#and like. She and tim are working SO HARD to fucking keep batman on the right track

[eyepatchdate]

My sister was SO AGAINST arkhamverse barbara/tim but i fucking GOT her while playing the dlcs in front of her

[ynscrazylife]

THE BAT IN THE SHADOWS 🦇🕸️

— CHAPTER TWO

Summary: Bruce Wayne is the happiest he’s ever been in a while. He has a beautiful wife, amazing children, and is stopping crime left and right as Batman. All that shatters when you, his wife, mysteriously disappears.

Pairings: Bruce Wayne x Wife!Reader, Batfamily x Batman!Reader, Avengers x Reader (Platonic)

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

Having to wait until morning to pull the security cam footage from nearby stores was hell. In the meantime, Bruce filled out a missing persons report (and nearly broke down whilst doing it). The worst part of it all was having to come home, alone, and face his family.

His kids and Alfred were exactly where he left them, all in the living room.

“Where’s Mom?” Dick was the first to ask, arms crossed. Neither he nor his brothers could hide the worry flickering across his face. Not even Alfred, who was usually so composed.

“I believe,” Bruce began, wanting to be strong for them. The image of your smiling face flashed in his mind and he slammed his hand against the nearby wall to steady himself. Get it together, he told himself. The weight of your shattered phone in his pocket felt like tons of bricks. “She’s been taken.”

He hated that that was all he could say on it. That was all he knew. He hated that he had to say it at all.

Five rounds of “What?!” echoed around the room. Bruce forced himself to look at Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian. At their pain. Their shock.

“I only found her phone, broken. But we will bring her home,” Bruce said, knowing that there was no keeping his children out of this investigation. “I will take the lead. I’m going to go downstairs and start working. Anyone is free to join me, but I’d also suggest trying to sleep. If you can.”

He started towards the stairs. Then, half-way there, he stopped and turned around, opening up his arms. It took a second, but the boys came to him, and Bruce tucked them in his arms with a strong, tight hug. Alfred watched for a moment, then walked around and put his hand on Bruce’s shoulder.

“We will find her,” Bruce vowed.

And, he thought, if you were harmed in anyway, if a single hair was out of place, he’d destroy whoever had enough nerve to do this.

//

Standing by Commissioner Gordon’s side, Bruce peered over the employee sitting at his desk, who was starting up the footage on his computer. They found the closest store to the spot where your phone was found and as soon as the sign switched from closed to open, they walked in.

“Here you go,” the employee murmured, pressing play.

The footage was grainy and dark but with narrowed eyes, Bruce was determined to take in all that he could. As soon as you walked into frame, Bruce couldn’t help but tense up, nervous about what they were going to see.

Your pace started slowing as you took out your phone. Then, a jolt of electricity — where it was coming from was off-screen — hit your in the back. Bruce fixed his jaw, trying not to lash out or yell or even cry as he saw you fall. The thought of you, limp on the hard, dirty sidewalk . . .

Then, two figures came into frame, lean builds and wearing all black. Bruce watched how one stomped on your phone screen and he took a breath. They were saying something to each other, but the footage didn’t have audio. It was impossible to make out. He curled his fingers into a fist when they each took one of your arms, starting to drag you away. They didn’t seem to care at all that your head was bouncing off the ground and Bruce wanted to smash the screen.

He’d make them fucking pay, that was for sure.

Gordon did the talking, thanking the employee and whatnot. Bruce was in a daze, the footage playing over and over again in his head. He hadn’t even realized that Gordon wrapped up the conversation until he was pulled outside. They went a few stores down, trying to find more security camera footage of where they took you.

When they did, Gordon and Bruce watched as the kidnappers haphazardly tossed you into the car. As if you were nothing. As if you weren’t the most precious thing in Bruce’s life. He made fists again. They drove away and the one good thing was that the footage captured the license plate.

Gordon drove them to the police station and Bruce practically forced him to speed. A goddamn license plate, that was their only clue. Bruce’s only hope. He was pacing back and forth while the police actually ran the plate, never staying still for even a millisecond.

Finally, Gordon emerged. “They must’ve stolen the car. We’ll start sending patrol units out, contact other local departments . . . We will find this car. We’ll find them,” he said confidently.

//

While patrol units drove all around the city and beyond, Bruce did the same in his Batmobile. He spent every minute of every hour on the road, only returning for food and a couple hours of sleep after numerous calls from Alfred. It was the second time when he came home that he saw how much this was affecting his children. A wave of guilt hit, he knew that he hadn’t been paying as much attention to them as he should’ve.

You would’ve told Bruce to leave it to your fellow detectives, who were hellbent on getting you home. You would’ve told Bruce that he didn’t have to be Batman. He had to be home. God, you were so good, it sometimes hurt.

Bruce sat with his four boys on the couch, his arms wrapped around them. He updated them on the case, told them everything he knew. Of course, they asked to join him on patrol, but Bruce told them there was no need. He was going to take a few days off to spend with them.

It was after those few days that Bruce received a call from Gordon. They were in the middle of a somber dinner when his phone rang and the vigilante sprang up from his seat, nearly knocking his chair over. Everyone paused their eating.

“Gordon?” Bruce asked. The last few times, Gordon had nothing big to tell him, but Bruce answered his phone the same way every time.

“We got the car. It’s abandoned, but they drove out of the city. Parked near the woods.”

Dick, Tim, Jason, and Damian all wanted to go search with their father, but Alfred assured Bruce that he’d have them finish their dinners. Bruce gave each one of them a kiss on the head and promised to be home at a reasonable hour (which Alfred would hold him to, bless the man) before he rushed off.

It took a little while to get to the coordinates that Gordon sent, but when he did, he found detectives and cops and even civilian-organized search parties. It warmed Bruce’s heart, how much the city adored you. They knew you as Mrs Wayne, the kind and brave detective.

He joined the search as Batman, looking high and low. He got deep into the woods when finally, he found something. A group of costumed people all looking around, some confused, some awed. Bruce could tell they didn’t belong.

“Identify yourself,” he growled, coming out of the shadows and approaching them.

They all turned to him suddenly. No one moved or said anything for a second, until a redheaded woman came forward. She looked to be around your age, maybe a couple years older.

“This is probably going to come as a shock, but please, hear me out,” the woman began.

“I don’t ‘hear’ people out. Identify yourself, now,” Bruce demanded, in no mood for games.

The woman sighed softly. “Fine. You can call me te Black Widow. Back home, I — we — are known as the Avengers. We’re looking for someone named Y/N,” she told him.

[ew-selfish-art]

DP x DC AU: Danny desperately wants to find the explosion guy. Tim is really good at covering his tracks... he didn't account for ghosts.

The explosions make it onto TV as purported terror activity and most people haven't heard of that part of the world much less ever given a second thought to care about it. The only real reason it gets reported on has something to do with the Justice League and... Danny knows too much.

He's been in training for Clockwork's court (which he's suspicious of- feels like kingly duty bullshit- but Danny is playing along out of curiosity for now) and he's learned a lot about how the living and non-living worlds collide. That means learning about CW's usual suspects- one of which just happened to have a ton of bases around the area Danny was seeing on the news.

It didn't take long for Danny to try to piece together that whoever blew up Nanda Parbat was trying to fuck with the League of Shadows, and was doing it successfully. Less green portals in the world the better, same goes for assassins. But it gets Danny thinking... Maybe he can employ similar tactics on the GIW Bases that keep spawning on the edges of Amity Park. It would at least set them back while he and his friends navigated the help line desk to request Justice League intervention. None of them can leave Amity Park, so outreach is going to have to be creative.

So Danny figures he'll just find the guy. Call up some ghosts who were there, or er, came from there and get a profile and track him down. But the ghosts keep saying it was The Detective. Annoying!

Danny goes full conspiracy theory, gets Tucker and Sam involved, and begrudgingly asks Wes Weston his thoughts.

He hadn't expected Wes to garble out a thirty minute presentation (that had 100 more slides left to go before he cut it off) about how Batman totally trained with a cult and so did his kids. Danny kind of rolled his eyes but... hey, new avenue of searching in the Infinite Realms at least.

The ghosts confirm that Bombs is for sure not Batman's MO- But maybe his second kid would know? The second kid was already brought back to life though, so no way to easily reach him... Danny starts to realize that this might be the work of a Robin now. Wasn't the red one known for solving cold cases? (Sam provides this information- its a social faux pas to not know hero gossip at Gotham Galas- everything she's learned is against her will).

It all comes to a head when Danny goes about the hard task of opening a portal for the guy to come through at just the right time, explain the infinite realms so he doesn't panic and then describe what the fuck was going on with the GIW. It takes months, just over a full year, of random (educated guesses) portal generating- Finally, Red Robin drops into the land of the dead.

"So, you're the guy I've got to talk to about explosions right?" Danny enthusiastically asks.

Tim thinks he's died and landed in the after life following 56 hours of being awake and plummeting off the side of a building into a Lazarus pool. Nothing makes sense about the kid in front of him.

"Yeah, I got a guy for munitions." Tim answers cooly.

"How do you feel about secretly sanctioned government operations that violate protected rights?"

"Gotta get rid of 'em some how. Need me to point you in the right direction?" This might as well be happening.

[ultimate-marysue]

My personal body headcanons for the Batfam

Bruce: He is a tank made of pure muscle. Like many other users have put forward (recommend especially @frownyalfred posts on the matter), that's not an easy feat to pull off. It is a testament to Bruce's willpower and dedication to Batman that he's even able to maintain it. Also, I think he took really good care of his scars in the beginning so they would be as inconspicuous as possible when sleeping around as Brucie. Once he gets older and leans more into the father persona he stops caring as much for anything that's going to be covered by his suits and shirts.

Barbara: I hated the fact that her disability got completely erased, so that's the first difference. If you want to have her be Batgirl again, you should do what Gotham Knights did and make it so there are lasting effects and limitations. I'm sorry, but it feels so cheap to me that they just erased disability rep cause they didn't know how to write a strong disabled woman. Skill issue. Also Barbara is built like a brick in my heart of hearts, she's a rectangle with the density of a neutron star. I also think she has one of the healthiest and normal diets of the Bats, mainly cause the physical requirements of Oracle aren't nearly as demanding.

Dick Grayson: I'm not going to reinvent the wheel here by saying Dick Grayson has the perfect acrobat's body. My headcanon is that he gets it naturally. Not that he can just do whatever you want, sadly with their line of work you need to meet a series of requirements. I mean it in the sense of 1) proportions 2) really high metabolism from constant exercise since he was a child, probably the fastest tied with Cass 3) he doesn't need to work out as much outside patrol as the rest to keep his body mass. Every single robin after him low-key hates him for creating a fighting style that only he can do effortlessly.

Cassandra Cain: like mother like daughter, my girl is thick. None of that waifish, delicate ballerina shit. She's short and she has muscles most humans haven't heard of. Average goon tries to knock this 5 feet nothing girl only to be met by an unmovable object. Also, probably contender for top most scarred bat of all. She just looks like she could fuck your shit up without breaking a sweat and that's probably because she could. Also I think she has short legs, giving her an even lower center of gravity. She's just a brick wall.

