#batman did try to kill the joker but was stopped by superman

[gothamite-rambler]

Jason Todd later finding out that not only did his brother beat Joker to a pulp he did kill him... until Bruce stepped in.

Dick: Jason… How are you feeling, bud? I know it's a lot to learn.

Jason took a deep breath as he kept his head down, pinching the bridge of his nose, before reacting explosively.

Jason: Are you kidding?! That's unfair! He wasn't even the-

Jason paused closing his eyes and pulling a dagger out of his pocket, gripping it tightly. Dick's eyes widened in shock, but Jason was able to relax as he took a deep breath.

Jason: I need to calm down. Everything's fine... I'm an adult.

Cass sat next to Jason and patted him on the shoulder while sipping her smoothie.

Dick (nervous): That's a big dagger in your hand right now.

Jason (calm as he gripped the hilt of the knife): This? It's my support dagger. I’m not going to stab anyone. I'm just furious at the jackass who thinks everyone in this family should follow that rule!

Dick: Come on… I felt guilty afterward.

Jason: Oh God, you and your big heart. Let me handle him next time.

Cass: Jason, no.

Jason: You won't have to be there when I do it. I'd kill him for you or Dick, even Bruce.

Cass: I doubt taking his life would be what you truly wanted.

Jason: Okay, but what if it's an accident? I could accidentally push him down a flight of stairs where he'll fall onto a knife.

Bruce: No! No you won't!

Jason: Why the hell did you revive him?!

Bruce: Murder is wrong!

Jason: For you! For you! And Cass, but she's my favorite. At least she killed someone and felt regret.

Bruce: I… Okay, sure. What do I know? My parents just died—

Jason: We’ve all lost our parents! You're not special!

Damian: Mine haven't… Wait.

Bruce: Don't worry about it Damian. I’m… kind of sorry. I can make it up to you.

Jason (crossing his arms): No, you can’t!

Bruce rolled his eyes, then pulled out his phone and sent Jason some money. Jason checked his phone and huffed in annoyance.

Jason: Well, this kind of fixes it.

[toast-on-dandelioms]

🕷️Just Another Neglected Story 🕷️

[previous] - Part 4.2 - [next]

I will add here the rest of the tag list, sorry for having to divide it into two

Clark immediately grabbed the door and punched it right in the middle of it, making a hole to which he used to grab the door off its hinges and throw it away, not caring about anything but Spider's wellbeing. 

He was the first one to enter the room, looking around to see if Joker was still there so he could kill the bastard who dared to hurt his child. 

Bruce was the second to enter and immediately walked around to find the vigilante, stopping to stare in silence at the cold body of Joker stuck on the wall. 

He checked for a pulse, not too worried about the clown but needed to see if he was worth saving, letting out a small sigh when he felt no pulse. 

He sighed once again, mostly out of anger since he wanted to be the one to kill the man who dared to hurt his child (Spider), before starting to worry that if Spider knew that they killed a man, he didn't know how they would react to the news. 

He quickly looked away and went back to search for the teen, now even more worried about their wellbeing, especially when Clark told him that he could hear their heartbeat but it was incredibly slow, which meant that he couldn't find them immediately.

As he looked around the room, he kept on getting angrier as he saw drops of blood from fighting and some weapons and bullets that Joker probably used on Spider since they were all covered in blood. 

As he searched around he heard Superman call for him and quickly ran up to him, finding a gravely injured Spider with their mask ripped off and full of bruises on their face and body. 

Their body was also covered in bruises and wounds made from Joker, their ragged breath accentuating the severity of their injuries. 

He gently called them using their vigilante name since no one knew their real name, sighing in relief when Spider opened their eyes to look at him and hissed at him, not recognising him or Clark because of their injuries and how scared they were. 

They calmed down after Clark gently called out to them and got in their line of vision then started talking with a broken voice as their eyes filled with tears, the words having to be repeated because of how much Spider sobbed and gasped from the pain of their injuries. 

"h-he kept laughing and hitting me after a weird gas poured in the room, I d-didn't want to hurt him but I punched him out of desperation, h-he's been so silent and I-I don't know if he's even alive, I'm so sorry". 

He set a hand on their head after taking off the rest of their mask to help them see better and just told them, with a soft voice that even Clark was a bit taken aback, "you did good kid, I'm sorry you had to fight alone" as he knew what Joker was capable of and was glad Spider survived and was able to fight back. 

He instructed Superman to pick them up and fly back to the Manor, using his own cape to cover Spider's body to protect them from the harsh winds while Clark was flying, letting Conner follow him so he could call Tim and get Alfred to prepare the medbay. 

He then turned to Jason and Stephanie with an unnerving calm face and a smile that the two took a step back in fear of what he was planning since Batman was never calm, especially if someone he cares about gets hurt. And he was smiling, which meant it was bad news and to not try to stop him. 

He quickly walked towards the three heroes in front of him and put a hand on both Stephanie and Jason's shoulder and said in a weirdly cheerful voice "who wants to help Batman burn down the place and all the people who dared to hurt Spider?". 

Not that Bruce was asking for their help, he just wanted it to be done faster so he could go home to Spider. In a normal case he would make it slow for whoever tried to hurt his child but this time he couldn't stop to enjoy the pain of the leader that was still in the room. 

He gave both of his kids a set of bombs to put all around the bunker, telling them to not care about anyone and just place the bombs around while he took care of the leader. 

He grabbed the makeshift throne from the pedestal it was put on and dragged it in the center of the room, not even caring about the noise the chair was making. 

He then grabbed the passed out cultist and threw him on the throne, using some handcuffs to hold him there so he wouldn't escape if things got bloody. 

Not that he wouldn't mind if things got bloody, he needed to relieve some stress after what happened to Spider and fortunately for him, that cultist was there and he needed to ask some questions.

He stared at the still passed out cultist and grabbed some smelling salts from his utility belt before snapping them under the cultist nose, a smirk appearing on his face when the cultist woke up and was scared when he saw him. 

He wanted him to be scared, god just seeing how scared he was while trying to free himself from the cuffs on both arms and legs was incredibly satisfying, especially to what he wanted to do to him. 

He roughly grabbed the cultist’s face to make him look directly at him, wanting all of his attention to ask his questions and slowly leaned down to look him right in the eyes. 

“Now I am gonna ask you a few questions, if you tell me the truth I will let you walk out of this room alive but if you lie..”

He didn't finish the sentence and let the fear and the realization of what he meant wash over the cultist face, enjoying every second of it and he wanted him to be scared. 

He let go of his face after a bit, a small smirk on his face when he saw the imprints of his fingers by how hard he squeezed his face. 

“Why was Joker here? That clown never worked with cultists before” 

He stayed silent as he watched the man hang his head low, starting to get even more angry when he didn't immediately answer. 

He took a small step back in shock when he suddenly heard a laugh, very similar to the laugh Joker always had whenever he fought that clown. 

His face was in shock when the cultist raised his head and showed the same maniac smile the clown always had, making him think that the ghost of Joker possessed the man, especially since the man just kept on laughing. 

“Batman, the world's greatest detective, can't figure out something so simple! The trap wasn't for you, or even one of your many sidekicks!”

The man kept on laughing before suddenly stopping, his smile still on his face as he stared at Batman right in the eyes. 

“It was for your little metahuman that started to clean the streets, everything here was for that annoying vigilante and leaving a message for you” 

He laughed again when he saw the shock in Batman’s face, not even minding the handcuffs on both arms and legs as he moved them while laughing like a maniac. 

“Everyone noticed your obsession for them, how all of your sidekicks kept on following them and getting rejected or thrown off a roof. You're not so secretive Batman and we just used them to send you a message” 

Bruce just stared at the cultist laughing before grabbing a gun that Jason gave him and just shot the cultist in the face, using all the bullets inside the magazine. (The thing that holds bullets inside the gun if you don't know)

He stopped when the gun didn't shoot anymore and walked out the room, his eyes filled with fury at the thought that other rogues and villains in Gotham wanted to hurt Spider.

As he walked around the bunker to get to the exit, he killed anyone who tried to attack him or was in his way, not even caring about his no-kill rule or how the blood kept splattering on his suit. 

He finally got out of the bunker, noticing both Jason and Stephanie near Conner’s ship and just gave them a nod before getting in his own jet, waiting until the bunker exploded before taking off. 

He put the coordinates to the batcave and flew as fast as his jet could, wanting to get to the Batcave as fast as he could, his mind going over so many scenarios of Spider dying because of him whenever Alfred or anyone else in the cave didn't answer his calls that he was starting to get a panic attack at the thought of Spider dying because he was too late to save them. 

When he finally arrived at the cave he basically jumped out the jet as it was landing and ran to the medbay, taking off his mask in the meantime as he didn't need it and having it on was like a reminder of the hatred that Spider has for that symbol. 

As he ran, he ignored both of the Kryptonians still in the cave, not caring about their presence as he was more focused on making sure Spider was ok. 

He arrived just in time because he saw Alfred walk out the medbay while taking off the surgical gloves and robes covered in blood and was throwing them away in a nearby bin. 

He quickly walked up to the old man and started to ask a barrage of questions, ranging to what's the situation with Spider to how were they holding up and if they were alive and didn't have anything that would make them unable to move or do certain tasks. 

He stopped talking when Alfred raised a hand to signal silence and listened as he explained:

"Their condition is stable - for now. Their wounds were.. severe to put it bluntly, Master Bruce. They sustained a multitude of near-fatal injuries from Joker. Fixing 2 broken bones in both arms, a fractured rib and stitching  3 stab wounds that, luckily, didn't pierce any of their organs is no small feat, consider it a miracle they are even alive."

He paused for a brief moment, almost as if to re-evaluate in his head.

"If my assessment is correct, they should be up and running in 5 days thanks to their increased healing rate, 8, maybe 9 if they were to refuse any medication." 

Bruce nodded and turned to Dick and Duke who were near the room where Spider was resting at the moment.

He started to talk with Duke and Dick about the situation, sighing in relief when both Clark and Conner left because Tim managed to convince them that if they stayed it wouldn't really help since Spider was still unconscious and they could come visit after Spider wakes up. 

When both Jason and Stephanie arrived he started to explain, to who didn't know, the situation with Spider before getting interrupted by Dick yelling out. 

“I call dibs to share my room with them!” 

His chest heaved in a quick rhythm as he finished his sentence, the words still just teetering on the tip of his tongue from how rushed his speech was, a big smirk on his face as everyone else glared at him. 

Bruce sighed when he saw his kids were ready to fight to share a room with Spider, even though he also wanted to share his own room to make sure Spider was ok if they stayed next to him the whole time they were recovering. 

Unfortunately he needed to be the voice of reason at the moment and said.

“Spider won’t be sharing a room with anyone, they’re weak right now and waking up with one of us in a new place will overwhelm them too much. They’ll get their own room.”

He smiled when everyone grumbled but nodded, glad that no one was gonna contest him on this decision. 

But the moment of happiness didn't last long since after not even 2 minutes Damian raised his hand and yelled out. 

“I wish to call dibs to be the first one to meet Spider when they wake in a room in the mansion” 

After Damian yelled that out, everyone started to fight to be the second person to be with Spider when they wake up and to also choose which room Spider was gonna be the next to. 

Alfred stayed silent for a bit as he listened intently, forced to hear his son discuss about Spider staying in the Manor when they already live there.

He tried to stay calm as he listened, keep his composure and remain civil. But hearing both Bruce and the others call Spider by their vigilante name and not their real name, even after seeing their face, made his blood boil - he knew that he couldn't wait anymore. 

The things Spider had been subjected to and the injuries they suffered as a result, and how the Bats had reacted upon seeing their face- not understanding they were their sibling and child made him so unfathomably frustrated and enraged at the people he'd raised and cared for. Bruce was still discussing with Damian allowing Spider to sleep in the room next to his so he could show them all of his animals as Alfred silently walked over to him.

He decided to stop waiting for his kids to finally realize that Spider was, in fact, [Y/N]. 

His attempts thus far had proved unsuccessful, even after all the small things he put around the house for them to notice. He knew they were a lost cause if they didn't get the hint after all he did so he just walked up to Bruce who was busy trying to convince Damian to not let Titus or anyone else of his pets inside Spider’s room. 

He waited patiently for Bruce to stop talking, since it is impolite to interrupt someone while they're talking, and called out his name. 

"Master Bruce." 

Which got him a simple hand wave, signaling that he was busy. The dismissive action made him annoyed that he wouldn't listen, but he tried once more.

"Mast-”

But he was interrupted by Bruce's sharp hand wave and a scoff yet again, the man obviously frustrated by Damian and Jason, since the two were now arguing about who Spider was going to be placed next to in terms of rooms. 

He was fed up of being ignored and interrupted by everyone around him, raising his hands before clapping them together with an angry look on his face that garnered the attention of the entire room, the normally alive and bubbling room screeching to a halt in a wonderful blend of terror and surprise since Alfred was almost never mad. His glare danced around the room, shooting at each individual face before settling on Bruce's similarly surprised expression. 

Then he began his exasperated speech in an eerily calm voice.

"Honestly, Master Bruce, I can't believe I raised you to be like this. I gave you all enough many chances to make it right, let you take your time figuring it out, but it seems like you cannot even put enough thought into noticing the blatant hints and information I have given you, I could have written it in bold red ink on my forehead and you would still turn a blind eye. I am so far beyond disappointed in all of you that there is no word in the English dialect that could possibly encapsulate just how much you have let me down."

He raised a hand to stop Dick and Damian from talking and trying to defend themselves, or shifting the blame onto someone else in the group. 

