#bring the penguin coming back from the dead to pull an heist back

[robjn93]

90s detective comics stories be like:

story one, batman is currently haunted by the mortal soul of the dead robin, jason todd, as he begs forgiveness on his knees for the sin of being born as a failure of a father

story two, the citizens of gotham are currently being faced with a sociopolitical dilemma as a new vigilante challenges them to question their faith in the corrupt institutions

story three, mister whiskers is gone! my sweet cat :( my meow meow

[bat-losers-inc]

Song of Cassandra: Chapter 2

Warnings: Family Drama, Family Issues, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Emotional Baggage, and Child Neglect

Summary: What is Batman without a Robin? Everyone in the family makes jokes about the ‘dead robins club’, but Dick and Jason really do have measures set in place for the day Bruce loses sight of what’s really important. They won’t let Bruce sacrifice another Robin for the cause, even if that means separating Robin from Batman for good.

Pairings: Barbara Gordon/Dick Grayson, Stephanie Brown/Tim Drake, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne, Stephanie Brown & Bruce Wayne, and Dick Grayson & Jason Todd

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Half a year later saw them performing a feat of brotherly bonding he’d never imagined possible: robbing Penguin together.

They’d left the Tricorner district behind in a streak of burnt rubber and a barrage of gunfire and ditched the getaway van in Chinatown at the first available 24-hour parking facility on the other side of the bridge. It was slower going on foot, but Chinatown’s busy night scene, combined with the heavy triad presence in this district, would make Penguin’s men hesitate before going in guns blazing. That was all the time they needed to slip away unseen.

Now, as they emerged from the darkness of the parking deck, Dick yanked the balaclava off his head. He grunted something unintelligible as he shouldered his way through the cluster of pedestrians that crowded the sidewalk.

“What?” asked Jason, pulling his own half-mask down from around his neck and jogging to catch up.

“I said, you’re a real bastard. You promised me this was would be easy!”

Jason glanced at him. He wanted to be sympathetic but he just couldn’t when Dick was glaring at him with that staticky mop of hair. He couldn’t keep the laughter out of his voice when he replied, “You’re the one who said we shouldn’t leave a paper trail! This is about as easy as stealing from Penguin’s bagman gets.”

In truth, he thought they were complaining just for the sake of complaining. After six months they both knew that pulling off this heist was less a matter of choice and more a matter of necessity. Failure meant returning to the storage locker Dick had procured outside of Port Adams and staring down their measly little bat-trust-fund: six safehouses, fifteen rolls of Kevlar fabric, a small arsenal, twenty-seven contacts typed into a Word document, and $5,025 split five ways. But what use would kevlar suits be if their siblings couldn’t afford to keep a roof over their heads? No, without the cash it was worth fuck-all.

Dick looked like he wanted to argue the point further but at that moment a convoy of police vehicles shot past them, sirens wailing and horns blaring loud enough to deafen a person. No doubt by now Penguin’s men had informed their boss about the botched exchange and pinned the blame on their nearest rivals, the Ghost Dragons. If that was the case, then Chinatown was a powder keg ready to explode into a minor gang war at any moment.

A flash of light reflected off the windows of a nearby apartment building. Jason stepped in between two parked cars to get a better look and found himself staring up at the cloud-heavy night sky illuminated in the glow of the bat signal.

He gripped the heavy duffel bag full of stolen cash closer to his chest like he expected Gotham’s dark knight to swoop down at any moment and tear it from his shoulder.

“Hey,” Dick tugged at his arm. “time to go.”

Batman was on the way and like the best of Gotham’s criminals, Jason and Dick made themselves scarce.

It took nearly forty minutes and three subway lines to make their way back to the self-storage facility. By then a pale glow had crept up from the horizon and spread across the water. Around them, the street lights began to shut off one after another. In the distance, Jason could just make out a tugboat as it pushed a barge out towards the open ocean.

By the time Dick pulled the storage locker door down behind them, they were tired-eyed and footsore.

