#and superboy telling him that he owes child support

[tofuingho]

I've been holding on to a prompt because I thought it was a bit weird, but apparently we're shipping actual houses now, so here ya go:

Cujo/Wolf (Superboy's pet wolf, not Wulf)

I think it would be hilarious for Superboy to wake up one day and there's Wolf with a bunch of glowing puppies.

(As far as we know, both Cujo and Wolf are male dogs. But, one's a ghost and one was experimented on/is enhanced. The pups could also be adopted. I'm sure if there's one ghost dogs there are more out there somewhere.)

Of course, YJ is scrambling around trying to figure out what the puppies are and where they come from (without pissing off Wolf), when in pops Cujo.

At what point do they realize that Cujo isn't just another puppy and is in fact Wolf's (...let's go with) "mate"?

When Kid Flash makes one of the puppies start to cry and Cujo gets BIG.

[miss-choco-chips]

The dangers of sugar coating

Dick tries to give his little brother nice things (and fucks up), Tim is paranoid (and too tired to think clearly), and Damian thinks they might actually be a good team (while they plot Santa Claus’ downfall).

(Beacuse @animemangasoul and I decided we’ve been too rough with Tim lately, so I tried to give him some batfamily fluff. Somewhere along the way I fucked up and ended with this. No edit, pure crack)

-----.------

-Before I tell you anything, you need to promise me you won’t get mad.

The Bruce of ten years ago, new to parenting and oblivious to its dangers, would have done his best to emulate any ‘How to be a good Dad- guide for new, utterly lost fathers’ book. Now, though, tired after raising Dick to semi-adulthood and still hurting over Jason’s… Jason, he knew better. Life had toughtened him up.

So he didn’t raise his eyes from his newspaper, and gave into the urge of sipping his coffee before humming under his breath. Not even the slightest show of acceptance over those terms.

If Dick was asking that, instead of hiding whatever this was or dealing with it himself, it meant the situation was either out of his control, bound to make its way to Bruce eventually, or both. 

Probably both.

-Come on, B, just promise you won’t get all passive aggressive bitch on me. I did it for the greater good...

Another hum.

However, Dick has spent the same amount of time learning under his guide than he had raising him, so the younger was bound to develop some of his own tactics.

-...and I did it because Tim obviously needed it, so…

Warning bells ringing in his mind, Bruce gave up and shoot Dick a look. He didn’t seem overly guilty, so whatever this was, it probably wasn’t irreversible. But he was also shifting his weight from one leg to the other nervously, so… there was a catch here.

-What did you do?

-You didn’t promise.

-I won’t take your allowance away, but I may yell. It depends on how convincingly you make your case -compromise, he had learned after many, many mistakes, was as good a plan as any. 

-Deal -then, quickly, like ripping off a bandaid:- I might have made Tim slightly more neurotic than he was. On accident.

The bells turned into firefighter’s sirens. 

-What did you do?

They have had the fifteen year old living in the mannor for a few weeks at most. They couldn't possibly have already broken him, right?

Right?

Dick winced, but sat down by Bruce’s left (the side closest to the dining room’s window), which meant this was the only issue, but a hard to explain one.

-You see… We were talking, bonding over childhood memories and stuff, and… you know how christmas is just around the corner, and I asked him about Santa. I mean, obviously he doesn’t believe in that now, but the thing is, he never did.

-He’s too smart for that -growled Bruce, impatiente to get to the point and figure out just how much damage control would he be doing.

-No, his parents were too shitty. They were never there on Christmas, so no gifts under the tree unless he put them there himself, and whenever that happened, it was because his parents sent them and he wrapped them himself. Also no surprises, because he was the one asking for specific stuff. And I got a little sad, because how can a kid never believe in Santa? Like, come on. It’s part of the concept of childhood innocence. So...

Bruce waited a few beats, but Dick didn’t follow up. See, this was the moment where his parenting books would suggest waiting until the kid was good and ready for sharing his thoughts. But, since this was his younger child at stake here, he couldn't allow himself the luxury of letting a single second go.

-And? -he prompted, as gently as he could, trying not to spook Dick into abandoning ship.

-And I sort of… convinced him that Santa was real. Like, a full out super powered meta whose purpose in life was to bring joy to all of us. I texted Barbara and she planted some old looking reports on the batcomputer about it, to give credibility to the lie. I even drew parallels with Batman being thought of as a myth outside of Gotham to support the ‘Santa is real, people just don’t believe in him’ thing. And, after some hours of convincing and with Babs’ help, he bought it. So now, if Tim approaches you about it, you better back me up, because otherwise you would be ruining the last vestige of innocence Tim might still keep. Downside, though, Tim is now holed up in his bedroom searching the deep web for any Santa related info he can get his nerdy little paws on.

Silence in the room. Dick blurted out a goodbye and jumped out of the window. Bruce didn’t get up to check if he had landed safely on the other side. He probably had. 

Tired, he looked down at his coffee. Black, just like he needed it now.

He should have stopped at zero children.

----.----

Cassie watched, with no small amount of unholy glee, as Tim thoroughly convinced both Kon and Bart of Santa’s existence. One a clone with little social understanding and the other from a very dark future, they were unsurprisingly easy to convince.

This was the kind of hilarious shit that made being in a superhero team worth it. All the life and death situations were balanced out by this kind of drama-like absurdity.

Even better was Tim’s completely fucked up perspective on the matter.

-So you’re saying Santa is not only real, but a deranged psychopath? Who’s probably both a pedofile and a mind controlling scumbag? -Kon tilted his head, both confused and esceptic.

Cassie did her utmost best to keep a straight face while nodding along, as if everything Tim had laid down in front of them made perfect sense. 

-I thought it was stupid, too. But Dick showed me evidence, old reports, both handwritten and digital, and I found footage of Santa sneaking into the Manor when he was still young, deeply buried in the Batcomputer mainframe.

-Couldn’t that video be, you know… made up? -Bart asked, frown unusual on him firmly in place.

-If it was anywhere else? Sure. But this is The Batcomputer we’re talking about. Why would Batman have that kind of thing there? It was too heavily protected to be placed there as decoy for anyone hacking, not like they could ever get over Oracle’s firewalls. Besides, what reason would Batman have to invent this? I’m fifteen, I don’t need the ‘Santa fantasy’. The only believable answer is that Santa is real and very dangerous, and some people have taken his name for capitalism’s sake and made a holiday out of that and some religious backing, to get more people roped up into it. The true mastermind is obviously hiding somewhere out there, and the Christmas propaganda is merely a means to get funding for his devious plots.

Both metas hummed thoughtfully, Superboy even crossing his arms as he examined the pile of photos and papers Tim had laid out in front of them. Bart was nodding, hand cupping his jaw. The looked dead serious.

Cassie wanted to excuse herself to use the toilet (lead lidden because this was Gotham, specifically Tim’s secret place, so of course it was super-proof) so she could laugh her ass off, but the temptation of seeing this trainwreck to its fiery end was too strong. 

It was taking up all of her amazonian training to keep her straight face, though. Diana would be so proud.

-I even searched the deep web for Santa related crimes, and looked up his name in disturbing forums. You wouldn't believe what some people, serial killers and rapists both, do using Christmas as a theme. I couldn't sort through it all, it was that sick.

