#anyway this is a fun idea to consider how dick's canon trauma would be shaped by batcest and all

[necrotic-nephilim]

For the ask game

What do you think would happen in an au where the batfam are ALL dating, how do think they react to people harassing dick all the time like in canon? and maybe they discover about all the times he's been raped, how do you think they'd react?

for the ask game!

BATFAMILY POLYCULE. i love this so much and i love the exploration of Dick's canon sexual assault

so of the three main instances of Dick's assault trauma, all of them are *very* different situations, meaning they'd be reacted to very differently. starting with Liu: canonically Liu grooms Dick when he's underaged and he supposedly loses his virginity to her. so i would have the Batfamily get together as a like, polycule properly after this happens. maybe there was some flirting and feelings with BruDick or DickBabs, but nothing quite came to fruition because of all the conflict they had in this era. and that conflict is what Liu takes advantage of to sink her teeth into Dick, using the distance he and Bruce have against him. i don't think Dick would tell anyone for a *long* time. he'd sort of blame himself for it, for trusting her in the first place and he'd insist it was consensual when it finally gets brought up because someone makes a joke about who took Dick's virginity and Dick has to admit it was none of them. i think it's fun if they find out after Liu is dead. because it's easier to grapple with, when you have someone to point the anger at, someone to go beat up and force a confession out of so they can all convince Dick that it wasn't his fault. but if she's dead they just have to live with it, especially Dick. and no matter how many long conversations are had, Dick is always going to hold onto that part of him that believes he was at fault. which spurns on some very protective, almost obsessively so, feelings toward him from the Batfamily. no one wants to leave him alone and they're hypervigilante around him, to the point he has to remind them all he can handle himself.

the second time is Mirage: which, was a whole shitshow of a canon storyline, but the interesting part is she disguises herself as Kory to sleep with Dick. (also she tries to change things about him like his hair and his suit, things he's very attached to, just so he can fit her image of a perfect man) so if the Batfam are all dating each other, it's far more likely she'd disguise herself as one of them to sleep with him. i think Tim is the most fun option. Dick and Bruce *know* each other very well, Dick and Babs have a history, but Tim's newer to the whole dynamic. it's easier to impersonate him because Dick might not know him as well and play off the "shy new to sex" teenager routine. after all the truth comes out, Dick is horrified and once again blaming himself for not noticing until after it happened. she pulls the same controlling tactics, trying to change things about Dick until someone points it out. Dick is apologetic about the whole thing but everyone's pissed and now, there's a target. Bruce gets Mirage removed from the Titans and completely disenfranchised from hero society, if not completely put in prison. Tim is trying to comfort Dick through it and insist he's not angry at Dick. i think for a while it'd stunt any sex from Dick, just because he's so stressed and touchy about a repeat. no one pushes him but once again, everyone is protective over him and this time, he's more receptive to letting it happen just because of how much it fucked him up.

and then, of course Tarantula: that entire storyline is just. interesting because so much of it focuses on Dick trying to save Catalina and trying to redeem her as a person. so with the death of Blockbuster, followed by her taking advantage of him and raping him so openly breaks him down in a lot of ways beyond just the physical aspect of it. this technically happens before Jason is back from the dead, but i think putting it after Jason's return is fun, just to witness Jason's response to it. because he would *want* to kill Catalina, more than anything, for how body she broke Dick, but Dick wouldn't want that. more than anything he would see her being killed as them being just as as bad as her and not breaking the cycle. it's a difficult thing to grapple with your anger over someone hurting your loved one when you want to take action they don't, because you have to put your love for them over your anger for the people who've hurt them. which i think would be especially difficult for Jason. no matter what Bruce or Tim or Babs or Cass do, it isn't enough to satisfy what he thinks Catalina deserves and i think that could be fun conflict. protectiveness can be taken too far when you treat the person you're protecting like they have no agency, and since this has happened three times now, everyone wants to make sure it doesn't happen again while also trying to respect Dick's autonomy. it's messy and he knows they're coming from a place of love. that's the fun of everyone in the Batfam dating, he has a lot of partners who all love him and sometimes, that can be suffocating. but overall? it's safe. there's something relieving to know he's not going to be alone through the worst of facing the emotional aftermath and he always has someone to lean on, someone to hold him in bed. it makes him more open to asking for comfort/help when he needs it.

as for more general harassment that isn't specific to any canon circumstance but just the general mindset of heroes in DC, that's where i think the Batfam would rlly get protective. if someone makes a comment about Dick's ass, assumes he's a slut, etc, they're going to play dirty to protect him. Babs is hacking their personal devices for blackmail. Cass will hit a lot harder in "sparring" sessions. Tim and Bruce will quietly remove people from hero teams for "logistical reasons". and Jason will just shoot people. he can't get away with killing heroes, but if some sleazy villain or henchman makes a comment well, no one has to know *that's* why Jason put a bullet in their head. bu the time Damian comes around and is filled in on all of it, he's just as defensive of Dick, if not the *most* defensive. he's got the spirit a little too strong, forgetting to respect Dick's boundaries in the process. a lot of heroes end up socially ex-communicated for their comments about Dick. god forbid if they actually try to get handsy with him. some new recruit grabbed Dick's ass "as a joke" and Cass put them through a wall before Dick even processed what happened. villains like Deathstroke or Raptor who try to get possessive around Dick are handled with more brutality than Batman and Robin are typically known for.

Dick does eventually figure out all the things his love ones are doing behind the scenes. he's exasperated because really, he's used to this. it's been like this since he was a circus kid, always on stage and putting on a show. but it's a little nice, deep down, to be protected like that. he would preen *just a little* about it, even if he's outwardly scolding them for it. and hey, it's a fun couple bonding activity for the others to get closer to each other by coming up with ways to get revenge on Dick's harassers. so really, everyone wins. they all make sure it won't happen to Dick again, and end up closer for it on a united front.