Jason threw the duffel bag onto a table and propped himself against it as he fished one-handed under his t-shirt to undo the straps of his protective vest. He sighed in relief as the weight lifted off his shoulders. “How the hell did you stand wearing these things when you were on the force? Even with the undershirt, the chaffing is god-awful.”

“You get used to it,” Dick replied, making quick work of removing his own gear.

Jason doubted it but he was too tired to argue his point further. Instead, he found the six-pack that he’d stashed under the table earlier that day and snapped off a can.

“Heads up,” he called, as he pitched a can underhand to Dick who caught it against his chest.

Dick held it up for inspection. “Warm beer. What I’ve always wanted.”

“Oh shut up and celebrate with me, you asshole.”

He extended his arm across the table. Dick knocked beer cans with him and completely failed at hiding the shy grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, though god bless him he tried. “Cheers.”

Jason watched him crack open the top and chuckled as he hurriedly slurped at the foam that erupted over the rim. He knew that this morally gray lifestyle didn’t come easy to Dick but he couldn’t deny that he was happy he had stuck around with him for this long. He didn’t dare to say it out loud, but they actually made good partners.

He took a long drink from his own beer can before putting it aside. “Ok, come on. The faster we count this cash the sooner we can go to bed.”

Jason upturned the duffel bags, sending stacks of cash sliding out onto the metal tabletop while Dick pulled the banknote counter from the corner and lugged the machine up next to the pile. Together they started slipping the currency bands loose and feeding the stacks of cash into the machine, watching eagerly as the sum continued to tick upwards.

“Soo…” Jason drummed his thumbs on the table as the numbers continued to flash on the small screen, “How are things going with you and Babs?”

“What?” Dick’s eyebrows drew together. “Why?”

Jason shrugged. “I don’t know, I’m a little curious about what she thinks you do when you’re out late all the time… also, I’m bored.”

“You’re weird, is what you are.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Seriously? We’ve only spent the past six months together moonlighting as vigilante survivalists and I can’t ask one time how your love life is going.”

“No, no. Sorry, you’re right.” Dick held up a hand. “I told her I’ve been helping you out with an undercover case for a couple of months now. Said I owed you a favor.”

Jason grinned at him. “Well, that’s not a lie. Quite a few actually, but who’s counting.”

Dick punched him in the shoulder. “Actually, I should call her. Reassure her you didn’t get me killed before she calls in a search party.”

Jason chuckled and went back to the task of feeding bills into the machine as Dick rummaged through the backpack and fished out his phone.

“Hey, uhh...”

Jason glanced up and took in Dick’s furrowed expression as he stared down at his phone. He put down the stack of cash he was holding. “What’s the matter?”

“Something happened while we were out. I — shit I don’t know how to explain it but I’ve got like 15 missed messages from Barbara and Alfred. Did you bring your phone with you?”

Jason grabbed his backpack where his own phone was stashed and opened it to find a similar mass of missed calls and incoherently excited messages cluttering the screen. Some of the numbers he recognized, Steph, Barbara, and Alfred were all saved in his phone, but a few were from unknown senders. If he had to venture some guesses he’d say Cass, Duke… maybe Harper? Fuck, he never realized this many bat brats had his number. “I don’t get it… something about Tim? What about hell?”

“I’m calling Babs.”

Jason was aware of how uncomfortably loud their breathing sounded in the small storage locker as they stood around the table waiting for Dick’s call to connect.

“Dick?” Barbara’s voice asked loudly through the speaker. “Thank God! Where have you been? I’ve been calling and calling you.”

“Sorry, undercover mission, remember? What’s the big emergency? I didn’t get anything from Bruce.”

“You need to get back to the manor. Bruce found Tim!”

That didn’t make any sense. “What? You mean Bruce found Tim’s remains?”

Jason smacked his arm. “His remains? Are you fucking serious? What remains could Bruce possibly find after a death like that?”