Kon looked utterly disturbed- So what do we do now? Christmas is just around the corner!

Bart got up and started pacing back and forth- We need to hunt this dude down. Christmas is about goodness and family! We can’t let this, this… psychopath ruin it! Think about the children of the world!!

Oh god, this was getting even better.

-But how? The man sounds like a velocist of some kind, I mean, running and leaving gifts everywhere in the world in the span of a few hours? How are we even gonna catch him?

-Maybe if we dress up as Elves? -Cassie couldn't stop herself from suggesting, voice choked in her effort to be serious, but most likely interpreted by the boys as clogged up on rage- From what Tim wrote here -she raised a paper from the pile, hand shaking- it looks like they are his mind-controlled slaves. If he thinks we ran from his captivity, he might take us to the North Pole with him to brainwash us again… Oh, but I probably shouldn't dress up, so you know, I can be back up if he manages to catch you three…

-That’s a great idea! -Bart’s skinny arms wrapped themselves around her neck, and she took the chance to hide her face in his mane of hair, corners of her mouth twitching up.

-Should I also record it? -she asks, almost begging- In case people don’t believe us later, when we have to explain why we imprisoned Santa.

-Yes, I think that might be wise -Tim conceded, eyes scanning his papers again.

Thank the gods. That tape was going to be Cassie’s most precious treasure forever.

-I think he has a way of controlling people’s minds too. Like, parents and stuff. And then he makes them be the ones to give his children gifts in his name, as a way of gaining their trust. Sick fucker.

-So you think it’s a kinky thing for him?

-Kon, he literally categorizes kids as ‘good’ or ‘naughty’. 

-You are right, we need to stop this bastard.

Cassie loved her boys so, so much. She also owed Dick Grayson the biggest high five.

----.----

Red Hood was just lighting up a cigarette when he saw Red Robin making his way to his rooftop. Cursing, he dropped the entire thing and kicked it away. The brat knew Jason smoked, but Dick had been on his ass lately about being a good brother, and he still felt kinda bad about trying to kill the kid twice, so he was actually trying to set a good example. 

Besides, out of the two possible little brothers to take under his wing, he certainly drew the lucky ticket, because while Dickie had gotten stranded with the pompous brat, Jason had the all around good kid circling his radar more often than not. Like, Tim had broken him out of prison, a little after Jason had done his best to end his life; he couldn't get more forgiving and nice than that. It certainly beat making a murder League child let go of his katana on a nightly basis.

-I need your help.

He blinked. While they certainly had worked cases together in the past, they were always preluded by some kind of smalltalk,  little banter, at least a ‘hello’. Not this straight to the point bullshit.

He had the urge to take out his guns, to protect them both of any threat following Red Robin here. He refrained.

-What’s the matter, babybird? What’s wrong?

Tim looked almost frazzled. The cowl was hanging around his neck, just a domino preserving his identity, and his hair was a knotted mess. Disveleshed was too little a word for his state.

-We need to make a plan to catch Santa Claus before Christmas this year. His reign of terror must end. It’s still not too late.

Yeah, okay, he might need that cigarette after all, to hell with Dick’s bitching. Besides, how bad of a influence could that be, when this kid was obviously already on some kind of drugs? Like, Santa? Really?

-What… do you mean?

What followed was an hour long rant on the dangers of a super powered, evil version of the myth that Tim had somehow cooked up on his mind.

Was this real? The kid looked far too distraught for a joke.

-… Does Nightwing know about this? -whatever ‘this’ was- Bats?

Tim shook his hands frantically. Jason was legit getting worried.

-N was the one who told me about Santa -there, he knew this smelled like a Golden Boy trademark fuck up-, but he seems to be under his spell. Bruce as well. They tried to convince me he is some kind of good-hearted samaritan. Jason -he stated, breaking the no names during patrol rule, a show of just how deep into the rabbit hole he was- you wouldn't  believe what I found on the deepweb. Joker’s yearly special seems tame in comparison.

That, Jason could believe. But he was also fairly sure you could type about any word in the darkest side of the net, and find half a dozen kinky or deranged things that matched. Santa-temed crimes? More likely than anyone would believe. Real life Santa doing the deed? Not so much.

Tim had been too young when Dick lied to his face, most likely. And nowadays, the young vigilante was running on three hours of sleep on a good week. And it wasn’t even too far fetched to believe, on their line of business, specially when dealing with metas and supervillains day in and day out.

Still…

-Kid, I don’t know how to tell you this, but… Santa isn’t real -he told him, slowly, hands raised as if to touch his shoulders but not daring to actually make contact. Tim looked so manic he might actually nerve strike him.

The icy blue eyes were hidden under his mask, but Jason knew from the way he tensed that Tim was terrified.

-He got to you, too -he whispered, almost too softly for him to hear. Then, without giving Jason the chance to inquire further, he turned tail and disappeared into the night.

....

He really needed that cigarette.

----.----

When Drake told the family he was taking Damian under his wing for a case, everyone seemed so happy he couldn't just shoot the other man down. Besides, reluctant as he was to admit it, Red Robin was the superior detective in the entirety of the team, so there would be rewards for taking the blow to his pride and working with him.

He expected to be directed through some easy case, maybe a little puzzling but not too challenging. Or be sidelined while Drake worked through things, so he could learn by example.

This, though, this he hadn’t foresaw.

This case was way more serious.

-How come Father has allowed this depravancy to continue?! -exclaimed Damian, hands gripping the sheets of information tightly- This ‘Santa’s’ influence has been permitted to cement on too many people already! And it keeps growing!

-I know. Fuck, I know. But I can’t get anyone to help me. My team knows, but sadly we aren’t enough. Bruce and Dick don’t believe me, and neither does any other hero I contacted on the matter. It’s just like when B was missing in time; they either think I’m crazy, or try to sugarcoat things, like they would with a baby.

Damian snorted, disbelieving. Whatever his opinion might be on his predecessor, he at least knew to trust his insight in a case. Grandfather himself had recognized his genius on that field.

They were on Drake’s perch, his center of operations outside of Batman’s influence. He would never admit it out loud, but if Damian ever needed his own batcave, it would be just like this one. 

Now, the long table in front of him was completely covered in information, case reports, photos taken from live footage, deepweb forums’ conversations, history books…

-And you say this… monster, targets children?

-I mean, he brainwashes the parents too, but that seems like a plot to both increase his economic funds and to gain the children’s trust.

-How are you so sure they are his objective?

-The parents tell their children Santa is ‘always observing them’, and ask if they ‘have been good’ that year. If they aren’t perceived as obedient, Santa leaves them coal, which incentives them to do their best to change that by next year’s christmas. 

-Maybe the coal and gifts have mind control devices, or some magic?

-My thoughts exactly.

Damian frowns even deeper. He’s glad Drake is taking his detective training seriously, but if father himself is being deceived, he wonders what can the two of them (plus Drake’s team) do.

-What about Todd? Red Hood is proclaimed as Saint Protector of Children in Crime Alley, after all. He certainly has opinions about this ‘Santa’ person. 

Timothy shakes his head- He got Jason too. I suspect he’s been under his control ever since he was a child at the manor. 

