have time to get a job

he does not know how long he has between jumps the only thing he knows that it mostly happens in the day but even that is not reliable

Billy is still homeless in this so doesn't go to school all he does most days is be captain marvel

I imagine he is younger then Danny by a while and when they meet Danny would adopt him as a younger brother

This is not important but I imagine that dc and marvel is a thing where Danny is from but he is also way behind because his universe is still in the 90s so like Jason was just killed and Tim is probably just beginning to be a thing and Danny is salty about it Jason was always his favorite Robin

This is all I got, this is my first time giving a prompt and hopefully I'll be able to think of more in the future. But below is the picture I was drawing when I came up with this, it's of Danny when he first got to the DC universe.

[bigskydreaming]

Okay, so you know “Justice League meets Batman’s kids, who they’d previously been unaware existed” AUs?

So picture that.....but this time, instead of them just having no knowledge of any of these other Gotham vigilantes at all....the Batkids all migrate to various cities as they get older and become known as their protectors - Dick in Bludhaven, Tim in San Francisco, Cass in Hong Kong, etc....

Meaning they’re all established figures, the Justice League are aware of them as solo local heroes who stick to their cities and so they just don’t interact with them much if at all, or else some are members of team lineups but are particularly vague about their histories or life outside of the team’s adventures....

So the big reveal isn’t that they become aware of all these other Gotham vigilantes all at once....its that some big conflict or whatever requires a huge team up of all available heroes, and in the aftermath, they figure out that like.....despite being known as solo heroes who work alone or loners outside of their team settings, 80% of these heroes all not only seem to already know each other, they seem to be related.

And so naturally they all turn to Batman, who has profiles on every known hero and they thus figure had researched these individuals too and just never mentioned this little detail, and they’re like, “Did you know about this?”

And then Nightwing turns to him too, arms crossed and is like, “Yeah Dad, did you know about this?”

And the infamous Red Hood is all: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have never met any of these people before in my life. Lives? Whatever.”

And then Red Robin moodily grates out “I have no siblings.” Since he’s nursing a grudge since Dick and Jason broke into his apartment the night before and replaced all his custom Red Robin gear with Darkwing Duck merchandise and his vengeance will be swift and also totally disproportionate because things escalate quickly in this family, that’s true in every universe.

Cass meanwhile has deftly skewered Jason’s lie by walking over to him and brazenly patting down the man with many many guns with no fear whatsoever. He squawks and futilely attempts to bat her hands away as she riffles through his many pockets, but he doesn’t seem shocked, just annoyed. Eventually, she pulls away and triumphantly reveals a box of Hello Kitty themed band-aids.

“So these are yours then? Just for you?” Black Bat asks smugly. Red Hood squints at the box.

“What the fuck? How long have those been in my jacket? Why are those in my jacket? Did you freaking plant them in my jacket just on the offchance you could at some point in the distant future use them at my expense?”

Black Bat frowns, puzzled. “Yes?”

“Oh come on, Dead Hood,” Spoiler says with an exaggerated toss of her head meant to convey she’s rolling her eyes beneath her own mask. She skips her way across the room to Black Bat and then drapes herself languidly all over the smaller woman. Who in turn doesn’t so much as twitch beneath the sudden added mass as Spoiler holds out her hand towards the box of band-aids. 

“One please. I have a boo-boo,” she says with easy familiarity straight into the intimidating cowl of Black Bat. Only then does she deign to finish her train of thought with Red Hood.

“I mean seriously, are you saying you don’t have potential blackmail set-ups, pre-rigged releases of incriminating material, and a random assortment of traps, pratfalls and mortifying scenarios in place for the express purpose of being able to humiliate any and all of your siblings at any given moment, without any need for additional prep time?”

“Is this true, Little Wing?” Nightwing whirls on the larger Red Hood with a faux-scandalized gasp. The founder and leader of the Titans, formerly the Teen Titans, renowned for his stratagems and calm competence when directing squads of supers in the heat of battle while he keeps pace with nothing more than naturally acquired acrobatics and a utility belt that apparently uses the same technology as Wonder Woman’s invisible jet....now appears to be....staggering with the back of his hand pressed to his forehead, moaning about how he felt....faint? 

What is happening right now, several dozen superheroes want to know. Is this a drill? Are they supposed to be checking for signs of a mental ambush from undetected psychic saboteurs? Did they all hit their heads at the exact same time and are now experiencing some kind of shared mass concussion?

Look, that wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to ever happen on the Watchtower. 

“Have I failed you so utterly?” The veteran child hero bemoans with a dramatic twirl - that when contrasted with his stern demeanor of a mere ten minutes ago - makes the fears of telepathic infiltration seem less paranoia and more....concerningly probable. “Did you learn nothing from me? Did you learn nothing from B?”

He stops and jabs a finger up at the sky. “Quick, everyone! What is the very first rule of Living While Batty?”

As if by rote, over a half a dozen voices chime in from all over the room, causing various heroes to jump. Spooked by yet more and more vigilantes joining in some kind of mass recitation like they and they alone have some kind of clue what the hell is going on and everyone else just hadn’t been invited to the party. Which is just rude, honestly. Nobody likes feeling like they weren’t invited to the party. Not even superheroes. 

“If you’re not going to bother preparing for every possible contingency and at least six impossible ones, you might as well just stay in bed.”

Even the Red Hood joins in the Illuminati chant or Cub Scout pledge or demonic ritual or whatever the fuck that just was, though his slumped and exasperated posture gives away every hint of sulkiness his headgear otherwise would have kept safely hidden. He’s surprisingly more...expressive, than most who’d only known of him by reputation had expected him to be. The day continues to yield surprises.

“Of fucking course I do,” he growls out, snatching the box from Black Bat. She doesn’t even fight to hold onto it, just lets it go with a knowing smirk. “I wasn’t surprised by the idea of it, I was just surprised she bothered with such a weak effort. Like yeah whatever, actually those could be mine. I use those all the time at home. So what?”

He aggressively yanks one of the band-aids out of the box, fumbles with the peel-off strips with one hand and he roughly rolls up the sleeve of his jacket with the other. Then just slaps it on his forearm and raises said appendage high, showing it off this way and that. “See?”

“Oh yeah, for sure,” Signal drawls from the other side of the room, nodding his head approvingly. “Totally convincing. Nice job walking that one back, you really showed them.”

Red Hood’s head snaps in his direction with ominous intent. “Watch it, Day-Glo.”

Signal just snorts.

“Yeah, like I’m gonna take constructive criticism on my name and costume from a dude who’s spent the last several years calling himself Red HOOD while running around in a freaking HELMET.”

“Its not meant to be literal, you fucking pedant.”

“So wait, its not literally a helmet? Huh, does it at least protect your head literally, or just like...symbolically? Like if Bane were to clock you across the head, would your concussion just be a metaphor? What’s the treatment protocol for a metaphorical concussion? Fluids, bedrest and a philosophical prescription of two chapters of Chicken Soup for the Soul as needed?”

“Laugh it up, KC and the Sunshine Band,” Red Hood bats back. “You just got yourself disinvited from Thursday night’s poker game.”

Signal just grins and folds his arms over his chest cockily. “Please. You’ve been looking for an excuse to ban me for weeks, cuz you know until you can prove I’m using my ghost vision to cheat, you can’t actually bring suit against me for it in Family Court.”

“That, and also Family Court isn’t a real thing, you toddler. Stop validating Wing-a-ding-ding’s obsession with Shitty TV Nostalgia and just call it that thing where Oracle traps us all in a room until we settle our latest fight without anyone getting stabbed.”

“Yeah, but like, say that five times fast,” Spoiler pipes up. “Its just not practical. Family Court’s way easier.”

“Says the one who’s not even in our fucking family.”

“And yet I grace you all with my sublime presence anyway,” she blows a kiss at him, beatifically unbothered. “You’re welcome.”

The Red Hood scoffs and rounds on his heel, zeroing in on Batwoman in the far corner.

“Hey Auntie B, my siblings are all dead to me and I just helped stop an alien invasion so I deserve nice things like a fun Saturday night. Can you get me into Dad’s fundraiser so I can crash it? He won’t put me back on the list until I promise not to bring any C-4 with me and I won’t promise not to bring any C-4 because he should just trust me that I won’t when I say I’m not gonna and he won’t trust me that I won’t until I admit I shouldn’t have brought any to that sting last month where three tiny little yachts blew up through barely any fault of my own, and I’m just not gonna do that ever because I have convictions and I feel I shouldn’t have to be punished for that. Y’know?”

Batwoman blinks at him. “Kid, I’m not gonna lie to you. You’re my nephew and I love you, but I stopped listening three seconds into all that.”

“Ugh, fine. Can you help me crash Dad’s event tonight so I can teach him a lesson about why he should just trust me not to make a scene so I don’t have to always make a scene to make a point.”

“Tempting as you make that sound,” she says wryly, “I have a strict policy for dealing with you lot and your......everything. I only worry about tolerating one of you at a time, and there’s seven of you, and seven days in the week. You each get your own. You know perfectly well its Robin’s day today. You get me on Tuesday, just like always.”

“Auntie B, we’re not like other families, are we?” Red Robin’s delivery is sarcastically childish and his question clearly rhetorical. Most of his attention is fixated on whatever it is he’s doing with his wrist-mounted computer. 

“No sweetie, we’re all severely fucked in the head and a little bit too comfortable with that.”

“Just checking. Oh hey, Hood, I just emailed you a patch for the hole in your firewall I exploited when replacing all my shit using your accounts just now.”

“You did what?”

“Used your accounts to pay to replace all my stuff that you fucked with last night?” Red Robin says slowly. “Did you not realize that I’ve been sticking within ten feet of you for the past five minutes just so I could clone your devices and do all that while BB and Spoiler kept you distracted? I gotta say, bro, I feel like that’s on you then.”

Red Hood swivels his helmeted head in the direction of the aforementioned two. Black Bat waves. Spoiler shoots him an utterly unrepentant thumbs up.

“You’d side with your ex over me? That’s what its come to?”

“My only allegiance is to chaos,” Spoiler says brightly. Black Bat shrugs.

“Plus he bribes better.”

“Hateful,” Red Hood points at Black Bat, moving on to level the same finger at Spoiler, who curtsies in acknowledgment: “Hateful-er.”

Then the finger rounds the bases to aim judgmentally at Red Robin. “Hateful-est. And that was all Nightwing’s idea anyway, not mine.”

“Oh, I assumed as much,” he says casually. “Your idea of a prank tends to have more of a Carrie vibe. Or be a literal literary reenactment.”

“Its called an homage, 4chan.”

“Whatever, plagiarist. And anyway, I couldn’t go after ‘Wing for payback on this one. He used an Immunity card. If you didn’t want me getting back at you, you should have used one too."

Red Hood looms aggressively. Red Robin ignores willfully. Round and round they go. Superheroes who can survive excessive G-Forces are getting dizzy just watching them have a largely motionless stand-off. That shouldn’t be how that works, but whatever. All the most infamously reclusive and isolated heroes in all hero-dom are apparently part of the same one big reclusive and isolated family of fucked up weirdos and they’re all officially bonkers. Nothing makes sense anymore. Reality broke. Try another stall.

“Okay, but see, in order to have an Immunity card, I would have to participate in one of you losers’ stupid Immunity challenges,” the Red Hood drags out with exaggerated patience. “And I’m just not going to do that, on account of those all being fucking stupid. You see the problem there?”

Red Robin just shrugs. “I don’t know what to tell you, bro. You can have principles or you can have an Immunity card. You can’t have both.”

Meanwhile, on another side of....the same room.....look, its like, an octagonal room, probably. It has a lot of sides. Robin fends off questions from an aggrieved looking Superboy.

“You never told me you had a bajillion brothers and sisters!”

“Yes but I never said I didn’t either.”

Superboy rolls his eyes. “Oh yeah, so I should just assume everyone I meet has a bajillion secret brothers and sisters?”

“Well clearly it would have worked out in your favor in this instance if you had, now wouldn’t it?”