"I have been patient and understanding with all of you and your behavior towards [Y/N], but after what happened today with Joker, I cannot sit idly by and continue to allow myself to pretend as if your disgraceful behavior is acceptable. You have run my tolerance and composure thin, so much so I cannot even fathom being quite so lenient anymore."

He stopped once again to level his glare at Bruce before shifting it briefly to Damian, knowing what the kid did to [Y/N] when they first arrived at the Manor.

"Spider's secret identity is [Y/N] Lawrence, also known as [Y/N] Wayne to me, and who is your child Master Bruce. Your child got bit by a mutated spider while working in a science lab, of which they had informed me, but your blatant ignorance is not even the worst part." 

As he walked up to Bruce and put a finger on his chest, his footsteps seemed so loud and deafening that some of the individuals in the room had to refrain from covering their ears. Alfred prodded Bruce's chest accusingly as if he was trying to physically reach his heart, despite his doubts that the man could even feel it. 

"The worst part is that you all ignored that poor child who lost their mother and came to us seeking help. They needed a family and stability after their supposed 'loved ones' shut the door in their face, and yet they couldn't even find that here. Your child could have lost their life today, they could have been taken to hospital only for us to be told they are unable to be saved, you could have been called to the morgue to confirm the body is theirs. And yet I don't think you would have been able to name their corpse."

He paused for a brief second to regain his composure ever so slightly, turning his attention to the others in the room.

"They learned gymnastics for you, Master Dick. Just so that you two could have something in common to talk about.  However, you always ditched them for Master Tim or Master Damian whenever they begged you to do something with them."

He glanced at Jason and the others who were standing there, wanting to make sure his kids knew how bad they messed up. He also ignored how destroyed Dick and Bruce looked when they realized and remembered what they said and did to [Y/N].

"They spent days in the library reading your favorite books Master Jason and even learned about guns and the maintenance for one whenever you visited to be close to you. They were the one who left candies out for you and always made a new pot of coffee for you whenever you drank it all master Tim.”

He then glared at Damian, knowing what the young boy did to the poor vigilante, now resting in the med bay. 

"After losing their mother, they were ecstatic about the idea of having a younger brother but you, Master Damian, thought they wanted to steal your place as Robin when they didn't even know your identity. But did you even stop to consider how horrifically you were treating a child that you were supposed to be protecting?"

Alfred paused his talking to lean down and look Damian in the eyes, making sure the boy's gaze wouldn't drift away. 

"No you didn't. You instead abused that child and made them so frightened and anxious about living near you that I had to move them to the other side of the Manor and serve them food in their room so they wouldn't starve to death. Despite your treatment of them, you didn't seem to care about the consequences of your actions, did you Master Damian?" 

He leaned back and stared at everyone, an exhausted yet somewhat pleased little smile appearing on his face when he saw the horrified moment-of-realization expressions on display as the weight of their treatment of [Y/N] came crashing down on their shoulders.

His gaze turned to Stephanie, Duke and Cassandra who were in the back of the group. Stephanie's voice was hoarse and trembling as her uneven sobbing filled the air, the realization as to why Spider always ignored and looked so annoyed when seeing her hitting her like a freight train. 

He stayed silent as he watched everyone realize what they’ve done before Duke, who was a bit busy trying to calm down Stephanie who was still crying, asked out loud. 

“Wait, then where is Spi- I mean, [Y/N]’s room?” 

To which Alfred sighed but led everyone, except Stephanie and Cassandra, who stayed behind to help Stephanie calm down and also make sure Spider would be ok in the medbay. 

As they all walked they noticed the way the corridor that led to [Y/N]’s room was very dark, like all the lightbulbs were taken off every chandelier to hide something. 

When they finally arrived the first thing that was noticed was the door almost completely covered in stickers and little kids drawing, along with an empty plate on a small table next to the door. 

Alfred stopped in front of the door before looking at everyone behind him, annoyed at their obvious hesitation at entering [Y/N]’s room but eventually grabbed the doorknob and twisted it, finally opening the room. 

The room is small.

As soon as they set foot inside, only two of them because not all of them fit, the feeling given by the room is almost claustrophobic. 

Being small by nature, the bed and objects make the room even more restricted, almost unbreathable. The mess does not fail to compensate for the effect; it is full of sheets of paper, fabric,  and metal constructions everywhere.

It is very admirable that [Y/N] managed to make gold out of every corner of the room, making it livable despite their spider "work". All the constructions and planning have even come to be hung from the ceiling.

Duke stayed a little to the side, but still took into account all the details of the room; like all the posters that cover the room. An almost spontaneous smile appeared on his face as soon as he realized that they are all about him as Signal, the thought of [Y/N] being a fan of his work made him happy and also proud of himself.

As everyone looked around, Dick raised his arm to grab the only sheet of paper that was hanging only on one side, being held by a web that basically crumbled when Dick tugged the paper off of it. But no matter how much he tries to decipher what is written, he really doesn't understand anything even though he knows many languages, dead and still used thanks to Bruce’s training.

Each paper everyone grabbed had a different topic written on it before being thrown around the room and attached to the wall or ceiling via webs. Some of those papers had methods to make the costume more comfortable to move, others tested various ways to make using the web shooters in a way that they could still work if they were underwater or electrocuted, while others depicted different versions of the costume, to make it easier for a child to see it and not scare them if they ever had to see it.

One of the main things that the two men that managed to be inside the room noticed is that they basically didn't know exactly what they're looking at. It's definitely one of the few times they set foot in [Y/N's] room, and the realization that they've neglected them so badly into allowing them to pull off a whole "hero" act without ever being aware of it hits them in the face like a violent slap.

As they looked around they all saw various photos in addition to the posters and papers pinned to the wall; in these photos there are various experiences where [Y/N] was depicted, but nothing is familiar to all of them, increasing their guilt. There were photos of them at a science fair, two or three at various dance recitals, but they noticed that the arrangement of the photos seemed purposely placed; every photo where [Y/N] was depicted, their smile seemed to become duller, forced as they grew older. Their eyes began to lose more and more of that spark of joy, becoming emptier, sadder.

Dick ran his eyes over all the trophies on the shelves, the badges from every competition he never attended. He doesn't remember them; hell, he never even saw them bring any  or badge home. For all the times [Y/N] has attended something, he has never been there. He should have thought twice before excluding them so much from his life. But there's no point in crying over spilled milk. 

Above all the badges and trophies there are only two photos; certainly spacing each other by 2-3 years. In the first photo, when [Y/N] was younger, they seemed genuinely happy to hold the trophy, smiling as if they wanted to dare the sun to shine like they did. But the second photo was completely different, it's almost agony for Dick to look at that fake smile imprinted on their face, like all their excitement and joy were sucked out of them but they still needed to smile. 

When Dick finally walked out the room to make way for Jason, his face was full of regret and guilt but the man ignored him to walk inside [Y/N]’s room. 

He ignored the papers all around the room and stayed a few seconds to look at the photos before looking at the small bookshelf he noticed in the corner. 

He slowly picked up one of the books sitting on the shelf and looked at the title, a bit surprised that it was Pride and Prejudice since every time he ever talks about it to someone, they never say that they liked it and just had to read it for school. 

But he saw that the book was incredibly used and full of small sticky notes all inside it. Whenever he opened a page following a sticky note sticking out the book he always found one of the passages filled with sticky notes or notes written on the page with a pencil, making him smile at the thought of [Y/N] loving the book so much that they wrote what they thought on the pages. 

As he flipped through the pages of all the books, he kept on noticing that on his favorite paragraphs there were small notes, like small instructions on how to add those paragraphs in a conversation with him, his heart breaking at the thought of [Y/N] working so hard to just incorporate something he liked so he could like them. 

He could feel the excitement in all the notes by the way they wrote them, like you couldn't wait to see him and talk to him about it. But he knew that you two never talked much, hell he can't even remember one single conversation he had with [Y/N], making him feel even worse than before. 

As Jason kept on reading all the books in the small bookshelf, Tim got to work on their laptop that he managed to find after searching all around the room. 

As he opened the case that had [Y/N]’s laptop inside, he could see some old stickers that depicted him during his time as Red Robin, along with some cute cat stickers that covered almost the entirety of the laptop's outside. The sight made him smile, endeared by the thought of [Y/N] still liking him enough that they actually had some of his stickers on their laptop. 

After opening it up, he powered it on and copied the password off of the little scribble next to the keypad. Going through the stuff inside the laptop, he noticed a folder full of photos of all of the bats, in either an embarrassing situation or funny moments when they were inside a dumpster after [Y/N] threw them inside of one. The thought made him laugh, especially whenever he found small notes written on that photo like what their crime was as to why they ended up in a dumpster. Though Duke, Cassandra and Bruce were missing from all the photos, as if they never existed to begin with.

As he kept going through [Y/N]’s laptop, he turned to place the heavy item onto the table since it was starting to get hot from being powered on. As he pushed some items out the way to make room, he accidentally pushed the laptop case off the desk, watching as a small usb  bounced out and fell onto the floor,  sparking Tim's curiosity. What could possibly be inside of that usb?

He grabbed it and plugged it in, initially waiting patiently for it to load. His irritation grew as he watched the loading animation loop over and over and over again, almost teasingly. He made a mental note to buy [Y/N] a better laptop. Perhaps even a whole pc setup so they could play together. 

When the laptop finally gave him access to the contents of the usb, he found a multitude of videos that dated back years before [Y/N] arrived at the Manor. 

He quickly went back to the newer video in the usb and clicked on it, curious as to what these videos had captured.

Tim curiously clicked the play button on the small screen, watching as it started playing. The scene displayed that of a small child, no older than five or six, who he quickly recognised as [Y/N]. They seemed to be in a living room of sorts, though he was just assuming that based on the blurry sofa and coffee table in the background. 

He stared in surprise at the screen as they put the phone on something, probably a shelf or table, to keep it still. Tim laughed a little whenever it kept sliding over, the child's tiny yet menacing voice threatening to throw the phone as they stomped closer to it to prop it back up. This happened several times before they got the right angle. When they finally managed to get the phone to cooperate, he watched as they took a few excited steps backwards, tripping once or twice, before they smiled brightly at the camera.

"So! I just got my first role in a BIG dance recital!! I'm gonna be the uh- uhm I think it's the swan in, uh.. Swan Lake? I think that was what it's called, but anyways I don't care! I'll be a pretty swan!" 

The child twirled around in sheer joy, showing off the sparkly white ballerina outfit, the pretty pearls shimmering in the little sunlight that poured in through a nearby window and the delicate lace shifting with the movement of the dress. The excited spinning halted as [Y/N] jumped a bit upon hearing a voice called their name. As he listened to the gentle lull of the voice, Tim realized it belonged to a woman, though it was unfamiliar to him. 

He laughed when the small child ran to grab the phone, noticing that they didn't stop the recording. Instead, they just ran to the kitchen where he could see a woman standing over the counter cutting some vegetables with her back to the camera, dressed in some simple pajamas that were decorated with stars. She was shorter than average, with long brown hair that lay on her shoulder.

The young dancing prodigy shakily pointed the phone towards the woman, before asking loudly, "So, Miss Mom, are you excited about [Y/N]'s first dance recital?" Their enthusiasm radiated from their voice, bleeding into their movement as the camera just barely captured the woman's face turning and laughing softly at the young child's determined expression. Now that he had a good look at her face, Tim presumed this woman was [Y/N]'s mother based on their similar facial features. 

"So serious! Though, this isn't your first dance recital my little star, you have done many before now." She exclaimed, her shoulders shaking as she smiled brightly at her child.

"Mooooom! This is my first REAL dance recital because I have a big role now!"

As the woman playfully shook her head with a stifled chuckle, smiling down at them, she turned her head to her right, encouraging [Y/N] to follow her line of sight.

"Boris! Tell her!!"

The camera panned over to a much bigger man hunched over a cooking pot, and as he turned his head to look at the woman with a knowing smile, Tim noticed a deep gash along his cheek. No, not a gash, a scar perhaps? This baffled Tim since he knew of the existence of [Y/N]'s mother, but had no recollection of a father in their life. 

"You guyssss, I'm a freaking swan! Do you know how cool swans are?!" 

Tim chuckled softly when he heard little [Y/N] say their version of a bad word, watching with a fond smile as the woman gasped dramatically with a shocked expression while the man turned his head away as if trying to hide his laughter. 

"Little star! Where did you hear such a bad word?”

To this, little [Y/N] paused for a good few seconds before their tiny hand appeared in the frame and gestured to the man, throwing him under the bus in order to avoid punishment. 

"Boris said it earlier when the TV wouldn't work."

Tim watched with a curious smile as  the woman turned her hardened glare to the man, who gave her a nervous look. "Look it was an accident Amelie, I didn't realize [Y/N] was in the room-" The man had a slight accent, possibly Russian.

Before he could finish his sentence, the video got cut off, leaving Tim in a thoughtful silence. So [Y/N]'s mother was called Amelie? How interesting. Still, who exactly was that man?

He quickly went to the web browser on the laptop and searched for [Y/N]’s mother, which wasn't hard since the first thing that popped up were articles of her death and photos of the incident. 

As he searched more articles about her, he noticed a few things: [Y/N] was never mentioned in any of the articles that talked about Amelie during her modeling career or about her having any types of relationships.

While he searched, he did find a few photos of Amelie with Boris, easily recognisable thanks to face scars, but as he could see by the many photos taken by paparazzi and fans, Boris was always by the side looking like a bodyguard. 

Another quick research, about the man this time, and he found out that Boris was with Amelie when she was driving and died on his way to the hospital. 