-So, we are alone in this.

-Essentially, yes. Thankfully, not everyone celebrates christmas. Some religions flat out forbid it, so we won’t have as much ground to cover when we lay out a trap. We could choose a close by location and plan around it. 

He nods, back straight with purpose. He -and Drake, he supposes- would be freeing Father and Grayson, along with the rest of the victims, from this madman’s control. Maybe even Todd, if he has the time.

-I’m with you on this endeavor, Drake.

-Good. Remember we need to act natural in front of the family. If Santa catches wind of what we’re doing, he might focus his efforts in getting to us. 

Damian wants to say to let him come, he would show him why it's a bad idea to mess with his family. But Drake is, admittedly, the superior detective, and it seems he’s been working on this for a long time now. Damian will defer to his judgement this one time.

Drake’s superior knowledge and Damian’s unrivaled training might be what’s needed to orchestrate this ‘Santa’s’ downfall.

They will be a good team, he thinks.

[infectedworldmind]

I started reading DC Comics as the Bronze Age was coming to an end. Barry Allen stood trial for the murder of Reverse Flash. Guy Gardner was officially inducted into the Green Lantern Corps. R’as al Ghul emptied Arkham Asylum and Gotham State Penitentiary in an effort to force Batman to join his crusade to save the world from itself and Superman starred in a series of weird high concept imaginary stories.

                            Just as I started to develop an affinity for these characters and their delightfully messy universe, their stories ended.

Crisis on Infinite Earths was a celebration of DC’s 50th anniversary and an effort to create a jumping on point for new readers. Marv Wolfman and George Perez used Crisis as a vehicle to impose order and tonal consistency on a shared universe that had grown unwieldy and create an environment in which the publisher’s properties could be modernized. When I first read it at as a child (most of it between the ages of eight and ten), it just seemed like a deeply depressing book about death and loss.

Crisis was probably the first time I read a comic that featured the deaths of large numbers of people. It was a dark counterpoint to other books I read as a child that addressed death. While books like Charlotte’s Web taught me that death is a natural part of the cycle of life, the deaths in Crisis felt unnatural and unresolved, particularly since the event was mostly erased from the memories of the characters involved after it ended. 

I think that’s one of the reasons why I’ve always enjoyed the few DC books that explicitly deal with the pain and loss caused by the event, especially those that draw parallels between the experience of the characters in the story and that of the readers. One of them – the 50th issue of Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen’s Legion of Superheroes series – told a tale about vengeance that gripped my imagination. The fall from grace and redemption that followed over the next dozen issues and the opening arcs of the subsequent volume of Legion helped me appreciate the constant process of change in Marvel and DC’s superhero comics.

There’s a common misconception that superhero comics, particularly those published by Marvel and DC, are resistant to change. Readers and commentators talk a lot about DC and Marvel’s commitment to sustaining an illusion of change in terms of continuity and aging, but focusing on story details can be a distraction from the near-constant change in the ways that these stories are told. The shifts in tone and storytelling structure that frequently accompany creative/editorial turnover or changing publisher priorities impact the reading experience as much as any continuity disruption or character death. Ultimately, the changes to Superman’s history wrought by Wolfman and John Byrne after Crisis had less of a long term impact than the shift from self contained stories about a relatively static protagonist to a Marvel-style ongoing narrative about a dynamic, evolving character. Even after creators began to reintroduce elements from earlier eras, the only modern Superman stories that truly captured the feeling of the Bronze Age were procedurals like DC’s weekly Adventures of Superman digital series. Although the Superman depicted in Adventures of Superman appears to be the one featured in DC comics from 1987-2012, the self-contained story arcs that focus on his adventures and ignore his inner life evoke memories of an earlier era.

Crisis on Infinite Earths embodied both kinds of change – it marked the end of an era within the fictional world of the characters and the end of an approach to storytelling prevalent in DC Comics throughout the fifties, sixties and seventies. Almost all of the books that focused on the fallout from Crisis used the event as an opportunity to explore change in superhero comics. In Animal Man, Grant Morrison and Chas Truog reminded readers of the sense of wonder and possibility that was lost after the end of Crisis while examining the relationship between continuity and memory, and the anxieties of the Crisis survivors, at least those who still remembered (what if the apocalypse happened and everyone forgot?).

In the Last Days of the Justice Society, Roy Thomas, Dann Thomas and Mike Gustovich tied up loose ends while drawing a parallel between traditional superhero conflicts, Ragnarok and the European theater of the Second World War to remind readers that the “never ending battle” archetype will survive any ‘crisis’.

Levitz and Giffen’s approach to dealing with the Crisis in the Legion of Superheroes series was the one that had the most powerful impact on me as a kid. They turned a story designed to reconcile the Legion’s history with the changed DC Universe into an extended eulogy for two DC characters erased by the Crisis who played a central role in Legion lore: Superboy and Supergirl. Superboy played no role in Crisis, but vanished after the event’s conclusion. Supergirl died in one of Crisis’ most iconic moments. Levitz and Giffen use the Legion’s efforts to cope with their loss as a vehicle for examining the emotional impact of change in a superhero universe.

The Legion of Superheroes owed their existence in the Silver/Bronze Age DC Universe (and as an ongoing title) to Superman, who was both a core member and the primary inspiration for the team as Superboy. The team of teen superheroes from the future was introduced in a 1958 issue of Adventure Comics in which they recruited him onto the team.

The Legion were supporting players in Superboy stories for the next four years until receiving their own feature in Adventure Comics, and their own title (sharing billing with Superboy) in 1973. As the only DC title set in the 30th century,the Legion were allowed to age and grow in a way that wasn’t permitted in other titles, which was particularly fascinating when juxtaposed against the unchanging world of Superboy.

In the Legion narrative, Superboy was the unaging hero that all the other characters looked up to, even as they aged and married and died.

Supergirl joined the team in 1961 and was occasionally featured in Legion stories throughout the Silver and Bronze Age. She was the unrequited love of Brainiac 5, the team’s resident genius scientist. During the 1960’s and ’70’s, his infatuation was portrayed as the kind of weird crush that was typical of DC Silver Age comics. At one point, he even built a Supergirl robot programmed to love him in his sleep.

By the early 1980’s, Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen hinted at the possibility of a more interesting (and reciprocal) relationship between the two by positioning Supergirl as the more openly flirtatious of the two.

After Supergirl’s death, it was revealed that Brainiac 5’s reluctance to push their relationship forward was rooted in his knowledge of her impending demise. In the comics, the space/time gap between the two (Supergirl lived a thousand years in Brainiac 5’s past) was insurmountable. In reality, she was just more valuable to DC as a single character in the present than she would have been as a semi-permanent Legion member with a love interest on the team. At least she was until Marv Wolfman and John Byrne decided to simplify the Superman corner of the DCU by making Superman the last survivor of Krypton. Wolfman gave her a heroic death in Crisis and Brainiac 5 mourned her in the Legion series until she was written out of the DCU and those memories were lost.