“Assuming of course that you can trust what has been said or implied here today and I am actually related to any of those numbskulls. Which I am not actually admitting to,” Robin tacks on hastily.

Superboy eyes him dubiously. “You joined in the same creepy chant all the others did and then got super self-conscious and looked around to see if anyone had noticed. Which uh. I did.”

“First off, your interpretation of body language is abyssmal. I do not get self-conscious,” Robin says with a delivery that probably could have benefited from being a little less self-conscious. “And second....that proves nothing. I guessed what they were going to say.”

“Word for word,” Superboy says super-skeptically.

“I’m very good at guessing things. You know this.”

“Okay. Guess how much I believe you right now then.”

Robin glares and folds his arms grumpily across his chest. 

“And what was that anyway? Was that like....you guys’ family motto or something like that?”

“Oh no,” Spoiler pipes up. “That’s much shorter.”

Superboy balks at that. “Wait, you guys actually have one of those for real?”

“Yup,” Steph says, counting out the words with her fingers. “He who laughs last....probably works for the Joker. So tranq him just to be safe. See? Only sixteen words. The first rule of Living While Batty is way longer, and what we said was just the abridged version. You should hear the original, before Black Bat put her foot down and refused to memorize it unless sizable edits were made.”

Superboy hovers between her and Robin now, both in mid-air and on the verge of taking Spoiler’s words as an invitation to hear just that. A low growl arises from Robin’s direction.

“Must you?” He asks the older vigilante, with a most put upon expression.

She looks at him pityingly. “Do you actually need me to answer that? Like, we’ve met, right? Hi, I’m Spoiler.”

“Wait, so Robin said that I just never specifically asked him if he had a bajillion brothers and sisters, and that’s why he didn’t tell me, so that means he wouldn’t have just lied and there’s not some code of secrecy that flat out forbids telling other people stuff, right?” Superboy realizes excitedly.

“Yes, excellent direction. Go on,” Spoiler says, steepling her fingers. Robin buries his face in the palm of one hand.

“Soooo, what other stuff could you tell me about Robin’s super top secret family that I wouldn’t think to ask about but that he would tell me about if I knew what questions to ask?”

She claps once, lightly but with emphasis. “Well done. You’ve passed the first barrier. Untold secrets await you behind just a few more.”

“I’ll get you for this,” Robin vows calmly. She waves a hand at him.

“Yeah, yeah. Just make sure you do it before January 1st, remember? You’ve promised retribution like ten times already this year and those don’t roll over, y’know. Rules are rules.”

“Enough!” Thunders a voice then, from the front of the room. Well one of the fronts anyway. Like sides, it has a lot of them, but this is the one where Batman’s standing. All eyes snap to him. Which is kinda just what eyes do when Batman says stuff like that. Its like his superpower, except he doesn’t actually have superpowers, which is what makes it scary. But where the snapping of the eyes (directional) is usually followed by Batman saying something else besides just “hey look at me,” here he pauses in the wake of his own call to attention’s waning reverberations. Uncharacteristically silent.

Not that, y’know, he’s normally Mr. Talkity Talk, but usually his silences feel like he has the words to fill them, he’s just withholding them. This though, this feels more like he doesn’t have any words at all. And he’s as confused by it as any of them, and most everyone else is confused by Batman being confused, and its this whole trickle down economy of confusion and its wrecking havoc on the value of the golden silence standard.

Of course, not everyone present is rendered spellbound with confusion.

“C’mon B,” Nightwing cajoles, leaning forward and practically radiating delight. “I think you know what you have to do now. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Its not likely to come around again.”

Red Hood snickers beneath his helmet and chimes in. “Yeah Pops, go ahead. You do this and you’ll actually have my respect for a whole twenty four hours. No, wait. Sixteen. No! Eight. Yeah, eight. Still a good deal.”

“Carpe diem, B,” Red Robin grins, leaning back as if to enjoy the show.

“Hey! Infringe on my trademark one more time, dude,” Signal throws a faux-glare at the former. Red Robin just quirks an eyebrow.

“And what, you’ll start saying Yum every time you eat a burger? Oh no. I’m hoist by my own petard.”

Signal flips him off with a grin and then redirects his attention back to Batman. “Yeah seriously though B, you kinda gotta do it now. Because if you don’t do it, then you’ll forever be the guy who didn’t do it, and you don’t want to be that guy, do you?”

“Yeah you really don’t want to be that guy,” Spoiler shouts out. “Nobody likes that guy. He’s the worst.”

“Do it, do it,” Black Bat starts chanting beside her, steadily picking up speed and volume. Several others start joining in. Even Robin appears to be slightly anticipatory, albeit trying very hard to hide it.

Batman sighs, and somehow everyone manages to hear it. Stills. Waits for....something? Nobody but them seems to have any clue what, but the air is thick and heavy with portentiousness. Something is about to happen, and all most of the heroes present could say for sure is it was something they never would have in a million years seen coming.

Finally, Batman straightens with the resigned air of a man about to have oh so many regrets. He crosses his arms, shakes his head, and in an absolute deadpan monotone, says:

“You are awful children. You know you’re killing me. You’re killing your father.”

[thevindicativevordan]

Why isn't Nightwing a bigger deal? He has all of Batman's skills and Superman's faith in humanity and is arguably the most beloved hero in the DCU, but most people seem to know him either as the leader of the N̶o̶t̶ ̶J̶L̶ Teen Ttians or just Robin.

Thank you for asking me about Nightwing, I've been wanting to write a piece about him for a while now. The short version is that everyone who claims Dick becoming Nightwing was him "moving out of Batman's shadow and becoming his own man" is completely wrong.

Dick Grayson is a fantastic character, someone who saved Bruce Wayne in-universe both by forcing Batman to grow up a bit, and the countless times he saved Batman's life as his partner whether as Robin or Nightwing. Dick saved Batman in the real world as well, hard to believe but Batman was actually in danger of being cancelled due to poor sales early on. Enter Robin, a young daredevil audience stand in the creators hoped would get kids interested in reading Batman. And it worked! Sales on Batman doubled once Robin showed up which is crazy to think about, but Dick Grayson has always been a popular character. Cartoons like Teen Titans, Batman: The Animated Series, and The Batman only helped grow his audience.

Character-wise, Dick Grayson really does fill a number of crucial roles in the DCU. For Batman, Dick is proof that Batman is a positive force. Meeting Batman helped change Dick for the better, helped him heal after his parents died. With Dick, Batman can take comfort in knowing that yes, he has made a difference in the world for at least one orphan boy, which is all he wanted when he lost his parents himself. To the wider DCU, Dick is a friendly face who convinces others that Batman is competent and not a complete asshole. He took this kid in, trained him to be one of the best heroes the DCU has seen, and did it all out of the kindness of his heart. That someone like Dick can confront the evils of Gotham and not break means there's still hope for that city. As Robin, Dick has led the Titans and is an icon in his own right as The Sidekick, the original, the one every other Robin is built around copying or contrasting. The one all other superhero sidekicks are drawing on as a basis. As Robin Dick Grayson is very much on Batman's level.

Just not as Nightwing. As Nightwing, Dick has been a second rate Daredevil which means he's a third rate Batman (fully prepared to get hate for this but I've read and enjoyed the Miller and Bendis DD runs so I feel entitled to my opinion). A typical Nightwing run tends to go like this: Moving to Bludhaven (which is Gotham... but WORSE!), Dick Grayson usually enrolls in a pointless job we don't care about in order to provide some meaningless soap opera drama that doesn't go anywhere. Patrolling the city as Nightwing, he fights a variety of bad guys who are usually rather lame and unthreatening, with his big bad being a Kingpin knockoff called Blockbuster. Villains are fought, long running plotlines are set up, then everything is abandoned because it's Batfamily event time, and Dick has to run back to Gotham in order to play sidekick again. Usually his involvement is completely superfluous and it would've been better if the writer had gotten to opt out. By the time we finally get back to Nightwing's solo plotlines, the audience has usually ceased to care and the run gets cut short.

That's how Nightwing has been since the New 52 at least. Anyone who thinks that's "becoming their own man" is out of their mind. Dick is so thoroughly in Batman's shadow that he got shot in the head and spent a longer time as "Ric" which everyone fucking hated and sold like shit, than he did as Agent Grayson which was extremely well-received. Reiterating: Ric went on longer than Grayson because of a fucking Batman plotpoint Tom King wanted where Bruce was sad and cut off from the Batfamily because of Dick getting shot. Not just calling out King either, how many times was Kyle Higgins Nightwing run derailed because of Scott Snyder's crossovers? Or how about that entire run getting dumped to the side because Johns wanted to out Dick during Forever Evil, a Justice League/Lex Luthor story? DC has repeatedly made their contempt for Nightwing clear, he's Batman's sidekick still in their eyes, and he serves whatever story role the Batman writer wants.

Hell his best stories tend to have been the ones where he's not Nightwing. He was Robin in a good chunk of the Wolfman/Perez New Teen Titans run. Morrison really showcased his depth as a character when they wrote him as Batman, their time with Dick under the cowl was actually one of the first Batman runs I ever read, and no Nightwing run has ever matched it in terms of quality in my humble opinion. Scott Snyder's work with DickBats also was a high point for the character, showing Dick as competent and examining his relationship with Gotham and the Gordons. King and Seeley gave him one of the best comic runs with Grayson, a series where he wasn't even a "superhero" technically! When it comes to actual pre-New 52 Nightwing runs that are highly recommended where he *is* Nightwing, there's Chuck Dixon and uhhhhhhh... Tomasi's brief run before Dick became Batman? It's not exactly an overwhelming list.

Look there has been good work done with Nightwing, I'm not claiming there hasn't been. Tim Seeley wrote a great run with Nightwing Rebirth. Seeley fleshed out Dick's Rogues Gallery with cool new ones like Raptor, he brought back old foes like Dr. Hurt (why oh why couldn't you have brought back Flamingo too?), he gave Dick's world some character it solely needed. Bludhaven under Seeley is pretty much the only time I've really felt like it lived up to being Dick's city.

The problem with fictional cities is you have to put in the work to give them the character of real cities. You have to make the cities feel like characters in their own right. Gotham is the best example of this, it's a character all it's own, one that tells you a lot about Batman and his cast. In contrast Bludhaven is usually one of the worst. Any place that wants to claim to be worse than the city that is built over the gate to hell and gets wrecked every other month by the Arkham freaks has to really put in the work to compete. Simply put, Bludhaven typically fails utterly. There's nothing about it that makes you really buy it's worse than Gotham, I mean does anyone really think Nightwing's Rogues wouldn't get their lunches eaten by Batman's? No, no one genuinely buys that. When Bludhaven claims to be worse, it just comes across as tryhard, an attribute that does end up telling you about Nightwing in unintentional ways.

So Seeley didn't do that. Instead he created a city built for a hero like Dick Grayson. Someone who is bright and flashy, but does have an element of darkness to him. Someone who loves the spotlight, but often uses it to obscure. Seeley turned Bludhaven into Las Vegas, and that was the fucking best concept for Bludhaven I have ever seen, it makes so much sense. Las Vegas is the "Entertainment Capital of the World" and isn't that the perfect city for a hero who got their start working in the circus? Isn't the aesthetics of the gleaming casinos, the glamorous sex appeal of the performers, and the spectacle of the shows, all being used to cover up the seediness of mob bosses meeting backstage perfect for Nightwing? It's so utterly unlike New York City, yet Las Vegas is still dangerous, it's got a crime culture all it's own. Seeley used it to great effect, as did Humphries during his brief run, and I will always be pissed that DC didn't continue to use it. That should have stuck around and been the definitive look for Bludhaven.

How Seeley's take on Bludhaven was treated feels like a small scale version of how Nightwing in general gets treated. Whenever creators pitched ideas for him, if editorial thought there was potential to break big, they asked for those ideas to be repurposed for Batman instead. Anything big or good gets repurposed for Batman or tossed to the side so Nightwing can go back to his default: having irrelevant adventures in a city that is supposedly worse than Gotham but can't live up to it. Just like how Nightwing is supposedly better than Batman but never gets to show it. Goddamn it's so frustrating seeing his potential get wasted like that.