Tim quickly finished searching and turned off the laptop before grabbing it along the usb to watch more videos about [Y/N], especially since he saw a small folder full of other videos that mostly depicted [Y/N] as a teen, so he wanted to see them in his room and make copies of all the videos to show the others.  

When Tim finally walked out the room along with Duke, Damian finally walked inside the small room, grimacing at the sight of the mess that [Y/N] lives in.

He promptly ignored Jason, who was still reading the books and had tears in his eyes, to focus on more important things, like searching through [Y/N]’s desk drawers and in the closet. 

In the desk drawers he didn't find much, just a few folders containing useless information and school books that Damian ignored, angry that he couldn't find anything in the folders. 

But when he searched the closet, grimacing at the poor quality of the clothes [Y/N] dared to wear that he even made a mental note to buy decent clothing for them when they woke up, he saw a few boxes at the back. 

When he opened the first one he saw a small box full of vials, all labeled with ‘web fluid’, while next to the small box were a few web shooters, at least that's what the label on all of them said. 

He grabbed them all and noticed a folder at the bottom of the box, which contained informations on how to create the web shooters thanks to the grappling hook parts and what to improve in the next model, so Damian assumed those web shooters in the box were old version that [Y/N] didn't use anymore. 

He was impressed at how neat the information in the folder was, all in order and even highlighted when something was important or not, plus small notes added with pencil or post its. 

When he finished reading the information, he put everything back in the box and set it aside to grab another box that was in the back of the closet, finding almost three, maybe four, albums of photos. 

He slowly grabbed one, making sure to not damage anything in the album as he slowly looked through the pages, admiring the photos of a small [Y/N] along with their mother or an unknown man. 

The other two albums contained photos of a woman, he assumed it was [Y/N]’s mother during modeling gigs and from clippings taken on magazines, alongside photos of her with a man, again the same man he kept seeing with [Y/N]. 

He closed the album in frustration and put it back in the box before grabbing the last box in the closet, wanting to see what this had so he could either use it to bond with [Y/N] or to understand why they hate him. 

He understood that [Y/N] hated him, especially after Alfred pointed it out and made everyone see who Spider really was, but he also didn't understand why they hated him the most. 

Yes, he did hurt them pretty badly that they had to find a safe place in this small room but he didn't understand the hate. He did the same with Drake but he didn't hate him. 

As he opened the last box, which he immediately noted was full of dust which meant that [Y/N] didn't really open it much and just kept in the back of the closet to collect dust, he only saw a notebook. 

He slowly picked it up, patting it down a few times to get rid of the dust before opening it to the first page, which read ‘Diary of [Y/N]’. 

He closed it and debated if he should really open it or not before finally opening it, needing to know why they hated him and maybe the diary contained some information about it. 

He started to read the first entries before skipping pages until he came to an entry where his name was mentioned. 

20-03-XXXX 

Dear Diary

Hi, sorry for not writing to you for a few months but many things happened that you wouldn't believe! Well you don't really believe in anything, you’re an object. 

I moved out of my old house and went to live with my father, and yes I know it's weird since mom never mentioned him but I had to move in with him. 

You might be wondering why, well mom and Boris died. The policeman who took me to my father explained everything, they both died in a car crash, he even let me grab everything I needed. I managed to grab all the albums I made with mom and Boris and mom’s favorite jewelry but not much. 

I think auntie is gonna grab her clothes and other objects, I hope she won't sell them. 

Well no more sadness! My father is Bruce Wayne! The billionaire man who made so many things possible in Gotham! 

I am unsure if he knew that I existed, he looked so surprised when the policeman, I think his name was Gordon, explained what happened to mom and why I should stay with him. 

But I got a big ass room! It's even bigger than my old one! Oh I have to ask Alfred, my father's butler and yes, he really has a butler, if I can buy some night stars to put on the ceiling and some new clothes. 

I also have a younger brother! His name is Damian Wayne-Al Ghul! His surname sounds so cool compared to Lawrence! 

Plus he’s arabic! Alfred told me he was raised in a ‘traditional manner’ but I don't know what that means, maybe that means that he’s a prince? 

Oh my god, I have a prince as a brother! That would be so cool! I hope I can be friends with him and the others! I am so excited! 

I do miss mom and Boris but I can't stay sad forever, the consultant in school said so. Plus I adore everyone! They're so cool and fashionable! I want to be like Dick or Tim when I grow up! 

Oh yea I also have some many older brothers! Their names are: Richard but he prefers Dick, I don't understand why, Jason, Tim who is very cool like a Duke by how classy he is and Duke! 

I also have two older sisters, Stephanie and Cadsandra, even though they're not ‘really’ part of the family like Alfred said but I consider them my sisters! They look so cool and Cassandra is so cool, like an assassin or a ninja! 

Damian slowly closed the notebook, using a finger to not lose the page and just thought about what he just read. 

He knew [Y/N] came to the Manor when they were 12, maybe 11, so the entry was maybe a few months after their mom died in an accident with a man, possibly the man he kept seeing in the photos, named Boris. 

But what he read shocked him. They considered him cool and just wanted a friend. They didn't even know about the family's business and just thought everything was cool. 

He quickly shook his head and reopened the notebook to read more, needing to know more about what they thought of him and when it changed. 

15-04-XXXX 

Dear Diary 

You know Damian, the younger brother I told you about almost 5 months ago? About how he's so cool and everything and how I want to be friends with him? 

Well he's not so cool anymore, he keeps hurting me and calling me names, saying things like “you won't replace me, I will be the ultimate Robin”. 

I think I spent more time with Alfred stitching up cuts made by him than everyone else in this Manor. I hate Damian so much!  

Why would I even want to be Robin?! I don't even know who Robin is now since they keep changing hair colors! Why would I be a Robin?! Batman is too scary! 

I just wanted a younger brother, is that so bad to ask for? I understand that I came into their life without much notice but it's not my fault I came here! 

It's that drunk driver's fault! He’s the one who killed my mom and Boris! I don't even want to be here! I would prefer to be with my mom, watching her get ready to do a photoshoot while Boris tells me stories about his time in the secret agencies he was in. 

I hate this Manor, I hate Dick and his excuses for not hanging out with me, Bruce for telling me that I am just someone he’s forced to take care of and not his child and especially Damian! 

I miss mom, I want to hug her one more time and dance with her. 

Why did she go to the supermarket? She could've gone another day! It's all my fault, I should've never let her go with Boris, if I did she would still be here with me. 

Damian stopped reading after that because the writing was almost illegible and in a few parts the ink was smeared because of small droplets of water, most likely tears. 

He felt horrible, even more now that he read about himself in [Y/N]’s eyes and how quickly their feelings for him changed. 

Even now, as he read past passages about himself, he could see how much they adored him even after he hurt them and it felt like knives were being stabbed on his body. 

As he read, he started to feel something wet trailing down his face and when he went to touch his cheek, he didn't saw blood on his fingers like he thought 

He quickly got up and put the diary on the bed before running out of the room, too distraught to stay there as the words written by [Y/N] about him kept circling around his head, taunting him and telling him that it was all his fault. 

He’s the reason why [Y/N] hates everyone in the Manor, he’s the reason why they refused to be a part of the Batfam when they were Spider. He caused this. He made them move into a closet just because he was scared of losing the Robin mantle. 

He ruined everything because of his selfish behavior towards a stupid mantle that you didn't even know belonged to him, and he knew it. 

He collapsed in front of the medbay after finally getting back in the batcave, a bit glad when he saw that Stephanie and Cassandra weren't there to see him crying, and sobbed in front of the room, knowing that he didn't deserve to even enter the room after what he had done to [Y/N]. 

When Bruce saw Damian run out he tried to follow him but stopped, knowing the boy probably needed to be alone and would refuse his attention if he tried to help. 

He nodded when Jason walked out the room and stood in front of the door, wanting to enter but still felt like he didn't deserve to even enter one of the only safe spaces that [Y/N] had in the Manor. 

Bruce kept staring at the room, his thoughts running wild when he saw how small the room was compared to his or even Tim’s room. 

“Alfred, what was this room before [Y/N] moved in it?”

The tiny space looked more fit for a young child, with walls that seemed to curve inwards the longer you stood in there, of which you could only stand if you were under 6ft. 

Posters, pictures and multiple sheets of paper decorated any free space on the aged walls, the rest of the area covered by a wardrobe and a shelf that used to hold a few books that Jason took to his room. 

A large bed sat pressed against the corner of the room, creating a small area of safety with the various pillows and blankets piled up on top of the thin mattress. Clothing was scattered all across the room, alongside all the documents and papers that were scattered around the room, though mostly on and underneath the bed, having likely been kicked under there by [Y/N] after they tripped on it.

The whole room emanated with coziness yet was so small that anyone would feel claustrophobic even just looking in the room. 

And yet [Y/N] had called this room their home, settling in each night to the tiny bed after kicking their clothing somewhere random in the room and slowly slipping into the realm of sleep as they smiled fondly at the figures on their shelf.

"This used to be a storage room."

Alfred interrupted, capturing Bruce's attention and pulling him out of his trance-like state. "We used to put random items like cleaning products and laundry supplies in here, I remember there used to be a cabinet for the detergent over there." He said gently, smiling a little as he gestured to where the small bed now sat. "[Y/N] was delighted when they found this room, practically begging me to stay in here. They told me it seemed cozy, though I will admit I did find it a little odd they wanted such a small room." He told him, chuckling a little towards the end of his sentence. 

"The way their little face lit up in excitement once we got the bed in here, watching them run around the room playing with their figures and hanging up posters. The room was small, sure, but it was more than enough for them.”

Bruce stayed silent after Alfred said that and looked around the room before noticing a small book next to the bed. 

He slowly picked it up and sat on the bed, opening it to the first page and immediately reading ‘Diary of [Y/N]’ on it. He closed it and wondered if he should read it, mentally debating on whether or not he was allowed. 

He decided on reading it when he remembered that he didn't know anything, absolutely nothing about his kid and what happened to them and how they were before they got bit by a spider.  

Bruce knew it was wrong, it was another invasion of [Y/N]’s privacy but he didn't care. He wanted, no he needed to know about them. 

20-05-XXXX (you can change the date with your birthday) 

Dear Diary, this is my first entry in this book that is now called Diary. 

Mom says that I have to practice writing and that I also can use it to express feelings or tell stories that I don't want to tell anyone in this book, so I shall be doing that. 

As of today, my birthday, I am now 7 years old and I have celebrated another birthday with no father, just my mom and Boris. 

If you are wondering, even though you can't since you are an object, I do not know who my father is and Boris is not my dad. 

He told me that when I once called him dad, which made me sad since why do I have to hold this title for a person that has never showed up in my life when Boris is always there for me when I am either sad or feel like I can't do anything? 

This is not fair. I will mom who my dad is and pretend to know why he doesn't want me. I don't even know why he doesn't want me! And I’m 7! 

Well, I’ll tell you when I come back! 

Ok so, mom told me that my father is someone that can't be traced so he’s either a ghost or dead. Which is the same thing. 

Well I don't care, I’ll just tell Boris that he's my dad, even if he doesn't marry mom since she refuses to have other relationships and because Boris told me that he's attracted to other men and not women. 

I don't envy him, boys suck. Especially my ghost dad! He abandoned mom! 

As Bruce finished reading the first passage, he realized that their mother, Amelie, didn't try to paint him as someone evil just because he wasn't there. 

He was also amazed at how serious the first entry was, it was almost a work document but he didn't think too much about it. 

He felt horrible because he remembered all the time he talked bad about Amelie and how she couldn't just do one thing and keep [Y/N] away, not even caring if [Y/N] was in the room or around. 

He knew Amelie, she was one of the models who never tried to flirt with him and spent most of her time talking with her bodyguard, acting like he didn't exist. 

He also remembered that, after that night with her, she never called him until a week or two later to inform him that she was pregnant and how she just wanted child support if he didn't want to be in the child’s life. 

He was incredibly surprised when she called him and even more surprised when she sent him a very well made child support agreement where she just wanted a decent amount of money every month and she will never bother him, she’ll just add him to the birth certificate if something happened to her. 

He quickly shook his head to get rid of the thoughts about Amelie and skipped a few entries in the Diary before stopping at one where his name was mentioned in the first line. 

31-09-XXXX

Bruce Wayne is my father. 

I now know who my father is.. and yet I don't feel anything. 

At first I wondered- why am I not happy? My father is a billionaire and a very famous man in Gotham, shouldn't I be excited and happy to have such a new lavish lifestyle with a loving, caring father?

Then I thought about it and came to a conclusion..

I don't like Bruce Wayne.

My mother and Boris died in a car crash. They were gone and I believed I had just become an orphaned child with no parents or guardians to care for me. 

And then the police told me I had a father - Bruce Wayne. That man looked at me like I was some grotesque animal when the nice policeman told him about what happened and who I was.

I don't like Bruce. 

He looks scary and totally different from what I saw on the TV whenever he was in a program with one of his many children. 

He keeps saying things under his breath, like how my mom had one job and failed at it or how annoying I was because he didn't want me here since I was the reminder of my mom. 

I want to hit him.

It's not her fault. 

How dare he say things about mom! She wasn't perfect, I know that, but nobody is! Just because she didn't know how to cook meat and always had Boris cook anything that was fish or meat doesn't make his hatred for her okay! She was horrible at making drawings with me but she tried to, she put in effort to sit with me and draw anyway!

Why does he hate her so much?! 

Why does he hate me?! 

I don't even want to be here! 

I want my mom back! 

I want Boris back! 

I miss my house, I miss my room! 

I hate this.

I hate everything.

I hate him. 

I hate Bruce Wayne.