Supergirl’s death was the defining moment of Crisis, even more than the demise of the Silver/Bronze Age Flash. Flash was a more iconic character – his introduction in 1956 heralded the start of DC’s Silver Age – but his death was more typical of hero deaths in superhero comics. He was replaced by his young protege, who spent the next decade struggling to live up to his legacy. He was mourned and fondly remembered by characters in DC Comics for years after the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Supergirl, who was arguably DC’s second most beloved female character after Wonder Woman, was not remembered within the books or replaced. Her death was a reminder that the narrative that readers had become familiar with over the decades had come to a definitive end.

In a universe without Superboy or Supergirl, the Legion needed a reason to exist. Levitz’ solution wasn’t to replace Superboy with another teen hero, but to posit that the age of heroes that inspired the Legion was rooted in a series of deceptions orchestrated by the Time Trapper, an evil entity that embodied the concept of entropy. The Superboy who was the best friend and inspiration for almost every Legionnaire was from a pocket universe created by the Trapper to ensure that the Legion existed to prevent other powerful forces (Darkseid, Mordru, the Dark Circle, the Dominators, the Khund) from dominating the 31st Century.

After finding out that almost everything they knew was a lie and enduring the death of their ‘Superboy’, a group of Legionnaires joined forces to confront the Trapper at the end of time in Legion of Superheroes #50. It was the issue that would change the Legion forever, and the one that turned me from an occasional reader of Legion books into a full fledged fan (at least for a while). The story’s very cool for a number of reasons – Giffen tells a great ‘mighty heroes against force of nature’ story – but what always stuck with me was Brainiac 5’s brief expression of anguish.

In that moment, Levitz and Giffen set the stakes of the story and illustrated why the Legion were some of the more interesting characters in DC – the heroes had complicated, conflicting motivations, some of which were even a mystery to themselves. Brainiac’s lament was that of a man who lost his friend and inspiration, an ambitious scientist frustrated by the limitations on his work imposed by the Trapper (who was responsible for an ‘iron curtain’ preventing most time travel). He may not have remembered Supergirl, but his words sounded like those of a thwarted lover denied happiness. There was also more than a hint of rage – not only at their untimely death, but because the truth behind their existence perverted their legacy and his memories of them. He’s angry because he was inspired by and fell in love with illusions.

Brainiac 5’s pain (and that of his fellow conspirators) is a heightened, funhouse reflection of the frustration felt by readers who mourned the end of the Bronze Age at DC Comics after the Crisis on Infinite Earths, particularly those who were fans of the Superman family of titles. The near-omnipotent Superman, the idealized authority figure from the books read by young Boomers in the fifties, sixties and seventies, was replaced by a Superman who was downright ordinary, a kind hearted farm boy wearing a suit made by his mother.

In the new DC Universe, Superman played high school football as a teenager instead of moonlighting as Superboy. There were no other survivors of Krypton. No Kandor, no Krypto, and no young cousin named Kara. This was an entry point for new fans, but an exit point for many older readers, who weren’t interested in reading stories about characters that only bore a superficial resemblance to the ones that they fondly remembered from childhood.

I know, it’s weird to think about reboots – which are always accompanied by character deaths and the end of long-running stories – through the lens of loss and mourning. It feels silly, almost perverse. They’re just stories, after all. Moreover, it’s not like the older stories lose meaning just because a comics publisher stops referencing them. The publishers own the intellectual property, the creators have their moral rights (even if unrecognized by the law), but we get to decide which stories matter. Readers who feel some sense of nostalgia for a particular era can always read the books from that time. The comics featuring Superman from the Bronze Age didn’t vanish with the character after the end of Crisis.

Those of us who’ve read superhero comics for a long time also know that resurrections are inevitable and old versions of characters will always resurface as those who are nostalgic for a bygone era replace creators who were originally weary of the status quo. In 1986, DC creators reimagined Lex Luthor as a corporate villain for a materialistic era. The bald guy in the odd green armor was replaced by a heavyset man in an impeccable suit.

Oldtimers like us also know that resurrections are inevitable and old versions of characters will always resurface as those who are nostalgic for a bygone era replace creators who were originally weary of the status quo. In 1986, DC creators reimagined Lex Luthor as a corporate villain for a materialistic era. The bald guy in the odd green armor was replaced by a heavyset man in an impeccable suit. Fifteen years later, a new set of creators who thought that the armor was a crucial element to the character brought it back.

    Barry Allen and Supergirl were killed in the Crisis mini series and were resurrected in the late ’90’s/early aughts. But it doesn’t always feel the same for fans who haven’t just built an attachment to the characters, but to a traditional style of storytelling. The characters that we see now may share a fictional history with the ones we remembered, but their stories are different, as writing and artistic standards have evolved in response to shifting expectations in the marketplace. Barry Allen’s struggle to balance his sense of duty with a desire for a stable romantic/family life was replaced with a desire to find his place in an unfamiliar world. Ethan van Sciver’s idiosyncratic sense of design and meticulously rendered pages are interesting, but his work would never be confused with the simple clarity of Carmine Infantino’s classic stories.

    The impact of tone and structural choices on the reading experience is even more noticeable on titles that haven’t aged their characters or (significantly) altered their histories. Compare the current run of Marvel’s Avengers books (written by Jonathan Hickman with art by Jerome Opena, Dustin Weaver, Adam Kubert, Steve Epting and Mike Deodato) to the previous run helmed by Brian Michael Bendis (who worked with John Romita jr. and a rogue’s gallery of some of the best artists in the business). Even though Avengers stories have taken place in an unaltered in-story continuity for almost half a century, the aesthetic continuity of the precisely constructed sci-fi influenced epics created by Jonathan Hickman and his collaborators is a radical departure from his predecessor’s shaggy dog stories illustrated by a wide range of artists with diverse approaches to storytelling.

Fans of Bendis’ run who happened to pick up a recent issue of the Avengers or New Avengers would be in for a fundamentally different reading experience. They’d be almost as disoriented as readers of pre-Crisis DC Superman books who picked up John Byrne’s Man of Steel.

Even when the creators that readers associate with a classic run on a superhero book return, it’s not quite the same. When Chris Claremont returned to the X-titles in the early aughts, he was unable to recreate the perfect blend of melodrama, action, allegory and adolescent psycho-sexual weirdness that (along with John Byrne, Paul Smith, Marc Silvestri, and many more) made his X-books a highlight of mid seventies – early nineties superhero comics. You can’t recapture the past.In that light, Legion of Superheroes #50 (and it’s toxic after-effects over the issues that follow) can be viewed as a cautionary tale from Levitz and Giffen – a reminder of what happens when one refuses to resolve grief and accept change. The first half of the issue is dedicated to watching Brainiac 5’s allies within the Legion (Mon-El, Saturn Girl and Duo Damsel, all Legionnaires with a special connection to Superboy) finish preparing their complex, ethically problematic plan to defeat the Time Trapper. In the second half, we watch them struggle to survive the encounter. Giffen and Levitz’ Trapper is a literal force of nature. The Legionnaires can’t even touch him. It’s like watching people fight a snowstorm.

Brainiac 5’s plan to defeat a conceptual being whose existence is dependent on the theory that time is linear with another conceptual being that embodies the notion of eternal recurrence is pretty clever, but serves as a reminder that trying to kill an idea is a fool’s errand.

The Legionnaires think that they’ve won, but Giffen’s wonderfully rendered epilogue shows us the truth. All things come to an end.