The Nightwing book should be one of DC's most ambitious books in terms of storytelling. You can go from traditional superhero stories, to romantic soap opera, to spy stories, to crime noir, to horror, to cosmic adventures, and ALL of them would fit because Nightwing is someone who has a foot in both Gotham and Metropolis. He's got friends everywhere on every team, and has been a hero longer than most Leaguers have at this point. No reason DC should still be afraid to let him loose and insisting on hewing close to what Dixon established almost over 30 years ago is only holding him back. At the very least get him some better Rogues, why the hell didn't he get to keep Professor Pyg? That's Dick's villain not Bruce's! Bullshit that they didn't let Dick keep him. Hopefully Flamingo comes back, with a slight revamp I think he'd make a great reoccurring Nightwing Rogue.

Luckily it does look somewhat like Nightwing fans have reason to be optimistic. While Taylor isn't to my taste, DC clearly views him as a "big" writer, and that they put him on Nightwing says a lot. Taylor has been selling well so far, so hopefully he gets to tell his story, hilarious that even he lampshaded having to write Dick running over to Gotham for another tie-in after Taylor's big opening arc was all about Dick committing himself and his money to Bludhaven. Scott Snyder is apparently working on a Black Label Nightwing book which will explore how he's a different detective than Bruce. The Gotham Knights video game has him as one of the main stars, and while Titans is... controversial, it's one of the most popular streaming shows and Dick is the main character. There's a lot of content coming that features him in the starring role, and that will only help his star rise further.

For the first time in, well, ever it feels like DC may be serious about elevating him. Time will tell if it pays off, but I for one choose to be optimistic that the 2020s will be a turning point for Dick Grayson where Nightwing becomes hugely popular in his own right. Not just as Batman's sidekick.

[river-bottom-nightmare]

an (incomplete) list of things kon can do because lex luthor is his dad that people always forget about:

#1 : math - he's fifteen, and math comes easy to him (unlike a lot of people his age, or at least, his visible age.) a lot of things come easy to him, because when you have all knowledge in the known universe downloaded into your brain, things like advanced math don't bother you very much.

but it bothers his friends, because bart loses interest about three seconds into the assignments, cassie groans anytime "homework" is brought up in general, and tim hates the concept and execution of math so much that he'd rather hide in kon's room where he thinks no one will look for him instead of even cracking open a textbook.

but kon's pretty sure being a hero means you don't need any real world skills, and after his initial hesitation and disagreements, he realized that he genuinely wants these people to like him, to be friends with him. their math homework is easier than a breeze to complete.

#2 : tying a tie the ~fancy~ way - he's nineteen, and his fingers flow through a silk tie like a fish through water. the motions are beyond familiar, he could do them in his sleep. so is the action of pulling on a suit, pressing his collar, arranging his hair into a neat style. he's timothy drake-wayne's date tonight, and he needs to look the part. fortunately, luthor taught him how to look the part a long the ago.

the party itself is,,,,pleasant, he supposes. he spends most of the time as arm candy, tim's pretty little thing as his boyfriend sweet-talked investors and networked. but they both know that the tipsier people are, the easier they let slip secrets to someone they believe won't understand them, and kon gathers a wealth of information by the time he meets up with tim by the appetizer bar right before dinner.

tim tugs him close by his tie and kisses his cheek, then laughs when kon discreetly but disgustedly spits out the pickled salmon cracker toppings.

#3 : educated debating - he's sixteen, and in an argument with tim that's gone so off the rails that kon can't even remember what they were fighting about in the first place. wherever they started, they were here, now, kon on top of a table in an ice cream parlour screaming about how a socialist approach to taxes would boost the lower class, tim on top of a barstool screaming right back about how the middle class are the only ones paying taxes and socialism would only put more weight on their shoulders.

both of them are this close to busting out laughing, and the only reason they haven't been thrown out is because the employee behind the counter is frantically taking notes. kon can see it in tim's eyes, see the way the younger boy didn't expect to hold such a passionate and intense debate with him, didn't expect kon to be capable of it. it's a pleasant surprise, though; that much is evident in tim's barely-hidden grin.

the debate comes to a pause when bart smacks him with a spoon and tells him off for stepping on the speedster's ice cream, and the tiredness with which he collapses back into the booth is a good one.

#4 : efficient + effective workplace supervision - he's twenty, and wondering how in the hell people hadn't murdered the entirety of young justice when it was first founded. bart had graduated to being the flash's full time sidekick, and though he came to visit often, it wasn't the same. gotham was almost always on the verge of imminent disaster these days, and tim was one of the few ropes holding it together. kon missed him like crazy, but his few visits were all the boy could spare. cassie was in charge now, and she was a wonderful leader, but busy, always smoothing over relations between the team and the justice league and civilian offices.

so, somehow, that left kon to be the den mother to all the new younger kids, and somehow, kon was good at it. he knew exactly what to say to get people to listen to his commands, telling them to work on this or work on that, train for this and practice that. he tells them when to get some sleep and let the weight of the day roll off their shoulders, and when to push themselves to raise them higher than they ever thought they could go. unexpectedly, he finds himself liking it.

#5 : the splits

#6 : colour schemes + interior decorating - he's twenty-one, and tim's finally deciding to turn the nest into a home. bart, who had spent the last couple of years bouncing between allen-west-mercury households and was therefore accustomed to a home with a fire of love reaching every corner and every member of the family, was appalled. so was kon, honestly.

the penthouse that tim worked out of was cold and impersonal, sleek lines that angles that matched the limbs and contours of tim's body. but the shadows around tim's eyes had lessed over the past few years, his smile coming to his lips almost as easy as when young justice first learned how to work together. all it took was a little encouragement from cassie, and suddenly, all four of them were involved in a home renovation project.

cassie churned out ikea furniture like it was nothing, the three of them taking a break from their jobs to just watch her as she lifted one of their hardwood bookshelves with one hand. bart bought home goods and essentials from various department stores and ran around, stocking the house with them wherever he felt a saucepan needed to be hung (near the coat hanger) or a candle holder needed to be placed (on the kitchen barstools, because apparently those were decorative anyway).

kon, meanwhile, decorated. he painted rooms and bought curtains and pillows, yes. but he also sorted through every single souvenir and memory the four of them had managed to accumulate over the years, photographs and hacked-off pieces of giant robots and saved movie tickets and broken weapons. he gets his hands on everything he can find, then fills up tim's nest until it's brimming with a cosy warmth made up of the four of them.

still, it's an obnoxiously large penthouse, so there's empty and open space left over even after redecorating. it's tim who takes a breath and works up the courage to tell them, not ask but tell them, that he wanted each of them to have their own bedroom. so bart takes the largest guest room and turns it into an explosion of colour, and cassie spends too much time decorating a room that she won't even live in most of the time. kon conspicuously notes how tim doesn't bother giving kon a room, just dumps kon's backpack on his bed and clears room in his own closet. he does wrap tim in a ttk hug though, from all the way across the room, and drinks in tim's red flush.

#7 : speed reading (no powers) - he's seventeen, and just now realizing how competitive his best friends are. cassie had long since resigned herself to being the judge and the hander-outer-of-prizes (candy from the nearest convenience store) for the speed-reading competition, but tim, kon, and bart were still in the running.

eventually, though, the pressure from holding back his powers grew too strong, and bart slumped against the back of the sofa, mournfully opening his mouth so cassie could drop a candy into it.

and then there were two.

kon thought back to the confrontation that had started this contest in the first place, robin's offhand comment about how he had to be the one to collect the data files from the company office they were infiltrating, because he was the only one who could speed-read and retain information. that had spiraled into an argument, then a challenge, then a competition, with a clear rule not to use any powers.

kon darted his eyes across the page, soaking up every word, the pages like tiny knives on the pads of his fingers as he turned them. he lost track of the page count, just reading and reading and reading until he tried to turn the page and realized there wasn't a next one. he yelled in triumph, reveling in tim's defeated groan, and settled in for cassie's quiz on the contents of the book.

#8 : sophisticated meal and wine palette - he was twenty-two, and discovering that he really, really liked tim's shocked face. they'd been friends for years now, childish hatred turned into playful bantering turned into knowing each other inside out. still, every now and then, kon did something that forced tim's eyebrows high on his head, his eyes widening just the barest bit.

right now, kon was at a dinner party with the words moral support written across his forehead. tim could handle himself remarkably well, but there was tiredness lacing the smaller boy's frame, and kon could practically see the way the tips of his soul were frazzled. so kon let tim lean into his arm and whispered jokes about luna-with-the-big-ugly-purse and martonio-who-can't-do-a-combover into his ear. or, at least, he was.

somehow he'd been drawn into a good natured argument with the man sitting just two seats down from tim and kon. friendly opinions of food had been tossed back and forth, growing more and more heated until kon looked him right in the eye and said he liked prosecco with his prosciutto, internally crowing with satisfaction at their shocked silence and sighing with pity that none of the guests here would ever try that combination out of fear of deviation. once the man had regained his sensibilities, he shot back, saying the sixth course should never serve salmon, instead regaling the fish to the amusebouche or the cheese course. kon snorted and told him fish itself was going out of style, and if he wanted to impress guests at the next dinner party he hosted, he should try serving octopus.

tim's shocked face was a pleasant surprise, but seeing the stunned, controlled blinks of everyone around him as they realized he wasn't just a pretty face was satisfying as well. even more satisfying was when he and tim said their goodbyes; while waiting for the valet, tim pressed up onto the tips of his toes and whispered promisingly in kon's ear, i fucking love your competence.

#9 : manipulating people into hating him to justify his actions - he was eighteen, and he was screaming, crying, tearing his hair out. kon didn't know what he had expected. lingering fondness? grudging acceptance? maybe a small leap for a chance at love?

it didn't matter. clark didn't want anything to do with him. and he was eighteen now, which meant clark didn't need to take care of him anymore, didn't need to pretend to pay attention to him anymore. he'd made it quite clear.

maybe that was why he found himself hesitating before saying no to amanda waller's offer. he forgot about the warnings tim gave him, though, and waller pounced on that hesitation, quicker than a panther. it was easy, it was oh so easy to let himself go with her.

besides, they had a reason to hate him now. he hadn't done anything to clark. he hadn't asked to be made. but clark had wanted nothing to do with him anyway, and didn't that sting. so if people were going to turn him away now, it was going to be for something he did.

he didn't realize how bad he was spiraling, how close he was to stepping off the lighted ledge he'd been balancing on his entire life and tumbling into the darkness below. but cassie had a stronger punch than most grown superheroes, and bart had tenaciousness written into every strand of his ginormous hair, and tim gripped his jaw so hard his fingernails dug into kon's skin and told kon that he was getting his best friend back, no matter what the hell he thought he was worth.

maybe it was madness that made him throw himself forward, still wrapped in the lasso cassie borrowed from diana, practically mauling tim's lips with his own. he was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to break down crying after he kissed someone, given past experience, but the three of them, his wonderful, wonderful friends, just hugged him tight, let him fight and shake and sob until all the rage was gone. it was the first time in a long while he'd done something in hopes that someone would look at him with love, not hatred.