Bruce stopped reading after that and just stared at the opened closet, trying to wrap his head around what he read. 

He couldn't believe he did that. No he could believe that he said something like that, he was going through a rough patch with both kids, business and his vigilante job that when [Y/N] suddenly entered his life he didn't do anything to help them adjust or comfort them. 

He also remembered how Amelie was a nice woman when he woke up in her bed, that explained what happened thoroughly for him, how they were both drunk and thankfully Boris took them to her house, and even gave him her business card after she took his so she could contact him if she was ended up pregnant because she knew she wasn't on a safe day and he didn't use a condom. 

He actually admired how gentle she was and how, when she contacted him about her being pregnant and how she wondered if he wanted to be in his child’s life, accepted his refusal and the offer of child support, not even caring about how much money he was gonna give her every month. 

So he felt even more horrible and a downright scumbag when he realized that he insulted one of the many women he respected in front of her child and how he never apologized or tried to make amends. 

Not even the realization about his actions would excuse them, especially because he said those words to a child, a traumatized child who just lost everything and had to be thrown into a house where no one wanted them. 

He slowly flipped through the pages, stopping when he found one of the last entries, which were dated almost 2, maybe 3 years ago. 

08-07-XXXX

Dear Diary 

As stated before, I moved into Wayne Manor and now I am a Wayne. I refuse to take his surname though, I will never give up my mother's last name. 

This will probably be one of my last entries since I will switch to video diaries, mostly to just watch myself and actually explain while talking. 

I have been in this hell that I have to call house for almost 3 years and I hate it. I know that I say it many times but it's true. 

I hate Dick and how he acts like he's the golden child, so righteous and kind to Tim and Damian but when I ask to do anything with him, he just tells me that he's busy. 

Even though I know that those are excuses so he wouldn't have to hang out with me. 

I hate Jason and how he complains that Bruce doesn't love him, but I know that he does. That man loves Jason even if he kills people as Red Hood but doesn't do anything about it. 

I hate Tim. I don't know much about him but I hate him so much because he's so perfect, already a CEO and so good at everything that even if I manage to do something good, I will always be compared to him by Bruce. 

I hate Stephanie, Cassandra and Duke. They never hang out with me, telling me that they're busy when I see them play around together or with others. 

What did I even do to them?! 

I hate Damian and how he feels superior just because he's an Al Ghul and Robin. I hate it. He has everything, Bruce’s and everyone else's love and attention and yet, he still tormented me and scarred me just because I existed. 

I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THAT BRUCE WAS BATMAN WHEN I FIRST CAME TO THE MANOR.

I hate Bruce Wayne. I hate his perfect TV smile and persona, I hate how he acts like he loves all of his children and yet he has never spent any time with me ever since I came to his Manor years ago. 

I hate how he told Dick about how annoying my voice was after I visited to ask him to sign something for school. How he described my voice as nails on a chalkboard for his ears and how he wished he never had to hear it again. 

But if he wants to, then I shall never talk again. Maybe this will make him happy. 

Bruce slowly looked up when he finished reading that entry, the diary slowly slipping out of his hands and falling onto the floor with a soft thud. 

He couldn't believe that he said something so horrible about a kid, someone he should be protecting, and made them, made his own child, hate their own voice. 

He slowly put his hands on his head and just cried silently, the realization that he was the reason as to why [Y/N] hated the Manor and their own blood, because he was a horrible father to a traumatized child that just wanted a family after losing their own so early.

The manor was quiet, eerily so. Usually it was bursting with life, sound practically reverberated off the walls. But today it was almost silent. Amidst this silence, a child finally wakes up from their slumber in a room in the Manor. 

You slowly opened your eyes, hissing when the blinding lights coming from the window immediately hit your face like a rocket, making you try to move your arm to cover your face. 

You slowly looked down to your arm when you noticed the difficulty at moving it and found it in a cast that almost enveloped all your right arm. 

You looked at the other arm and sighed in relief when you saw that it was just bandaged up and not in a cast. 

You did notice that you had an IV in your hand, making you sit up despite the pain you felt all over your body and managed to pull it out with the casted arm. 

After you pulled out the IV, you noticed that you were in a far bigger room compared to the small one you had before. You looked at the shelves and noticed that your worn out books were replaced with new ones while the photos and posters were in the same places but with more space. 

As you looked around, you could see that the furniture was the same, confirmed by the scratches on the closet, which was the closest to you, that you accidentally did while trying the first prototype of the web shooter in the room which resulted in you throwing the flaming machinery at the closet before destroying it as you tried to put out the fire before Alfred noticed. 

You laughed a little at the memory of your panicking before almost doubling over in a fit of cough, your throat burning when you finally calmed down. 

You slowly moved the blankets off of you after you calmed down enough to think rationally, understanding that you weren't in your room anymore but still in the Manor thanks to the walls and the colors in the room, which were totally different from the ones you had in your own room. 

You ignored how both of your legs were bandaged up and slowly got off the bed, using the IV stand to keep yourself standing as you wobbled to the desk, noticing almost all the papers you had around your room were now in neat piles, making you extremely angry since you immediately knew that Bruce and his kids entered your room, probably because of Alfred interference. 

You pulled away from the desk, still holding onto the IV stand and coughed a little, noticing that the shirt you were wearing was starting to get blood on it. 

You slowly raised the shirt and noticed that the bandages on your chest and sides were full of blood, but you ignored it and went for the door, needing to get out of here since you knew that if you were in a different room it meant that they all knew you were Spider. 

When you finally made it to the door, your vision was already starting to get blurry from all the blood you were losing. You finally opened it but fainted before you even managed to take a step out, the last thing you saw was the silhouette of a man running up to you, his face blurry and his voice muffled. 

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[spectral-phases]

I need people to stop getting so precious about Clark "not letting" Bruce kill the Joker after Jason’s death post-Crisis. Everyone acts like it was like this:

But it was more:

So, we all know the story. Actually. Wait. Maybe we don't. So. The story beneath the cut.

Jason got benched as being Robin because he was not dealing well with his parents' deaths, felt like he was no longer wanted because he was adopted specifically to be Robin (and Bruce is shit at making his kids feel loved a lot of times). Jason discovered the woman who raised him was his step mother, not his bio mother. He goes looking for bio mom. Finds bio mom, she hugs him and tells him she's missed him so much, Bruce contemplates letting Jason live with his family if that would make him happier despite being obviously cut up about the idea of losing Jason. Bio mom is being extorted by the Joker to let him ship out Joker Venom disguised as medical supplies because he can't just steal the supplies and sell them. Bruce has to go stop the shipment of Joker Venom, his portable chopper is too small for two, so Jason is left behind. Jason is told to wait, but The Killing Joke just happened and his bio mom is alone with the Joker (who is insane, capricious and evil), so, obviously he has to save his mother and could not wait. Bio Mom is outside, no guards, Jason says, "Hey, I'm actually Robin, I'm here to save you from the Joker" and she says "Nah, he's actually gone, so I'm fine. But let's go inside so I can grab my things and we can leave." Her things turn out to be a gun to point at Jason after leading him to the Joker. Jason is too stunned to move. The Joker and his goons beat Jason up and then the Joker uses the crowbar to finish beating him to a presumed death. His bio mom at some point couldn't bear to watch it anymore and turns around to smoke a cigarette. Once Joker’s done, bio mom asks what they're going to do about Batman, and the Joker is all "oh. Yeah, lol. Probably was a bad idea to kill his kid. Whoops. My bad." And then ties up the bio mom to kill her and erase any evidence he brutally attacked/killed Jason. The Joker sets a bomb on a timer and leaves. Jason uses the last of his strength to untie his bio mom so she can escape. He can't see well enough to try and disarm the bomb. She tries to get them both out. The door is locked. Jason shields her as the bomb goes off, but she dies just as Batman comes up and tells him the Joker did it, calls Jason a hero, says he deserved a better mother (he did) but does not/is unable to own up to her part in Jason’s death before dying herself. Bruce finds Jason’s body and is fucking devastated.

So after that, Bruce chases the Joker down to the UN because the Joker lucked into being a diplomat for Iran and is now meeting at the UN assembly in New York. Bruce is 100% set on doing a premeditated murder of the Joker for Jason. The US government is aware of this. They hire Superman to grab Batman to try and talk him down because the Joker has diplomatic immunity for past crimes. It does not go well.

"That’s the law, not Justice." Batman is 100% still going to kill the Joker. Everyone knows. Superman knows. Superman says the stupid thing is putting vengeance above the interests of the country, not killing Joker.

Batman sneaks into the Joker’s room, and the Joker (forgetting his earlier desire to not get fucking killed by Batman) is like "oh man, I wish I could have seen your face when you found his body" and further needles Bruce with a "Or are you here to thank me for getting rid of him for you?" Making Bruce triple down on killing the Joker.

"Your confirming it makes what I have to do a lot easier."

Bruce manages to get in to observe the UN meeting as Bruce Wayne. Superman is disguised as a guard. Bruce is seething, watching the Joker, knowing that is the guy who killed Jason.

"I should have terminated his vile existence years ago. But I didn't. I couldn't. His insanity gained him a stay of execution. But no longer. ... Jason’s dead."

They both know the Joker is too stupid and lacks the impulse control needed to not attack the UN and immediately lose his immunity, which is the only thing keeping him alive. Joker releases Joker Venom to kill the delegates. Superman super breathes to inhale all the gas, which he's immune to because he's Superman and then says this as he leaves to go find a place to release the poison gas safely.

"Batman, he's all yours."

Superman basically says "You can kill him now" because he knows Batman’s mind has not changed, and Superman had not once tried to say "killing Joker would be wrong" just that it couldn't happen before the Joker acted in a way that lost him his immunity.

And Bruce does go to do just that. He chases the Joker down, intent to kill, and jumps onto the helicopter the Joker is using to escape. One of the guys fires at Batman. It shoots the pilot, hits the Joker in damn near his heart, if not his heart, and Batman realizes the helicopter is going down and decides to jump and leave the Joker behind. He intends for the Joker to die in the crash.

Okay? Bruce was 100% going to kill the Joker for killing Jason. Superman said "hang on. Let him get enough rope to hang himself first and then you can do it." And then Joker only survived because comic books. And Bruce is unhappy about having to wait. Superman did not try to talk Bruce out of killing the Joker at all ever, or scold him for wanting to kill the Joker. (Don't say he was rescuing the Joker in that last panel. The next panel is Superman fishing Batman, who is shot in the arm, from the harbor, and Batman telling Superman to go find the body. Find the body! And Superman does go to do just that, but is unable to).

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[fractualized]

A while ago I got under someone's skin for referencing Joker's surprising delayed reaction to killing Jason Todd, and since then I've been thinking it's worth digging into as an interesting element of Joker's characterization.

Of course, first thing's first: Jason's murder in Batman (1940) #427, as originally presented in 1988.

Jason has just reconnected with his biological mother, Sheila Haywood, at a famine relief camp in Ethiopia— and he's discovered that Joker is blackmailing her with information about her criminal past. She gets him truckloads of medical supplies to sell on the black market, and Joker restocks the trucks with toxin. While Bruce races to stop a tampered truck, Jason decides to help his mother on his own. When he discloses he's Robin, however, Sheila betrays him to Joker, not only to stay on Joker's good side but because she's actually been embezzling money from the organization she works for this whole time. She's afraid an investigation prompted by Batman and Robin's appearance would expose this fact.

So Sheila stands by as Jason is felled by Joker and his goons, and then the crowbarring starts.

It's bad! When we return later, Jason is presumably dead.

While Joker isn't shocked that he's murdered a child, he does have an unexpected reaction to Sheila's point. He hadn't really been thinking about what he was doing, implying that he hadn't intended to kill Jason. He just got carried away, whoopsie! He didn't do this to get at Batman; he wasn't thinking about Batman at all. Now, however, he's concerned about how Batman will react.

Joker thinks Jason is already dead. The purpose of the bomb is to get rid of the evidence of his involvement, including Sheila. Joker is not broken up about what he did, but he does have a sense that he's gone a step too far and he doesn't want Batman to know about it. At least for now!

In the end, while Jason wakes and he and his mother try to save each other, they're trapped in the warehouse when the bomb goes off. Bruce makes it back only in time to find a dying Sheila, who tells him it was Joker. When Bruce finds Jason, Jason gets no last words. He's already dead, and Bruce is devastated.

A clue from Joker leads Bruce to the United Nations in New York, and there, infamously, Bruce learns that Joker has been made the ambassador from Iran. Joker is now protected from prosecution, and Batman going after him risks an international incident. Bruce still very much wants to, but Superman stops him.

Well, mostly Superman. I recommend reading Batman #429 to see Bruce's full thought process on this. He is furious and constantly thinking about finally ending Joker— but he also questions his mental state. He still wonders if he can hold Joker responsible if he believes Joker is insane. He uses phrases like "what happened to Jason" like it was a natural disaster, not murder. He even confronts Joker to give him one last chance to turn himself in to Arkham Asylum. Bruce is in a kind of denial, still grabbing at how things usually go.

But back to Joker. Evidently, he's no longer worried that Batman will find out he killed Robin. Joker admits to it immediately.

I assume Joker realized there was no point in denying it. Is Batman going to think it's a coincidence that Robin got blown up when Joker was around? Though Bruce does say it's Joker's taunts that 100% confirm for him that the clown was responsible, pointing again to Bruce still grasping for reasons to not break his rule in his grief.

