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dairy-farmer · 2 years ago

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school rule breaker!tim and principal/dean!bruce

one sentence, tim has special access to all the rules he breaks. why? he has access to the dean, so... it's a win win for tim. tim failing some subjects despite him being a mathematical genius and the only way to pass is to hook up with the dean.

👀👀👀👀👀 bruce as a principal has caught my attention!!!!!!

an au where bruce decided to take a more direct approach in his civilian work as well and decides to become the principal of a school in an area of gotham in the most need.

of course working with kids who are their most influential period of their lives can be good but it also shows him the worst sides of people in his day and night life and sometimes its hard to keep things in perspective when he has to nearly choke out three teenage boys for locking a freshman girl in the bathroom and trying to "go all the way" with her.

bruce is jaded. its hard having to get up every day knowing that so few people make the right choices in life when so many more make the wrong ones. bruce tries to do the right thing. instituting school policies across the district. free school lunches and breakfast, after and before school care so parents of young children can get to and from work. scholarships upon scholarships upon scholarships. bruce knows he's in a positon of privilege. he goes home to an almost $100 million dollar home, both his sons went to an elite private school because bruce would never send them to the kind of school he was the principal of.

sometimes bruce wonders if he should've just been a brainless, airheaded socialite as his civilian cover. at least that way he wouldn't have to deal with calling the school security guard into the room every time a parent marched into his office threatening him for suspending their son or daughter. at least that way he wouldn't have to deal with vicki's constant 'white savior complex' articles about him as if bruce wasn't fully aware of how the majority of the student in his his school were people of color.

maybe bruce was in over his head doing this. there were just some things he couldn't understand, some things he couldn't relate to. he would never know what its like to grow up the way many of his students did and try as he might some of them were going to go down paths that they'd decided on long before they met bruce.

bruce tries to keep as many of them in school, tries to push the importance of how education is one of the very few ways to push out of poverty. but...he can't just pick them all up out of bed and glue them to their chairs even though attendance did increase after bruce started the 'walk to school together!' program.

bruce knows he nears the end of his rope and after jason's death and he takes a few weeks off to grieve...his return is not met with sympathy.

children can be callous and cruel especially ones who were hardened by the world.

bruce does not raise his hands to any of the students but his rage at the thugs he fights as batman is twice is bad.

the students sense he's not willing to allow them to get away with anything. detention is full both before and after school and students stay in their classrooms because bruce patrols like a wolf on the prowl ready to snap at any student wandering the halls without a pass.

tension is high in the school and it feels like more and more fights start breaking out.

until one day principal wayne is suddenly....calmer. more steadied.

it's like they're in the eye of the hurricane so no one, not the teachers, students, or other administrators trust it.

they expect bruce to snap.

but the next day its the same thing again.

a tentative odd sort of balanced peace that no one is really sure where it's coming from.

tim drake is a sort of riches to rags story. boarding school and private school all his life until one day when he was 13 both his parents were killed and the company he was set to inherit was rendered bankrupt from financial mishandling by its CEO phil marin. by the end of one VERY bad week tim is broke, homeless, and in fostercare in a rough part of town that sends him to the local highschool.

tim is a smart kid. and no matter how badly taught or loud the classroom is, tim manages to do well in his classes. he doesn't make many friends but no one targets him to mess with either. until he gets locked into the boys room alongside a few other boys from his gym class who want to feel him up.

but principal wayne (batman) puts a stop to it and part of tim is just awestruck at the sight of him. so maybe tim starts skipping some classes. his grades are always kept up so it should be okay!! and maybe he starts following bruce around as he makes rounds in the halls.

tim knows batman has had a shorter temper lately. he knows the news has started reporting on it and that even the bravest students are keeping in line for a while.

so tim shouldn't be surprised he gets caught and dragged to the office. the secretaries are gone for their lunchbreak and bruce's office is soundproof so that him screaming at parents or students doesn't leak out into the hall.

so maybe tim gulps a bit in fear when he's being stared down and asked what exactly he thought he was doing. principal wayne was so much bigger when he's just inches away from tim rather than several feet.

tim tries stuttering excuses tries to come up with something to say while principal wayne goes to his computer and starts looking up his name.

tim wilts when he's given detention and then harshly reprimanded before being sent back to class. but the next day it happens again and principal wayne is less than happy with him.

but it keeps happening.

even though tim always leaves in tears and has sacrificed many early mornings and afternoons to detention.