“I don’t know, bone fragments—”

Dick’s argument sounded flimsy the moment it left his mouth and they both knew it. Jason just really hated to be the one who had to say it.

“If the heat from that explosion didn’t finish him off entirely then the pounding impact of like a hundred thousand missiles definitely did in whatever remains might have been left.”

“Guys—” called Babs.

“Oh, so you’re a forensic scientist now? You don’t know that—“

“Yes, I do!” He slammed a hand down on the table, his anger flaring. He really couldn’t do this backslide back into denial with Dick again. “There’s a reason we buried an empty box. Tim is literally dust in the wind.”

“Jesus Christ!” Barbara’s voice erupted loudly through the speakerphone. “Kill it with the broody back and forth already and actually listen to me, would you? I’m not talking about bone fragments or anything like that. I’m saying Bruce found Tim. Tim! He’s alive.”

Jason met Dick’s eyes over the phone, confusion written as starkly across Dick’s face as it must have been on his own. “What? I— What?”

“I really don’t understand it all myself. But Tim said he’s been held captive by Mr. Oz in another dimension for this whole time. Can you believe it? All this time we thought he was dead and...”

Jason didn’t catch that last bit. He was too busy bent over the table as all the blood rushed to his head.

He was gonna hurl. “That doesn’t make any fucking sense.”

They’d all given up on the hope of Tim miraculously surviving a long time ago and this sudden news felt like he was experiencing emotional whiplash. This had to be some kind of sick joke or a trick... a doppelganger sent by the newest enemy on the rise against Batman.

Dick’s thoughts were apparently spiraling in the same direction as his own for he ran a hand roughly across his mouth and asked, “You saw him yourself? You’re sure it’s him, our Tim?”

But it wasn’t a big cosmic joke. As much as Jason couldn’t believe it, it wasn’t and that was made clear with every new piece of information Babs gave them.

“Yes, he was standing right in front of me only an hour ago — crying and hugging everyone.”

Dick turned to look at Jason, but he was already rounding the table and yanking Dick into a bruising hug.

“He’s alive,” Dick cried into the shoulder of his t-shirt. His voice overflowed with the most contagiously hysterical mixture of joy. Jason laughed through his own tears. “You bet your ass he is!”

He couldn’t explain what had come over him. He and Dick had never really been close — and they definitely weren’t huggers — but the last few months had been so full of this gnawing air of anxiety — their family continuing to fracture, the resources running dry — that the full realization was starting to hit them that this plan might have been formed too late to do any real good. They could feel the clock running out and they were both expecting the other shoe to drop any day now but then out of the blue… this.

Dick pushed away from him suddenly and wiped at his eyes.

“Uh…” he tried to clear his throat. “We, uh, we should get back to the cave and go see him for ourselves. Babs, he still there, right?”

“Yeah, Bruce is debriefing him.”

And just like that, Jason’s joy seized painfully in his chest. It hurt the way a seatbelt does in a car crash, knocking the air out of your lungs and bringing you up short. He watched Dick rush around him, grabbing up his belongings in a disorganized fashion.

“Dick, I can’t come with you.”

“What?” Dick asked, breathless. He turned back from the door. “Yes, you can. C’mon, get your stuff, the money can wait till tomorrow.”

Jason shook his head. Fuck, how the hell was he supposed to explain this to him without looking like the one asshole member of this family who didn’t want to visit his little brother recently brought back from the dead.

Dick paused, his hand dropping from the door handle. “What? Because of what happened between you and Bruce?”

I was a fool for ever believing in you. Even now Bruce’s words lingered at the back of his head. An invisible brand that still held its heat.

“Jason, I know what went down between you and Bruce was… heavy, to say the least, but you’re still family. You do know that, right? You’re still my family and if you want to see Tim, Bruce can do fuck-all to stop it. I’ll make sure of it.”