By the end of the issue, Joker has naturally tried to kill the entire United Nations assembly, which instantly made him free game. So Bruce pursues him to a helicopter, and an in-air scuffle ensues in which Bruce explicitly prevents Joker from being killed by friendly fire, evidently so he can decide how Joker will die. Bruce jumps out of the helicopter, abandoning Joker to a fiery crash. However, despite Bruce's (supposed) intentions, Joker's body is nowhere to be found. The clown lives!

So that's it, right? Joker felt some unease about killing Jason initially, but in a short time, he was happy to gloat about it to Batman's face.

But when Joker reappears in Batman #450, in 1990, he is not triumphant. He's holed up in a dilapidated building, where he learns someone is impersonating him.

How often do we see Joker upset by murders? When the story returns to him, we learn more about his mental state.

With all of Joker's cackling glee at the things he's done, coming close to actual death in the helicopter crash has jarred him— and not just the crash, but the murder that led to it. He recoils from the memory of what he did to Jason. It's why he can't see the joke anymore. It's set apart from his previous crimes. It's too far.

Which is not at all to say that Joker is completely broken up about Jason. By the end of #450, he rallies and sets out to go after his copycat and restore his reputation to his liking.

In Batman #451, though, Joker is still plagued by doubts along the way.

Even when he overcomes those doubts, claiming the mantle as the one and only Joker when his copycat dies by falling into acid, Joker challenges Gordon to finally kill him. It's reminiscent of The Killing Joke, the first time Joker went too far. But like TKJ, Gordon and Batman decide to get Joker back to Arkham against their more vengeful instincts.

Joker's also decided Arkham is just what he needs. Outside, he's plagued by the reality of what he's done; in Arkham, he can settle back into his insanity and stop caring about it again.

So after that, Joker has no second thoughts about killing Jason, right? After all, he largely references the murder in callous terms. In-universe this makes sense as Joker revising history in his own head, particularly as more stories portray his effort to be more monster than man. Monsters don't have qualms about murder! But this is comics, so we can also presume that not all Joker writers know or remember #450/451, which I think is a shame. I find stories in which Joker expresses even just a degree of vulnerability to be more interesting than those where he's just mwahaha evil.

I have seen a few other bat stories bring some nuance into Joker's perception of Jason's death, though.

First up is the particularly nuanced "Fool's Errand" in Detective Comics (1937) #726, published in 1998. Bruce visits Joker in Arkham to get information on how to find a kidnapped girl who's running out of time. It just so happens Joker arranged this kidnapping for a particular day.

I strongly recommend this issue for batjokes fans, as it revolves around Joker talking the case through with Batman in his cell to help him figure out more clues to a crime Joker himself planned. Even with Bruce beating Joker up, the conversational tone feels almost friendly. They're just doing their usual thing.

Well, sort of. Bruce has already said he's not in the mood, and he interrupts their conversation to say so again.

Joker could insist that Batman stay and keep playing the game, and needle him for being unwilling to merely talk to Joker to rescue this child. Instead, Joker gives up her location.

And Bruce does come back as predicted.

So that was Joker's nefarious plan. He wanted to restore some hope to Bruce's cynical soul to be sure that his future failures would hurt even more. But it sure seems the middle didn't go the way Joker expected, when he recognized Batman just wasn't going to play the game as usual.

Joker doesn't jump into taunting. He doesn't answer Bruce at first. He's withdrawn and reflective. He's got something else on his mind on this anniversary of the second Robin's death, and he knows that Bruce does, too. Perhaps not forcing Batman to play was a small gesture, acknowledging the difficulty of the day, remembering how things changed. And what does that gesture cost Joker when he still gets the outcome he wants?

Second example is actually also called "Fool's Errand," this one from Robin (1993) #85, published in 2001. This is a fun one in which Joker discusses his interactions and frustrations with the Robins.

But while Joker indicates more than once that he wants to fight Batsy alone, after he talks about killing Jason, this is the next page:

Joker does not then say he was relieved when another Robin showed up, but still. He's acknowledged again that when he murdered Jason, things were not right. As angry as the birdies make him, they're a key component in the game.

Then we come back to "Once More, With Feeling!" in Harley Quinn (2000) #25, from 2002. Harley's been playing double-agent against Batman with Joker, and she and Joker have this exchange.

Joker typically makes light of murdering Robin, but it seems that when he's with just about his only confidante, he lets other feelings about it burst out.

There's also a flashback to DitF in Batman: Gotham Knights #44 in 2003. We get an exchange between Bruce and Joker before Bruce jumps out of the helicopter.

Joker laughs as the helicopter dives, ready to die, but before that, he seems resigned. He doesn't throw in a real dig about murdering Jason, and he doesn't gloat that he's finally gotten Batman to kill him. He acknowledges he crossed a line.

Lastly, there's a 2006 exchange between, well, Joker and Jason himself in "All They Do is Watch Us Kill, Part 2" as part of Under the Red Hood in Batman (1940) #649. Jason has kidnapped Joker as batbait, and when Joker needles him, Jason needles him back.

Joker regularly extolls his own crimes, but suddenly one of his victims mockingly accuses him of putting up a front, of not being as coldhearted and untouchable as he wants to seem. Maybe Joker does doubt what he's doing and retreats under the cover of madness so he doesn't have to think about it— just as he did in Batman #451.

I'm not sure if there are other examples of Joker expressing anything but mocking glee about Jason's death. I do know of times he's shown a sort of fondness for Jason (such as in The Man Who Stopped Laughing #4, Gotham War: Red Hood #2, Suicide Squad: Get Joker #3), but that's not really the same thing. Joker could've seen Red Hood as his and Batman's Frankenstein child without feeling any squeamishness about killing him in the first place.

But if anyone knows of any other moments where Joker does not act like killing Jason is absolutely his most favorite thing he ever did, do share!

[avayarising]

Deaths of Dick Grayson

Part of the Batfam Death Project.

Dick has died four times and travelled to a world of the dead twice. Total time dead: up to several weeks.

Verifiable deaths

1. Killed by the Joker (Emperor Joker, 2000)

Dick was killed by the Joker after Joker stole reality-altering powers from Mxyzptlk and remade the universe to his liking.

It’s unclear exactly how he died, but Joker kept Nightwing’s dead and rotting corpse alongside Tim’s and Jason’s.

Dick was brought back to life when the universe was restored by Mxyzptlk and Hal Jordan (as the Spectre) after Superman defeated Joker.

Time dead: unclear, but it appears to be multiple days and theoretically could be several weeks.

2. Briefly killed by Mr Fun (Batman: Family 2:7, 2003)

Dick was killed by Mr Fun, a skilled assassin working for a gang boss calling herself Athena (who was also CEO of Wayne Enterprises and trying to bring it down from the inside). Mr Fun crept up on Nightwing, hit him in the head with a golf club and then, while he was concussed and disoriented, used pressure points to stop his breathing and heart.

Cass fought Mr Fun off Nightwing, but Mr Fun shot her off the roof with one of dead Nightwing’s wrist rockets. When Cass recovered, Mr Fun had left (to kill the person they were supposed to be guarding). She returned to Nightwing and resuscitated him using CPR, which apparently cured his head injury too.

Time dead: long enough for Cass to fight off Mr Fun (which wasn’t easy) and recover from being shot down, and then give Dick CPR, so probably a good few minutes.

3. Killed and raised by Lex Luthor (Forever Evil 6–7, 2014)

Dick was hooked up to a murder machine involving a bomb wired to his heart, such that it could only be disarmed by killing Dick. Lex Luthor stopped his heart by making him swallow a pill.

Batman of course then started going feral on Lex until Lex persuaded him that he could bring Dick back, which he did with a shot of adrenaline to the heart.

Time dead: long enough for Batman to get in a good couple of punches on Luthor, plus time for Luthor to detach Dick from the machine, so probably up to two minutes.

4. Beaten to death by groblins (Dark Nights: Death Metal 7, 2021)

Dick, along with other members of the Batfamily, was overwhelmed by a swarm of ‘groblins’: mindless evil Jokerised Robins invading from the Dark Multiverse, led by the Robin King (an evil child Bruce Robin). His death happens off-panel but we see his corpse lying on the ground.

(Then Bruce, who was already dead and a Black Lantern, raised his dead family members as zombies.)

Dick was restored to proper life when Wonder Woman, powered by the determination of her friends, defeated the evil Batman Who Laughs and persuaded the gods to remake the multiverse as it was before the evil universes invaded the good ones.

Time dead: somewhere from quarter of an hour to an hour? Or perhaps a lot longer, if it took longer to rebuild the world. It’s always a little tricky to be sure when world remakes are involved.

Afterlife visits

A trip to Dis (Titans 1:4, 1999)

Dick, along with the rest of the Titans, signed a magic book created by a demon called Goth that summoned them to Dis, a region of Hell. Goth had positioned himself as an actor and superstar and got his fans to sign the book, then led them in a chant to transport them to Dis.

Kory was amongst those who had signed the book and was transported, so Dick and the rest of the Titans went after her.

They discover that the way to get out is to find things to care about, and spend some time individually persuading people to care one at a time, but they start to lose hope, infected by the aura of apathy in Dis. Kory, who is less affected, attacks Goth and throws him down from a height, causing his fans to return to the mortal world because they are worried about Goth and the Titans to return because they are worried about Kory.

Time in afterlife: looks like several hours.

Hell heist (Nightwing 4:103, 2023)

Raven created a portal to bring Nightwing, along with Beast Boy and Cyborg, to Hell to find Blockbuster’s contract with the demon Neron, wherein Blockbuster sold the soul of his firstborn daughter, a nine-year-old called Olivia.

They found the contract and returned to the mortal realm, also courtesy of Raven. (Turned out Neron’s contract was easy to thwart: Dick just had to become a foster parent and assume legal guardianship of Olivia. Neron tried to tempt Dick with super powers, but while Dick very much enjoyed the free sample he was not even briefly tempted to give up Olivia for them.)

Time in afterlife: probably a few hours of travel, fighting, and research.

Batfam Death Project Masterpost

[yjcorefourenjoyer]

Photo evidence part 6

Tim’s life is officially over!

So apparently, the new Robin is not, in fact, fine! He’s dead! Gone! Went BOOM, if you will! And now, without Tim being able to grieve AT ALL for the Robin he had bonded with and probably spent more time with than his actual parents,

Tim had to pick up the pieces of the mess Jason left behind. (He’ll have a breakdown later)

Batman has been going off the rails, beating criminals to near death (they would’ve been dead if he hadn’t called the ambulance), hurting civilians, breaking more laws than ever, pushing everyone away, and letting injuries get worse and worse and worse…

To put it simply, he was killing himself! 

It was like he wasn’t even the same person, especially after Jason’s funeral, and Tim had a front row seat to the destruction.

Some villains thought that Batman being in this state would make it harder to enact their plans and went into hiding. While the others (the more powerful or the idiotic) decided it would be easier! 

Almost all The Cameras either stopped taking photos or would only send pictures about Batman. All of them had horrible content. Just bloody alleyways, or people running away in fear. They were sent in with the hope of Photo evidence doing something about it.

That is what he does, right? Take corrupt people and either blackmail them or report them to the police…

There was no way that he could get the police to arrest Batman, that would do more harm than good. And the only meaningful thing he has against Batman is his identity. Either way, he can’t go after The Batman! Photo evidence doesn’t fight the good guys!

But... Batman isn’t really a good guy now, is he? It’s like Robin took all the good with him when he died. 

And even if he did blackmail Batman, B might just let it happen! He’s already shown that he doesn’t care what happens to himself now that Jason’s gone.

Which is really surprising, considering he has a perfectly good, alive son and friends!! Like, shouldn’t Superman or Nightwing be showing up to try and stop this?

Oh wait that’s right, Nightwing is mad at B for not telling him that Jason died and that he missed the funeral…

Like okay… Tim understands that not being alerted to your brother’s death while you’re in space can make you mad enough that you don’t want to talk with the person who was supposed to tell you that info to the point where you don’t want to be in the same city as them.

And in Superman’s case he stopped B from killing Joker, which probably started this whole “I’m gonna go punch out my anger cuz I can’t kill the guy who murdered my son,” thing.

Superman also probably thinks that he’ll get killed in Gotham for preventing Joker’s death in the first place, whether by Batman or a Metropolis-hating Gothamite who somehow sensed that Superman stopped Joker from dying, and that probably makes him not want to be in Gotham. 

However, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be helping!!

Seriously, Tim doesn’t understand why out of every. single. person. who actually KNOWS Batman, HE has to be the only one to actually do something.

Aren’t heroes supposed to help? Why does he, a child, have to be the only one who cares? The only one to step up? The only one willing to try and help?

Doesn’t anyone realize if Batman dies on patrol, Gotham is going to go up in flames!?

Oh come on! This was supposed to be his debut! To show the world that he could protect Gotham! But not in a vigilante way… He was supposed to go after the people outside of Gotham. The bats do the actual fighting, not him!

Ok ok, that’s it. He has to plan! Maybe contact a few people before he (or Batman) does something rash… after all he’s The Photo evidence! Timothy Jackson Drake! He doesn’t put himself in danger, that isn’t how a Drake works! So If he’s gonna have to save Batman on his own he’s gonna make sure that it’s the last option before he does.

But like what could he even do?? He can’t just bring back Batman’s hope and light, he can’t just bring Robin back! (Photo evidence blackmails people not resurrect them!), The only way to do that is to have someone become Robin, But the only options for that role are Jason, Dick, or well..… Tim.

And since Jason is dead and Tim really doesn’t want to be stuck in a life that’s gonna kill him (cuz it would kill him eventually), he’s just gonna have to find a way to get Dick back into the Robin role…

Maybe visit him in Blüdhaven? Maybe he could tell him what’s going on with Batman in Gotham? How is he even gonna get there? He honestly has no idea. But if this is the only way to help Bruce, he’ll do it.