The Legionnaires who return from the end of time are left physically and emotionally broken. The conspiracy is revealed and erodes trust within the group.

Some elements of the utopian vision of the future that we associate with the Legion – the technological marvels and Levitz’ trademark infodump “Encyclopedia Galactica” captions were still present, but the tone has shifted. A world that was simple had become complicated. Giffen’s figures started look old and exhausted. They have more wrinkles in their clothing and their world has more shadows and signs of wear. Giffen’s faces became fleshier and less idealized.

  The team gets smaller with each issue. The team leader is buried by doubt and it’s most powerful member is barely able to walk.

Conflicts with super villains become messier and more morally ambiguous. In the last arc of this volume of the series, the team manages to defeat an entity that was seeking to end the ‘age of science’ at a crippling cost to the Legion and their world. After Brainiac 5 and his co-conspirators defeat the Time Trapper, it’s easy to mistake them for heroes, especially if you’re a reader who feels some regret at the passing of the Bronze Age. The truth becomes clear when you imagine the counterfactual – what if the conspirators sought the approval of their teammates? The Legion would’ve faced the Trapper as a team and may have avoided the physical and emotional injuries sustained during the battle. They would have avoided the confusion and uncertainty that hobbled their efforts during the final arc of the series – an epic struggle between the forces of magic and science (the “Magic Wars”). They could have been a symbol of hope that helped hold the Earth together between the end of the second volume and the beginning of the third. Instead, there is nothing. The consequences of their inability to accept loss and change were catastrophic.

The darker tone of the closing arc of the third volume (combined with the focus on loss/change within the story) helped prepare readers for the more radical structural and tonal changes to come in the fourth volume – in which a shattered team struggles to navigate a dystopian universe five years after the end of the Magic Wars.

Giffen combines a simple nine panel grid layout with storytelling techniques that make the reader feel enveloped (almost overwhelmed) in his story. Levitz’ Legion was always a book about a large team with a huge supporting cast filled with random tidbits of information about their corner of the DC Universe. Giffen doubles down on that idea by incorporating fragments of correspondence, interviews and other ephemera in the back of each issue to deliver more information and create opportunities for the reader to imagine a fully realized world.

Although Giffen’s layouts were not as visually innovative or challenging as Gibbons in Watchmen, Mazzucchelli in City of Glass or Campbell in From Hell, he used the simple format to help create an illusion of naturalism that further enveloped readers in his world. The tall skinny panels are filled with ‘realistic’ cinematic angles, ambient dialogue and in res media storytelling that give the reader the sense that they are in the rooms with the characters.

The most radical departure was Giffen’s decision to mostly abandon the superhero genre. Giffen’s Legion is more about family, friendship, loss and resistance than superheroes battling supervillains. The colorful costumes, code names and larger than life villains were replaced by ordinary uniforms, real names and monsters with recognizably mundane dimensions. He transformed Mordru from a proto-Voldemort supernatural menace into a Hoover-like wily sadist constantly monitoring the activities of his enemies. The conflicts between the remnants of the Legion and Mordru, Roxxas and the Dominion owe more to espionage/diplomacy, serial killer and resistance/revolution narratives than a traditional superhero one.

If the last dozen issues of the third volume were about unresolved loss, the first dozen of the fourth are about forgiveness and redemption. Giffen chiefly explores this theme through the arc following Rokk Krinn and Salu Digby (the former Cosmic Boy and Shrinking Violet). Both are traumatized veterans of a brutal war between their worlds. Krinn’s side lost the war and he lost his powers.

Digby was consumed by guilt from her involvement in the incident that resulted in Krinn’s loss of powers. When the story begins, Krinn is quarantined on his world and Digby is pondering her options after being discharged from her world’s military. Although neither hold a grudge, the logic of superhero narratives dictates conflict, so the tension builds as their paths get closer.

It’s heartbreaking when they finally meet and have the opportunity to admit their mistakes and forgive one another. It’s an expression of forgiveness, a moment of grace that’s a perfect counterpoint to Brainiac 5’s misguided crusade.

Legion of Superheroes #50 marked the beginning of a near-constant process of dramatic changes to the status quo and storytelling. It led to Giffen, who was later replaced by the Bierbaums (who took a more straight-forward, fan-friendly approach to storytelling in Giffen’s absence) and then by Tom McCraw. The title was later rebooted as a more accessible property by McCraw, Mark Waid and Sturart Immonen and taken in a more sci-fi influenced direction by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Olivier Copiel.

Mark Waid came back again to reboot the series with Barry Kitson as a commentary on youth culture and social reform.

Geoff Johns introduced another version of the team directly inspired by the pre-Crisis adventures of the group, and once DC rebooted its history again after the Flashpoint miniseries, Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen reintroduced another new version of the Legion. That book was recently cancelled, and will likely be replaced by yet another new take on the characters and their world from an entirely different (or even the same) creative team.

The creative turnovers and reboots have been criticized in many quarters (or presented as evidence of fundamental flaws in the “Legion” concept), but in my eyes, it’s always seemed like a dramatic version of what we see in superhero comics all the time, as creators depart and titles/universes are rebooted. There’s something appealing about that sense of impermanence, that the ground is always shifting under our feet and readers should never feel too comfortable with the status quo.

Nothing Will Ever Be The Same: Legion of Superheroes and Change I started reading DC Comics as the Bronze Age was coming to an end. Barry Allen stood trial for the murder of Reverse Flash.

[bluboothalassophile]

Give Me Back My Mind! I'm

Missing Bats, Dead Bats, New Bats

“You’re really going to break into Shadowcrest?” Constantine asked ludicrously.

“What’s the problem, it’s not like I’m robbing the House of Mystery, and she double crossed me first,” Jason growled lowly as he sipped his beer.

“It’s not that, it’s… I thought you were done with magic,” John sighed.

“I am a thief,” Jason repeated. “I was contracted to steal the book, I did, I even had a pissed off demon after me, and I got paid for stealing the book. However, as in the terms of agreement for acquiring my services, no double crossing or the other Red comes after you.”

“No, I get it, but I just… are you sure Z took the bloody book?” Constantine asked.

“It’s my fucking starting point, and I’m relatively certain she hired me to steal it,” Jason stated flatly.

“Well, I’m always up for a wee bit of mischief, but I’ve got my own problems to handle, I’ll help you with Shadowcrest, but then you’re in my debt,” Constantine warned.

“Fine,” Jason waved off. He didn’t mind owing John a favor, it wasn’t like John’s favors were all that horrible. “Whatever you want pal.”

“You do know my friends die, right?” Constantine said with dark humor lacing his tone.

“You do know I’m allergic to death,” Jason countered. Constantine was laughing then as his head fell back.

“Yeah, here’s the Shadowcrest blueprints, but you did not get them from me. And tell your sorceress that the house doesn’t take too kindly to demons,” Constantine waved his hand and a set of scrolls materialized.

“I never…” Jason started and John gave him a hard look.

“The Gem of Scath is an elusive demon, and a hell of a sorceress but she’s a demon all the same, Jason, a very powerful one at that,” Constantine said firmly as he sipped his drink. Jason lifted a brow.

“Gem of Scath?”