Jason Todd: my man is one of the few bitches in this family with a normal, healthy, percentage of body fat. He's built like a strong man instead of a body builder, and the fact that he can be sneaky with all that mass is terrifying. I think for a minute there he wondered what he was doing wrong and why he didn't look as lean as Bruce. Then he figured what Bruce had to do to keep Batman's body in line and Jason said "fuck that, I'm not doing all that". In his villain self destructive era that waist was snatched, but the second he started taking actual care of his body it did what body's do. Considering how he mixes so many fighting techniques I can see him building his fighting style around his needs instead of the other way around.

Steph: she's the curviest of the Batgirls, which is why she favors so much the "indistinct blob" silhouette. As any woman with a boobs size above an B cup will tell you: people get disgusting really quick. I think part of her struggles with Robin was trying to wrangle her developing body into a fighting style designed for a very naturally lean boy. Balancing is harder when you have a large set of bazonkers, they don't tell you this in the comics but it is the truth. She also lacks the super fast metabolism other Bats have, and I can see her trying really hard to fit in the mold only to realize as she grows older that she can do her own thing.

Tim: I think Tim, growing up as society kid and then forcing himself into the Robin role, never learned what eating healthy is. I headcanon him having some sort of ED (I think he would evolve through a few of them as he grew up), not because I like throwing angst at characters (though I do) but because it makes sense to me giving his background and personality. EDs are not only about "looking thin", but also about feeling in control. Also, Tim hanging onto the Robin title reminds me of child actors trying to force their developing body's to stop at a kid size so they can keep playing their character. I could write a whole post about it, but for what's relevant, the ED headcanon doesn't mean Tim is just super thin. I think his body is fluctuates the most out of any of the Bats, depending on where he's at mentally and age wise.

Duke Thomas: my boy is built for parkour. He's got the longest limbs in the family, he's got the reach. He keeps waiting for puberty to hit him like a train and give him Jason/Bruce levels of muscle mass, but he's just too tall. Like, yes, he can bench press Jason, but proportionally he's so much taller than all of them by then he just looks noodly. When he puts on the body armor though he makes Batman look like a Barbie doll. Anytime he's looming about, Jason accuses him of overcompensating. Duke just pretends to not be able to hear him from up above. Also pls DC give him long hair that floats around him in the same way Batman's cape does?? Pls, just give him magic girl hair that defies gravity.

Damian: I've said this before but this poor child grew up being told he'd one day be as huge as his dad but grows up to be Talia 2.0. I think he does inherit Bruce's height, but is distraught to never be hulking mountain of muscle like OG Batman. Little does he know Bruce isn't naturally that big either, and it's only through frankly unhealthy means he maintained that body. Everyone else agrees to never tell Damian about it so he won't even think to try it, and instead focus on reassuring him he's more than strong enough to inherit the title if that's what's bothering him. It ends up playing in his favor, Cass is proof that you don't need to be huge to instill the fear of God into people. And the way he moves, like a panther stalking his prey, is more than enough to make the rogues quake.

[saphrun]

Tim Drake HC if he never became robin

(Let's face it, no way he was normal. the brain rot is real)

He was thirteen when Jason died, and he was getting pretty concerned for Bruce, but also getting really off put by the violence becuase batman was never that violent

This pretty much culminates in THE INCIDENT

Tim isn't even taking pictures that night, he had after school detention, and because he knew gotham so well, was decently more muscular then the average person and very fast, he was taking his time

He watches batman almost kill someone. The man will never be able to walk again.

He calls the police, and continues hiding and following Bruce, because something was going on, and lets face it, he didn't really have any plans.

He doesn't know this, but lady shiva is in gotham, and doing the same thing

It turns out theres a villan AND hero intervention going on, where clark may or may not be guilt tripping bruce HARD into getting help

However, before Tim can trail him to the intervention, someone catches his eye

He's not that well dressed, Suit looks nice-ish, but the tie is obviously thrifted, and his watch is a little too good (classic signs of working for a gang, intimidation, spurts of money, clearly not knowing how to spend smart)

Tim decides that this is more important. Plus, what's he going to do tailing batman? Get caught while not even doing anything? No thank you

It turns out that guy worked falcon, and long story short, Tim ends up fighting a bunch of gang members in a wearhouse.

He takes out around half before, Oh lookie there, its batman, and he's rescheduled his intervention till the morning.

Tim is proper injured, a few good bruises and a couple generously bleeding cuts.

Then, because batman is fighting everyone in the warehouse, not just goons, because he doesn’t know what Tim is doing there, skewers him to the wall with a batarang.

Tim pretends to be knocked out but is going what the fuck batman inside his head

Shiva, who has been watching this entire encounter, and was very impressed by someone with little to no formal training goes and drops down menacingly from the rafters

She offers to train Tim and he's like sure ;-;

They go back to paris, and just to say, Tim's parents aren't just MIA. They straight up moved out of gotham and keep limated contact with tim, just making sure CPS doesn't get them into legal trouble

Tims fine with that too

So, in paris, Tim and lady shiva are kicking ass. Tim is learning to play dirty but also gains a strict code

He's very clear that he wont kill anyone, and that he believes keeping them alive is a sign of strength. that he wasn't so weak that killing them was his only option

They disagree but eventually Tim's pretty good at combat and Shiva sends him on his marry way (he beats her in a fight by drugging some food she ate four days prior and wouldn't set in until she was testing him)

Tim starts moonlighting league of assassins, just doing whatever really, and finds out the holly shit, Talia had a thing for bruce and his dead hero jason, brought jason back to life, send him and their secret love child to gotham, and also disrespected Ra's

He thinks shes so cool, and decides to drop by gotham, yk go home, throw in a public appearance with his parents, try the new zelda game

TURNS OUT HIS PARENTS DIE ON THE WAY OVER, ON HIS FOURTEENTH BIRTHDAY

What the flip man, says Tim, on live television, reading a text finding out his parents are dead.

He doesn't say what the text was about though, so the people of gotham make a twitter meme about some rando kid at a gala

The whole things kinda a disaster anyway, so its fine (its later known as The Gala of [insert year])

Dick Grayson just got back from traveling (space) and finds out Jason and Dami are alive/exist, and tries hiding in the back, ending up in the same room as Tim

_______________

"Why are you back here?" Dick Grayson asks the black haired kid sitting at the table, playing what looks like a knock off of neopets. "My parents just died." He says sagely, not looking up from his phone. Dick doesn't really know how to respond to that but ask more questions. "How- uh how did they die?"

Black haired kid shrugs.

[suzukiblu]

gotham

Kon's in Gotham, which would be less of a problem if it were the right Gotham.

Possibly his reality doesn't exist anymore, is the thing. He's trying very, very hard not to concentrate on that fact until he gets more information, though.

Currently, he's standing in the middle of an emergency triage center with a few hundred more refugees from varying dimensions, and he can't do anything actually superhero-ish or even too noticeably useful because he's wearing a fucking gala-quality bespoke suit that Tim bought him. So, like, way too nicely dressed for a refugee situation or really just any damn normal situation.

If he had to end up in another reality, at least he could've been wearing his superhero costume or his work clothes from the farm, but no, this particular interdimensional crisis just had to pop up during "suffer through another ridiculously fancy Wayne gala on Tim's arm in the name of charity" date night.

Why not, right?

So yes, Kon's in a triage center, waiting to get "processed" as a refugee and hoping to high hell that the local Batman doesn't hate Supers and isn't a supervillain. He'd considered sneaking out of the center altogether to go and get a better idea of what's going on firsthand, but people in the crowd keep randomly freaking out and everyone's tense as hell and he's a little bit concerned that something might be about to go down. Like, it's Gotham, and this whole setup seems like a very tempting target for people with dubious morals to swoop in and start shit.

As far as Kon knows, he's the only refugee in this specific center who's not a standard civilian, and it's hard to just clear out and leave everyone here to the tender mercies of whatever random assholes feel like making trouble for no good reason. There's just so many older people and so many kids, is the thing. Kon is . . . well, physiologically twenty-two, at least, and is a very clear outlier in the group. Mostly it's people over sixty and kids under twelve, for whatever reason. And a whole lot of the kids keep crying on and off and the older people are all clearly stressed as fuck.

Which is fair, since again, possibly all their realities are gone.

. . . technically he probably does count as under twelve, come to think.

Hm.

Eh, whatever.

Kon has spent a whole hell of a lot of time cheering up frightened little kids and soothing panicked adults in the four hours he's been in this triage center and it has been fucking exhausting. At this point, if any Gotham rogue shows their face and even looks at a single one of these people, Kon's going to just fucking deck them. Like, fuck whatever the local Batman's rules about metas and vigilantes are, Kon does not have the patience for anything else.

Right now, though, he's currently just focused on the very distressed pair of identical little girls on either side of him who are not twins and are absolutely terrified of each other.

"Hey, it's okay, Mallory," he says gently, and the girls sniffle in perfect unison.

"But she's scary!" they both blurt, and then they both whimper in fright, and then they both start crying.

Not ideal, Kon thinks. The local version of Mallory is in the awkward position of having had two alternates of herself pop up from two different realities and both land in her family's apartment, and the local versions of her parents are currently arguing with the aid workers about not separating them from their alternate daughters. Kon's half-eavesdropping–they're not that far away, the workers couldn't convince them to break line of sight–and they're both insisting on at least one of them being allowed to stay in the refugee center with the Mallorys. The local Mallory looks a little worried about things, but not as much as her displaced alternates do.

Well, she's the one currently with her actual parents and still in her own definitely-not-destroyed reality, so yeah, that makes sense. The other two Mallorys are just hiding from their other selves on either side of Kon, who can't keep his damn nose out of anything.

Really, actually, Mallory is a pretty lucky kid. Kon didn't even get this good a reception to showing up unexpectedly in his home dimension, and he's heard a lot of horror stories about people getting attacked or chased off by freaked-out locals already today.

Kon had just popped up alone in the middle of an empty ballroom, himself. He'd had to talk to a couple of security guards, but they'd had the news on already and the emergency broadcast had explained what the fuck was going on pretty quick. One of them had given him a water bottle and a candy bar while the other'd called the emergency hotline listed on the TV to figure out where to send him and they'd really both just rolled with the whole situation. That'd been pretty nice of them, Kon had thought.

People are awful, sometimes, but also amazing sometimes.

"Listen," he says reassuringly, dropping into a crouch between the Mallorys, who both clutch anxiously at his weird fancy Tim-chosen jacket as he puts a hand on both of their backs. "It really is okay. I know it's scary, but your parents are gonna make sure you get taken care of, and the aid workers are gonna help them out."

"But–" they both start, and then both make frightened noises again and cover their mouths with their free hands. Whatever realities they happen to be from, they are clearly very similar ones. The local Mallory wasn't talking in unison with either of them, but they keep overlapping each other without meaning to, and she's wearing a pink corduroy dress but they're both in the same black denim overalls. Different shirts, at least, but their hair's identically braided and beaded where hers is in afro puffs.

"This is weird and crazy, but you're not alone," Kon says firmly, patting their backs. "Your mom and dad have your backs."

He wonders what that would be like, having not only parents but parents who'd just roll with alternate dimension versions of you to the point that they wouldn't leave them in a government-sponsored refugee center, but quickly shoves the thought aside to focus on the actual issue.