He just really hopes that Dick will agree so he doesn’t have to save Batman alone…

[brucie-baby]

the thing about bruce trying to kill the joker is that people always leave it at 'superman stopped him', which is only partially true. superman does stop him but only during the assembly itself. as soon as he's inhaled all the joker gas, he says, "Batman, he's all yours."

he lets bruce have him, and he doesn't step back in until it's time to pull bruce from the water. maybe this is just because it took him a while to dispose of the gas, but i've always seen it as superman essentially giving batman permission of a sort to do what he needed to do.

maybe clark didn't know what bruce would choose - whether he would lock the joker up or put him six feet under - but he trusted bruce's judgement. maybe clark was sure of bruce's intentions, that he truly believed that bruce would do the 'right' thing. or maybe clark knew that bruce was going to kill him, and he took a step back. i don't know if we're ever told, and i don't think i want to know. i just think it's very interesting.

but bruce did fully try to kill the joker. nobody could stop him, and in the end superman didn't try to. the joker had literally been shot and the helicopter was about to explode and bruce left him there to die. the comic ends with bruce yelling to find his body, but thinking, "But I know they won't. That's how things always end with the Joker and me. Unresolved."

[ambriel-angstwitch]

Batman Hush Part 4

(Batman 614-616)

Bruce really does try to kill this man. But people keep stopping him. First Superman now Catwoman.

I do like Bruce’s monologue and I do think it’s could be true. He’d 100% feel guilty about it and probably get mad at himself for it after the rage fades but I don’t think he’d truly regret it. He wouldn’t want to undo it I don’t think.

I think it’s interesting his commentary on his sons. Dick was remarkably talented but one thing Bruce fails to mention here is that Dick also had something Bruce wanted to help him work through just like Jason. Dick had grief which Bruce understood better than rage. (Though let’s be real Dick has also had rage. I mean he wanted to kill his parents killer.)

Once again somebody else stops Bruce from killing for his son, and everyone else the Joker hurt. It’s interesting that every plea not to end Joker is usually not a moral plea rather a plea for Bruce. They know that the world won’t be worse if Batman kills Joker but they don’t think that Batman will surprise.

Though all these people stopping him makes me wonder why he failed to mention any of this to Jason. Like I feel like when Jason asked “Why didn’t you avenge me?” saying “Superman stoppped me and then Catwoman and then Jim said he’d send the entirety of the police department to hunt me down if I did so” is a pretty good defense

Not Tim and Dick gossiping at their Dad’s friends funeral. That’s such a brother thing to do though. Tim’s like “Are we supposed to know this guy?”

I love Bruce’s comment on his sons how they fill his life. I just love when he expresses love for his children (even if not directly to them)

That’s definitely not traumatizing at all to see your dear friends face overlayed on top of your sons

What about the relationships he’s had with men? (I’m going to be honest I can’t think of any of those that ended well either)

All jokes aside Dick does have a point and while Bruce brushes him aside at first he will come to realize that

I love when the Robins or Bruce question whether Robin was a good thing. Like it’s always just such an interesting thing to consider. Like Bruce’s concern that he ruined his kids lives. But he loves his kids and he’s admiring Dick’s gifts and I just love that.

I love how clear it is that Talía loves him and not just in a self centered way. Like Talia’s not perfect but she cares about what he wants. She wants him to want her but even more so she wants him to be happy even without her.

Some villains in love with a hero might destroy what that person loves so that all they have left is them but no Talia chooses to heal the person that he loves even though that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll choose her.

And she has a final conversation with him to make sure he knows the risks of what he’s doing and will do it anyway.

I love Alfred looking out for Bruce, and I love him expressing the feelings the Bruce will not. He knows Bruce, he cares for Bruce, He raised Bruce and I love seeing that portrayed

< Prev. Next >

[ghost-bxrd]

PROMPT

Jason - in any AU - after the League brainwashing, is in full Red Hood mode and about to storm Gotham to put his plan into motion.

Only, due to some shenanigan or the other, a dimension shift happens, and Jason finds himself in an alternate timeline - one where Bruce did kill the Joker.

In that timeline, Jason's death convinces Bruce and Dick to ditch the no-kill rule. They basically adopt Red Hood's ideology - if you are a killer, you don't deserve to live. Let the punishment fit the crime.

After all, Joker isn't all that special when you come to it. There are plenty of Rogues with a similar kill count. So once they have killed him, why hold back on the others?

Commissioner Gordon can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to the vigilantes. Not now that they have started to kill. The Bats lose their ability to coordinate with the GCPD.

Batman burned down Arkham. He allowed the staff to get out, and stopped anyone from going in to rescue people.

Poison Ivy tried to go in there to save Harley who was within. Batman let her go in, but blocked the exits after. Anyone who was out of Arkham at the time is killed brutally.

Nightwing is shot dead by GCPD.

The shots are fired by corrupt cops, but the 'bring the bats in by all means' order was issued by Gordon. Bruce loses what little restraint he had, kills the officers responsible, and anyone who tried to keep him from them.

Catwoman doesn't kill, so Batman doesn't kill her. But she is still a criminal and cannot be allowed to continue. He cripples her.

Rogues no longer surrender or hold back. They all know they are doomed, so no more holding back. Civilian casualties exponentially increase as the battles become deadlier. Cops are shooting at Rogues, Bats, and civilians who are at the wrong place, wrong time.

Gotham is a war zone. New Rogues keep popping up. Mostly people who have lost loved ones or livelihoods in the Bat rampage, and now have nothing left to lose.

When Damian arrives, Bruce finds in the young assassin a suitable Robin.

The image of superheroes in general take a plunge. One group has already started to kill, people say. What is to stop Superman or Wonder Woman from doing the same next?

JLA tries to stop Batman, but is hit by brutal contingency plans. That also causes major collateral damage. People are starting to agree with Luthor - superheroes are too dangerous. They should no longer be allowed to take the law into their hands. Anti-Meta legislations and protests begin.

It is in this point that Red Hood enters. Jason is horrified by what is happening, by the realization the no-kill rule exists for a reason.

He ends up joining the Resistance in Gotham - led by Tim, Stephanie, Duke - against Batman. He is struggling against his own mental issues, and trying to talk Bruce down, though it is too late for that.

Basically a role reversal of the UtRH argument. Jason has to think up reasons to talk Batman down, finds himself picking holes in his own ideology.

It is after that experience where Jason actually returns to the Canon (for me Wayne Family Adventures is my canon, please let Bruce be a good dad) Timeline...

Geez that’s… that’s dark. I‘m pretty sure I saw a fic onxe that had a similar premise.

But at least Jason probably goes straight home once he‘s back in his canon universe

[alittlesongbirdchirps]

MY WORLD AU

Bruce Wayne isn't human he never was.

His body was a false form created to do his task, his mission, to gather information on Earth.

And that information would help his kind decide whether or not to destroy the entire planet and everything on it.

And his kind one of them could do it with a mere hand completely crush it in their grasp.

But no they won't judge based on an outside point of view.

So that's why Bruce is sent there, given a human form, he's not allowed to do anything unless it is human-like not even allowed to use his powers, not allowed to kill any humans.

Because It will muddy the water, and mess up the result.

Only after he's done observing, gathering all the data possible for judgment may he return to his true form.

His body's parents, no the character he plays to observe, Bruce Wayne's parents are murdered.

He uses all the information he gathered so far in his short time on earth from the television show he witnessed and vows vengeance on all criminals.

He begins to think maybe that's not a normal human reaction, that's until he takes in Dick.

Not out of care but out of the fact, that this is an actual human that also witnessed his parents die, so it's more out of the purpose he wants to see if he performed his so-called grief correctly, and humanely.

And apparently, he did since Dick acted similar to how he did all those years ago.

But when Jason came into his life it was the same at that start only taking him in to gather more information in particular he wanted to see if he could change human behavior if he took him in.

So he gave him more attention than he ever did Dick but at some point with Jason, or maybe it was even with Dick but he began to care though he wouldn't admit it not until Jason died.

Rage, an emotion he never felt before, and true grief, he was gonna kill the Joker fuck this stupid study.

And he will do it while in this human form, so it's slow and painful but Superman stops him, Bruce nearly swings at him but manages to stop himself managing to get his bearing back and now it was solely about this mission again.

No longer holding back against criminals anymore, he won't kill them but if they died from the injuries it wasn't his fault it was theirs.

Eventually, Tim Drake comes into his life almost like a whirlwind, demanding to be robin he refuses mainly because he doesn't need any more data on human younglings, but Tim threatens to compromise his mission as Batman, he doesn't know what Bruce truly is not yet.

Tim figures something out at some point, that Bruce isn't human it wasn't like Bruce was trying to hide it anymore.

Tim begins to ask him many questions with the underlying unspoken words, I know you're not human but I won't bring it up.

Oddly Bruce finds himself intrigued by this human this youngling is smart, especially by human standards, and he begins to study him he's different than the others, smarter, similar to the whole Bruce character He temporarily is until he finishes his mission.

Much later on;

When Bruce is 'killed.' by Darkside, he's simply beamed back to relay his data, and he lies he knows what his kind will do, destroy his earth, it is his earth, destroy his family that he built.

His kind doesn't lie, it's beneath them, so they believe him, for now, he makes a few requests for extra measures, like getting the earth to be put in his true name before returning.

Of course, Tim believed he was alive he was the only one who truly knew Bruce wasn't human but he didn't know what.

But something happens whether the Joker again or an invasion because his kind realizes his bitch ass lied.

So he protects them, he protects his earth, his true form his true size briefly leaking out, and he easily defeats them.

The league of course asks him what happened and what was that, and he simply lies that he was briefly possessed by some cosmic entity. Obviously, the bats call bullshit but don't call him out until they return to the cave demanding answers. LOL

(Little drabble idea.)

NOT EDITED LATE NIGHT, CONSIDERED THIS TIRED BULLSHIT SCRIBBLES OF WRITING.

[limetameta]

Was anyone going to tell me about alternate dimension lobotimized Joker, or was I just supposed to find that well of opportunity out by watching the episode A better world in Justice League?? Like my dudes, this is amazing batjokes real estate here. *slams Joker like the hood of the batmobile* The potential alone. The angst. Superman lobotomizing Joker to put a stop to him finally as he has done to numerous others. Batman thought that he was ready for this. That it had to be done. The voice in his head says that this should be everything he's ever dreamt of. The Joker stopped. He's not dead, either.

Surely. Surely this is what he's always hoped for.

But it isn't.

And it's far too late to return to how things were. All of the rogues gallery are lobotomized. They're calmer, and they don't cause any trouble. One can even say that Arkham is a home to them now. It's certainly nicer without all of the screaming and the mad cackling.

At first, he comes to visit him. The few doctors there treat this as his curiosity, but Batman is sceptical that the treatment worked. Surely, the Joker’s mind is unlike any other. A part of him he doesn't dare call hope wants the Joker to be faking his mellowed behaviour, his eerie calmness. He doesn't laugh, but he does smile when he sees Batman. And there's such a tragic layer behind the looks he gives him. No. It's tragic because the Joker has been stripped of the ability to hide. What Batman sees when the Joker looks at him now is the most raw display of love the clown has ever donned. When you strip away the guns and the knives and the acid and the gas, the purple suits and the maddening laughter - this is what's left: his deepest, sincerest form of love out for Batman to see. To judge. And he can't even hide behind a joke.

Even lobotimized, even after Superman destroyed the Joker - he couldn't destroy this.

Batman sees the Joker move gently, shyly to cup his hand in his. Over the glove. Batman’s breath hitches. He braces for impact, for when the Joker will take a knife out from his sleeve or a razor edged Joker card to slice at him with.

But it doesn't come. How could it? Those two lobotomy marks on his forehead, from where Superman's laser vision did its work, they glare.

"Batman," his smile doesn't reach his eyes, it doesn't even stretch wide enough for teeth to show. But what teeth are left to show? Have they not defanged the Joker?

Quiet and obedient are two things that don't suit the Joker. And Batman feels bile rising in his mouth. He feels anger at himself for letting this happen. But if Superman could kill Lex Luthor, surely this compromise is something Batman can accept.

"Joker, how do you feel?"

He blinks. Trying to think. "Half a brain lighter," he says and shrugs.

Batman dares to hope. But the laughter doesn't come. The Joker doesn't even wink. He yawns, exhausted, or too medicated. They're pumping him with more drugs than is necessary still. Precautions.

Batman grasps hold of the Joker by his wrist. Tighter than he intends. No flash of panic or excitement or even anger flashes across the Joker’s face. Nothing that can let Batman know there's anyone under that hollow mask, that face.

He's killed the man under the acid bleached skin and left something neither here nor there. Is this what might happen to him if the man under the cowl is to die?

"What do you like to do?" Batman asks him, controlling the way his voice sounds. Everyone is listening. Everyone is watching.

"I don't know. No jokes, though. They say I can't tell jokes anymore. But, um, well," he looks sheepish in this light, and normally Batman would say it's a ploy. But now he knows it isn't. So the honesty in the Joker’s expressions is worse than anything he's ever seen. "I don't really remember if I ever liked to do that. Did I ever make you laugh?" It's with childlike wonder that he looks at him now, inching closer than is allowed, but Batman can't find it in himself to push him away or to raise his voice at him. To remove him from himself and send him off to therapy or to his cell. His room. Wherever.

He won't be able to look at Superman again without seeing this.

"Yes." The admission comes at a cost.

The Joker’s eyes crinkle with happiness. "That's good." He grasps hold of his gloves hand and squeezes it. Not to hurt him. Just to feel him. Batman will never be able to return to Arkham. He will never be able to see this man again.