after awhile principal wayne stops yelling at him. he still stalks the hall and the simmering anger and pain in him continues but he spots tim in the halls they just quietly retreat to his office.

principal wayne keeps him there until lunch and then sends him away.

but slowly... he stops. lunch arrives and principal wayne doesn't send him away. tim misses third period then fourth then fifth.

sometimes principal wayne will send him away sometimes he won't. one day tim stays seated in that wooden chair in front of the principal's desk until it's late. the school is empty and the students, teachers, and janitors have gone home.

but not them.

principal wayne drives him home and stares at the run down duplex with peeling paint, overgrown grass in some parts, bald parts in others, crooked chain link fence and toys littering the yard.

he tells tim to tell his parents he's sorry for keeping him so late but tim assures him its alright. the couple fostering don't care where he is so long as he's back by sun down to watch their kids while they head out for the night shift.

principal wayne says nothing and just watches tim dart inside.

the next morning tim is walking past the office for morning detention. the secretaries aren't even in yet. principal wayne steps out of his office to call tim inside just as he was passing by.

its the first time they fuck.

tim goes to class tired from more than just the lack of sleep he got and an aching soreness between his legs.

tim wanders the halls after lunch and gets picked up immediatly, he wonders if principal wayne had been watching the cameras.

the second time is better. tim's more sure of where to place his hands and what the most comfortable spot to rest his weight on when principal wayne bends him over the desk. tim arches into the thrusts and shivers at the hot breath at his neck as he rocks against the thrusts battering into him.

the next day tim doesn't even go to homeroom, just beelining straight to principal wayne's office. he gets marked absent but during one of their breaks, principal wayne slips on his glasses and changes his attendance to 'present'.

tim attend classes for the rest of the year.

#anonymous #asks #answered asks

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themandylion · 3 years ago

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97 & 41 jaytim

Oh wow, this ended up long. /o\

97 (Time Travel) + 41 (First Kiss) + JayTim

He's boosting tires in the Bowery when the thugs find him. Crowd him up against a wall and threaten him with bodily harm for horning in on their territory, even though this part of the city is a free-for-all, with no one reigning supreme. There's three of them to his one, all of them full-grown men with bulging muscles and nasty tempers and Jason knows he's in his final moments, that there's no way he's escaping this. Still, that doesn't mean he's going to go down without a fight. He squares his shoulders, plants his feet, raises the tire iron in his hand, and—

Between one blink and the next, the back-most thug is on the ground, groaning and clutching his crotch. There's a blur of red, and then the next one's down on his knees, the crowbar he was gripping half a block away and the hand that was holding it pinned to the wall by a slim, sharp-edged disk.

Silver flashes through the night, and the final guy collapses in a heap, just sprawled out on the pavement like he's not even human anymore, just a pile of discard clothes over something lumpy and unmoving. Someone lands on his back, light and nimble and impossibly tall. "You okay there, kid?" the new person asks, crouching down so he's at Jason's level and smiling.

"…Batman?" He's only ever seen the Bat from a distance before, but he's heard about the cape and cowl, and this guy has both.

The guy shakes his head. "Nope, not him. I'm his partner, though."

"Robin wears green," Jason feels compelled to point out, because he's definitely seen Robin before, though always on the TV, when the Teen Titans are fighting really scary bad guys elsewhere in the world.

This time, a shadow seems to pass over the man's face, sad and unhappy. "I'm a different kind of Robin. Red Robin. I'm pretty new, it's not surprising you haven't heard of me." He leans back on his heels and glances around at the thugs, frowning. "I've got to tie these guys up and leave them somewhere the GCPD will find them. Do you think you can get home on your own?"

Jason gulps, staring up at him, at the way all that tight leather and spandex hugs his body. Gee whiz. "Yeah, I. I can take care of myself. Thanks!" He surges forward, practically smacking his mouth against Red Robin's cheek, before running off into the night. Maybe not headed home, but to as close as anything gets, these days.

---

Two weeks later, Batman catches him boosting tires on Crime Alley. A week later, he's going home with the man. Jason asks about Red Robin and gets a confused, clueless look, which is strange. With everything else happening, he forgets about the man in the black cowl with the silver staff, but he still finds himself drawn to that one particular shade of red.