#10 : waltzing - he was twenty-three, twenty three and giddy with how much time he had left. conner was with tim drake-wayne publicly now, so expectations were thrust onto him, expecting to be met.

kon tended to have more fun at events than tim ever did. granted, kon didn't have to deal with all of his coworkers drinking too much and exchanging money with secrets faster than drugs and asking tim whether or not his relationship meant he was open for still-young and handsome men who needed just a small escape from their wives. but tim wasn't trying very hard to enjoy himself either.

so kon was completely justified in tugging him towards the center of the room, in a patch of floor sparsely occupied, then pulling him as close as he dared. tim's panicked whisper of what!? was overridden by kon's laughter, but he muffled his sounds for a minute, letting tim hear the quiet music playing in the background (prerecorded and playing on speakers, not live).

understanding broke over tim's face, and he arched into kon's hold as easy as breathing. kon moved one of his hands to grip tim's wrist, and he twirled the two of them effortlessly, breathless at tim's flabbergasted expression. the rhythm was simple, and tim caught on quickly. one two three, one two twist, one two three, one two step, one two three, one two switch, one two three, one two three.

kon couldn't say they danced the night away, because a little while later tim took a break for a drink, then speeches were made, then dinner was served. by then, they were both entirely too tired to dance, longing for just a bed and a soft blanket and each other. but for those few minutes in the middle of a packed yet empty ballroom, kon and tim did lose themselves in the music, just a little bit.

i don't know shit about taxes or socialism. this got way longer than anticipated whoops. i'm tagging this "long post," but if someone asks me to put it under a cut, i'd be happy to

also jesus christ this thing is almost 2.5k words. im uploading it to ao3 later if i'm in the mood

tag list: @woahjaybird @birdy-bat-writes @anothertimdrakestan @subtleappreciation @screennamealreadyused @pricetagofficial @catxsnow @bikoncon @maplumebleue-blog-blog @sundownridg @thatsthewhump @xatanna-troy

[lily-drake]

Happy Birthday Jason!

Jason ran as fast as he could through the streets back to his apartment where he knew his twin sister was waiting for him.  He raced up the fire escape and did a special tap against the window before opening it and entering the rundown broken apartment building.  As soon as he set his feet on the grossly stained carpet he felt a small body ram into him.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAY-JAY!”

His small sister, Marinette, cheered loudly as she crushed him in a hug.  He smiled as he hugged her back.

“Hey Pix.  Have you been good, didn’ cause too much trouble did ya?”

She shook her head against his chest and then jumped back as she ran towards their thin dirty sheet they used at night and brought it over to him.  

“Abuela gave me some money for cleaning her floors, so I gotcha somethin’!”

He pulled out a small cheap cardboard box from his hoodie pocket and handed it to her.

“Picked up enough money to get you somethin’ too.”

Her smile brightened, her smile didn’t belong in such a dark place.  They traded the gifts to each other and both were extremely happy.  Jason had given Marinette a small bracelet with a red string and different colored beads.  Marinette had gotten her brother an old book from the thrift shop that obviously used, but it was still good enough to be able to properly read from.  The book was titled Pride and Prejudice.  He looked so awed by the book and she felt immense pride in herself.  There was a bit of bread left over from a few days ago and Marinette made sure it was equally split so her brother also had his proper fill.  It was his birthday too after all!  

When it was time to go to sleep Jason read a chapter of the book to her then, the big meanie, made her read a chapter for him.  She stuttered a lot, but he would just smile and help her pronounce the word.  She was so lucky to have such an amazing big brother.

~~~~~~~~ It just didn’t feel right.  He had been living in the manor for a year now, and today felt so wrong without her.  Marinette had been taken by CPS three months before he had been caught stealing the tires off of the Batmobile.  He needed the money to hire a private investigator in order to find his sister.  It’s not that he didn’t trust Bruce, he just didn’t want him to put his sister into the danger that he was putting himself into as the new Robin.  He just knew that she would insert herself into vigilante life if she knew he was doing it.

Alfred seemed to understand what he was going through as he walked into the kitchen.  He didn’t know how the man knew, but he learned not to question it after spending about half a year in the manor.  He was silently eating his pancakes when Dick burst into the room yelling,

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY J-BIRD!”

While scooping him into his trademark octopus hugs.  Jason struggled to get out of it as shock and adrenaline coursed through his veins.  Instincts from living on the streets for many years never really going away.

“How old are you now?  You’re 14, right?”

“Yea, now get off me!”

He did not in fact get off of Jason, at least not until Alfred told him to a few seconds later.  Rolling out his arms and shoulders he rolled his eyes at his brother and turned back to his food.  After a few moments of peace Dick poked his arm to get his attention.  Jason sighed and turned to the side to look at Dick.

“Yes?”

“Here, I got you a present.”

Dick said with a bright smile that reminded him so much of his younger sisters.  He looked down and saw a rectangular looking thing hidden behind brightly colored and nicely wrapped wrapping paper.  Jason carefully took the book with a small thank you nod and tore open the paper to be met with a nice hard cover book of Peter Pan.

“I know we already have it in the library, but I thought you would want your own, and I just felt like you would like it.”

Dick said as he saw the gentle, reminiscent(?) look in Jason’s eyes as he stared at the book.  Jason willed himself not to cry as he stared at the book.  The book that inspired the nickname he gave his sister.  Abuela had read this book to them while they had stayed at her home during a harsh winter day.  Bless her soul, he knew that she was in the best place of heaven, if that place even existed.

Barbara walked into the kitchen with a bright smile and ruffled his hair.

“Happy birthday Jay.”

She said happily.  Jason looked up and gave her a small smile.

“Thanks.”

He hugged the book close to his chest.

“Means a lot.”

~~~~~~~~ Jason was angry, he didn’t understand why this was happening.  His body burned and everything felt like it was burning with pain.  He was training in the League with Talia.  He thought he had found a hint on where his sister was, and apparently his actual birth mother.  No, it was just a trap, and he had died by Joker's hands, and his sister wasn’t even there!  Now he spent the day training with Talia and whoever she saw fit to handle him.  His thoughts wandered to what his sister was doing, to what her life was like, if she was part of a good home, if she was still on the streets, if she was even alive.  No, of course she was, she had to be.  He refused to believe that she was gone before he could see her again.  