Jason could only huff a sad laugh at that because God did he want to believe that too, but he knew it wasn’t that simple. Tim would always be his family, but Bruce… he’d crossed a point of no return with Bruce on the night that the fortress was destroyed. The violence of his assault had done more than break a few bones— it had finally shattered that last shred of trust he’d stupidly harbored in him that when push came to shove Bruce would value the son over the soldier. I broke his rules for the last time and now he sees me as nothing more than an unredeemable criminal that escaped Batman’s justice. One of his little soldiers gone AWOL.

“Yeah, I know. It’s just… I can’t face him yet— I—” he trailed off. He’d been laying low since his return to Gotham, but even still Jason thought the only reason he’d survived this long was because Bruce was too consumed with Tim’s death to spend a spare thought on him. He wasn’t ready to walk into that cave tonight and find out what would happen now that Tim was back in the picture and Bruce’s anger focused back on him.

It felt like a horrible selfish thing to think about saving his own skin when his little brother had come back from the dead, but as his eyes lingered at the collection of items piled around the storage locker he was reminded that no one was going to do it for him. After all, that was how this plan had all started right? Someone had to be the one to craft the safety net for the next Robin to fall of Batman’s mighty pedestal.

“You should go. Tell Tim I’m glad he inherited my cockroach-like ability to not stay dead.”

“Jason…” Dick twisted the jacket he held in his hands.

“Go.” It came out sharper than he’d intended, despite his best efforts to push his emotions down. He was quick to try to smooth it over with a tight smile that he knew fooled neither of them. “I’ll stop by his apartment tomorrow once all the hype has died down. Besides, someone needs to finish up here.”

He nodded at the banknote counter.

The one thing he’d always valued about Dick, more than his caring nature, was that he knew when to stop pushing an issue.

“Alright,” Dick shifted his grip on his jacket again. His phone was chiming once more in the back pocket of his jeans. No doubt another family member asking where he was. “I’ll call you tomorrow to check in.”

“Sure.”

After the door to the storage locker fell shut, Jason let his gaze travel around the room again. So Tim was back, alive and well as far as any of them were concerned. A nagging part of Jason’s mind wondered worriedly if gaining him back would slowly undo all the plans they had made together. Would Dick continue to worry about the next crisis to befall their little family or would Tim’s return renew his neverending faith in the impossible until he eventually forgot what it was that drove him to his breaking point?

Jason picked up another stack of banknotes and slid it into the machine. As the numbers continued to rise once more he did his best to prepare himself for the idea that he would be alone in this mission once more. Another bitter pill to swallow but he couldn’t do it. It lodged itself raw and unpleasant at the back of his throat.

[lovefrozenswan]

The Lost Waterbender ch 2

The Fire Nation celebrated its victory over the Avatar cycle when they killed the very last Waterbender in the north pole. With no host to be reborn into, the Avatar cycle ended with Avatar Yangchen's execution.

Until 100 years later, when Elsa found that Ahtohallen was more than just memories.

2nd chapter done. I hope you guys like it :) Especially who I introduce.....

[[more]]

Anna stood at the cliffside overlooking the fjord and held on so tightly to Kristoff she knew she was bruising him.

Arendelle’s destruction was absolute. The rushing water had all but swept it away. The castle was in ruins. The relics of her family, surely lost. All of it was gone due to Anna's decision. Now she would have to lead them as Queen, if they didn’t cast her out. She had no idea how she would live up to Elsa's-

She couldn't even allow herself to think too much about Elsa or risk her knees collapsing beneath her. It had been three days and there were no signs of her sister's return. The Northuldra spiritual leader had told her they believed Elsa to be the 5th spirit of their legend and that she had brought balance back to them all.

At cost of her life.

It was all Anna could do to keep moving.

 

When Elsa dropped into the icy water below Ahtohallan, her first thought was she needed to find Anna. The voice she had been seeking was her own.. somehow. The fifth spirit. The Avatar. Elsa struggled to understand. She had lived before? The people from her dreams were her past lives? As soon as the voice spoke to her and unlocked this new certainty inside of her, she had lost consciousness.