Maybe Ma and Pa would come get him if they knew, he thinks for a moment, the thought slipping through the cracks, and then feels like an idiot. He's not a teenager anymore. Was never even a kid, technically. And also he's a literal superhero anyway.

That'd be stupid, for them to bother doing that for an alternate version of the guy who spent a couple years crashing in their real kid's old room before running off to San Francisco.

Hell, for all he knows, this reality's version of them doesn't even know him at all.

Seems likelier than not.

[yall-batman-fanfic]

In the Events of My Death: The Bruce Wayne Tapes | Batman/Bruce Wayne x Magician!Reader

Synopsis: Inspired by one of the clips in Gotham Knights, one where Dick, Jason, Tim, and Barbara found the video that Bruce wanted to post that would be the cover story of his death. Vivian helps out Alfred with cleaning up the Batcave and comes across a thumb drive that had an interesting video. No, not video. Videos.

Vivian shouldn't be surprised. She knew the reputation Bruce Wayne had when she came to Gotham. The billionaire-philanthropist-playboy was his title after all. Yet when she saw a certain harddrive that had one folder that says: Cover-Up Story for Bruce Wayne's Death. She was shocked. Who might have underestimated the playboy in that title.

~*~

“There is really no need for this, Ms. Vivian,” said Alfred as he placed one of the archived case file boxes in one corner in the Batcave. “I can handle this perfectly. Besides, it’s one of your rare days off! You should rest or do an activity outside, not dusting the Batcave and fixing Master Bruce's things.”

Vivian finished organizing the files in the box and waved a hand to have that box and the one that Alfred carried brought to the storage in one of the many storage places in the cave. “Alfred, it’s fine. There's so much to do here and you've already got a lot on your plate. Besides, Dick and Babs are coming over so we'll get this done faster. Magic can only do so much, you know.”

“Like lifting boxes?” Dick's voice echoed from the pad where he parked his motorcycle. Arriving just after him was Barbara who happily greeted them with a smile. 

“Glad to see you both can make it!” Vivian waved at them from the top.

Coming to where they were, Dick and Barbara greeted Vivian with an embrace, but the woman held onto the latter much longer. She was just glad to see that after three years and seeing the girl's fight to walk again, it finally paid off. 

“Well, it is spring cleaning, right?” Dick shrugged. “That’s a lot of cases.”

“Yeah, and I want this done before the end of the day, so, chop chop!” Vivian went back to one of the boxes she was putting away. “I know I shouldn't ask but, is Condimentsman even a case you want to keep in archives?”

“You know the man you married, Viv,” Barbara laughed. “He likes to keep things in file. Even the cat he saved from the tree.”

They worked for a few hours, sorting through cases, putting them in chronological order under certain categories. It was there when Vivian saw the transition from folders and binders to hard drives, which she, Dick, and Barbara had to sort through to see what it holds. 

In the middle of their sorting, Alfred went up to get them some snacks and then prepare to leave to pick up Tim from school, and it was then that Vivian saw it.

“Wow, this is old,” Vivian muttered as she opened the drive and saw the one folder in it that says: Cover-Up Story for Bruce Wayne's Death. “Hey, kiddo, come here for a second!”

“Coming!” Dick called out. It took him a couple of minutes before appearing at her side with Barbara. “Oh, that looks interesting.”

“It is,” Vivian said. “I don't think we —”

“We should,” said Barbara.

“Come on, it must be private.”

“Viv, we're gonna see it anyway in the event Batman dies and we need to make a cover for Bruce Wayne,” Dick shrugged. “I say we look at it now, besides, aren't you curious?”

She was. Very curious.

“Alright,” she sighed. “This is just because we will eventually see this in the unlikely event of his death.” Just saying it brought sadness to her. Vivian couldn't imagine how she would cope if Bruce were to die.

Opening the folder they were met by over a dozen clips. She decided to open the very first one in the list –”

“HOLY —”

“FUCKING —”

“SHIT!”

The three of them were left gaping at the sight of the video. It was a shot coming from someone else's camera, they weren't sure how Batman got it but he did. And the footage was of Bruce Wayne in his twenties, stripping in the Iceberg Lounge, wearing only his boxers. Music blared and audiences cheered as Bruce did his moves.

“Fuck,” Vivian couldn't believe what she was seeing. 

Was that really her husband?

“Holy shit, this is…” Dick wanted to look away, and he should but he couldn't. 

“That's it, I'm burning my eyes,” said Barbara. “Alfred, where's the bleach?”

“Bleach? What on earth do you need bleach — and what is that noise? Oh dear…” Alfred fell silent as he saw the video they were watching. “Ms. Vivian — Mrs. Wayne, I-I-I do apologize about — I was supposed to dispose of those myself!”

Vivian turned to Alfred with a raised brow, “So, this is why you wanted to do this on your own huh?”

“You must understand, Ma'am,” Alfred stumbled in his words – the man never does — and ran to the computer and stopped the clip. “Those were taken long ago — all the way back in Master Bruce's early days of his return. He needed to keep up appearances as such to keep them from thinking he is Batman.”

“That doesn't really explain the stripping, Alfred,” said Vivian. “How many of these does he have? Oh god, does he have a sex tape here?! How come I never knew about this!?”

“No… not that I have any knowledge in. Please, let me explain.”

“Please, do Alfred,” Barbara said as she sat on a stool. “I need to find a logical explanation for what I just saw.”

Alfred sighed. “As I said, upon Master Bruce's return the Batman appeared. In his first year there were already suspicions of Bruce Wayne being Batman. To silence those whispers, Master Bruce needed to create a persona that would keep them from thinking so. Thus…”

“Billionaire-philanthropist-playboy, Bruce Wayne. Emphasis on the playboy,” Vivian concluded.

“Precisely, Ma'am. He made many appearances in many places, making sure they all are memorable to make good alibis if ever the police would come and question him again. Master Bruce collected all these footages manually and compiled them in this hard drive which is labeled as such.”

“So, Bruce wants to be remembered as a stripper when he dies?” Dick said.

“Oh my god, my Father's worse nightmare. I married a stripper,” Vivian massaged the bridge of her nose. “How come he never told me this?”

“Perhaps, Master Bruce is embarrassed by these videos,” said Alfred. 

“I would be embarrassed too,” said Barbara. “

“Shall I collect these and throw them to the bin for incineration, Ma'am?”

“No,” Vivian said. “I'll be keeping hold of this for a while.” She unplugged the drive and hid it in her pocket. “Bruce will be home any minute now, I want this place done and all of you upstairs before he comes home. Alfred, tell Magic Mike that I want a word with him in the cave.”

Alfred sighed and nodded, “Very well, Ms. Vivian.”

Dick snickered. “We'll get this place cleaned up before he gets here, Viv.” He nudged at Barbara to come along. This was going to be interesting.

~*~

Bruce had a bad feeling about this. Not his Batman-bad feeling, but as a husband. When he came home, he was immediately told by Alfred to go to the cave where Vivian waited. Passing by the sitting room, he greeted Dick and Barbara, but the two only held back laughter and were snickering, which confused him and Tim.

By the time he opened his passage to the Cave, he heard Tim say, “Come on, spill it out. What are you two laughing about?”

Coming down the cave, Bruce could hear distorted loud music mixed with howls and cheers. Was Vivian watching a movie at the Batcomputer? She wouldn't! Not only because he's repeatedly told Dick, Jason, and Tim that the Batcomputer was not a home theater — besides, they have that in the manor too.

“Vivian, is everything alright?” Bruce called out.

Oh no.

There, from the stairs, he saw it. The clips. The many, many clips of his party raves, the clips of him foolishly dancing and stripping, and making an utter fool of himself in his early twenties. Dancing in parties, drinking (but really that's just ginger ale), getting lap dances, making out with every woman he had in his arms, making an utter fool of himself. And watching it all was Vivian.

Alfred was supposed to burn that hard drive!

When the clip showed him making out with one of his model dates then, Bruce ran to the computer and stopped the clip. Turning it all off.

“I can explain,” he told her.

“Don't bother, Alfred already did,” she sniffled.

He saw tears falling down her face, her eyes and nose all red and puffy as if she had been crying for a long time now. 

No, no, no…

Bruce knelt before Vivian. He pulled down her legs that were pressed against her chest and held her hands. “Viv, please, you need to understand. Those were nothing — I made them before I met you. I did all of those long before we met — I was an idiot who thought —”

Vivian wiped her tears. “I know, I know, and it was a smart move. Alfred told me why and I understand… and I was actually having a really good time, laughing at them but then it hit me… Bruce, is this really how you want people to remember you? A wild child. An asshole who does all of that?”

“It was for a cover.”

“Your legacy is not just Batman, Bruce. No one will know who Batman is, but they will remember who Bruce Wayne is,” Vivian wiped more tears away. “It was supposed to be a good laugh… me watching this but it really just hit me, what if you do die and this is all that we have to give you a cover! Or worse, you made some sort of trigger to put this out there in the event of your death and we have no idea! Think, Bruce. Think about your parents, about Alfred who raised you.Or think about me. What would it look like if that got out? It would be humiliating for me, for Dick, for Tim. It's all laughs now but the aftermath of it.”

Bruce got up and brought Vivian to an embrace. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I should have burned those a long time ago. I should have gotten rid of them the moment I turned my life around, when I realized I didn't need to be some party raving alter ego to keep them from connecting Batman to me. I should have destroyed them the moment we started dating.

“I wasn't thinking. I knew they were here but I never thought it was urgent to get rid of them.”

Vivian got up from her seat and wrapped her arms around her husband. “What hurts more, I think, is the fact you wanted to keep this from me. What happened to for better or for worse?”

Bruce held her tight. “I know… I just thought it would hurt you if you found them.”

“I would have laughed with you if we watched all of these together and not be this blubbering mess now,” she laughed.

“I promise. This is the only one. The only secret that I have from you. The rest you know all about it,” he kissed the top of her head. “I'm so sorry, Vivian.”

Vivian shook her head and told him. “There’s nothing for you to be sorry about, Bruce.”

“I made you cry.”

“This is my own doing. I shouldn't have watched them behind your back.”

“I still made you cry because I hid them from you.”

Looking up, Vivian got on her toes and kissed his lips. “Forgiven. I'm sorry too, for snooping.”

“It's cleaning day, it was inevitable,” Bruce sighed. 

Wiping her tears, Bruce leaned down and kissed her. “No more secrets, I promise.”

Vivian let out a laugh, “And I thought I was the wild-child between the two of us.”

“I don't think I can top your record: demon hunting, exorcisms, and parties,” Bruce teased. “You don't happen to have videos that are…”

“None. Unless you count the one that had BBC News reporting about Halloween and we were running in the background being chased by a demon.”

“I'll start looking for that.”

Smiling, she kissed him again, but her smile fell as the thought crossed her mind. Bruce noticed the changed and asked her what she was thinking. She said: “I don't want the day to come where we'd have to put up a cover video to explain how Bruce Wayne died… I don't ever want to do that.”

“And you won't. I'll do everything to come back to you, Vivian.”

Taking the hard drive, he held it out for Vivian and said, “Would you do the honors?”

Laughing, Vivian had the hard drive levitate in midair and then burned to a crisp.