They are both 17 now, almost adults.  He would find her, but first he had to prove to Talia that he was ready.  He had to take out Bruce and his replacement.  D* that man, how dare he replace him like that.  He wasn’t just some tool, he was a person, he was important, he would show just how important he was.  This birthday was filled with rage that fueled him through the day, it was his motivation to find her one day and get his revenge.

~~~~~~~~ Jason watched silently as he attended a Justice League meeting with the rest of his family and Leaguers.  It was still rocky with his family, and he hadn’t been able to find a clue to where his sister was.  He still hadn’t told the others about her, though he was pretty sure B already knew about her from doing a background check or something.  He had never brought her up or done anything that made him think he actually knew about her though.  He had celebrated his 19th birthday, and so was she.  He was sure that she was still alive though.  He could never believe that she had passed.

A bright blue portal opened in the middle of the room just as expected.  Apparently Paris’s heroes were coming for a meeting or something today to discuss the Hero Ban there.  Five people in some form of animal themed suits walked through it.  A cat that looked like he could be Selina’s child, a bee, a snake, a dragon, and a ladybug.  

“Hello, I am Coccinelle and we are here to discuss the ban that we put up during Hawkmoth’s reign.”

He looked up suddenly, his eyes transfixed on the girl in the Ladybug suit that spoke.  His heart began to pick up racing quickly.  Her voice was so achingly familiar.  Her English was slightly accented in French, but it also had a small Gotham tint to it.

If this was a trick he would find a way to make the universe pay for this.  He hoped, he prayed to whatever God out there that existed that this was truly a gift from the universe.  He hadn’t realized that he had walked towards her until he was at her level staring into her eyes.

“Red Hood, what are you doing?”

Batman asked in his gruff voice.  He gently took off his helmet and mask before taking both her hands in his at her gasp.

“What are you doing, you bonehead fool?!”

Robin yelled at him, his glare intensifying.

Tears welled up in those oh so familiar blue eyes.  He had to be sure though.

“Marinette, is that you?”

She gave him a small nod before pulling her into a bone crushing hug.  Sobs left the young girl and silent tears fell down his cheeks as he ran his fingers through her hair in a comforting manner.

“J-Jason...I-I’m-”

“Shhh, it’s ok Pixie-Pop.  I got ya.  I’m not leavin’ ya again.”

It was silent around them as everybody observed what was happening, though the Miraculous team was shocked they smiled in a gentle knowing way.  A birthday gift from the universe it seemed, he wouldn’t curse it again…..At least he wouldn’t until the next world ending event.  He had his sister back in his arms, and that’s all he could ever ask for.

_________

I’m going to start an @ list.  If you want to be part of it comment your favorite part of the story or any story I’v written!  Thank you for reading!

[fantastic-nonsense]

Do you have any good not fluffy/too fluffy Jason fic recs? He is my special interest and I like when he’s badass

luckily for you I read an exceptionally large number of Jason-focus fics for someone who probably talks about him the least of all the core Batfamily members. Here's a couple that I really like:

All the Roofs of Uncertainty, by Kieron_ODuibhir: For all the blood on his hands, Red Hood was never just a villain. And Nightwing never gives up on family, not for good. Or: The one where Dick bleeds a lot and Jason argues with everybody.

dead man's party, by TheResurrectionist: The “seeing ghosts” thing didn’t really bother him. Jason could do without the constant mother-henning from one in particular, though. [Or: Martha Wayne spends her afterlife making fun of and mothering Jason]

Deluge in the Wasteland, by Silver Spider: Maybe she'd been wrong. Maybe she was hiding from the wrong person. It couldn't hurt just to see him one more time before... Bruce/Talia. Post-'Son of the Demon' AU. [technically a Talia-centric fic, but Jason co-stars quite heavily]

It's a Hard-Knock Life (Except When There's Cookies), by Hinn_Raven: Jason Peter Todd would like it to be known that he did not adopt an orphanage. If anything, the little brats adopted him.

second impressions, by Valkirin: Red Hood doesn't know that Stephanie Brown is the new Robin. Tim Drake doesn't know anything about Red Hood or why he wants to fight Robin. All Tim knows is that a man in a red helmet just broke into his house. Jason needs to figure out what's going on, Tim needs a dad, and Stephanie needs to figure out just how long she's going to last as Robin.

Strays, by Cdelphiki: Three short months ago, Bruce brought Jason home after finding him starving, alone in an alley. Now he was doing quite well in his studies and training, but it broke Bruce's heart how much Jason seemed to expect the other shoe to drop any day. He'd never had a reason to trust the adults in his life before, so of course he was having difficulty coming to trust Bruce and Alfred.

So when Bruce came across a skittish little puppy while out on patrol, he started to wonder if adopting a puppy would help Jason out, help with his anxieties and give him the unconditional love he deserved, in a form he could tolerate. Maybe through teaching a puppy he was safe, he'd come to realize he was safe as well. It was worth a shot, and Bruce would be a gigantic liar if he said he didn't love their new puppy, too.

The 70 Days After Groundhog Day, by Ptelea: There's a time loop that only Jason remembers. It acts as a catalyst for changes within the family. Some arguments, some misunderstandings, some bonding, some healing, and quite a lot of conversations that mostly take place over food. Dick POV, focused on Dick and Jason but with the other Bats around and very present.

The Changeling, by Silver Spider: Jason is awake and aware but half-a-world away from Gotham in enemy hands. He thinks of nothing but escape, but what happens when he meets a certain little boy? Partial AU. Starts at Red Hood: Lost Days #1 then spins in its own direction.

the city carries ruins in its heart, by nex_et_nox: “Do you trust him?” Jim asked. “Yes,” said Batman, unhesitating. He didn’t know if he would ever like Red Hood. He didn’t know if he would ever be able to like working with him. He wanted to arrest the man. But if Batman trusted him, that would have to be enough for Jim.

Jim Gordon's evolving perspective on Red Hood.

Verdant, by Cerusee: Talia puts Jason in the Lazarus pit to restore his mind. Then she takes him home.

Bonus Young Justice-verse fics:

Come Alive, by CaptainOzone: Dick went to Infinity Island on a mission to rescue three. He never expected to return with an additional two. None of them did. AU of 3x06.

Resurgence, by Hinn-Raven: Healing is a slow process. Too bad the universe seems to have forgotten that. Even as the Team and the Justice League try to recover from the death of Wally West, the universe throws another obstacle for them to deal with. Post-Endgame Fix-It. Two-Shot.

Stages of Deterioration, by aradian nights: After Bruce finds Jason Todd, catatonic and traumatized, miraculously alive on the streets of Gotham, Tim, Dick, and Barbara attempt to fix their broken brother. AU.

[avaritia-apotheosis]

Phantom Children Ch. 8

What's this? An update! Massive thanks to my betas for helping me get through this chapter <3

In Which: A few answers are given to the family and Danny is rudely awoken

[Side note: If you wanna know the general ages of the batfam, its listed in the AO3 version. I also talk about katanas in the end notes ^-^]

AO3 | Prologue | 7 | [ 8 ] | 9 DAMIAN INFORMED TODD—and Drake when he arrived on his bike sometime later on—that the boy whose face is plastered across the monitor was neither a picture of himself nor of Father.

Drake took one glance at the monitor and sighed, pressing his fingers against the bridge of his nose. “Just when I thought this day was getting better.”

“What, did that café on 5th finally let customers supersize their drink?”

“God that would be the dream, wouldn’t it?” Drake sighed wistfully. “Nah, but I did get a lead on where some of that stolen Cadmus tech might’ve ended up. I was gonna spend the night following up on it, but I guess we have to deal with,” he gestured to the monitor, “whatever this is.”

Todd leaned against the edge of the computer, arms crossed over the red bat insignia on his chest. “What are we dealing with this time, brat? A clone? An alternate universe counterpart? Magic shenanigans?”

Maybe. Perhaps. All of those were perfectly valid conclusions for the enigma that was Daniel James Fenton. (Why Fenton and not al Ghul? Or even Wayne?)

Damian, too, was a genetic experiment; a ‘test tube baby’ as Drake put it at times. Damian was born for greatness, created to be perfect. The perfect soldier. The perfect assassin. The perfect heir. Was this boy—Daniel—like him as well?

A failed one, then. Perhaps the precursor to Damian’s own existence. But that would not explain why the boy was allowed to exist for so long. His grandfather demanded perfection, especially from those of his own blood. If the boy was a failure, he would have been eliminated immediately, not sent to live with some eccentric scientists in the Midwest.

Damian was not naïve enough to think that his mother and grandfather did not keep secrets from him. On the contrary, he expected it. The League of Shadows dealt in secrets as often as it did in death. Certain information was worth its weight in gold, whether it was given or buried away.

But he could not help the sharp pang in his chest. A lightning strike, quick and electrifying at the notion that they kept secrets about their family from him.

His father’s face flashed in his mind. The shock turned into a slow, dawning horror. That flicker of light, of recognition, as he scrutinized the contents of the flash drive and cross-referenced it with a public database.

And grief.

Damian recognized the grief.

Alfred, too, nearly dropped his tray of fresh-baked cookies when he stepped in front of the monitor. His usual unflappable demeanor was momentarily broken at his father’s whispered “Sixteen years. Alfred— he’s sixteen years old.”

His father knew of the boy. He was allowed to know of Daniel when he was not allowed to know about Damian.

------

Grayson returned to the cave with a distinct lack of energy in his step. His mask dangled off the tips of his fingers, chin angled downwards and covered largely by his hand. For a split second, their eyes met. Grayson shifted his gaze away, scratching the back of his neck. Father told him, then. Damian wondered how much Father revealed to his favorite son.

Damian clucked his tongue and buried himself deeper into the chair, arms crossed and pointedly looking away. If it was not for his accursed ankle, he’d have headed out to the training ring to take his frustrations out on the dummies.

“Oh, thank god you’re here, Dickface. Damian’s completely out of it.”

Damian shot him a look. “Shut up, Todd.”

“Leave him alone, Jay. Is Tim back yet?”

Drake emerged from the changing room in a dark green shirt, a fresh cup of coffee in hand. He took one long sip before exhaling. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“O-kay…” He pressed his hands together, mouth thinned into a grim line. “Uh, hey Tim, glad to see you back safe. Bruce is coming down soon to explain some things.” He let out a deep sigh, carding a hand through his hair. “This kind of thing would probably be better with the girls around, but I—god, I don’t know.”

Todd raised an eyebrow. “Don’t know whether to call Steph and Cass in Hong Kong, or don’t know what’s going on?”

“Yes.”

------

When Father arrived, Pennyworth following dutifully behind him, it was with an aching slowness in his gait. His steps measured and precise, preternaturally quiet as he made his way to stand by Damian’s chair. Damian sat up straighter, shoulders squared and back an inch away from the backrest. The rest, even Todd, stood at attention; an ingrained habit among Robins and an amusing instinct even among the senior heroes of the Justice League when it came to facing the Batman.

His father kept a steady hand on Damian’s shoulder, and Damian, shamefully, leaned into the touch; his head inclined towards his father’s hand so much so that he could feel the ends of his hair being pushed up slightly as he brushed against his father’s forearm.

He spoke with his usual monotone, as if he was heading a Justice League meeting as opposed to unveiling the secrets surrounding that boy. He brought forward the few photos they obtained from the flash drive. “A few weeks ago, we were alerted of suspicious movement from the League of Shadows in Amity Park, Illinois. Their objectives are, as of now, unclear, though it appears to be tied to the death of Amity Park resident, Daniel Fenton.”

One photo was a standard ID picture people get for their driver’s license, the lighting deliberately horrible so that any attempt to look decent would always end in failure. Another photo was a little better; a candid scene of him chatting with two others his age, a Caucasian girl in gothic-style clothes and an African-American holding a sleek, but still very outdated PDA. His blue eyes crinkled at the corners, hand reaching up to his face to stifle a laugh. There were other photos like this, some candid, others posed. At the forefront of each, a boy that looked too much like his father, too much like Damian.

His father glanced at the photos. He shut his eyes and when he opened them again, he fixed them on some distant stalactite in the Cave. “Around six months ago, Daniel was pronounced dead in a vehicular accident. A body was present, but according to police reports, he was identified via his driver’s license as opposed to any kind of DNA profiling.” He leaned over Damian’s chair to pull up a profile of Masters. “Our source—Vladimir Masters, mayor of Amity and a friend of the Fenton family—indicated his belief that Daniel is actually alive. I am inclined to agree.”

“He’s your son, isn’t he,” Drake said, more of a statement than a question.

Father gave a curt nod. “I cannot say for certain until I can perform a DNA test, but I highly suspect that to be the case.”

“First the demon spawn, now this. Great.” Todd made a hand motion towards the screen. “You know, Bruce, not knowing you have a kid once might be a coincidence, but twice? How do you do that?”

“As of three hours ago, I was still under the impression that my son never made it to term.”

“What?”