But it's too late anyway. The man he wants to see was ripped through those two marks on his forehead.

"Thank you." The Joker says. He's clasping both hands over his and smiling up at him. This is not the Joker you know, this will never be the Joker you knew. Nor will it ever be the one you wanted to know, the one who willingly went through rehabilitation.

But. But. The voice in your head goes on, louder, quicker: this needed to be done. How many people would need to die at his hand for you to realise this? Be happy Superman took this difficult task from your hands. You didn't kill. You still haven't killed.

The Joker mumbles something.

"What?" Batman barks, his voice flooded with wretched pain he hopes comes across as anger.

It doesn't. Even lobotomized, the Joker can tell: "Hush now," he comforts, patting his hands and humming, "you don't have to explain anything to me. You don't owe me anything, o Justice Lord."

The bile in Batman’s mouth is worse than any acid the Joker might have thrown at him. There is not a hint of irony in the Joker’s voice.

He rips his hands away from the Joker and stands. He isn't shaking only because he is a master of control, and he knows everyone is watching. Everyone is always watching.

It's heartbreak, pure and simple. "You aren't coming back, are you?"

"What's there to come back to?" Batman asks, hollow in his heart, looking at a hollow man. A shell of someone he doesn't want to think about. Because if he does think about him, he'll wonder if this really needed to be done. And he can't have such thoughts. Not when everyone is watching.

The Joker nods his head. He doesn't have the capacity for anything else. "That's all right."

Where is the fanfare? The fireworks? The theatrics?

Batman cannot recognise the man in front of him. So he turns around, cape billowing behind him. He cannot look back. But unlike what was promised to Orpheus, even though Batman doesn't turn around, the Joker never returns by his side.

Diana stands next to him. She puts a hand to his shoulder to ask him something, but he slams it away and growls: "I don't need anything from you."

Her eyes harden to steel and he knows that he said too much.

So he amends it: "I need some time. To recuperate. This is... a lot to take in."

Her voice is gentle when she speaks to him: "Of course. I am here for you."

"Yes." Batman says. Anything longer and he might let something else slip in his voice that he can't allow.

It is easy to disappear in the Batcave. It is easy because the other Justice Lords are all very much happy to be in the spotlight.

Batman obsesses over the man in Arkham. He never comes back. But he knows, because it is his business to know, that he is a model patient. Even entrusted to help out run Arkham. He loves being around people. But too much excitement tires him out. To pass the time he paints or he spends time with Ivy in the garden. Harleen Quinzel sometimes visits them.

Any footage he can find of the cctv in Arkham depecting the Joker has him subdued. He has scoured so much footage without seeing him shake with laughter. At most he smiles and shrugs his shoulders.

Alfred doesn't say anything. But he makes him tea and he brings it to him more frequently, trying to help him in any way he can. It feels similar, Batman takes the tea and drinks it, to how the first cup of tea tasted like after he had come home that night.

The Justice Lords attempt to get him to leave the Batcave and help them, but Batman tells them he is busy dealing with something important.

He watches the Joker attempt to put puzzles together with Edward Nygma. It's a 12+ puzzle. They're struggling.

Harleen Quinzel brings them 5+ puzzles next time. She sits with the Joker and she tells him about her day, about her new job at a different clinic. About how she wised up. Then, mushing her head in hand: "It was either I wised up, or I became like you and Ivy. Not much of a choice."

The Joker has given up on the puzzle. He tells Harley about this butterfly he saw in the garden. He has nothing else that stood out to him. It was purple. He thinks he likes purple.

Harley scoffs. "Now that's funny."

The Joker shrugs. "Sorry."

"What for?"

He shrugs again. And he manages to look into the camera. And how many times has he looked into Arkham cameras and left messages just for Batman to decipher? Is this something he remembers. Is this something he wants to tell Batman?

"Sorry." He looks at Batman. But Batman thinks that this is the Joker telling him he has nothing to be sorry for.

Batman cuts all contact with Arkham. He does not look at cctv. He does not read any news or any reports.

Alfred still brings tea and he still doesn't say anything. What can he say?

Nothing. So Batman doesn't waste words. He instead pursues research that leads him to finding alternative realities.

Watching himself is not something Batman is interested in. It means nothing to him to see Bruce Wayne or Batman or some amalgam of different circumstances.

And he is just about to step away from the computer and put an end to this research - when he hears it.

It's loud and maniacal and freeing and mad.

It's angry and despicable and outrageous.

It's dangerous and intelligent.

It's him.

Batman stares at the Joker, clad in purple and green, holding a laughing gas bomb and aiming it at the Batman of his world, with a grin so wide it must hurt. "Batsy, just in time for the punchline!" He throws the bomb and laughs.

[junespriince]

Aita?

Boss won't fire me, but is actively trying to kill me more than the speed force is.

Me, the Flash (29yo m) have been not only forced by my boss, Buttman(old as dirt, m) to keep the job my uncle had but to also expect me to not slack in my other jobs outside of this one.

I've lost so much in this unfortunate, and down right inhumane treatment because I'm a speedster and "balance needs to be kept, the justice league needs a speedster, Flash. It's basics universe lore that was given to you as a child." Like, I know jackass, you made me memorize it if I wanted to go on young justice league missions, a school inside of child labor this man was a monster then as he is now.

He won't take the time to learn I'm not like my uncle before me, he treats me like I'm a child because me and Cy, (28, m) are the youngest in the league right now!

I have loss my time dealing with this bullshit, my job before I moved in with my hubby I had to moved to my boss terf because it's cheaper (I wonder why.), my patience for putting up this clearly unhealthy and unjust treatment towards me (dating your boss son is technically a bad business practices, BUT I WASN'T WORKING FOR HIM TO BEGIN WITH, I was dating my old boss, duh, an even horrible practice but I like my men in power what can I say.), and my temper for dealing with a horrible and stubborn man, broadman I know you're reading this, this is why you have a hard time connecting with your kids, if i was your kid I'd runaway too with my handsome best friend.

Anyways, today he had a mission that was stupid. His plans got me almost killed and when I brought it up to him, he had the nerve to say to me "well if you stopped talking on your phone during the debrief, you would have survived it better." First of all, I listen and follow his plan to the T, all my i's were dotted and my t's were crossed, his plan just sucked and I know knew it did because he told auntie Wonder Woman about it and agreed it sucked, and also I WAS TEXTING YOUR SON MY HUBBY THAT I WAS GONNA BE LATE FOR OUR ANNIVERSARY YOU TRIED TO KILL ME ON! So I let him have it. I told him this: "I don't understand this beef we have, it's been years and you were there for our wedding happy to see him happy, so why do you hate me? It's not for any reason I hate you for. You fired your son took HIS Mantle away, fight him over a little thing what wasn't a big deal at the time to him getting angry you replaced him with another kid entirely because you suck at communicating he assumes he failed you somewhere down the line after years of undermining him, you and fans from that comic issue got side kid killed, that started ANOTHER riff because you didn't tell him and when he found out he tried to kill the joker which you stopped and saved the man who murdered your, at the time, youngest child while all you did was mope around and felt sorry for yourself, add another year of shit before now finally fixing your relationship with him and all you got on me is being there for your son and not being the most nicest to you. Grow up."

A few of our teammates told me I was an asshole for saying that to him, Wonder Woman and Green Arrow gave me a pat on the back and some lunch, and when I told this to my husband after finally getting back barely to make up for a crappy anniversary that I probably shouldn't have gotten onto him like that, but I don't see it.

So, reddit, with an unbiased option (I have seen the merch and ao3 tags, I know how much you freaks love this man. Or Superman, which sir, he dated your wife to get back at you years ago the fuck you took up for him for? Get a back bone.) am I the asshole?

Edit: I just think bastardman is homophobic.

Batman's edit: I'm not homophobic, my son could have done better than you is all.

Edit, edit: this is why Selina leaves you at the alter.

Batman's edit edit: this is why your parents beat you.

Edit edit edit: I'd tell you to suck my dick, but I don't want to fuel the freaks of ao3 to write us more, would rather have Kyle kiss me before this.

Batman 4x edit: come to the e meeting room. Now.

Edit 4x: fuck off old man, you can't tell me what to do.

Oracle: children, in my office, now.

Batman: yes ma'am...

Wally: yes ma'am...

[vodrae]

We all know that Batman only rule is : Do not kill*.

(*Follow the Geneva Convention, we're trying to be good. )

And we are all aware than Bruce biggest triggers to go berserk on his enemies are his children.

We all know how he reacts after a Death In The Family, he wans to kill the Joker, but he was protected by Iran, Superman stopped him to prevent WWIII.

So Bruce was ready to betray himself, his core foundation for his child. This is why, to me, he helped Joker when Nightwing killed him, it was his murder, his betrayal against himself, the family, he could have live with it, but he doesn't want his only remaining adopted child at the time to bear the biggest treason to themself, in his mind, till the last day of his life.

Ceci étant dit, thus being said.

Bruce has another child, Alfred has another grandchild, tortured for even longer by a man without moral balance, a man who did to her everything he could for her no to have a chance to integrate society one day.

What if David Cain find a way to lay an hand on Cassandra again ?

First, there is going to be at least 10 of her family members to turned the world upside down to find her. But, if they find her in a position as bad as Jason in Ethopia, even Darkseid couldn't protect David Cain.

And, you know what ? Cass is even more against killing than Bruce. She can use ultra-violence, slit throat, break neck, till her target is still breathing, it's good. So in a situation like this, she would be the moral compass.

It comes to my mind because not so long ago i've red a redhood!Barbara Gordon fanfic promt written as if it was made by DC Comics and, inside Batman didn't go rampage like for Jason before Tim became Robin.

And it bothered me. At the time of a Death in The Family, she would have been Batgirl for something like 10 years.

If, let say James Gordon Jr, was about to, or successfully killed Barbara, the man would understand the definition of "Mortality" and "Fear". Barbara is his step-daughter or daughter in law either because Jim is his work husband, or because she's Dick's fiancée.

If Ras Al-Ghul get his hands on Tim.

If Catwoman didn't killed Black Mask first.

If Damian wouldn't have survived Lazarus Island.

...

Go on and go on.

[dalekofchaos]

Injustice 2 au:Batman's Regime continued

In May, I made an au where Batman loses Gotham, nearly all of the Batfamily and Selina and it lead to Batman going down a dark path and founding the Totalitarian Regime.

Now I will continue in the events of Injustice 2.

It's basically the same story. Only it's about Clark and the Justice League trying to restore the world after Batman's defeat.

After Lex Luthor was locked up for funding and supporting the regime, he was locked up. Lena Luthor took over Lexcorp and it became L-Corp and she promised to right her family wrongs and help Superman repair the damage done by the Regime.

Supergirl lands on earth after the Brainiac destroying Krypton flashback and instead of being found by Black Adam, she's found by Clark.

The flashback instead of Batman trying to stop Clark and Diana from executing Arkham inmates. Bruce, Cassandra and Damian go to the underground of Arkham to find the escapees that managed to survive the bomb with Clark on their trail. Clark thinks Bruce is out to kill them. He's wrong. He's after something.

Instead of showing Damian's betrayal(which why the fuck would you when it's shown in the comics) we see Cassandra's first sign of reluctance and Clark believing she can be saved.

The New Titans. are the new heroes instead of just Firestorm and Blue Beetle.

Batman(Cassandra)

Supergirl

Donna Troy

Blue Beetle

Firestorm

Starfire

A lot of the events of Injustice 2 plays out similarly. Oliver and Dinah hunting Grod, Harley against Crane, Ivy and Swamp Thing and Brainiac's invasion.

The Regime loyalists lead by Lady Shiva, and Black Adam are planning a break out.

Bruce has been carefully planning behind bars in new Arkham. Able to send careful instructions to his followers who are still on the loose and those imprisoned with him. He has been carefully coordinating with Damian on what to do when they break free. "Does it have to do what we did when we found those Arkham escapees?" "Yes my son, the time has come to activate the Nightmare protocol."

As they come to New Arkham to stop the breakout. Superman realizes we can't do this alone and does something he truly hopes he doesn't come to regret. Batman is freed and the two former friends call a temporary truce.

Lot of the story beats remain the same, however instead of Wonder Woman stabbing Harley, it's Talia.

We'd get a chapter dedicated to Cassandra and Damian. Both of them hating each other, but still neither can kill the other. Damian resents her for becoming the Bat and Cassandra pities him for following father's corruption. They accomplish their mission, but Cassandra senses he did something else..

Cut to the ending.

Batman and Superman have defeated Brainiac and Superman begins the process of restoring all of the worlds imprisoned by Brainiac. However, Batman is noticeably missing for a brief period and returns.

Batman declares his plan to kill Brainiac, it's the only to save everyone.

This causes the clash. and we get the two paths. Absolute Justice or Absolute Vengeance.

Que to the fights we got in the game.

The Justice League chases Batman and Robin to the Batcave.

When they see Bruce...he's changed.

"Bruce, what have you done?"

Bruce comes out as the Nightmare Bat. Infused with Kirk Langstrom's Man-Bat formula, Crane's fear toxin, the blood of Waylon Jones, Bane's venom, and the lazarus pit's liquid injected into Bruce's veins. The Nightmare protocol has been activated.

He also has

Freeze's Ice gun

Mad Hatter's mind control tech

Joker venom

and of course Kryptonite

Bruce has found the formulas and arsenal of his old enemies, he has altered and perfected them and with Brainiac's technology he took from his ship, he has ensured that Bruce will keep his humanity.

I was inspired by the Batfeed's Batman analogue horror video.