~*~

It was late in the night when he returned from patrol. Vivian was fast asleep but the sound of their bedroom door opening and his shoes strolling in woke her from her slumber. Getting up, Vivian greeted Bruce with a, “welcome home,’ with a yawn.

Cape and cowl removed, Bruce sat on the bed and greeted her with a kiss. “Go back to bed,” he said.

“I will when you get here,” Vivian patted on his spot. “So hurry up and get cleaned up. I miss you.”

Chuckling, Bruce leaned down and kissed her again before getting up to head to the shower. He had a quick shower and once done, he went straight to bed, snuggling close to his wife who did not mind his nude body under the covers. 

“Are you asleep?” Bruce asked.

“Nope, I can't now with you poking me from behind,” Vivian teased him.

“Since you're awake, I want to show you something.”

“Bruce, it's later. Let's stay in bed,” Vivian whined.

“We will, it won't be long. I promise,” Bruce reached for his phone and did a few swipes and taps before finding the thing he was looking for. “Here, watch.’

Vivian opened her eyes and watched from his phone the footage he got. It was one of the footage she took during their honeymoon or was it one of their dates on the yacht? Bruce was laying on the beach bench and she was the only holding the camera recording the entire thing.

Bruce, if you wanna sleep, go below deck. Else you'll get sunburned, the Vivian in the video said.

The Bruce in the video sat up and pulled Vivian down, there was a struggle in the camera, laughter and kisses were heard and soon they saw their faces as Vivian held the camera facing them.

Always looking after me, He said in the video.

Somebody has to.

I love you, Pryor.

I love you, Wayne. 

The video ended and Bruce swiped to another one, this time it was taken during their dates and the one who got the shot was a man from the press who wanted to get footage of the couple having a dance, both conversing about something that made Vivian laugh and Bruce kissed her.

The next video was of the couple being filmed by one of Vivian's students as they had a lunch date at Gotham University’s cafeteria. The students teased them, asking how the “michelin star” food was.

The next video was of them walking in the museum. It was Dick who took the shot and was teasing them a lot.

Then the next video, and the next, and the next. All showing videos of the two of them, all stolen moments, all filled with laughter and love.

“In the event that I die, I want one of these to be put out,” said Bruce. “I want them all to know about Bruce Wayne who was a loving husband to his wife. Because you are my legacy, Viv. You and the boys.”

Vivian turned to face him and kissed him deeply. “I love you, Bruce,” she said.

“I love you, Vivian,” he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her on top of him. Laughter erupted from the couple's lips as she felt him press against her thigh. In one swift movement, she removed her top and Bruce easily moved her underwear to the side as his fingers played with her folds and her clit. 

“My love, I can't wait any more,” Viivian whispered and aligned him to her and went down until she got him to the hilt. 

Bruce held her waist and helped her move. “I wouldn't mind dying tomorrow if this is the last thing I see,” he joked.

Vivian bit her lip and then took his phone and handed it to him. “We're deleting it immediately.”

She was sure to have felt him grow harder inside her as Bruce turned on the camera and started recording after placing it just above to give the footage a good view of Vivian riding him. 

“I wouldn't mind this going out too,” he teased.

“No,” Vivian rolled her hips, making them both moan.

“Right, just for tonight then,” Bruce chuckled and thrusted his hips up, making her squeak his name. 

The video lasted for an hour, and the two decided to keep it longer than intended to watch as they gave themselves to each other.

[laiosynth]

remembering i can just post about whatever i want whenever i want

KABRU AND THE BATS AU HCS !!

(for context, an AU where kabru and tim have switched places in the multiverse at birth. i'll make tim's post soon)

- kabru was convinced dick was going to kill him when he first met him as nightwing and accidentally gave away that he knew their secret identities. ever since, dick has been unbelievably gentle with kabru while also being SO relentless in his teasing. kabru will always be known as "the crazy one" to dick and it confuses everyone else.

- kabru and bruce are literally exactly the same. kabru acts like a tiny version of bruce to everyone (in reality, he's just paranoid-- and also knows exactly how bruce's paranoia works, as well.)

- when kabru first arrives at wayne manor, dragged there LITERALLY carried by the scruff by dick, he still puts on his absolute best manners when greeting alfred at the door. alfred was ready to keep him right then and there.

- kabru freaks out, panics, and starts biting people whenever he accidentally acts like a real boy in front of the bats for the first month he knows them. real of him

- kabru has an entire complex view of the world and the people in it and himself-- he sees himself as a fox, wearing a mask to fit in with the world of hounds. a mask, to him, is a tool to survive.

- when kabru goes to save batman and nightwing from scarecrow, he doesn't take the robin suit. he just takes a domino. kabru doesn't take the title of robin like tim did.

- when jason attacks the titan tower, kabru survivors by using EXTENSIVE psychological warfare and then forcing the guy on a 5-day road trip from the west coast back to the east with him. this somehow works.

- jason hates kabru and also would kill and die for him. calls him "foxface" ever since kabru told him about the fox in a mask thing.

- kabru hates jason but also relies on him for literally all of his emotional needs and also would drop everything at any moment if jason asked

- jason has forced kabru to watch star wars and read the hobbit. kabru forced jason to read PJO

- when damian arrived, kabru was instructed "absolutely NO psychoanalysis". he did not listen

- damian, surprisingly, did not see kabru as that much of a threat. kabru took advantage of this big time

- they bonded surprisingly quickly. kabru showed damian how to use kohl, and they bonded over a shared interest in fashion and clothing as a tool

- kabru quickly became damian's favorite, to everyone's dismay

- when cass first arrived, she didn't like kabru that much. he had a lot to hide, and she didn't like that. she could sense the apprehension and careful precision in every movement of his, and she didn't trust it in the slightest.

- until she realized that he was just a weirdo, and resolved to fix his caution with Extreme Prejudice (lots and lots of love)

- kabru doesn't know what to think of cass at first, because she's... almost entirely unmasked. the only mask she wears is one that's entirely blank.

- she grows on him. aggressively.

- steph didn't like him very much for a long, long time. kabru could tell why- his mask was working too well. and she didn't like his mask at all. "mr perfect goody two-shoes" was her go-to nickname for him.

- the only thing that fixes the disconnect (because kabru's too scared to take OFF his mask, that's too far) is dick telling the story of the time kabru bit him. kabru is mortified. steph is delighted. and a bit disappointed she hadn't realized he was just a Freak earlier.

- duke figures out his act quickly and harshly. kabru is a bit worried, actually, until he realizes that people have just started chalking his entire mask and persona up to "bat weirdness"

- duke gives him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder when kabru realizes this crisis

- bruce is trying SO HARD at this point to bond with kabru any further than "batman and protege"-- pulls out all the stops! calls him chum, literally OFFERS TO ADOPT HIM. kabru is fucking oblivious to bruce's attempts.

- (he's in denial. everyone in the batfam has to get on their case to shake some sense into him)

uhhhh thatd all right now. yay

[luciusime]

Everyday I draw a little closer to writing an mla format very long essay on the complex and nuanced relationship between Bruce, Damian, and Dick. It infuriates and saddens me when people boil it down to Dick being Damian's father without considering the implications of that fatherhood and the conditions it was fostered under. Would you tell a kidnapping victim that they couldn't be a father to their son? No? Then why do people rob Bruce of the opportunity to be a father to Damian? Why does Dick get to be the oh so perfect golden child even when he's hurt at least two of his siblings with his actions from the time Jason first got to the manor, to the time he ripped all that was keeping Tim stable from his hands? If parents are allowed to fuck up, why isn't Bruce allowed to work his way back to, if not forgiveness, then at least stable ground for his less reprehensible actions.( not including things like killing his children, sending them on useless or unwanted quests/missions, or not avenging or correcting their deaths. The children are allowed to be upset and never forgive those things). Has anyone ever stopped to think about the implications of Dick being Damian's father? How if you add that on top of his unwanted stint as batman, it makes him uncomfortably close to being Bruce, something he has never wanted and will never want? Why do people only ever write nuanced and complex fics about Bruce's relationship with Tim and Jason? Why is it so hard to find fics of him being nice to Dick and Damian? Are they undeserving of having Bruce affirm his love for them? Why is Damian never treated like the traumatized child he is, when Cassandra, with a similar upbringing and background, is treated with so much tenderness in the few fics she has that center around her. Why is he labeled demon, murderer; a mindless, brainless 10 year old assassin with no morals? Is he not allowed time to heal from his time in a literal cult?

And while I'm rambling on, do people ever stop to consider the delicate tightrope work Talia must have had to do to be allowed to keep her son? Not even as just Ra's heir, but as her son. Talia has always been assassin before she was mother, and those two things don't mix well when you have the amount of enemies she does. And when one of those enemies is your own father? You learn quickly what will and will not fly. The designs she must have had to make, and the horrors she must have had to witness and inflict upon her child to keep them both from dying must have been immense.

I think about these topics alot. I could totally write a whole character study about it.

[toriafiction]

Another WIP (I have too many 😭)

After a universe is obliterated, collapsing in on itself like when a star devolves into a black hole, the two neighboring universes shift and collide. However, instead of completely destroying one or both of them, the two are merging. This means that instead of having two Batmen in this newly developing universe, the two men merge. This new Batman now has new memories for his entire life that is a nice seamless balance of the two different men he used to be, and he is none the wiser that this even happened.

This is how it is for everyone.

That's not great, but it doesn't sound too bad, right?

Except anyone who doesn't have a double is just disappearing altogether. People like Stephanie, who in the other universe died in her first couple of days as Spoiler before she ever even met the Bats. Or Dick, who died that awful night with his parents in Haly's circus.

Dick and Steph blink out of existence, and nobody knows because their new memories smooth it out like they never existed beyond the point of their deaths.

For everyone except Jason. Why does Jason remember when nobody else does? Unbeknownst to them, it's because of how he came back to life.

When Superboy-Prime alters reality from the paradise dimension in which he is trapped—his punches against the barrier keeping him from the rest of the universe causes temporal ripples that create an overlap of parallel timelines (Hypertime). This is what brings Jason back to life (as in the paradise dimension, he survives the Joker's assault).

Jason is already overlapped by another universe, and as such, when these two try to merge it affects him differently.

He wakes up in the parsonage of a church he is now apparently the priest of with two complete and separate sets of memories. In one set, he is simply Father Todd. In the other set, he remembers everything.

He remembers the moment the two universes started to merge. He and Dick had just been going to bed after a light and playful night of patrol. The downright joyful mood had easily flowed into the bedroom as they settled in. It had been a warm and loving moment full of adoration.

Then, everything changed in a fraction of a second. Dick had seized up, his eyes going wide and alarmed. He desperately clutched at Jason, gasping his name. Then, he just seemed to fade away slowly. Jason tried to hold on to him, but his body had lost all corporeality. It was like Dick had become a ghost right before his eyes, and Jason had never felt so helpless.

Jason tries going to Batman and the rest of the family, but everything is all wrong, and they don't know him. Batman is Batman, but Tim is going by a name he never has before. Damian is nowhere to be seen at first, but a little research shows that he spent a couple of months with Bruce before returning to his mother. Babs is Oracle and has turned Batgirl over to Cas.

Jason has no idea what the hell has happened or how to fix this when no one will give him the time of day. None of his contacts know who he is, so they won't deal with him.

Jason decides to play it the only way he really knows how. Brutally hard. If they don't want to listen, he will make them.