“She’s the daughter of Trigon, a king of demons, she was born to rule at his side, a Princess of Hell so to speak, no doubt if she were to be in her father’s realm she’d be a Queen. The Azarathians who sheltered her and raised her, they supposedly taught the Gem to control her demon. The Azarathians prophesized her opening the door which would bring Trigon to earth and destroying all worlds mortal. They were right in a manner of speaking, but Azarath will never know that.”

“What is Azarath, I know in the League files it’s listed as a dimension and that book as the last relic of Azarath, but I’ve seen a good portion of the multiverse and never heard or saw it,” Jason said.

“Not surprising, lad. Azarath was sort of behind the veil of all multiverses, all seeing, all knowing behind the veil of the universe. It was said they were a peaceful world, and spiritual, practicing mystic arts we could only dream of, I’m sure if Fate were here he’d have more to say on the Azarathians,” John said as he sipped his beer.

“What happened to them?”

“Azarath was destroyed, by Trigon,” Constantine said indifferently.

“How?”

“The Gem of Scath, she’s a conduit for Trigon, a very powerful one at that, she accidenitally opened a door to Azarath and Trigon came, destroying it all; she was merely a child, and then Trigon stole her away to his realm, after that, somehow, she came to be on earth. I don’t know the whole story, just the whispers and rumors of what I have heard from other demons and sorcerers,” John shrugged. Jason frowned as he stared at his beer.

“’Side’s the silly prophecy came and passed already, she was powerful enough to banish Trigon back to his realm, saving us, can’t be all bad if she banish a demon as strong as Trigon,” Constantine chuckled.

Jason shot him a confused look. “I thought you wouldn’t like demons.”

“They aren’t all evil, a bloke I know is merged with a powerful one and he’s not all bad. Demons are just… dangerous. They’re like a wild animal, impossible to predict, and very dangerous, but dangerous isn’t always bad. The Gem of Scath, from what I’ve heard, is a passive creature, while her nephew, the bloke I was telling you about, he’s aggressive,” Constantine shrugged.

“Passive my ass,” he snorted. “Thanks for the blue prints.”

“Jay, be careful in that house, Z isn’t a weak one, and she hates the Gem of Scath,” Constantine warned.

“Her name is Raven,” Jason warned lowly. “And Zatanna is only on my shit list because she double crossed me. That makes her my enemy, and if Raven’s my ally, I think Zatanna should be the one worrying.”

“Agreed, I won’t be warning her if you’re concerned about that,” Constantine said slowly. “Azarath sorcery belongs to the last Azarathian, not to anyone else.”

“Thanks Constantine, I owe you one,” Jason said as he walked out of the bar then and made his way to his safe house.

He frowned at the paintings on his floor, the wax, the candles, the scent of inscents and the faint scent of blood. However, he ignored it as he carefully moved around all the paintings; not willing to fuck with magic and end up in another dimension or turned into a bat or something.

He made it to his sleeping room and saw Raven sound asleep on a bedroll, Damian claiming the mattress. Sighing he stripped off his clothes and pulled on his pajama pants; snagged a shirt as an after thought and stretched out beside Raven.