If you chose Absolute Justice, it ends with Bruce's defeat. But the victory is not easily gained. It takes the combined might of Clark, Kara, Cassandra and a unforeseen redemption from Damian to finally stop the Nightmare Bat. and the only way to stop Bruce is to remove Brainiac's technology. Bruce screams like a demon out of hell. "CLARK, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? NO!' "If you want to become a monster so badly, then a monster is what you'll be"

Bruce has become a shell of his former self, nothing but a nightmare. He's locked away in the phantom zone.

The Justice League and the New Titans vow to stop him should he ever return.

Ends with Lex Luthor returning to attack his sister. We see Supergirl saving Lena and Clark stopping Lex and with a tease of Supercorp(shut up let me have this)

Absolute Vengeance.

Ends like Absolute Power. Bruce defeats Clark and his former allies rejoin him out of fear and those who do not stand with him? He gives them one chance. Join him willingly or he'll make them join him, just like Clark and then we see Mad Hatter's & Brainiac's tech twisting Superman into his thrall.

[cyb-by-lang]

I kinda already commented and it felt weird to do it again? So I thought I’d ask here instead:

I just saw a post on tumblr that Batman did try to kill Joker and Superman stopped him??? And it was because Joker was somehow linked with Iran, and couldn’t be killed cuz it would start a war. And other Batkids also tried to kill Joker???

I’ve honestly always thought Batman didn’t kill Joker cuz he’s too popular a villain so it was just sort of waved off because of ‘Batman rules’ and publication reasons.

Is Batman almost killing Joker included in your fic? I have very little knowledge of the comics and hearing about newer versions overwriting previous stories makes me even more confused.

Congrats to you for having unlocked a secret level of rambling through deciding to send an ask rather than a comment. This would totally have ended up on AO3 below your comment. :p

And it is going below the cut because it's long as hell.

The scenario you've heard about was from the original run of A Death in the Family, which is the story arc where Jason was killed back in the 80s. In the aftermath of Bruce finding Jason dead (and Jason's birth mother dying shortly thereafter), he hunts for the Joker after realizing that the warehouse explosion didn't, in fact, kill the clown. Somehow (racism!) the Joker ends up being appointed as the Iranian ambassador to the UN. This was later retconned to the fictional country of Qurac, because even DC realized that was a step too far. In the scene after that fun little reveal, Superman is on hand to try and keep shenanigans to a minimum, the Joker predictably tries to gas the entire UN assembly chamber anyway, and then flees via helicopter. Batman, who has been trailing along this entire time in a rage, pursues.

He's planning to kill the clown. Superman, for reasons related to "we don't whack ambassadors and start wars," has been holding him back for the arc thus far. Helicopter pursuit turns into a helicopter fight, during which the Joker's henchman fires a spray of bullets that kills the pilot while everyone is on board and having a bad time. Batman exits the aircraft alive, intact, and furious, and doesn't give a single shit if the Joker died when the chopper hit the sea.

And then a month later the fucking clown comes back again like nothing happened. Only the entire setting has undergone a serious tone shift since Jason's death, which means you're gonna see a lot heavier, dramatic stories that have more significant body counts. Batman cannot get over the death of his son, because no, and eventually Tim Drake pops up in the middle of that death spiral with a hypothesis: "Batman needs a Robin."

He's not wrong.

He also doesn't go about it super gracefully, including an attempt to convince Dick to come back to the Robin mantle that goes nowhere, but eventually he convinces the Dark Knight to take on a third Robin. Unlike Dick and Jason, Tim is locked the fuck down for training and not allowed out in the field willy-nilly. And when he does go out, he is ferociously competent.

Incidentally, this is because the writers/editors realized that after the child murder storyline they'd just done, Batman had to have one hell of a reason to ever take on another kid sidekick. And they needed to try and drag the Robin role's popularity back up, since killing a kid sidekick was also a symptom of DC's tanking sales at the time; the whole thing was ultimately a publicity stunt. It was a bad idea and now we just live with it.

So Tim is, broadly, never portrayed as incompetent in any aspect aside from maybe high school socializing. I don't think he gets kidnapped even a tenth of the number of times Dick did during his decades-long career as Robin. Certainly never falls for a honey trap plot or anything like that.

But yeah, the meta reason why the Joker never dies is because he's an iconic villain who drives plots. But unless you step out of the main continuity, he's also never just been a "no-frills funny" villain since.

ANYWAY.

As far as the rest of the Batfam taking a swing at the Joker, there's one incident that I can recall off the top of my head.

Dick Grayson, currently Nightwing, wasn't especially close to Jason while he was alive. During Jason's original run, they had a cordial (if brief) relationship, but they basically didn't get any storylines together, so it's hard to really tell how strongly they bonded. After Jason died, Dick began experiencing...I wanna call them chronic night terrors. The idea is that a boy in a Robin costume is falling, and falling, and Dick can never save the kid.

I'm sure it has nothing whatsoever to do with his dead brother, no sir.

So, some time later, the Joker gets told he has terminal cancer by a psychiatrist who assumes that if the clown was convinced he was going to die, he might try reforming or something. A terminal turnaround. Lots of people do that, right?

He assumed wrong.

The Joker goes on an utter tear, doing all sorts of escalating villainy that starts with gassing everyone he can get his hands on, including other Arkham inmates. Somewhere amid this rampage, Robin III goes missing and the Joker cheerfully tells Nightwing that yeah, he killed the kid. And he has the gall to bring up Jason in the middle of all the gloating. By name. (The Joker knows Jason's name due to some nonsense involving Crane and Fear Toxin hallucinations and Batman in a prior story arc.)

And Dick

fucking

SNAPS.

Pummels the Joker right there on the floor. Barehanded. No sticks, no pausing, just beats him to death.

Two seconds later, a very alive (if hurt) Tim manages to get there and go "oh god what happened." Because Dick is not doing well! He has a crisis about killing a dude, no matter how terrible. He never thought he'd go that far.

Batman swoops in and resuscitates the clown. In the time between Jason's death and The Joker's Last Laugh, he has apparently decided that it's more important to keep Dick from suffering a breakdown than it is to kill the clown. DC editorial was gonna keep him alive either way, but whatever.

And now for the third part of my ramble.

As for Under the Red Hood, Jason's death is seriously streamlined for the film. In this version of events, none of the UN chicanery happens. Ra's al Ghul hires the clown for a distraction job while trying to crash the world economy (again) and whoops, the clown killed Batman's son. Crowbar, bomb, whatever. Before Jason's body can be buried, the League of Assassins steals it, hucks Jason into the Lazarus Pit, and now he's alive again!

Except, given how he died and how long he spent dead and how that interacts with the magic, he wakes up as a berserk ball of rage and pain, kills two of Ra's al Ghul's guards with his bare hands, escapes, falls into a river, and disappears.

...So much for making that whole thing up to Batman. The League of Assassins just quietly lets Bruce bury a latex dummy and doesn't ever bring it up.

Cut to Gotham, years later, when Red Hood is tearing up the place and Batman goes "Ra's al Ghul, what the fuck" and the whole story comes spilling out.

In A Ninja's Guide to Gotham, Jason's dropped hints in his narration that he was actually with the League of Assassins for a while, even before going 'round the world training with assassins and stuff. The Lazarus Pit just got him back to full functionality. So, you can assume it leans more on the comics' "spontaneous resurrection" scenario.

If Bruce ever tried to kill the Joker while Jason was dead, Jason doesn't know about it. And because we haven't been in Bruce's head, there's no indication either way.

(Bruce makes mention of how easy it would be kill the Joker in the film, but that he could never come back from doing so. It is not specified if he made the attempt or just thought about it a lot.)

I've been holding back on Jason's and Bruce's accounts of events because they're both owed a moment of dramatic catharsis (and shouting). You can generally rest assured that it'll be more likely to be a mix of events than a pure account of any one take on what happened in the warehouse that day.

Thanks for setting off an exposition bomb~

[misrepresentedmorallygrey]

PROPAGANDA

Jason Todd

Jason is as someone else put it succinctly "a mass-murdering terrorist and tax-evader". He does evil, the story constantly condemns him as evil and sinful and thuggish and stupid and uneducated and overemotional. He does have a lower and more selective kill count than Luke Skywalker, John Wick, Disney Mulan, etc. So you got part of the fandom writing an annoying flood of fan fiction about him being a warm soft nice guy skipping through the daisies with his fam (hey have fun, guys). Then you got another side picking out the worst ex-canon comics for him (while they ignore the worst ex-canon comics for their own fave characters i.e. "my fave only did evil because of a mind-control potion, but Jason always chooses to be evil even though the story and the writer himself said he was crazy and broken and suffering from magic insanity")... and accuse him of being a cop (he is a cop-hating cop-killing terrorist murderer criminal thuggy thug thug constantly being hunted by law enforcement in a world bursting to the brim with actual copaganda while the heroes regularly cooperate with police—so many anti-fans are misusing the term copaganda because they hate this fictional character to the point they want to train people to be blind to actual copaganda). Jason is absolutely a villain—and he returned to his hometown when it was a battlefield with hundreds killed in the latest conflict, ruled over by a child-killing torture-enthusiast. War is always wrong and evil, and Jason was raised to be a soldier in that war—and when the promises of justice and safety never came true, he decided to seize power through murder. Jason is evil. He is inarguably a lesser evil than what usually plagues the town. Innocent people are alive because he got his hands dirty. He is such an asshole. People like him should not exist. He shot a 10-year-old in the chest, and nobody not even the 10-year-old cared the next day because it really wasn't a big deal. He was kidnapped by a billionaire with a taste for young boys, and it's literally not a big deal. His crimesagainst fashion are unforgivable tho.

Batman's adopted son and second Robin that got killed by the Joker and came bag to enact a revenge plan by becoming a Gotham drug lord. He had a duffel bag of 8 decapitated heads at some point and planted a bomb on the Batmobile and then got his throat slit by Batman to save the Joker. He stole his older adoptive brother's (first Robin) identity and blew up a high school but he forbade Gotham's drug rings from selling to children and actually became an anti-hero in Gotham and killed the people Batman wouldn't (rapists, drug lords, etc.). He attacked his little adoptive brother (third Robin) and beat him to a bloody pulp. He also slept with Batman's baby mama. He raised a fucked up Superman clone with kindness. He has lead teams of Outlaws on multiple occasions that love him. He's on good terms with many (not all) of Gotham's vigilantes.

Listen. I love the guy, I love him dearly, but I feel like people these days are trying to make him like completely justified in everything he did?? And like you can see where he’s coming from, sure, but my man did absolutely beat Tim Drake, a teen, half to death for the crime of being Robin. He’s morally gray! He had decapitated heads in duffle bags! Let my guy be morally gray please stop woobifying him

Jason Todd is regularly stripped of his autonomy in fandom to make him more palatable and “redeemable”. They attribute his legitimate trauma, annger, and pain driven actions to “pit madness” a side effect of the way he was resurrected. Not only that but so many people don’t even know what he actually does when he comes back, it’s like a shitty game of telephone where each person tells the next a slightly altered version of his return and at the end everyone thinks that Jason hates the kid who took up the Robin mantle after him and wants to kill him and that he is mad at Bruce for no reason and all Bruce needs to do is tell Jason that he is loved (despite Jason having a lot of evidence to the contrary) and everything will be all better. His values and beliefs and convictions are treated as invalid and his trauma is something he needs to just get over because it’s inconvenient and harmful to everyone else and doesn’t he know that everyone else was also traumatized by his death?

vigilante who kills people • traumatized as hell • has trouble differentiating between good deeds and selfishness • shot his little brother on the spine • tried to kill his other two brothers • operates under the belief that controlling evil is the only way to help innocents • has an immesurable love for the people of Gotham and really wants them to be happy and safe!! • please for the love of god fandom stop talking about him as if the bad things hes done are forgiveable AND as if the good things he's done don't matter

Gonna be honest even canon misinterprets him. There's no winning. All you need to know about DC universe is that multiple different writers have had a go at writing him and every time he is wildly different which is maybe why people interpret him very differently?? Canon interprets him in a he did everything wrong way a lot of times and fanon interprets him in a he did nothing wrong way because he is blorbo to many, when he is very much someone who did a lot of shit wrong but also had a lot going on, while thats still not an excuse for like, a lot of maiming and murder, and (usually) later in the timeline he is less trigger happy and has evened out from villain to morally grey, his whole "redemption" to being morally grey is usually up to fan interpretation whether or not they're chill with letting him keep murdering bad people or they say no murder in general, and whether or not bats is chill with the whole he keeps murdering people thing since he has a staunch no murder stance. Also!! a lot of people in fanon write in the whole pit insanity thing as a way to excuse a lot of the things he did while in his full on villain era, and like,,, i don't think that was canon??? like i straight up think the whole pit madness thing was made up but a lot of DC canon is wibbly wobbly already so its hard to say. hope this wasn't too word salady but i hope you understand that whenever you are consuming any piece of media, canon or fanon, with this man in it you have literally no idea what you are stumbling into you, you are playing fucking spin the wheel, which flavour of Jason Todd are we reading about today. I will say though, canon does objectively treat him like dogshit and only really brings him back every now and then as a punching bag for Batsy whenever they want to have edgy emo abusive dad bruce wayne because comic writers think found family is for chumps and so is being a good parent and actively resist it with every ounce of their soul :/ so I understand why fanon strays so far away, it's just that fanon also can't seem to agree on the degree of morally grey he is?? idk someone save Jason it's the worst custody battle of the century between canon and fanon.

Miguel O'Hara

he is dj internalized homophobia. he is so so sick in the head