Jason breaks into the cave and fills an inflatable bag with gear, including an unadorned base layer of armor for Batman. He and Bruce are close enough in size he can make it work. He throws the bag into the cave's waterway. Jason knows where it will come out, and he will get it later. Still, this is too important to fuck up, so he slipped a tracker in the bag as well.

Then, he stays to confront Bruce again. He had played it safe the first time. Jason had met Batman on neutral ground on a Gotham rooftop and hadn't mentioned knowing who they were. This time, he isn't holding back.

It's ugly. It almost immediately turns into a fight. Jason does try to get through to Bruce. He tries so fucking hard! He needs Bruce on his side, but Bruce isn't listening.

Why won't Bruce ever just listen to him?!

He doesn't pull any punches, and as things continue to devolve, he strikes hurt.

"It wasn't your fault when you lost your family the first time. You were a helpless child then. This time, it will be. Fucking fight for your kids, Bruce!"

Bruce is freaked out that anyone managed to not only figure out their identities but also to break into his most fortified sanctuary. There will be time for questions and answers as soon as he has the threat secured in a cell and some form of control again.

Jason is more than holding his own against Bruce until both Tim and Cas enter the fight.

Jason doesn't know why he does it. Nothing he has said has triggered anything with any of them so far. But when Tim darts forward, going low while Bruce goes high (he has no idea where Cas is, and that's terrifying), he just shouts it out.

"Robin!"

But it's not Tim who jerks and freezes in place. Jason knows that Tim had built a considerable part of his life on and around Robin. Tim has integrated Robin into the foundation of himself on many different levels.

Hell, how could Robin mean more to anyone other than the boys who had made and worn, fought and bled, and, in Jason's case, even died in those colors?

But Bruce slams into a complete standstill, and his expression is so tortured as if that single word has entirely shattered him.

Who cares about Robin more than the boys themselves?

Bruce's episode is enough of a distraction for Jason to make his getaway, and it confirms that somewhere buried incredibly deep, the memories still exist.

They all love Dick, but the truth is he's been more crucial in some of their lives than he has been in others.

Could Jason get to Damian? Would having Damian on his side actually be any help? Would it be more productive to stay in Gotham and keep pushing at Bruce now that he has gotten a reaction from the man, or would it be better to give him some time and space and let him come to terms with whatever he has just experienced?

There is no logical reason for it, but Jason feels a near-desperate sense of urgency. It's like there is a lurid red timer ticking down until his world explodes again. Some part of him wants to freeze under the pressure, indecision weighing down on him, but that has never been Jason's style.

It's knowing what Dick would want that actually makes up his mind. Jason has been doing mental gymnastics to avoid thinking about it, but what if this can't be fixed? Damian is with the League of Assassins, being hurt, used, and brainwashed. Dick would never forgive him if he didn't save their youngest bird. Jason would never forgive himself.

He fishes his gear out of the river it has floated its way into. He pulls the tracker, not trusting that he is the only one who can trace it. He picks up a discarded plastic soda bottle, seals the tracker inside, and flings it back into the river. Hopefully, that will tie up at least one Bat for a little while.

Next, he procures himself an old cheap laptop from a second-hand electronics store. He uses it to book himself a flight. With no resources and nobody willing to talk to him he'll have to fly commercial. It'll be much slower, make him easy to track, and just a pain in the ass in general. The only luck he's had so far is that his first flight will leave early in the morning.

While he waits he spends a few hours setting the laptop up to send each Bat a message every day for the next month. He does his best to make them both personal and meaningful. He doesn't want to lose any ground he's gained with Bruce, and he also wants the others to remember.

They were all trained in detective skills, and part of that is remembering important information such as dates. And if there is one thing a Bat can't ignore, it's a mystery or a puzzle. If he gives them something to solve, then they will be thinking about it, and if they are actively thinking about it, then hopefully they'll remember something. So, quite a few of the messages contain dates with tiny hints as to what makes them special, but Jason is careful to keep a mixture of pointed questions, statements, and memorable quotes or nicknames in there as well.

A lot of the messages end up being the same for everyone. He sends them all birthday dates and the designs of the many different Robin suits, as well as the Nightwing, Spoiler, and Steph's Batgirl suits. He also sends them all the date for the night the first Robin flew by Batman's side for the first time. He did the same for Steph's first night as Robin and Batgirl.

He addresses most of Bruce's messages to Batdad even though here he hasn't adopted anyone and is only fostering Cas. Tim still lives alone in Drake Manor. It really pisses Jason off, but he is already doing the best thing he can by trying to fix this broken world.

Some of the messages that Jason sends solely to Bruce include the date for when he first brought Dick home. The date for when he (finally) officially adopted Dick, and the dates for Steph's first night as Robin as well as her last. Some of the questions he sends Bruce run along the lines of, "Have you ever held a tiny bird close to your side tucked beneath a bat's wing?"

"Who's going to swing from your chandeliers now?"

"Does the manor feel dark and empty with only Cas and Alfie? Do you expect more people when you round a corner or enter a room? Do the halls ring silent, devoid of their bright laughter and the pounding of running feet?"

"Have you ever paused in front of a door in the family wing because you know somebody should be in there?"

He addresses some of Tim's messages to baby bird. He sends him the date that he filed on the batcomputer as the one he figured out that Robin was Dick Grayson and from there who all the Bats were. The date of his first night as Robin and the date that Steph "died" followed immediately by the question, "Has love ever hit you like a brick to the face?"

Some of the others just for him are, "Who taught you how to fly, baby bird?"

"Have you ever surfed on a train?"

"There is a special kind of weight to being the middle child."

"Rooftop tag, you're it."

"Get in the car loser, we're going shopping" would be her soul words."

"Do you want a hug? Doesn't matter, octopus hold engaged."

"Glitter bombs."

He asks Babs who the "Boy Blunder" is. If she was ever lonely when working with B during her Batgirl days. Who she spent her movie nights with. He sent her two shades of purple and asked which one was right. He sent her a lot of really bad but highly memorable puns and quippy one-liners.

He does this for each of them, including Alfred.

It never once occurs to him to send them anything about himself.

This is the majority of what I have for this one. I have a couple more vague ideas for it, but nothing as put together or comprehensive. Which is why I haven't actually written it yet. 😆

Once I have the full picture, I'll go at it in earnest.

[msfcatlover]

Okay, but in the Reverse!Robins AU, when Bruce is dead & everything is a mess, here’s how Jason gets the Red Robin arc:

Jason just wants to help, but it gets spoiled at every turn.

Damian is having an existential crisis because he’s been working so hard for nearly a decade to define his own path/identity, but there’s a big part of him that still feels like it’s his duty to follow in his father’s footsteps. It’s tearing him apart inside over whether he’s a bad brother for trying to take what he’s already abdicated, or a bad brother for forcing the others to carry the mantle, or a bad son for not stepping up, even though that’s what Talia wanted more than Bruce, but Bruce & Damian aren’t that close since Steph died, and maybe Damian’s been wrong this whole time—

Cass doesn’t know how to process grief really, because the only huge losses in her life are Steph’s death & Tim’s mobility, and with the latter she was mostly relieved he wasn’t dead too. She’s getting everyone’s grief 24/7, but she doesn’t know how to talk to them about it or her own. She declared long ago she wanted to be Batman, and everyone seemed very happy then, but suddenly she doesn’t feel ready for it. And on top of all that, she’s the only one Dick even tries to spend time with, because she’s the only one who doesn’t either lash out at him or try to get him to talk when he doesn’t want to.

Duke is trying to hold everyone together, and as the oldest he’s trying to get Bruce’s affairs in order, and it’s such a mess he actually has to stop being the Signal for a little while. Even though he’s normally the family’s emotional rock, he’s frazzled & exhausted, he doesn’t know what to do, and his temper is burning pretty short even as he tries to hold it together for his siblings.

Dick honestly seems to hate Jason, for reasons Jason cannot comprehend. Every time Jason tries to reach out to Dick, he ends up getting screamed at or having something thrown at him, and eventually Jason just gives up. (Dick is a complete fucking mess, because just as he was starting to settle in at the Manor and find something resembling stability again, his foster father went & died on him.)

Steph is AWOL since the funeral, and generally ignores “family troubles” like the plague.

Tim still figures out Bruce is still alive. He doesn’t want to get the younger kids’ hopes up, so he approaches Duke, Damian, & Cass with his evidence instead of calling a family meeting. It… does not go well.

Jason beats a retreat from the tension at the manor, telling Alfred he’s going to crash with Tim for a while. Alfred, Cass, & Duke all try to hide their relief over not having to worry about Jason for a little while. Wrongly believing Jason & Tim will keep eachother grounded.

While at Tim’s, Jason find his folder of evidence. Jason immediately confronts Tim with it, and Tim starts to get defensive before realizing Jason believes him. They go over all of it, as well as Tim’s plans & theories for where/how to find further information.

But Jason sees several problems Tim refuses to acknowledge. Gotham needs Oracle, now more than ever. And a not insignificant part of Tim’s plan relies on exploiting the resources of a certain obvious but unnamed group. Everyone knows Ra’s put the hit out on Tim all those years ago as a sort of “if I can’t have you, no one can” thing, and either intended to end Tim’s vigilante career or figured being unable to stand without crutches was significant enough punishment. But only Jason was there when Tim found the card inviting Tim back for a dip in the Pit whenever Tim was ready to admit he ‘needed’ it; Jason leant Tim his lighter to burn the note. So Jason might be the only one who knows Ra’s has been waiting for Tim to come groveling back ever since that bullet clipped Tim’s spine. And Ra’s definitely won’t deign to help Tim without ‘fixing’ him first. 

Jason’s not about to let his big brother get sucked back into that mess. Not Ra’s spiral of abuse & manipulation, not the potentially devastating side effects of the Pit, and not the struggles with worth Tim’s had since he had to hang up his cape. No way.

And Talia has made it very clear she’d be interested in training Jason.

So Jason steals Tim’s plans. Jason modifies them. Jason tells Tim that Jason’s going to go stay with the Titans, because Jason needs to get out of Gotham for a little while, and asks Tim to cover for him.

Jason steals a credit card for one of Damian’s alternate identities, knowing full well Damian’s too much of a mess to notice the charges until it’s too late.

Jason zetas to San Francisco, and asks the Titans to cover for him if anyone comes asking.

Jason uses Damian’s card to buy a plane ticket.

By the time anyone realizes what’s happened, Jason’s in too deep to risk extraction. After all, you can’t just flatter your way into an al Ghul’s favor only to back out at the last second, and no one in the family is emotionally equipped for delicacy right now.

Tim just has to do his best to make things easier for Jason, play dumb when anybody asks, and pray he isn’t setting his baby brother up to get murdered.

[just-an-enby-lemon]

I was thinking and I got the conclusion that stalker!Tim works as an AU not because Tim is (while not a stalker) canonically a weirdo (he is) but because Bruce is canonically even more of a weirdo.

We know that just like his reaction to the fake uncle shit, after dealing with the shock that this kid figured out his identity and bonding more with his new Robin, Bruce would just compliment Tim stalker abilities and give him new ones.