For such a powerful demon, she was tiny, he thought as she shifted on her stomach and scooted into him on her own. Exhaustion claimed him as he yanked a blanket over him and Raven and he decided he wouldn’t be childish about sleeping with her. It was chilly in the apartment after all.

~~~*~*~*~~~

He was too fucking exhausted after dealing with Superboy the day before and yesterday that he had collapsed in his living quarters on his bed and opted to sleep for a year. Between talking to Superboy the day before, and having Tim sit there and talk to Superboy, Dick had spent most of yesterday trying to figure out how to talk to Superman about the existence of the clone; it was exhausting.

Life was exhausting as of late.

Not in the bad, depressing way, but rather in the ‘there’s one of me, eight of you, a thousand things to do, have patience, I’m working on it’ way. When Damian had shown up earlier this year and they had sorted everything about the League of Assassins, the Pit, Slade Wilson, and where Damian would be staying, Dick had decided he’d have to step up more as a big brother. With both Tim and Damian. And while he and Tim were good; had been since Tim had donned the mantel of Robin, Damian was a different story.

Damian was a handful to say the least, he was so unlike any other child that there was that it was a bit ridiculous to try to treat him as a child. However, Damian was ten, and he needed to be a child. And after all the shit the kid had gone through, both before being dumped on Bruce by Talia al Ghul, and after, the kid needed… family. And the Bat family was perpetually dysfunctional as hell. Also, by taking Damian out of Gotham he was out of the reach of both Talon and Talia, and Dick would do anything to keep his baby brother away from the psychos of Gotham and the League of Assassins.

But aside from Tim and Damian, there was Bruce to worry about; not that he had to worry about Batman, but Bruce he had to worry about. Bruce was the not-great-but-still-trying father who was paranoid that something bad would happen to them, Bruce was the father who had lost his son, and who didn’t know how to be a father but tried all the same.

And to add to his exhaustion of life there was now Barbara and Kori to deal with. He and Kori had a nice thing going, steady for a year, not quite boyfriend and girlfriend, but more than just friends with benefits. Truthfully, until Bruce had insisted on the Titans having technical support and Barbara being said support, he had been planning on taking Kori on an official date and uncomplicating this part of his life. But with Barbara here he wasn’t certain about this, or how to proceed. Dick had loved Barbara, and he still did in a way, for a long time, she’d been a dear friend in a moment of his life where he’d been in hell, and she’d helped save him. But whatever spark, whatever flame had been between them in their youth, it had extinguished when the Joker had broken her and she had shut him out and he’d let her shut him out.

But with his family, and confusing relationships, also came all the work he did as Nightwing, Dick, Richard Grayson, and a member of the Titans and the League. It was exhausting to try to keep up with all that.

And perhaps it was this exhaustion which had made him miss it. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed because he was already stretched so thinly and he had come to rely on Raven to be there to keep him propped up. Raven was good like that, she was like a sister to him and she was his savior where Damian was concerned. Perhaps it was the fact he was so comfortable here in the Tower that he hadn’t noticed it. However it had slipped his notice, even as he cracked his weary eyes open at the sound of his ringing phone and an empty bed.

Yawning he reached for his phone and looked at the caller before sighing, wincing, sitting up and looking around his room for Kori. She wasn’t here, he felt his cold bed and groaned as he fell back; complicated! For about a year, whenever he was in Tower or in San Francisco, he and Kori shared a bed; and right now she wasn’t there.

Groaning he got out of his bed, noted that it was five in the morning, the only two who would be up would be Raven and Damian. Damian got up and four-thirty every morning to train; unless the Titans had had a ridiculously late night mission. And Raven would be getting ready to meditate at five, they always shared a morning cup of tea and coffee at five.

Walking out of his room with his phone in hand he made his way down to the kitchen and noted the absolute silence, not even the hum of the holographs running, which had him sighing as he walked to the coffee. Raven hadn’t made it, frowning he just did it himself as he waited, waited for both the coffee and Raven to materialize from the shadows.

She didn’t show, he just shrugged it off to her being exhausted as he sat at the kitchen table and dialed back Bruce.

“Dick I need you to do me a favor,” Bruce started when he answered the phone on the second ring.

“Morning Dick, how are you? Oh, I’m good, just exhausted, Supes has a clone, I haven’t slept well in four days, and I’m exhausted. Also, my alien girlfriend, the one you’re not overly fond of, is mad at me for letting my childhood sweetheart live here, and I woke up in my bed here, alone for the first time in a year after having a steady thing with Kori going, thanks for asking though,” Dick sarcastically filled in his guardian. As much as he loved Bruce, Bruce wasn’t his father, no one would ever be able to take his father’s place in his heart or mind, and Dick refused to entertain the idea of calling Bruce ‘Dad’. But Bruce was a guardian, and Bruce was alright with that.

“Sorry, Dick,” Bruce sighed.

“It’s alright, we’re still training you,” Dick shrugged; he had Tim in on him with the correcting Bruce on how a father was supposed to be, hopefully Bruce would be a better father for Damian. “Now, what’s so important you’re calling at five in the morning?”

“I have some news,” Bruce started.

“Of course you do, else you wouldn’t have been calling,” Dick stated as he sipped his overly sweetened coffee, it was so warm, and good, it was like coming to life again.

“I’m going to need your help talking to Damian and Tim about this,” Bruce said firmly, but the undercut of uncertainty was what had Dick sitting up straight in his chair.

“What is it Bruce? You’re officially scaring me. You’re not dying are you!?” Dick felt the panic coming at the thought of losing Bruce; he wasn’t ready to be an orphan again, and he was not ready to be shoved into the mantel of Batman; and he didn’t want it. No, Dick was happily waiting for Damian to be all grown up to take the Batman mantle.

“I’m not dying,” Bruce stated firmly.

“Oh thank God,” Dick sighed as he fell back in his seat. “So what’s up?”

“Selina’s pregnant,” Bruce stated and Dick burst into laughter; it couldn’t be helped. From the age of thirteen Bruce had been hounding it into him to use protection, to be safe, to be smart, to accept the consequences of sex if protection failed and to never treat a woman as anything less than a lady; regardless of what she did for a living or how she acted. And now, in the span of a year, Bruce was telling him that he had not only sired one baby, but two; it was priceless!

It also revoked Bruce’s lecturing rights on protection.

“After all the lectures you gave me!” Dick laughed. “You have a ten year old show up on your door step, and now Selina in less than a span of a year! This is great! You can’t lecture me anymore about protection! I’ve never even had a pregnancy scare! This is great!”

“I will still lecture you so you do not get to being my age and have a ten year old showing on a yacht not the doorstep,” Bruce grounded out.

“Nope! I’ve never had a pregnancy scare, and my current girlfriend and I haven’t even had to worry about the possibility. And yacht, doorstep, tomato-tomata,” he shrugged. “Congratulations are in order I take it.”

“Yes,” Bruce said uncertainly.

“Tell Selina I said hi, congrats, and welcome to the family. Oh, and I want a baby brother,” Dick stated happily. “She is going to be a part of the family, right? I like Selina, why better than that manipulative bitch Talia.”

“She’ll be happy to hear that, and we’re working that out,” Bruce sighed. “Also, you know you cannot make requests as to the gender of a baby, right?”

“I know, but face it Bruce, we have no idea what to do with girls, Barbara’s Barbara, and Cass is a former assassin, and Stephanie’s Cluemaster’s daughter, both girls are more of Barbara’s than ours,” Dick pointed out.

“Still can’t will it to be a boy,” Bruce pointed out.

“I can hope, also, is this why it was suddenly imperative that Tim and Stephanie join up with the Titans? I get having Damian here, and I get that those three need to work on being a team, but your push was sudden,” Dick pointed out.

“The reasons of needing them to be a unit are also true. And after Wonder Girl, Supergirl, and Superboy’s near death attempt at a mission is also a true factor in my pushing them to join the Titans. But yes, the pregnancy was a private factor as well, Selina and I will work this out, without interference, but Dick… I’ll be in San Francisco next week, I would like to sit down with all of you and talk about this,” Bruce carefully and the wheels in Dick’s head spun.

Damian wasn’t overly fond of Tim and he barely tolerated the rest of the adopted clan and preened over being Bruce’s only blood son and rightful heir. There could be problems forming with this announcement and Damian’s attitude.

“I’ll talk to Raven, see if she can help me with talking to Damian,” he sighed. Raven was perhaps Damian’s only friend outside of the family, Dick was hoping this would change in time, but it was a good start. Also, Raven was a good role model for Damian, Dick would have sworn she was like a big sister or mother to Damian with how she had taken to treating him.

“Raven?”

“I need reinforcements, and Raven’s good at getting through to Damian, you know this. Besides she’ll keep it all to herself, Raven doesn’t gossip,” Dick pointed out. He was pretty certain that all of Damian’s calls home had elements of Raven in them.

“Just… don’t have the entire Titans know, else the League will know and everyone will know,” Bruce grouched.

“I get it, how far along is she?”

“Ten weeks.”

“Hey, wasn’t that after…” Dick started and frowned. “How long have you two been officially, secretly dating then.”

“Since before Damian came here,” Bruce answered.

“Wow, almost a year then,” Dick said in awe. Brucie tended to be frivolous in his dating life, Bruce Wayne sought to stay single or have a connection, and Batman couldn’t have attachments or love. Dick was impressed. True Bruce and Selina had been dancing around each other since before he’d ever even known Bruce, but to actually hear that they were a couple… it was impressive.

“Congrats, send Selina my love and try to do right by her,” Dick grinned at taking over the father role at the moment.

“Talk to Damian,” Bruce pleaded.

“No worries, baby bird will be ready to be a brother before I’m through with him,” Dick announced. “Call me when you want to arrange that sit down, I’ll make certain Tim and Damian won’t kill each other before then.”

“Thank you, Dick,” Bruce sighed.

“Talk to you later Bruce,” he smiled as he hung up and then stared up at the ceiling.

Another sibling…

Another spawn of Bruce Wayne, with Selina Kyle as the mother, the world wasn’t ready for that but Dick was kind of looking forward to it. If Jason were alive to be here he’d have been excited, Tim was going to be nervous but thrilled, and Damian… Damian was a wild card. Hopefully Dick could coax the youngest Robin around to the idea of being a big brother; this was going to take a lot of help.

Thank God for Raven, demon or not, Raven was an angel for putting up with him and his family being shoved on her. Finishing his coffee he noted the time and decided he’d go find Raven and talk to her about helping him with Damian and getting Damian to like the idea of being a big brother. After making his way back up to the living quarters he walked the hall, pausing outside of Kori’s door he was tempted to walk in and join her in bed for some more sleep, however, he needed to talk to Raven. He’d talk to Kori later. Walking to Raven’s room he lightly knocked, there was no answer. Slowly he walked in, careful of her wards, and left the door open just in case her room decided to pitch him out.

“Raven?” he called out, he stopped at her bed and frowned at the man’s leather jacket on it and the empty bed. Where was she? And who’s jacket was this? Picking up the jacket he slowly walked out of the room; careful not to touch anything. Coming into the hall he quietly shut the door and looked up when Victor emerged from his room.

“Hey, Cy, have you seen Raven?” he asked.

“Who? What!? I don’t know anything! Rae’s out!” Victor scrambled and Dick’s eyes narrowed on his giant friend.

“Victor, where is Raven?” he repeated slowly and clearly.

“Uh… She’s tracking Red X! He broke into her room, stole something and she’s been tracking him down, Damian is with her, I insisted she didn’t do this alone, and obviously, I can’t leave else who’d be in charge of her team!? You’re too busy for the training stuff, and Damian volunteered to go with her! I don’t know anything else! I swear!” Victor balked.

“Raven chasing Red X! And my baby brother is out there without protection!” Dick paled at the thought; Talia wanted Damian back and the League of Assassins would go after him now that he was out of Batman’s protection! Oh shit!

“He’s with Rae,” Victor pointed out.

“That’s not the point! The League of Assassins, Talia al Ghul, wants him back!”

“What!? Does he know!?”

“No! Bruce and I thought it was for the best if he wasn’t tempted to return to them!” Dick snapped.

“Oh shit,” Victor paled more.

“We have to find him before the Assassins find out he’s out there on his own with only Raven to protect him!” Dick shouted.

He also had to find Damian before Bruce found out he was missing; else Dick was dead.