“Over sixteen years ago I was involved in a mission that put Ra’s and I on the same side. During that time, Talia and I entered a relationship that resulted in a pregnancy. Though initially ecstatic, she eventually led me to believe she miscarried the child and pushed me away. For what ends, I do not know, but trust me Jason, if I knew—” He paused, the hand that was not on Damian’s shoulder curled into a tight fist.

Father pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why she hid it from me then doesn’t matter. Why Talia wants him back now is important. Judging from Daniel’s records, he was adopted into the Fenton family as an infant and has since lived a seemingly normal life as a civilian. His adoptive parents, Jack and Maddie Fenton, are brilliant scientists and engineers focused on the field of paranormal studies. Eccentricities aside, they have zero connections to the League of Assassins or any other concerning parties.”

“So why now?” Dick asked, shifting his concerned gaze from Bruce to the static picture of Danny’s tired smile. “Why, after all this time, decide that now would be the best time to recover him?”

------

Danny’s experienced plenty of rude awakenings before, but waking up at the ass-crack of dawn to avoid his kidnapper-slash-assassin-slash-biological-mom launching a surprise attack takes the fucking cake. He can’t believe he’s saying this, but thank god for all those late night ghost attacks that conditioned him to be a light sleeper. And, of course, the League’s insistence that everyone be in optimal condition regardless of how little sleep you actually got.

Danny kicked Talia off of him, ripping his blanket away before scrambling to his feet. Seriously, if the universe decided to spontaneously give him powers again, he’d really like an upgrade to his ghost senses, please and thank you. Something that works on humans and not just ghosts. Like spidey-senses. He’d really, really like some spidey-senses.

“Your reaction times have improved considerably,” Talia said.

He eyed the katana sheathed beside his bedroll. “Thanks. Who could have guessed that constantly challenging someone to a spar in the unholy hours of morning would make them paranoid to sleep too much? Really, how am I supposed to grow taller at this rate? ” If he could just get it--

She smiled, taking a step forward. “Prepare yourself.”

“Heh.” Danny stepped further away from Talia, keeping his back to the mouth of the cave. One hand stretched in front of him and the other, coated in a green light, was kept hidden behind his back. “Am I actually gonna get some answers today?”

“Let us make it interesting. Last 10 minutes against me and I shall tell you more about your brother.” Talia twirled her blade. “If you happen to draw blood, you may ask any one thing of me.”

“Anything?”

“Within reason.”

His face caught between a grimace and a smile. He’d rather be sleeping right now, but if he had to be awake, then he’d better make the most of it. “Deal.”

Talia’s smile dropped. She veered her body to the right, barely dodging the streak of bright green that whizzed from behind her. The ectoplasmic energy that surrounded the katana bled away as the handle connected with Danny’s outstretched hand.

She quickly glanced back at Danny’s bedding. Beside it lay an empty sheath. “You have telekinesis?”

He shrugged. “It comes and goes.” Yeah, no way was Danny gonna admit that seven-out-of-ten-times he forgot that he had telekinesis. Besides, that shit was hard to do when he wasn’t Phantom.

“A surprise attack from behind is a sound strategy, Daniel. Though it’ll take a lot more than that to harm me.”

Danny pointed to the side of his cheek. “Are you sure about that?”

Talia frowned. She reached up to her face. Her fingers brushed against her cheek and came away with a thin streak of blood.

Danny grinned, pointing his blade at his opponent. “First blood goes to me.”

------

Fact: most fights don’t last long. An average street fight could last anywhere between 25 to 40 seconds, and sword fights rarely last over a minute. Like Talia said, the goal of a fight was to end it with as few injuries to oneself as possible. Humans, even the most skilled ones, can rarely last long in a fight. Prolonged combat is suicide; it makes you tired, makes your muscles heavy. It’s nothing like what Hollywood would have you believe.

Even with Danny’s own enhanced stamina and Talia holding back, he couldn’t last a full ten-minute spar. If Talia didn’t finish him within twenty-five seconds, then he’d fall by his own human limitations.

But the goal wasn’t to spar continuously for ten minutes.

He only had to last that long.

Danny sprinted out of the cave. The sun barely peeked out of the horizon, a thin line of deep orange breaking apart the wide expanse of blue-black sky above. He couldn’t see shit; great news since that meant there’s a good chance Talia couldn’t either, but that doesn’t fix the fact that he can’t see.

Nearly stumbling on the ice, Danny veered to the left. The edges of the lake stopped at towering rocks twice Danny’s height, leaving little room for cover. Though if he remembered correctly, there should be a few crevices here and there to hide in.

“You’ll have to be faster than that, Daniel.”

Shit—

Danny stopped. He brought his sword up to parry Talia’s strike and twisted away, putting distance between them.

Well, so much for just avoiding her for 10 minutes.

He adjusted his grip, keeping his sword steady and eyes trained on Talia as they circled each other. Danny lunged with an overhead strike. Talia used one hand to block the downswing by gripping his wrists. She thrust her sword forward, the tip harshly poking Danny’s abdomen.

“Less than three minutes.” Talia let his wrist go, Danny’s arms slumping to his sides.

He sighed as he sheathed his sword. “Damn, I thought I’d last longer than that.”

“You made a good effort,” Talia assured him. “Putting as much distance between us at the beginning was a good strategy. You recognized the win conditions immediately and attempted a battle of attrition.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “I am very proud of you habibi, especially as you managed to draw first blood.”

A warmth grew in Danny’s stomach at the words, heating his cheeks. Sheepishly, he scratched the back of his head. “I wasn’t entirely sure that would work, honestly.”

“It was clever; half a second later and you might have even killed me. You are an al Ghul through and through” She brushed his hair out of his face. “What would you like as your prize, then?”

Danny’s heart clenched. He frowned, dropping his arm to his side. If I was such an al Ghul, then why didn’t you keep me? The question lodged itself in his throat, stifling his thoughts. It was something he’d been wondering for a while, actually, in the moments of solitude he had at the compound. Talia, during their training, would always remark at his potential. How talented he was, how adaptable he was, how much greater he would have been if he had been trained at a younger age.

Well then, why wasn’t he? Why did she give him up?

But each time he tried to ask, his tongue would turn to lead and the moment would pass, the question still left unsaid and simmering at the back of his mind. A Pandora’s Box that held none of the world’s evil but all of Danny’s possible shortcomings.

He could ask the question now.

He could.

He didn’t.

“Why did you take me?”

Talia tilted her head. “It is because you’re my son.”

“No. Not that. It has to be something more than that. You had sixteen years to come back for me—or, hell, you could have just never left me.” His breath hitched, fingers mussing his hair and hiding his eyes. “Why else did you take me?”

“It is true that there was more than one reason why we decided to retrieve you from Amity Park. One of which is because you are my son and an heir of the Demon’s Head.” Talia stilled. The dark skies of dawn made it impossible for him to read her. “The second reason was to protect you.”

“You kidnapped me…to protect me?”

“Knowledge of the ghosts of Amity have spread through the more insidious parts of the world. There are many out there who would pay exorbitant fees to study one of you or to use you.”

Use him? What did she mean by—

Oh.

Ghosts—Amity Park’s brand of ghosts—were a new element that the world had to contend with. Amity Park might have a crime rate of zero but that wasn’t the case everywhere else. Theft, assault, murder; the world was rampant with crimes and criminals clawing their way to the very top. Having ghosts, even ones with the most basic powerset, would be a huge advantage.

“There’s no way that would work,” Danny insisted. “Most ghosts just want to be left alone, and the ones that want to wreak havoc would never work with humans. The only reason they even work with halfas like me at times is because they still consider us as ghosts.”

“If my sources are to be believed, ghosts might not even get a choice.”

Danny’s blood curdled in his veins.

No.

Someone’s found a way to control ghosts.

[bitimdrake]

Hey, I read one of your fics on ao3 and you offered timelines in the notes? I'd love to know where to even start, but one for the batfamily focusing on the Robins would be really nice. Thanks!

At all times I would love to ramble on about DC comics timelines, yes, absolutely. Possibly relevant to your interests: the Dick Grayson specific timeline I did earlier.

As for where to start, that depends on you! Personally, I felt compelled to read things in order--but most people just pick a character and read piecemeal. If you like the latter approach, you can very likely search for “[character] best stories” and get some good recommendations. If you like the former--or if any particular item/period of time on this long list appeals to you--feel free to come back and I will give you more details of which issues specifically to read.

(And my real rec for anyone just starting batfam comics is to ignore everyone telling you to read Batman: Year One. They do not have your best interests at heart. Never read anything written by Frank M*ller. Also, you don’t need to read it; I promise you already know everything it has to say. If you want to start at the beginning-ish, consider Batman Chronicles: The Gauntlet and Robin: Year One for some of Dick’s early time as Robin.)

Onward to my very long, probably more information that you wanted, timeline for the Post-Crisis era, because this is a post-crisis supremacy blog. This isn’t so much a reading list, but I have included references.

The Early Years

Dick Grayson’s parents are killed by Tony Zucco. In some order or another, he is taken in as Bruce Wayne’s ward, becomes Robin, and works with Batman to have Zucco arrested. (Refs - original: Detective Comics vol 1 #37 from 1940. This has been retold an uncountable number of times, e.g. Robin Annual #4, 1995.)

Age - Dick is anywhere from 8 to 12; like I said, this story has be retold so many times. To make the timeline work with Tim’s later introduction, I tend to declare him 11 here.

Batman and Superman meet and learn each other’s identities. (Refs - original: Superman vol 1 #76 from 1952. This has also been retold, e.g. Superman/Batman Annual #1 from 2006.) Robin and Superman also become friends :)

The Justice League of America forms. Batman is usually a founding member, but sometimes not, depending on which of many retcons are currently in place.

Dick forms the Teen Titans with Garth/Aqualad, Wally West/Kid Flash, Donna Troy/Wonder Girl, and Roy Harper/Speedy. (Refs - original: The Brave and the Bold vol 1 #54, 1964, then flashbacks in Teen Titans vol 1 #53, 1978, then The Brave and the Bold vol 1 #60, 1965; and onto Teen Titans vol 1, 1966-. Partially retold in Teen Titans: Year One, 2008.)

Ages - Dick is in his early teens, as are all his friends.

Barbara Gordon dresses up like Batman to mess with her dad at a costume party, ends up actually fighting a crime, and decides to stick around as Batgirl. This could probably be placed before the Teen Titans and/or JLA form without messing up the timeline. (Refs - Detective Comics vol 1 #359, 1967; retold in Batgirl: Year One, 2003.)

Age - Depending on your choice of retcon, Barbara is either a few years older than Dick and in her late teens, or the same age as Dick and in her early teens.

If you chose the version where Babs is older (hell yeah), then Dick has a crush on the cool, older Batgirl. If you chose the version where they’re the same age (meh), then they dated as teens and went to prom together.

The Teen Titans split up. (Ref - Teen Titans vol 1 #53, 1978.)

Dick goes to Hudson University (Ref - Batman #217, 1969) ...but drops out after the first semester (Ref - Detective Comics vol 1 #495, 1980). Yes, Dick was in the same semester of college for a full irl decade.

The 80s

Dick forms the New Teen Titans with Raven, Wally, Donna, Koriand’r/Starfire, Victor Stone/Cyborg, and Garfied Logan/The Changeling/Beast Boy. (Ref - New Teen Titans vol 1, 1980-). Dick splits time between the Titans in NYC and working with Batman in Gotham.

Bruce quits the JLA and forms the Outsiders here, because he is going through an edgy phase and also wants to be in charge. (Ref - Batman and the Outsiders vol 1, 1983.)

Some time later, he leaves the Outsiders and joins a new Justice League. (Refs - Batman and the Outsiders #32, 1986; Justice League vol 1, 1987.)

Bruce notices Dick is growing up and starting to move on, so preemptively fires him to avoid being left. (Spectacular parenting there.) Dick becomes Nightwing. (Refs - Batman #408, 1987; Tales of the Teen Titans vol #44, 1984; and flashbacks in Batman #416, 1988. Retold in an imo worse version in Nightwing: Year One, 2005.)

Age - Dick is 19.

Very soon after, Bruce finds recently-orphaned street kid Jason Todd stealing his tires and, after a failed attempt to get Jason safe elsewhere, adopts Jason himself and makes him Robin. (Refs - Batman #408-409, 1987.)

Age - Jason is 12. That makes Dick ~7 years older than him.

I can’t remember if Dick had already moved to NYC or only moved after being fired, but either way, he ends up living there. He also gets into a long-term romantic relationship with Kory (Starfire). (New Teen Titans.)

Dick rarely returns to Gotham during this period, but he does meet Jason and, though still mad at Bruce, gives Jason his blessing. (Refs - again, Batman #416; retold in Nightwing: Year One.)

Bruce quits another Justice League.

By this time, Barbara, working as a librarian, has become much less active as Batgirl, but still has some chances to work with with Robin!Jason.

As a civilian, Babs is shot by the Joker and paralyzed. (Refs - Batman: The Killing Joke, 1988, but don’t read that and instead read a story actually about Barbara and her recovery in Batman Chronicles #5, “Oracle: Year One”, 1996.)

Bruce grows more worried about Jason and benches him for his safety. Jason runs away to find his mom. Jason dies.  (Refs - Batman #426-429, “A Death in the Family”, 1989. Dick finds out in New Titans vol 1 #55, 1989.)

Age - Jason is 15.

A mysterious new hacker, Oracle, starts to work with the Suicide squad... (Refs - periodic issues from Suicide Squad vol 1 #23-38, 1989-1990.)