And that's to say I need more of stalker Bruce creeping people up. We already have him knowing all JLA secret identities without them telling him. But we need more. I want him knowing Hal Jordan's favorite ice cream flavour or Diana's birthday or Dinah's food alergies without no one telling him. He figures Ollies favorite fucking arrow and Zatanna's favorite Barbie movie, he discovered Arthur favorite snack and how exactally Martha Kent made her fried chesse to give a perfect copy to Clark when he was missing Smallvile during a space mission. He discovered Barry's competitive pokemon team! Everyone on the JLA is freaked. They think he has a secret mind reading/guessing superpower he might not even know about but is just stalkish paranoia. The only person he can't figure things out (and it keeps he awake some nights) is Captain Marvel (he is still the first to discover Billy is a kid). Martian Manhunter is the only one that knows Bruce is just weird but he knows he has good intencions so he doesn't care.

And it isn't only with the League. He makes extensive background checks in all his kids friends. The Teen Titans (both Dick's and Damian's) are freaked out by it. The YJ is actually fine 'cause they are used to Tim and it makes sense Bruce would be like that. The Outsiders (both Jason's but also Cass and Duke's) make their personal quest to mislead him. Not to mention the civilian friends. He is less obvious about it but the kids know and it freaks them up. Steph has a serius discussion over bondaries the day Bruce asks about Crystal's dentist visit and Babs is annoyed af when he just knows things about Alysia. And not only the kids all the other batfam members! The Birds of Prey straight up told him to stop multiple times. Helena once asked Sage's help to trick Bruce, Kate just used Alfred to order him to stop. Barbara interceded in name of Montoya as if she wasn't even in the paranoid stalker game with Bruce and Tim (Babs is worse than Bruce actually). Jim Gordon thinks is cool actually. But Lucious Fox is just "kid, I love you, but Alfred needs to teach you bondaries" and "how did you know Tam's baby tooth was starting to fall before me??" (Yes Bruce does this stalker thing since he was a kid/teen)

He also does it with the Rogues. At first they don't notice it because it's normal that their oponent knows things about them but starts to get weird. Selina freaks out when Bruce tells her to say happy birthday for her cat n12 (Dollie, he called it by name) when she hadn't even introduced him to her cats yet. Riddler had a genuine breakdown when Bruce just gave him the exact perfect copy of his glasses prescrition and all to replace his broken ones during an interrogation (he needed Riddler's help against a copycat). Harley punched Bruce in the face after he correctly pointed out she had just started her period and offered heater packs for her cramps, a chocolate ice cream and some snacks while driving her to Arkham, Penguin stopped doing crime for a whole week after he had almost fainted (being a crime lord is hard) for not eating the whole day and having high blood pressure for stress reason and Bruce just gave him a snack, a bottle of water and his meds (except it wasn't his meds, Batman just had a pill of Penguin's prescription in hand and wtf), Scarecrow recomended him therapy when he somehow figure out Jon's favorite candy bar and tried to use it as a bargain for information, Joker felt very flaterred that Bruce not only knew that he made his own dye using two pre existing dye products and a mix of chemicals but had the formula including the recomended brands for everyhing.

The only person who had no reaction was Clark. Clark sees Bruce being a weird stalker as just a fact of life and no one knows how to deal with it. (It's better than Tim "I wanna be like that" and Babs "cool but I'm better " aproaches at least). Talia Al Ghul used to consider it impressive and have a flirty competition to see if Batman could figure details about her. After they stopped being an item they respected each other enough that he just stalks Talia if is related to Ra, crimes, Damian or the League.

[mattzerella-sticks]

doth protest - ao3 link

Batman fanfic, Jason Todd-centric, with Batfamily fluff & humor

Jason will show the others how 'not like Bruce' he is. Except even the best laid plans have their own way of coming undone.

Part I

            Jason is not the most like Bruce. He isn’t! It doesn’t matter that no one thought similarly, because they did this just to annoy him, because he’d been the first to say, to joke, that Tim was a miniature version of Bruce only for Tim to reverse it back onto him with everyone dogpiling on in seconds, so fast that it gave Jason whiplash.

            Except Jason was joking. The others weren’t.

            “You’re cunts. Cunts! The lot of you!”

            “You started it,” Stephanie says, hovering over his shoulder from behind the couch. Cass stands beside her, behind his other shoulder. “And don’t call us cunts because you can’t take what you try and dish.”

            “I can call whoever I want a cunt if I feel like it!”

          �� Damian sighs through his nose. “Real mature.”

            “I’m mature-er than you, shorty.”

            “I’m not the one pouting like a petulant little child,” Damian asks, briefly glancing up from his video game to smirk at him. “Am I, Todd?”

            “I’m not pouting.” Jason unfolds his arms and buries his hands into the couch cushions then he flattens his bottom lip, so it isn’t puckered and bulbous. “I’m saying that… you’ve got to be blinder than a –“ Don’t say it Don’t say it Don’t say it, “ – a bat –“ Dammit! “if you think that I’m anything like… like… him!”

            Tim leans against the arm of his chair to better peer at Jason, better creep him out and make his skin crawl, and he begins counting, listing his evidence using his fingers. “You two fight the same, look the same, brood the same… are the most stubborn, the most sensitive. I know you both happen to like that dumb vampire show that was based off those books but’ll never admit it when confronted.”

            “It’s not dumb!”

            “You’re the only two who order Neapolitan when we go out for ice cream,” Tim continues, “you both have the same taste in women –“

            “But not –“ “And men.”

            Tim waits, watching him with an arched brow and the barest hint of a curve to his mouth. Jason sinks deeper into the couch. He tells himself not to pout but he’s not sure if that works.

            “I can go on,” Tim says, “if you want me to, that is?”

            Jason huffs, “I think you’ve made your point…”

            “And you both can’t take a joke!” Stephanie slaps him on the shoulder, “That should’ve been the first thing you said, Tim.”

            “Well, it was so obvious…”

            “Like I said,” Jason rises and brushes his hands down his chest, flicking his hands at its creases, at imaginary dust, at them, “cunts. I’m surrounded by cunts.”

            “You’re the one acting like a cunt!” Stephanie slaps him again. Hard. It echoes in the lounge where they’d gathered and has Jason biting his cheek to keep from yelping. “So why don’t you quit acting like a brat and sit back down.”

            “No! Better I act like a bratty cunt than him.”

            “You say this as if Bruce doesn’t behave like a bratty cunt sometimes?” Cas asks him. She had enough genuine curiosity in her voice that Jason’s only response is to deflate and return to where he’d been sitting. His plop was louder than Stephanie’s slap. “Doesn’t he?”

            “Whatever,” Jason grumbles, low and under his breath, instead of answering. He folds his arms. He pouts, fuck what Damian might say, he pouts! “Would Bruce sit here and let himself be spoken to like this? I don’t think so…”

            Stephanie perches herself on his shoulder, brings her face close enough to his ear so that her whisper sends a shiver running across his spine worse than being in the same room as Mr. Freeze. “He absolutely would, and you know it.”

            She was right. Jason hated her for it. He hated pretty much everyone right then.

            Even Duke, who’d kept mostly silent until now.

            “It’s not a bad thing,” he said. “Being like Bruce.”

            “It is when I’ve spent so much of my life making my brand about how not Bruce I am!”

            “Must suck,” Stephanie chuckles, “Trying so hard to do a one-eighty that you ended up pulling a three-sixty.” She throws herself onto the couch next to Jason and drops her legs into his lap, wearing an awfully smug grin Jason wants nothing more than to claw off her face.

            He glares at her. “You’re enjoying this too much.”

            She says, “Can’t I?” and revels in how it causes the veins in his neck to twitch, to bulge, to almost burst.

            Cass soon drops onto his other side and layers her legs over Stephanie’s, probably because she anticipated how he would have thrown Stephanie onto the floor if she hadn’t intervened. His theory is confirmed with how Cass cocks her head at him and smiles bigger than Stephanie.

            “Face it, Jay,” Tim says, “you are… your father’s son.”

            He is not. He’s not! Jason is so much not like Bruce that he wants to scream it from the rooftops so loud they hear it in Metropolis, but he doesn’t since it wouldn’t matter to them how hoarse he became while denying it nor could his ego handle it if Clark heard his claim as a challenge and flew to Gotham for the sole purpose of lecturing him how admirable it was being compared to Bruce. Words wouldn’t make a difference.

            Actions however…

            “I’ll show you,” he says. Jason leaps to his feet and knocks both Stephanie’s and Cass’s legs off him. “I’ll show you all I’m not Bruce by doing something Bruce would never do.”

            “Killing?”

            “No. Not killing.” Jason rolls his eyes. For once, killing wasn’t the answer. “I’m gonna do something even better.” He leaves the room without revealing anything else, slamming the door as he exits.

            The group looks between themselves.

            “What do you think he means by that? Better than killing?”

            “Isn’t that… most things?”

            “I think the better question is,” Damian starts, this time maintaining his focus on his video game while he speaks, “do we really care enough about whatever harebrained scheme Jason whipped up to bore ourselves thinking about it?”

            No. They don’t. So, they return to what they’d been doing before Jason interrupted their day.

Part II

THE NEXT DAY

            Jason doesn’t feel very much like Bruce at this moment. In fact, he doesn’t feel much of anything other than a light, fluffy serenity that runs through his veins like molasses, that weighs heavily on his eyelids, and that stuffs his poor, dry mouth with cotton.

            Why is he standing again?

            “Right,” Jason mumbles to himself, remembering. “Water.”

            He floats out of his room, smoke trailing him as he makes his way down the manor hallway and towards the kitchen. It is an arduous journey. The manor is a humongous beast and, since Jason had last considered it, somehow grown larger between when he went inside his room and when he left it. His path seems longer than it should be, fraught with more twists and turns that threw his sense of direction into frenzy. His latest error has him shouldering open the door to the gym, stumbling inside it and catching Dick, who takes pictures of himself in the mirror, by surprise.

            “Jason!” Dick hisses. A warm blush colors his body, save the parts Jason can’t see covered by the flimsy pair of gym shorts he wears. “What are you doing here?”

            Jason ignores him. He glances around the room and mumbles, “This isn’t the kitchen.”

            “Course it’s not – what made you think this was the kitchen?”

            “I’m trying to get to the kitchen…”

            Dick strides over to Jason and studies him, their faces inches apart. Jason doesn’t blink. “Dude,” he says, scrunching his nose, “you reek. Are you high right now?”

            Jason scoffs, then laughs. “What? Why would you – are you high?”

            Dick isn’t high. He knows that. But Jason is, like Dick rightly suspected, very, very, very high. Which explains why he hadn’t thought of a better deflection than an accusation, and why he was in the gym and not the kitchen, though Jason isn’t able to understand this connection while he’s high.

            “You are,” Dick says. “You are high.” He takes a step back. “Why are you high?”

            He scoffs again and folds his arms across his chest. “Why do I need a reason to be high? Can’t I just be high… if I were. NotsayingthatIam. High.”

            “Wait. Does this have anything to do with yours and Tim’s fight yesterday?”

            “My…” It takes Jason a minute for Dick’s question to click. “How do you know about that,” he asks.

            “He texted me about it.”

            “About what?”

            “About your major meltdown from being called Bruce’s doppelganger.”

            “I’m not though,” Jason says, “because Bruce would never get high in the middle of the day. If at all.”