~~~*~*~*~~

Bruce felt a bit more confident about broaching the whole family thing with his children now that he had talked to Dick and Dick had been excited. Truthfully, though he had suspected Selina was pregnant, he hadn’t officially known until yesterday when he’d met up with her for lunch and he’d never been more scared. Well, except when Talia had shown up and presented Damian as his son, finding out about Damian had scared the shit out of him. But he loved that boy, just as he loved all his sons and he was striving to try to be a father to Damian and to teach his boy that there was more to the world than the Assassins who had brainwashed him and were now seeking him out.

Sighing he leant back in his seat as he contemplated how this could work and tried to predict how Damian would react to the news. Of all his children Damian was the most difficult, and the most like Jason; more serious than Jason, but Damian still possessed the same anger, rage, temper and views on killing and going off alone. Bruce was trying to reign him in, trying to stop his youngest’s reckless behavior, but found it difficult.

At least until Dick had decided to move Damian in with the Titans.

True Damian was still reckless, still violent, still brash, but he was calmer. Bruce figured it was Raven’s doing, all of Damian’s calls home were filled with the demoness’s words, her advice, her help, and just Raven. He’d have found it amusing that his youngest had a crush on the Titan if not for the fact that Raven was a demon. And while he trusted Raven with his family completely, he was also well aware that she had dangerous powers she chose to keep to herself that no one in the League knew about.

Dragging a hand through his hair he took another steadying breath before standing, buttoning his suit, grabbing his needed files, and walking out of the office to head for a board meeting. Tonight he and Selina would be talking, and Alfred had the night off. It was all quiet in Gotham, and if he hadn’t known where all the lunatic criminals were at this moment, he’d have thought it too quiet. Like the calm before the storm.

Still, Bruce couldn’t shake this uncanny feeling that trouble was coming despite the world all but telling him it was at peace.

Something bad was about to happen, he could feel it in his gut.

~~~*~*~*~~~

Raven was not surprised to wake with Jason again, or to have his heavy arm tossed over her back, or for him to be so close. He was very warm, and she was very comfortable where she was. Turning her head she looked up on the bed to see Damian staring at her with curious, unblinking eyes; a habit from his father and brothers no doubt, Dick and Tim both did this look as well. A low moan escaped her as she stretched out a bit on her stomach, not dislodging Jason, and then she sighed before giving Damian her undivided attention.

“Morning,” she breathed in a hushed tone.

“When are we moving on Shadowcrest?” the boy asked.

“Tonight,” came the mumbled reply from Jason who was sleeping on his stomach, facing away from them. “Go to sleep.”

“I can’t there’s gunshots across the street,” Damian hissed.

“Go to fucking sleep! Cops will take care of it!” Jason hissed.

“This is a very unsafe place to have a safe house, worse than Crime Alley,” Damian wrinkled his nose a bit in disgust and Raven chuckled as Jason came awake then and propped himself up beside her.

“Not all of the world grows up in palaces with guards, tutors, and money Damian. Be grateful, and this is a perfectly safe, safe house!” Jason growled lowly. The sound of sirens blaring had Raven rolling onto her back as she stretched and sat up.

“How about tea and breakfast then we’ll discuss Shadowcrest,” Raven yawned.

“Please don’t cook,” Damian pleaded.

“I’m cooking twerp so shut it, sunshine’ll make the tea,” Jason groaned as he stretched and sat up too.

“You can cook?” Raven and Damian asked at the same time.

“Yes, and I’m an excellent cook,” Jason stated.

“I doubt it,” Damian snorted.

“Just cause you can burn water does not mean the rest of us mortals are inept at cooking,” Jason sighed as he got to his feet and left them in the bedroom. Raven looked at Damian who was now looking a bit more curious than angry.

“Why is he sleeping with you?” Damian asked.

“You mean aside from the fact it’s cold, there’s one mattress with good blankets, and I have the bedroll?” Raven clarified.

“He did it in the hotel too,” Damian pointed out.

“Because he wanted to sleep on a bed, and now, probably because it’s cold,” Raven admitted. She doubted there was another reason she and Jason had taken to being so close so quickly.

“Grayson shares a bed with Kori,” Damian said so innocently Raven felt like she’d been creamed by a linebacker then.

“That’s different,” she assured him.

“I know, but I thought that’s why people shared beds,” Damian snorted.

“Damian, worry about it when you’re older, for now, Red seems intent on sleeping on a bed or with a blanket, though he’s a furnace,” Raven sighed as she dragged her fingers through her hair.

“If he tries anything I will disembowel him,” Damian said firmly.

“Good to know, let’s get breakfast,” Raven decided as she stood up and stretched. She was still in her pajamas as she walked into the living area.

~~~*~*~*~~~

Damian wasn’t a fool, he knew why people slept together and what they wanted; he’d walked in on his grandfather once, and his mother was not shy about the men who came to her bed. Dick and Kori slept together, Damian had snuck in one night before the dawn curious as to what Grayson’s relationship with the alien was and found them sound asleep. And he’d seen his father sleeping in Catwoman’s bed before too. He knew what people wanted when they shared beds, and what that usually meant.

Waking up to Jason and Raven together was different though.

It was comfortable. Damian had waited until they were awake before speaking, he did not want to disturb the peace he felt around them.

And now he was sitting at a battered table as Jason made batter and Raven made tea. Was this what normal felt like? To just sit at a table for breakfast and have people be calm? Damian didn’t know, he didn’t think there’d ever been a calm moment with the Titans or the Wayne family. And despite the obvious chaos outside, it was calm in here.

“Vanilla?” Jason yawned.

“Here,” Raven said as she waved her hand to have a bottle float out of a cabinet.

“Thanks.”

“What’s for breakfast?” Damian asked.

“Waffles for me and little bird, you like pancakes so you’ll be getting those,” Jason informed him.

“That is acceptable,” Damian decided.

“It’s too early for the prince shit,” Jason growled.

“Knock it off Damian,” Raven chided and he just blinked at her as she made him a mug of tea. It was comfortable here, he kind of liked it as he accepted the mug Raven placed before him and she sat, Jason continued to make batter.