Tim Drake tries to convince Dick to become Robin again, fails, and is instead encouraged to become Robin himself. (Refs - “Batman: A Lonely Place Of Dying” crossover with Batman and New Titans, 1989.)

Age - Tim is 13. This makes him almost exactly 2 years younger than Jason, 9ish years younger than Dick.

Batman meets and eventually recruits mute mechanical genius Harold Allnut. He lives in the Batcave?? Comics ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯ (Refs - Batman #448 Detective Comics #615 Batman #449, Batman #458, 1991.)

Tim’s mother dies and his father is put in a coma. He stays with Bruce for a few...months? weeks?...until his dad wakes up. The Drakes move into the manor next door to the Waynes, and Tim leaves boarding school to go to public school instead. (Refs – Detective Comics #618-621, Batman #480-481.)

Helena Bertinelli starts operating in Gotham as Huntress.

Stephanie Brown first appears as the Spoiler for a single story arc to thwart her dad. (Ref – Detective Comics vol 1 #647-649, 1992.)

Age – Stephanie is later stated to be a year older than Tim, making her 14 or 15 here.

(Did my section for the 80s stretch into 1992? Yes. Shut up. The Batman 80s last until Knightfall, okay.)

Non-Stop Story Arcs

Bruce meets Jean-Paul Valley, a nice college student who is semi-brainwashed to become the super-violent vigilante Azrael, and takes him under his wing. (Refs – First appearance in Batman: Sword of Azrael, 1992.)

Tim starts dating his first girlfriend, Ariana Dzerchenko. (Ref – She first appears in Robin III, 1992, but they start dating off-screen.)

New villain Bane breaks Bruce’s back. Bruce appoints Jean-Paul Valley as Batman in his place. This will prove to be a terrible idea. (Ref – “Knightfall“, 1993.)

Stephanie reappears as Spoiler, working alongside Robin to foil her dad again. irl, Stephanie became a supporting character in the Robin book here, so she starts to appear more consistently, mostly with Tim. (Refs – Robin vol 2 #3-5, 1994.)

Bruce, still with a broken back, goes traveling Europe on a rescue mission. Alfred despairs for how little he’s looking out for himself and resigns in protest. In Gotham, Tim is locked out of the cave by an erratic and dangerous JPV-as-Batman (a.k.a. “Azbats”), who is getting progressively more violent. (Harold, apparently, is just hiding in one of the side tunnels during this time.) (Ref – Knightquest, 1993-1994.)

Meanwhile, Dick and Kory’s relationship falls apart, they almost get married and then don’t, and the New Titans split up.

Bruce, magically healed, returns to Gotham and takes his mantle back from JPV with Tim and Dick’s help. (Ref – KnightsEnd, 1994.) JPV is kinda sorta maybe better now, though, so he gets to keep working in Gotham as Azazel.

Bruce immediately decides he wants a vacation and Dick becomes Batman for the first time while he’s gone, with Tim as his Robin, until Bruce returns. (Ref – “Batman: Prodigal“, 1994-1995. ♥♥)

Stephanie starts to realize she wants to do the vigilante thing for real, not just when her dad is around. (Refs – Robin vol 2 #15-16, #25-26, and on...)

Barbara starts to regularly work with the Batfam as Oracle around this time.

Dick goes to London to convince Alfred to return. (Ref - Nightwing: Alfred’s Return, 1995.)

A plague is released on Gotham. The whole team comes together to help, and also Tim catches it and almost dies. (Ref - “Batman: Contagion“, 1996.) Soon after, said plague returns and it turns out Ra’s al Ghul is involved. (Ref - “Batman: Legacy“, 1996.)

Dick moves to Bludhaven and settles in as the city’s protector. (Ref - Nightwing vol 2, 1996-)

Meanwhile, Barbara starts working with some female superheroes, particularly Black Canary, in what will eventually become the Birds of Prey. (Refs - Black Canary/Oracle: Birds of Prey, 1996-1997.)

Dick and Helena have a one night stand. Oops. Dick’s love life is complicated. (Ref - Nightwing/Huntress, 1998.)

Tim meets Superboy, meets Bart Allen/Impulse, and later saves a mystery girl called Secret with them. (Refs - Robin Plus Impulse, 1996; WF3: World's Finest Three (Superboy/Robin), 1996; Young Justice: The Secret, 1998.) The four of them form Young Justice. (Refs - JLA: World Without Grown-Ups, 1998; Young Justice vol 1, 1998.)

A huge earthquake hits Gotham, sending the city into chaos and again assembling the core family. Large parts of the manor and batcave are destroyed. (Refs - “Batman: Cataclysm”, “Aftershocks”, 1998.)

Tim breaks up with Ariana so he and Stephanie can start dating. Stephanie realizes she’s pregnant (not Tim’s lmao; he has never ever had sex) and puts the Spoiler costume aside for awhile. (Refs - Robin vol 2 #57, 1998.)

Age - Stephanie is 15.

Dick & co reform the Titans because they miss each other. (Refs - JLA/Titans #1-3, 1998-1999. Titans vol 1, 1999.)

(Harold seems to leave around this time, vanishing into Gotham to repair things all about.)

You how Gotham sucks, and it sucks even more now that it got hit by that earthquake? Let’s wall it off and not let anyone in or out! Bruce tells everyone to leave him aloooone. Dick stays in Bludhaven. Tim’s dad moves the family to Keystone City. Bruce goes away to sulk for a while before returning. Helena Bertinelli decides to actually get shit done in Gotham and dons a cowl--which will later get her dubbed Batgirl, even though she SHOULD have been batWOMAN okay--while still keeping up appearances as Huntress. Barbara also stays in Gotham, and also gets shit done. (Ref - Batman: No Man’s Land, 1999.)

Stephanie has her baby, who is given up for adoption. Tim convinces his dad to return to Gotham. (Ref - Robin vol 2 #64-65, 1999.)

Bruce is an asshole to Helena for dumb manipulation reasons and a combo of factors stop her from being Batgirl. (Still in No Man’s Land.)

Bruce realizes working alone is actually super inefficient, and calls all his allies back to Gotham. Also!!!! Cassandra Cain first appears, immediately impresses both Barbara and Bruce, and is given the mantle of Batgirl. (Still in NML.)

Ages - Cass is 17 when she’s introduced, making her about the same age as Jason, ~1 year older than Steph, ~2 years older than Tim, and ~7 years younger than Dick.

No Man’s Land finally ends and Gotham is reopened to the public.

Early 2000s

Tim gets enrolled in a (local) boarding school as punishment for multiple disappearances. (Ref: Robin vol 2 #74, 2000.)

Dick and Barbara start dating, after a very long flirty lead-up.

Cass, living with Barbara in the clock tower, is magically made to understand language, though she still has a lot of struggles speaking. (Ref - Batgirl vol 1 #3-6, 2000.)

Things actually get to continue for a little while without being extra horrible, until Jim Gordon is shot and decides to finally retire. Also Alfred resigns again, going to live with Tim at his boarding school, and not talking to Bruce. (Ref - Batman: Officer Down, 2001.)

A new commissioner, Michael Akins, who is much less trusting of vigilantes, is appointed.

Bruce tells Stephanie Tim’s identity. Tim is furious at Bruce for going behind his back. Bruce starts training Stephanie. Tim realizes he’s actually happy to no longer have to hide his identity from Steph, and they continue dating, but he refuses to speak to Bruce. (Ref - starts in Robin vol 2 #87, 2001.)

During this time where Steph is actually getting acknowledged by Bruce, she also meets and becomes fast friends with Cass. (Ref - Batgirl vol 1 #20, 2001.)

Bruce finally, officially adopts Dick. (Ref - Gotham Knights #17, #20-21, 2001.)

The Joker does some stuff in a big universe-wide crossover. When it seems like the Joker has killed Tim and he also taunts Nightwing about Jason, Dick beats him to death :) :) :) Bruce resuscitates him for Plot Reasons :/ :/ :/ (Ref - Joker: Last Laugh, 2001.)

Bruce--who, you may remember, is not speaking to Alfred or Tim--is accused of murderer. Cass figures out his identity through 2.5 seconds of seeing Bruce Wayne walk. Everyone takes sides on if he’s guilty, not helped by Bruce being an evasive bastard. Eventually Bruce realizes (again) that working alone sucks and allies are good, and they all team up to clear his name. The air is cleared with everyone... (Ref - “Bruce Wayne: Murderer?” and “Bruce Wayne: Fugitive”, 2002)

...except Stephanie, who Bruce completely ghosted during the whole murder trial (as she still doesn’t know his identity). Then he tells her he actually doesn’t want her being Spoiler at all. The Birds of Prey, who had started training with Steph too, also decide to cut off their relationship. Steph is pretty much left with just Tim and Cass, neither of whom entirely believe in her either :(

Jean-Paul Valley dies. I feel bad about it, but I did almost forget about him. (Ref - Azrael: Agent of the Bat vol 1 #100, 2003.)

Dick briefly runs the JLA while the regular members are trapped in the past. Good for him!! (Ref - JLA: The Obsidian Age, 2002-2003.)

New villain Hush comes to town. This is kind of Jason’s first post-resurrection appearance, but wait, it’s not--but wait! actually it is! Retcons, y’all. (Ref - Batman: Hush, 2002-2003.)

Ra’s al Ghul dies, but, like, for real this time. Disclaimer: this is the one thing on this list that I have not personally read yet, so I can’t guarantee exactly where it goes. (Ref - Batman: Death and the Maidens, 2003-2004.)

Things Suck!

A team up between Young Justice and the Titans goes terribly, resulting in multiple deaths, and both teams splitting up. Tim ends up joining the latest version of the Teen Titans, and Dick is reluctantly convinced by Roy to join the new Outsiders. (Refs - Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day, then Teen Titans vol 3 and Outsiders vol 3, 2003.)

Huntress joins the Birds of Prey, and things are finally looking up for her. (Ref - Birds of Prey vol 1 60s.)

Over in Bludhaven, Dick’s life is terrible, including Barbara dumping him, his old circus being burnt down, and his apartment building being blown up, culminating the death of Blockbuster. It’s a bad time. (Ref - Nightwing vol 2, roughly from #83-#95.)

Meanwhile, Tim’s dad discovers he is Robin and reacts very poorly. Tim is forced to quit. (Ref - Robin vol 2 #124-125, 2004.)

Stephanie steps up to be Robin instead. Bruce gives her the briefest chance before firing her. (Ref - Robin vol 2 #126, Detective Comics vol 1 #796, Batgirl vol 1 #53, Robin vol 2 #127-128, 2004.)

Stephanie returns to being Spoiler and, in an ill-advised attempt to prove herself, unintentionally triggers a major gang war. Tim realizes he can’t stop being a vigilante and returns to being Robin, with his dad’s reluctant agreement. Barbara’s clock tower is destroyed. The police, led by Commissioner Akins, fully turn against vigilantes. Stephanie dies--later retconned/revealed to be faking her death. (Ref - Batman: War Games, 2004-2005.)

Mere days later, Tim’s dad is murdered. (Ref - Identity Crisis, 2004-2005.)

(Also from Identity Crisis, Bruce starts to remember a certain event where other League members wiped his memory. I know that has nothing to do with Gotham or the batkids, but the growing paranoia becomes a big part of Bruce’s characterization in this period)

Tim, grieving his dad and girlfriend, and a little tense with Bruce after the Stephanie stuff; and Cass, grieving her best friend; each move to Bludhaven, where they start to bond for the first time. During this period, Tim has put himself under the custody of a fake uncle, after rejecting Bruce’s offer to adopt him. (Ref: Robin #132, Batgirl #58, Robin #133, Batgirl #59, 2005.)

Meanwhile, Dick has left Bludhaven, working briefly with the mob in Detroit, and then with Deathstroke. (Ref - Nightwing vol 2 #107-115, 2005-2006.)

And Barbara moves to Metropolis along with the Birds of Prey. (Ref - Birds of Prey vol 1 #74, 2005.)

Cass leaves on a personal quest to learn her mother’s identity, gets caught up with the League of Assassins, gets killed, gets thrown in a Lazarus Pit, and a bunch of other stuff besides....but I don’t think she actually tells anyone about all of this. (Ref - Batgirl vol 1 #66-73, 2005-2006.)

In Gotham, Jason Todd returns as the Red Hood (currently an antivillain). After a lot of dramatics and that final confrontation with Bruce and the Joker, he vanishes again. (Ref - “Batman: Under the Hood“, 2005-2006. In the middle of that arc is Teen Titans #29, where he beats up Tim.)

At the same time (like, literally, at the same time), hero/villain tensions in the greater DCU escalate to the point of a group of villains destroying Bludhaven. The city is fully ruined, and after the initial rescue efforts, Dick does not return. (Ref - Infinite Crisis and tie-ins, 2006.)

Also in Infinite Crisis, Bruce’s latest paranoid spy stuff goes evil and almost kills everyone, Superboy dies, Dick almost dies, and the universe semi-explodes again. Bruce decides to take Tim and Dick on a fun round-the-world trip.

When Cass returns from her mom/soul-searching mission, she takes over Gotham in their place. Also during this year break, Kate Kane/Batwoman first appears, though she actually has far less connection to the main batfamily than you might expect.

One Year Later

Jim Gordon comes out of retirement to be commissioner again, for reasons that will never be explained.

Dick moves back to NYC, where he has an unpleasant-yet-brotherly run in with Jason, who is I think an antivillain still? (Ref - Nightwing, beginning with #118.) Dick dates a couple women during this period, but honestly none of them are very memorable.

Bruce offers to adopt Tim again, and this time Tim says yes. He moves into the manor. (Ref - Batman vol 1 #654, 2006.) In Teen Titans, Tim has a brief and failed relationship with Cassie Sandsmark while they mourn Conner, then in Robin starts dating a girl from school, Zoanne.

Cass, who became a fluent speaker over the year jump and started learning how to read, gets temporarily brainwashed and evil. This storyline is largely agreed to suck.

The Outsiders shuffle around. Dick leaves the team, and Bruce takes over the new team. (Ref - Outsiders: Five of a Kind, 2007.)

Jason, who is an antihero now because the writers said so, starts on an adventure through the multiverse with Donna Troy and Kyle Rayner. Everyone hated the series this was in, so don’t expect it to ever be referenced or brought up again, except for the part where Jason briefly took on the name and costume of Red Robin. (Ref - Countdown to Final Crisis, 2007-2008.)

Damian appears for the first time, to everyone’s surprise. He tries to claim Robin, which no one agrees with, tries to kill Tim, which everyone is upset by, and then seemingly dies alongside Talia... (Ref - Batman #655-658, 2006.)

Ages - Damian is 10. Tim is 17. This makes Damian ~16 years younger than Dick.