            “And you do?”

            Not recently. Not until now. But once the thought came to him yesterday he couldn’t deny its sound logic so during patrol last night he made a quick stop over at a dispensary – it’s legal here in Jersey – and purchased a few dubs worth of marijuana using cash he swiped off a would-be child abductor. No harm, no foul. The challenge was working up the nerve to actually follow through with his plan. He spent that entire morning staring at the pre-rolled joint, squeezing the orange bottle it came in, nervous since he wasn’t sure how smoking it would affect him. He’d never done anything harder than liquor before. It showed when he nearly hacked his lung onto the floor seconds after his first toke.

            He’d rather die than admit that, especially to his family.

            Jason chuckles and shrugs on a cocky expression, “I’m such a stoner that it took me twenty joints to even feel the slightest bit of a buzz. At least!”

            Dick’s gaze meets Jason’s. “Sure.” His skepticism was obvious. Jason still missed it.

            “Great. Glad we got that covered.” Jason jerks his thumb backwards, “If you don’t mind. I’m gonna head to the kitchen now.”

            He might trip over his feet as he exits, but only because he’s too cool to care about lifting his feet off the ground. Honest.

            Dick catches him before his face hits the floor. “Why don’t I go with you to the kitchen,” he suggests, “I was about to grab some lunch anyway.”

            Jason snorts and snickers and doesn’t think how coincidental Dick’s stomach was being. “Sure. That's where I was heading, too.”

            He assumes his search will take longer with Dick beside him. However, in his next blink, he realizes they’ve arrived at their destination.

            “Whoa,” he mumbled. “Was the kitchen always this close to the gym?”

            Dick brushes past him and towards the fridge. “Yeah. They’re actually the same room.”

            “They are?”

            He stifles a laugh and says, in his most exasperated tone, “Always. You don’t remember?”

            “No, I do… I do.”

            The kitchen and gym are actually two wholly separate rooms that exist on different floors, and Jason will realize this later on. Now, he believes what his brother told him and shuffles along to the fridge as Dick leaves it for the microwave.

            He opens the fridge door and stares. He stares. He stares for quite a while, the chill air caressing his face and the background hum causing Jason to forget exactly why he was in the kitchen to begin with. Jason smacks his tacky lips together in thought. He cannot recall his reason why.

            Then, Bruce enters the kitchen with a grunt and a passing “You’re up early,” from Dick and all that serenity Jason felt shatters into a puddle of broken glass at his feet.

            What is Bruce doing here in his own manor?

            Jason listens as Dick converses at Bruce while he putters around the kitchen, his grip on the door’s handle becoming tighter and tighter with every second that ticks by with Bruce in the room. He can’t do this. He can’t be near Bruce and high at the same time.

            Why should he be afraid? Jason is an adult. He can make choices that Bruce wouldn’t approve of. He has made choices that Bruce didn’t approve of! This is not unfamiliar territory for him.

            That doesn’t ease the paranoia gnawing on his brain in the slightest. Its teeth sink deeper into his grey matter, and it shakes its maw wildly, sneering, growling at Jason that if Bruce catches him high, catches onto the fact that he smoked in his manor, the worst thing ever will happen. What could that be? The worst, that voice says, so bad you don’t want to know what it is!

            Oh God.

            There’s a hand on his shoulder and Jason jumps. He whips around. It’s just Dick holding an empty bowl. When did he finish?

            “Dude,” he says, “you good?”

            Jason attempts to smile. “Course I am.” It was more of a grimace.

            Dick didn’t push. Rather, he asks, “What were you looking for?”

            “I was –“ The answer hits him with urgency, “– water! I came down here for water!”

            “Okay…” Dick glances over his shoulder, “Don’t you need a glass for that?”

            He does. Unfortunately, the glasses were in the cabinet Bruce was standing in front of like a gargoyle. If he goes for the glass, Bruce will surely see him and see how high he is and, and…

            So bad you don’t want to know what it is!

            “Earth to Jason? Hello?” Dick waves his hand in Jason’s face. “Seriously, space cadet – how much did you really smo –“

            “I’ll go get the glass!” Jason shouts and pushes Dick out of his way, hoping Bruce didn’t hear him.

            He hadn’t even flinched. Good.

            Jason can do this. He can walk to where Bruce was, excuse himself, grab his glass and maybe exchange a few words with the old man, make him laugh once or twice, then dart away to the fridge and to his room after he pours himself some water where he can smoke another of his joints to calm the nervous flutter of his heart. It’ll be easy.

            Bruce won’t know anything about him being high at all.

            Besides, he’s too busy staring at the toaster he –

            He becomes sidetracked by it, too. Jason frowns at the toaster, at the limp slices of bread sitting there not being cooked, instead of getting his glass. “What are you doing?”

            Bruce shrugs, “Making toast.”

            “You are?” Jason reaches for the lever in front and pushes it. The lever, and the toast, spring back up. Bruce takes a slice and complains that it’s not cooked to his liking, placing it inside the toaster once more. “I don’t think that’ll help,” Jason says.

            “Why not?”

            “Well… it’s not working.”

            “It’s not?” Bruce squints at the toaster, scratching his chin. “Why isn’t it working?”

            Jason spies the cord from the corner of his eye, the toaster’s plug sitting beneath the outlet forlornly. “I don’t think it’s plugged in.”

            “Huh?”

            “It’s not plugged in,” Jason repeats. He takes the plug and jams it into the outlet, then presses the lever again. It locks in place. The toaster glows orange as it cooks the bread.

            A smile appears on Bruce’s face. “I was wondering why that was taking forever.”

            “How long were you just standing here, waiting for toast?”

            “I… don’t know.”

            Jason turns to him and, when he does, he notices aspects of Bruce’s appearance, his expression, his attitude, and his posture that led to a certain conclusion Jason is unable to stop himself from screaming, “Hold on – you’re high, too!”

            Bruce panics, tenses, and begins backing away from Jason. “What? That’s – why would you…” Then, as if he finally digested what Jason said, he raises his own finger. “Too? Are you high?”

            Jason bites back his groan. He pales, “I – uh… no?”

            In the background Dick, who had seated himself on one of the center bar’s stools soon as Jason neared Bruce, laughs and goes for his phone. “Oh, this is… I’m telling the others what’s happening. They won’t believe…”

            Jason glares at Dick. “Don’t you dare tell them –“

            “Tell them, what?” Dick mocks. He talks while he lights the signal for everyone else, “That you are so much like Bruce that even the things you think he wouldn’t do, he does? That what you want me to keep secret?”

            “No, it’s –“

            Bruce sniffles at his side. “You want to be like me?”

            “No!” Jason denies as Bruce scoops him into a hug, “No! That wasn’t the point of this at all!”

            “This is adorable. I’m taking pictures.”

            “You do that and consider yourself dead, Dick!”

            “I’ve lived a good life,” he says. The flash goes off on his phone. “This is worth it.”

            Jason, trapped in Bruce’s arms, is helpless. All he can do is sulk and pout – he has every right to pout – and grumble to anyone who might listen that he is not like Bruce, no matter what anyone says, no matter that even he believes the tiniest bit that he and his father are similar. It’s the hill he’ll die on.

            Which, hopefully, will be soon. Before the others can flock to the kitchen and add to his misery. Jason at least deserves that dignity, doesn’t he?

[bat-besties]

Mia Dearden and Steph Brown Headcanons! 

I’d love for them to meet supporting the Birds of Prey! They would both be about 18 when this happens, so Steph’s new to Batgirl but has been Spoiler, and Mia has been Speedy for a year. 

They both want to have fun and prove themselves, and I think there might be a little competition between them and their mentors over their use to the team. 

Mia is better at long-range combat and undercover work; Steph is better at short-range combat and detective work. 

They both talk. A Lot. 

Steph is very talkative because she’s very extroverted and friendly; Mia is talkative but it’s more of a defence mechanism at first, she’s actually a bit shy. I think that at first Steph can’t work out why Mia gets more quiet as time goes on and worries she’s mad at her, before realising this is a Cass/Tim situation. That’s cool - Steph can manage her introverts. Mia then goes up to being very talkative again, but with quiet stretches between. She appreciates that Steph can match her energy whether it’s a long ramble, a rapid conversation, or just chilling in silence together.

Steph gives Mia tips on using her hooded cape for Maximum Dramatics and Mia shows Steph how to hang upside down (“You’re a bat, right?”)

Mia met Babs at the wedding and is intimidated by her. She was too shy to tell her she’s started hacking herself, but Steph would slip it into conversation and Babs would be excited! Meanwhile Steph is like “you need to STOP me talking to Dinah before I tell her something embarrassing” (and Mia does) 

They both idolise Huntress the most out of the Birds of Prey. Come on, she rocks purple, stands up to Batman and defied her criminal origins? She’s also a badass with a bow? They gush over her together. She is also the only person who can get them to shut up over the comms. 

They love the same teen music and commiserate over Harper and Ollie making fun of it when it is actually really fun and catchy! Mia and Steph fight scene where they take down Riddler to the tune of One Direction’s Best Song Ever. The Birds of Prey record the security footage for them. 

Steph prefers reading classics and Mia prefers YA, so they swap recommendations (Steph recommends Dracula and Mia We were Liars)

However they do discover they’re both Hunger Games fans. 

Mia is a straight-A student and Steph struggles more with academics, but Mia knows more than anyone that intelligence comes in a lot of forms and it’s hard to catch up after a difficult childhood/adolescence. Equally, just how impressive Mia’s academics are (SHE SKIPPED ALL OF MIDDLE SCHOOL) is something Steph can fully appreciate and hype the fuck up. 

Honestly being with someone else from a working class background is nice amongst all the billionaires. Oliver keeps telling Mia to read Marx when she talks about her childhood. Bruce once gave Steph $50 to buy a box of tampons. Yes she kept it.

They do realise that neither man really understands the crucial gap between Steph growing up on the poverty line [under US census definition] with parental neglect and Mia staving off homelessness through survival sex work. The girls are acutely aware that Mia came from a background like Steph’s but had to leave due to abuse, and that their situations could easily be reversed. They could have really nuanced conversations about gender and class. 

Steph makes a joke about being pressured to sexualise herself at 15 and Mia’s like SAME and tells a much more concerning joke and Steph completely cracks up. 

Mia: I’m glad you found that funny because it did make Connor almost cry.  

Steph: Oh yeah, you should meet Cass. Her sense of humour is so dark Signal couldn’t light it.

They’d bond over friendship with Tim! When Steph hears about how chill and accepting he was of Mia’s HIV diagnosis she’s not at all surprised because that’s Tim all over. She tells Mia how when she first met Tim he thought he got Steph pregnant with a kiss and was still reading feminist theory for the first time. That’s her boy! He listened. 

Mia worries that reaching out to Tim or the other Teen Titans would be weird since they haven’t reached out to her and maybe they won’t even really remember her- 

Steph tells her if she rocks up to the tower for a reason other than the world ending and with some snacks, they’ll talk about it for months after. (She knows because she did it). 

Steph offers to introduce Mia to Cass, Kara, Damian, and other heroes she’s teamed up with over the years. 