Then she had visions of Anna in her dreams, while she was frozen in the glacier. Anna had woken the earth spirits and destroyed the dam. Destroyed Arendelle to calm the spirits and right an ancient wrong. She believed Elsa had died. Elsa’s heart broke, she needed to find her sister and help her. And Anna might be the only one who could make sense of what she had found. She kicked towards the light above her, determined to reach it despite the strong current.

Elsa broke the surface with a gasp.

It was all wrong.

When she caught her breath, she saw she was in a bright, frozen ocean. There were a few floating icebergs, but no sign of the glittering glacier of Ahtohallen. Elsa called out for the Nokk and it didn’t show itself either. She was alone. 

She pulled herself onto an icy platform and faced the sky. It was clear. The sea was calm, not at all like the dark sea she had crossed. Her heart lurched with questions. Had she drifted that far beneath the icy water? How long had she been inside of Ahtohallen? Is Arendelle really gone-

Her breath was coming in short gasps and she crossed her arms over her chest. Breath. 'I need to focus on something else.' She forced herself to slow down.

Ice sprang from her fingertips into the air and exploded into the bright fractal patterns that she loves, high above her. 'Alright, that still works at least.' she thought. She tried to empty her mind and focus on the ice for a while. 'Anna is safe for now. I am safe for now,' she thought.

It was odd that the Nokk didnt respond. She thought it would be waiting on her. Even odder was the calming of the dark sea and that she couldnt see Ahtohallen anymore.

She settled on not worrying about it for now. She only needed to get home. If the spirits had changed something about the world, it would be clear soon enough.

Watching the ice twist above her reminded her that of course she didn't need the Nokk or anyone else to get home anyway. If she could get back to land she could figure this out and she would be back in no time.

She stepped off the iceberg, the touch of her feet freezing the water beneath her.

“No matter, I can walk to land.” Saying it out loud made it real. She tried to shake the feeling of wrongness. She just needed to see Anna.

“Aang, this is the worst idea you have ever had,” said Sokka, “and youve had some pretty bad ones.”

"Just a few more days here. You saw the Fire Nation ships. They know something has changed too." Aang said, "Besides, arent you supposed to be descended from the water tribe? Where's your 'icy constitution' now?"

"Being related to the extinct water tribe doesnt make me immune to the cold! Especially since you keep hogging all the food and wouldnt let me bring any meat. How am I supposed keep going?" said Sokka, laying flat on his back in Appa's saddle.

"How about I set you down and if you can hunt us one of those tiger seals down there, I will personally cook and eat it with you. I promise." Aang smiled back at Sokka before focusing his gaze back to the ice. His friend was right though. They had been flying Appa over the frozen ocean for three days and seen nothing but penguins, ice, and blue water. It was starting to worry him.

"If we don't miraculously find your Avatar soon, the monks are not going to be happy about our sky bison heist. We can't stay out here forever. I told you all I knew about Ahtohallen from my grandmother and even she never thought it was actually real, just a fantasy for a dead tribe." Sokka continued, "We have to talk about giving this up and trying to beg the monks for forgiveness." Aang wasn't listening anymore, he was looking at a Fire Nation ship far in the distance that wasn't moving. "-we havnt been gone that long. We can just pretend Appa got stuck in a tree and we were saving him-"

"Sokka stop."

"No really, the monks can't prove we went all the way to the south pole with one of the last sky bison-"

"Sokka look at that Fire Nation ship. They never bother to patrol this deep into the ice anymore. What do you see?" Something in Aang's voice got Sokka's attention. He grabbed for the spyglass and aimed it where Aang pointed. Sokka was completely silent for nearly a minute and Aang held his breath the entire time.

"They are fighting someone," he said, voice shaking. "I think its... its a waterbender." He didn't need to tell Aang the significance of that.

Aang nearly shouted. He pulled Appa around and urged him towards the ship as quickly as possible before grabbing his glider. He hoped they weren't too late.