...but, of course, he survived. He and Talia appear again when Ra’s (remember how he died?) tries to steal Damian’s body to bring himself back to life. Damian is kept safe, Ra’s finds himself a different body, and Damian and Talia once more vanish into the wind. (Ref - “Batman: The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul”, 2007-2008.)

Dick and co reform the Titans once again because they miss each other. I love them. (Ref - Titans vol 2, 2008-)

Stephanie makes her return to Gotham. Tim is initially thrilled to see her, but that dulls into an uncomfortable tension as the fakeness of her death sets in. (Ref - Robin #170-174 and Robin/Spoiler Special, 2008.) Cass, unfortunately, is never really given a chance to react to her best friend’s return.

Cass, un-brainwashed, technically starts living in the manor, but is rarely seen there. Bruce adopts her, although she must be well over 18 by this point. (Ref - Batgirl vol 2, 2008-2009.) Cass joins the Outsiders. (Ref - Batman and the Outsiders vol 2 #2..., 2008.)

Damian returns to Gotham, for good this time. Bruce disappears and then actually doesn’t disappear, and then does die (but not really). This whole thing is a mess. (Ref - “Batman R.I.P“, except actually not, and also it pains me to have to list that on this post. Final Crisis, though none of the rest of the family appears in that and it also pains me to have to list that too. Honestly, just know Bruce “died” and don’t worry about the event itself. 2008-2009.)

Also, Stephanie accidentally triggers a gang war (...yes, again) and Tim tries to tell her to stop being Spoiler. (Ref - Robin #177-182.)

Dick moves back to Gotham, because someone’s gotta keep this city/family together. The Titans also split up around this time.

A New Status Quo

Tim tries to convince Dick to be Batman (Tim trying to convince Dick to take on a role he doesn’t want count: 2). Jason, who is a full villain now, decides to be Batman himself and do a lot of murdering. Dick becomes Batman for real. Jason falls off a train because he’s dramatic, and disappears for the millionth time. (Ref - Batman: Battle for the Cowl, 2009.)

In an effort to keep him in Gotham, Dick makes Damian Robin, as Damian has been campaigning for since day one. Tim is very upset. While being very upset, Tim strikes on his Bruce-is-alive theory, refuses to explain to anyone, dons Jason’s old costume and moniker of Red Robin (Tim inheriting vigilante IDs from Jason count: 2), fights Dick’s attempts to keep him in Gotham, and goes on a world tour to track down Bruce. (Ref - flashbacks in Red Robin #1-4, 2009.)

Dick, Damian, and Alfred move to Wayne Tower, living in the penthouse and working out of the underground bunker beneath. (Ref - Batman and Robin vol 1.)

Local villain Hush, who has surgically given himself Bruce’s face, starts posing as Bruce Wayne. Dick (and Damian, and the Outsiders), sorta-kinda get him under their control, but it’s a tentative thing. (Ref - Batman: Streets of Gotham.)

On posthumous orders from Bruce, Cass makes Stephanie Batgirl. (Ref - Batgirl vol 3.) Cass leaves the Outsiders and Gotham, later revealed to have gone to Hong Kong.

Dick joins the JLA as Batman.

The dead riiiiiise. Dick gets Tim to return to Gotham very briefly to face their zombie parents. (Ref - Blackest Night: Batman, 2009.)

Jason, who is either a villain or an antivillain now (but honestly who can even keep up), but is Red Hood again, pops up to make trouble for Batman and Robin. In the midst of his trouble, another villain shoots Damian in the spine and paralyzes him. Jason is taken to jail. (Ref - Batman and Robin vol 1 #4-6, 2010.) Damian gets a shiny new spine courtesy of Talia, et al. Surely this will turn out okay :)

Tim returns to Gotham with evidence of Bruce being lost in time (and a call to all his allies to help him stop Ra’s al Ghul). He gets emancipated to nominally take over Wayne Enterprises (but really Lucius Fox still runs it). (Ref - Red Robin #10-12, 2010.)

Tim briefly lives in the penthouse with the rest of the family, until Damian tries to kill him again--this time for including Damian on his Batman-esque list of people he needs secret plans to defeat--and he decides to build his own apartment.

Bruce returns through the combined efforts of many people, checks on all his allies, and decides he cannot work with Damian and there should be multiple Batmen. (ref - Bruce Wayne: The Road Home and Batman: The Return, 2010-2011.) Very little actually changes with his return. Dick stays on as Gotham’s Batman and Damian’s partner. Bruce goes around the world to establish “Batman Inc,” working with various allies along the way.

Cass takes on the name Black Bat, mostly off-panel.

Jason (still a villain) breaks out of jail, killing a bunch of people in the process, work briefly alongside Dick and Damian, and then runs off as a fugitive. (Ref - Batman and Robin vol 1 #23-25.)

The rest of Bruce’s kids all work together when Cass returns to Gotham briefly, including the first meeting of Cass and Damian. (Ref - Gates of Gotham ♥)

Barry Allen fucks up the timeline and this continuity ends.

The New 52 (2011-2016)

A reboot I have not yet read, but which, from my understanding, changes half the character’s personalities and backstories and erases the rest. Jason becomes a proper antihero and gets friends for the first time, though those friends lose all characterization in the process. Tim becomes an asshole genius who was never Robin. Barbara is reverted to Batgirl. The other Batgirls are largely erased. Dick becomes a secret agent and possibly a himbo. Kate and Bruce become cousins, and Batwoman becomes more prevalent. Everyone dies or fakes their death to the point of it being a joke.

Rebirth (2016-2020)

Another reboot I have not yet read, but which I understand to be an attempt to reclaim the well-liked post-Crisis characters and stories, with the most popular parts of the new 52 blended in. Started with high hopes, and then crashed and burned. I have no idea what happens in this period except for Dick’s largely despised amnesia arc.

Whatever The Fuck Is Happening Now

Another sorta-reboot. DC is going with an “everything is canon” approach apparently, which I assume will last until they find something that readers enjoy and then they’ll declare that the real canon after all. Only time will tell.

[stxleslyds]

Jason doesn't show up in DC's animated series (though the does "spiritually" show up as Tim Drake in Season 2 of Batman the Animated Series).

Jason has a strong presence in the video games, though. So what is your opinion on Jason's characterization for Arkham Knight? He is a DLC for the Injustice games as well. Judy be warned that I did watch some clips of Arkham Knight and the torture was too gruesome for me.

RED HOOD IN VIDEO GAMES.

Hey there friend, thank you for the ask!

INJUSTICE 2.

I had to do some research on Red Hood’s appearances in the Injustice games because I was never really in touch with that story. Here is what I knew about it, there are two games for PC, one of them is Injustice and the other is Injustice 2, the games also have the comic books that give context/background to the lore of the game.

I used to play Injustice: Gods Among Us on mobile phone, and I had Jason as a playable character there, I also found out way too late that “Nightwing” wasn’t really Dick Grayson, it was Damian because he took on the mantle after he and the rock killed Dick in the comic (forever mad at that ridiculous death and the kinda scary art that comic had).

I looked for information about Red Hood’s backstory in wikis and all that because I refuse to read an alternate universe book written by Tom Taylor, there are things that I am just not willing to do.

All in all, I think that this Jason was in surface level, the same as his canon comic counterpart up until the time of his resurrection. Given that the world was at war and the League of Assassins wasn’t working openly, he and the others had to live in the shadows, he seems to have been trained proficiently by both Batman and the LoA so he is a very hardcore opponent. There are some bits of his story with Damian and a place called Gorilla City that I do not understand because I haven’t read the comics but I am fine without it.

The thing is that this Jason is pretty cool, he sticks to his morals and fights for what he believes is right, he doesn’t look like the kinda guy that takes sides in this war which is probably the best idea. Both Batman and Superman seem to be on the wrong side of history with they ideals.

What I did see and I loved eternally was the ending to Red Hood’s story, I will link the video here! But I will also copy and paste all that he says there because I think it’s really important and where I was able to see more of his characterization.

"That. Felt. Good. Titanium composite hollow point bullets with a C4 kicker. Fastest, most explosive ammo in the world. I made them myself. With the invasion over, Bruce and Superman started fighting again. I wasn't down with either of them. On the one hand, the Regime's right. Scumbag murderers and rapists deserve to die. But on the other hand, I'm no fan of government authority. Especially the dictatorial variety.

So, while the world's finest fight each other, I fight for the people. The weak. The innocent. Anyone who can't protect themselves. When they cry out for a saviour, I'll answer. As for the criminals that threaten them? They need to know that their actions have consequences. That the Red Hood is coming for them.”

This is excellent, I absolutely love this, this Jason knows his morals and doesn’t bow down to anyone and in the end, he is truly a hero to the people that need heroes the most.

Him saying that he believes that some criminals have to die but that he can’t really join Superman’s side because he cannot associate with it because he isn’t a fan of dictatorial ideas, I love this man.

I feel like this is a fair characterization for Jason, I believe that if something along the lines of what happens in Injustice happens in current continuity then Jason wouldn’t join any sides, he wouldn’t be neutral per se but he will fight for his own ideals. And his ideals in most universes are protecting people and I think that’s great. I love to see a world where Jason is seen as more intelligent and put together than the Batman.

Something that I find quite funny and interesting from this game is the dialogues that characters have with each other when they fight, I found this video compilation where you can see all the dialogues between Red Hood vs Robin (Damian Wayne), they are so fun and I love the animations too.

BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT.

Oh, ArkhamVerse Jason, my beloved.

He is, to me, the epitome of this meme.

I have actually watched the whole game playthrough, several times, and Jason had a DLC as the Red Hood for that game (Nightwing has one too and I will talk about it later because I love this version of him). And, yes, the torture scene is very gruesome, it was incredibly sad and it made me feel bad. But I also think that they made it that way so it could support the kind of storytelling they were going for.

The reality is that this Jason suffered his whole life, and was constantly introduced to lifestyles that he never wanted to be part of. The world around this Jason wasn’t kind at all to him and there is a long list of people who did him wrong.

Although ArkhamVerse Jason didn’t die, like his comic counterpart did, he suffered the most. And his suffering really drove him to be the best version of an unhinged Jason Todd. But it’s clear, his brutality and murder intent isn’t laced with his Red Hood persona or at least not on the same level as it is with his Arkham Knight persona.

This Jason’s characterization works to perfection, but it only works that way because he was well developed within the game lore and the comics. This Jason was extremely well trained, he is probably the smartest version of Jason, his mind and his level of preparedness are unparalleled when it comes to other Jason Todd variants (a little MCU Loki talk right there).

I would go as far as to say that this Jason would be an excellent match to peak Dick Grayson from before New 52 in comics. Those two would clash so immensely, but man, it would be one hell of an intellectual and physical fight. Two Kings doing what they do best.

Anyway, for now take my word for how well characterized Jason is in the ArkhamVerse, I will make a post were I deep dive more on his character both in game and comics. There is so much to say about him, he is truly interesting and very complex.

Now, I will be a little cheeky and I will use this ask as an opportunity to talk about my man, ArkhamVerse Nightwing aka Pretty Boy.

I love him so much! In the game when you get to meet him (I will link the video here! it’s five minutes long, and worth the watch) you get to see both Nightwing’s and Dick’s personalities. Nightwing is fun and relaxed, he is a little bit cocky and doesn’t let Batman be a pain in his ass, he is truly a beast. Although he is never seen without the mask in a moment when he is alone with Bruce you can really see Dick’s personality shine through. He obviously has had issues with Bruce in the past but there is also this palpable respect coming from both of them to the other. Bruce wants to protect Dick but he acts like a jerk instead of telling him what is on his mind. Dick wants to help Bruce at all costs, he refuses to leave Gotham until they solve something that he was already working on before Bruce needed his help.

There is also this sort of goodbye scene between the two (I will link it here!) that is extremely sad because Dick doesn’t believe Bruce when he tells him that he is proud of him. Dick cuts him off just when Bruce was trying to open up and I think that scene speaks volumes about how rough their relationship was. Dick never finds out that Bruce was “dying” after being infected with the Joker’s blood/gas, so it’s very bittersweet.

There is also the Nightwing DLC, where we get to see Dick being the best of the best, he is so skilled and funny and smart. It is amazing how much this game made me love their Nightwing even though he doesn’t appear much, his dynamic with Penguin is just perfect, Dick literally makes Penguin’s life very difficult. All of the people working with Penguin kinda fear Dick a little bit, some of them are even impressed by his skills.

Oh and, when Nightwing gets captured at some point in the game, Penguin’s men are saying something along the lines of “I was sure Batman will come in” “how come?” “what’s tied up downstairs and getting the crap beat out of it?” “Oh yeah, Nightwing” and that is so true, if I were Batman, I will also risk my life for Nightwing.

I just love Nightwing, he makes me so happy! He is the best here!

Anyway, enough of me loving Nightwing uncontrollably, I will make a separate post where I only talk about ArkhamVerse Jason so, yeah, be ready for that one because I love that Jason too, he is hot.