In turn, Mia realises Steph struggles to make friends at community college despite her friendliness and with Mia actually having friends at high school, she gives Steph tips for “getting close to people authentically when you can’t tell them about the vigilante thing”. We see in the comics how Mia has to work on making friends, so I feel like she could pass on advice to Steph who is more used to hanging around people enough that they become close and being super open. 

Mia tends to get more quiet and passive aggressive, Steph tends to yell and confront rather than letting things simmer. They would struggle to deal with this at first. For Mia, Steph yelling would remind her of Richard and make her feel Steph is trying to intimidate her. For Steph, Mia making mean comments would remind her of Bruce and make her feel that Mia thinks she’s better than Steph. 

However, I think they could communicate to work this out and deal with conflict without yelling and with direct communication. 

Mia makes Steph watch Powerpuff Girls and Steph makes Mia watch Gravity Falls. 

They also have a sleepover involving a ton of snacks and Project Runway

It’s nice to talk about casual things - like how Mia’s boyfriend cheated on her with Emma Watson, Steph and Tim tried to date in costume but not out of it, and how Mia has killed someone and Steph has tried multiple times. Normal teen stuff.  

They end up having some deep chats on stakeout: So how was the realising not all men are evil being deeply painful because it meant your father chose to be like that? 

Mia: Even though he proved he’d never hurt me, Ollie kind of set back my progress in trusting men when he cheated on Dinah. It just felt like even good men would betray women for sex. But he’s grown from that and they’re married now.

Steph: Yeah, Bruce set me back when he had a mafia alter ego and didn’t tell me, leading to my brutal death which he still blames me for to this day. 

Mia: GIRL

Look the two of them have to look after a young girl together and get her to a safe place and use her testimony/skill to take down whoever was hurting her so she's part of her own rescue. They just have to. 

One of them is a natural blonde and one dyes her hair. They know which is which but they’ll never tell.

[ectonurites]

thoughts on convergence batgirl?

ah yes i did mention i have problems with it in a tag last night which i imagine prompted you asking this.

on the one hand, in 2015 it was a 'made me cry out of joy to see Steph back in the Batgirl suit at all' sort of thing, so i'll always have a certain fondness for it. i do think it has some good moments (like the one in that above linked post) plus Steph & Cass as roommates my beloved.

BUT the major problem I have is that I think the premise is inherently flawed—I think it's way too out of character for Steph to quit being Batgirl/a vigilante the way she is shown to have done once the dome appeared. And that sorta bleeds into the whole story, it's a driving force behind how Steph & co are dealing with the Convergence situation.

Steph’s resilience and unwillingness to ever give up anything—no matter what the world threw at her—had pretty much always been a defining characteristic for her. The only times prior she’d ever ‘given it [being a hero] up’ were temporarily while she was pregnant (because. obviously) and when it was entirely not her choice post-War Games (because Leslie faked her death and brought her to Africa, but basically the second she got back to Gotham she was being Spoiler again).

Being a hero is something she had to work so hard for. It's something that she was told to stop doing over and over again—by Bruce, by Tim, by fucking everyone—but it's the thing she wanted to do and it's the way she wanted to help, so by god she was gonna do it!

And once she became Batgirl, that determination to be a hero only intensified:

(Bruce Wayne: The Road Home — Batgirl #1)

Like... this is her last page before the reboot:

(Batgirl (2009) #24)

Literally saying 'it's only the end if you want it to be' in rebuttal to Babs mentioning an end, and following it up with 'Here we go' as she swings off into the early morning to keep Batgirl-ing—in her last appearance before continuity is about to reboot and make her disappear entirely for a few years. This page is like the clearest example of showing how Stephanie Brown is a character that will carry on being a hero—doing what she loves and thinks is right—even if things are ending all around her.

So I just can't comprehend looking at that and saying 'yeah, when an emergency hits, she's gonna give all this up ASAP'. It just feels like it contradicts the very nature of Steph's attitude on being a hero and will always rub me the wrong way.

Then, a smaller thing that also bugged me on the reread of Convergence Batgirl I just did is how Tim/Steph was handled.

Because they were apparently together as Red Robin and Batgirl pre-dome which then led to the 'Tim ghosting Steph because she quit being Batgirl' breakup... but them being together was not the case nor really the trajectory things were headed towards last we saw the post-crisis versions of them. They had never gotten officially back together after Steph's death in War Games—like there were a few kisses and obvious feelings that were still present when she was revealed to be alive right around Batman RIP, but after the shit that went wrong at the end of Robin '93 they were very much so NOT together anymore. And when they had the chance to get back together during the Red Robin/Batgirl crossover they very specifically didn't.

So it just feels like... IDK, randomly added in drama for the sake of drama, that felt like it didn't add anything meaningful to the story besides... connecting an action to the already-seeming-ooc 'Steph Quit' plot point. But like, I think there easily could have been a story of rekindling their actual old relationship—without adding in this off-panel getting back together and breaking up thing—that would have made them getting back together again at the end feel way more satisfying.

[colorfulyetsinful]

As like all my other hcs I wrote this on my phone (actually wrote this while at work but let’s not this about that too hard). I wanted to go into more detail, but thought that’ll make it confusing and just choose to do it like this.

This is just something I think about when overwhelmed bc it’s helps distract me. I mostly think about it from a jondami perspective bc why not.

I might do more about this, if 5 ppl like this. Sorry if this doesn’t make sense :(

Enjoy!!!

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Reverse Batfam hc

Duke was the first adopted after his parents died from the joker

he’s still “the signal” but that’s a little later”

Damian joins in after, he’s the oldest of the Wayne kids

Duke looked up to Damian and was a little self conscious of his place in the family

he ended up getting g shot by joker and became oracle (he still calls himself the signal)

Jon is 3 years older then Damian

they met the same way with Damian trying to kidnap him to fight

they didn’t really say they were friends but they were friends

they form the teen titans when Damian was 14

the members are raven and beast boy ofc, then Colin and jon, and maps….kathy, maya, djinn II and Conner queen joining later

Jon is the oldest

Jon started dating Jay (Damian had a crush on Jon)

they broke up later and Damian was in a secret relationship with Colin (not really secret they just never out right said it)

Jon left the team after he graduated high school wanting to focus more on school

(the team kinda disbanded a little after with Kathy taking over for a bit)

Damian gave up being Robin after getting in a fight with Bruce

Joined a cult fight ring where he met back with Conner and met flatline

him and Colin also broke up (it was mutual with just a bit of awkwardness)

Tim became Robin after finding out Batman’s identity and the little shit was so desperate he put his family in danger just to get Batman’s attention (fucking dumbass)

Damian comes back to Gotham with a new Robin and he goes to Jon bc Jon was his comfort

they formed the titans again (with the added few)

Kon is born and Jon learns to be a big brother

He also makes it a good idea to introduce kon and Tim

Damian does not like Tim

he regrets it after Tim is kidnapped by the joker and is tortured to becoming joker Jr and ended up falling to his death

anyways he dies and Damian regrets not being there to at least help guide him

Bruce is destroyed, he was just starting to like Tim and his company only for that to happen to him (he didn’t really accept Tim bc of how he put himself in danger and only took tim in bc his parent were in hiding in another country) (imagine the phone call they got)

Kon also dies around this time

Jon and Damian pull apart from the team and eachother

Jon forced to become Superman after his father dies from doomsday

Damian “retiring” from heroing and going back to the legue of assassins

(he’s actually to keep an eye on his grandfather)

Bruce meets Jason and takes him in

he doesn’t tell Jason about Batman but Jason is a smart kid so he finds out eventually

Bruce is more protective over Jason so he doesn’t make him Robin right away

Damian comes back right on time when Bruce starts training Jason, he heckles Bruce a bit but starts train Jason as well so whatever happened to Tim never happens with him

Jason and Damian become a bit more closer

Stephanie joins the family as batgirl

She was friends with Tim when he was still alive

she met Batman the same way in the comics

Cassandra was adopted before Tim and was batgirl for a while until she was shot in the leg (she’s fine just was benched for a while)

Damian and Taven start dating

and Raven ends up pregnant (more on that later)

Damian and her broke up before find out tho and that’s when him and Jon were getting closer

Tim comes back to life bc ra’s Al Goul (?) wanted to use his body as a vessel and even trained him

Tim lost his memory after coming back to life, but gain it slowly through time

Fully comes back when kon comes back to life and rushes over to get Tim out before Tim’s soul can be switched

then ended up blowing up the base while escaping

They join a life of crime with Tim going through his mad scientist/villain arc

him and Jon got a Bonnie and Clyde thing going on

Also tried to kill Jason after coming back to Gotham bc he felt like Jason didn’t deserve to be Robin

Speaking of Gotham, he try’s to come back looking for his parent, only to find out they were killed by the riddler (of all ppl) and that kicked off his villain arc

Jon finds out about Kon being alive and when he asked kon why he’s doing the thing he’s doing, Kon’s just like “I rather be with Tim then the person who left me to die”

it kills Jon bc he tried everything he could to protect Kon that day but got there too late

it’s worse for jon bc he’s still grieving over the lost of Damian, and running tge titans again with the addition of Bart, kara, Cassie, and cissie

man’s is stresssd to no end

Back to Damian, he’s not actually dead, he got sent to the underworld by his grandfather after he failed the soul switch, so Ra’s went back to his og choice of a vessel.

Raven ends up having her baby, (it’s a girl), they name her Lilith bc I’m so original

She look like raven with Damian’s hair and eyes (what baby is 75% demon and the rest human)

Damian comes back to the earth (4years older, even tho only a year has passed since he’s “died”)

the catch up is insane

him and Jon start dating and they co parent with raven and bb to raise Lilith

Tim has also calmed down after Damian smacks him to his senses

he’s still a little shit and now helps the batfam with any tech things

imagine Jason but more off his rockers then homicidal

Dick is the last to join, and he’s just a ball of sunshine

Damian gains an attachment to him (mostly bc he’s only 3-4 years older then his daughter)

did I mention Damian is such a good dad bc he’s such a good dad

Dick and Lilith are spoiled by the whole family even Tim

the rouges would think more the twice then to mess with them (they do not want to get on Tim’s bad side)

Dick is also start to create his own team of young justice with Wally, Roy, Lilith, Donna, and Garth

also Jon and Damian are engaged

Ages!!

Damian - 28 (supposed to be 24) (the oldest)

Duke - 22 (second oldest)

Tim - 21 (physical, mentally he’s 19) (legally died at the age of 14)

Jason - 16 (try’s so hard to be edgy and is getting closer to tim)

Dick - 13 (the youngest)

Cass - 15

Steph - 17

Lilith - 9-10

Kent:

Jon - 26-27

Kon - 21 (technically 9)

Kara - 19

Others:

Raven, Kathy, Djinn, Jay, and bb - 25-26

Colin, Maps, Maya, Conner -23-24

Bart - 22

Cassie and cissie - 20

Wally, Roy and Donna - 11-12

Garth - 13

(I think that’s everyone I mentioned)

Names!!!

Damian - Ghoul

Duke - signal

Tim - Red

Jason -Redwing

Dick - robin

(Damian was never Robin bc that name was originally dick’s, it’s what his parent would call him, so I don’t think they’ll use Robin if Dick was never the first robin)

(Bruce used batkid bc he’s so original)

Seph is spoiler, to batgirl back to spoiler

Cass is batgirl, to blackbat