---

He forgets until the memory is jarred out of the deepest depths years later on the other side of the multiverse, when he's bound to a chair and staring down the barrel of gun. A gun held by another Batman, a different Bruce. One who did all the things he thought he wanted his Bruce to do, only to end up a broken man as a result. Jason tries to explain himself and his presence, but it's hard to when he keeps seeing that suit in the case over this Batman's shoulder.

They reach an understanding, a kind of peace. Both of them, finally, for the first time in ages. This other Bruce offers him the suit, and Jason doesn't think twice before putting it on. He's traveled across the multiverse, seen places where dead people live again, where evil people are good and vice versa. It's not too far a stretch to believe that somehow, he's going become his own childhood hero.

When he finishes pulling on the last piece, Bruce looks on him with pride and announces, "Red Robin lives!"

"Red…?" Jason murmurs, more than a little startled. It's been so long, he'd nearly forgotten the name, but it fits, it makes sense. Finally, he's back on the right path, back to being someone the boy he once was could be proud of. Will be proud of, when their paths cross again, which he's sure they will.

---

The other Batman dies.

---

They get back, finally done traveling across the multiverse, fleeing across Apokolips, running from plagues and maybes and might-have-beens. Donna and Rayner return to wherever they call home, and Jason... He thought he finally found himself when he put on the cowl and became Red Robin, but with everything that happened after that moment, all the contrition he gained has been too long stewing in a half-broken heart. He isn't sure who rescued him when he was a kid, but it wasn't him, and it wasn't the long-dead Jason of another world. Maybe it was no one at all, and he made it all up and convinced himself it was real.

He runs back to Gotham, strips off the cape and cowl, the bandoliers and leather. Throws it all in the trash and goes to knock some heads and blow off some steam, anything to escape from what the rest of the Justice League brought with them—a sob story and a broken, days-old body.

---

The suit disappears from the can where he threw it, and he thinks good riddance to bad rubbish, but the person who's wearing it now doesn't understand the significance, the legacy. Doesn't know what it symbolizes, a last chance at redemption, a final loss of innocence.

The new kid distracts him, muddies the water and still Jason doesn't see it, doesn't realize what's happening. Even when the kid takes the cowl, adds it to his green-free suit, he doesn't see it.

Jason's too busy fighting, too busy screaming, raging, being angry at himself and the world to realize how things are swirling tighter and tighter, closing in, twining together, weaving themselves in an intricate, impossible mesh that's new and old and always existing all at the same time. The three of them—him and Dick and the new kid—push and shove and fight and scream and grieve in their own ways, trying to figure out who they're going to be now, what the world is without Bruce.

He ignores overtures of friendship, leaves the kid broken and bleeding out and thinks nothing of it, still too busy hurting and too busy denying he hurts.

Thinks nothing of Robin back on the streets in red and green and black and yellow, a different boy, an actual child.

---

Bruce comes back, but he's just as stubborn as always, and Jason burned the last of his bridges while the old man was playing possum. There's nothing left for him to do but lurk in the shadows and grit his teeth and watch Drake bounce around the city in a costume that isn't his, telling himself he doesn't care, that it doesn't rub him the wrong way.

Doesn't actually realize what's happening until one day he's watching as Drake races across the city, ready to step in and stop him if he dares to cross into Red Hood's territory when suddenly—

There's no one. The roof's empty, not a soul in sight.

He swings over, investigates. There's a strange acrid smell in the air along with the faintest traces of sweat and exhaustion, but there's no clue to where he's gone, no hint. Minutes pass and the sky is getting darker as evening turns into night. Just when he's given up, Drake reappears, but still, unmoving. One hand grasping his staff while the other touches his cheek and he stares into nothing, dazed and unfocused.

His attention snaps up, and Jason is too startled to move, still standing there in the middle of the roof, the two of them locked in place.

"Holy fuck." He can't. This isn't—

He's tried to kill Drake multiple times over the years. They've barely had a conversation that hasn't ended with Jason drawing a knife or a gun, and more often than not he comes out on top. Leaves the guy knowing that he's alive at Jason's mercy.

But now he's standing there, finally grown into the Red Robin suit and name, filling it in all the right places, all the right ways, grasping a staff that Jason somehow failed to recognize until this exact moment.

"I never—" He never thought to make the connection, always assumed it had to be someone else, some one huge. Big enough to match the larger-than-life figure that dominated a half-forgotten memory.

"Huh." Red Robin collapses his staff, clips it his belt. "Random time blip? I didn't even realize."

Which would explain it. Of course he didn't realize—no way would he have helped that other, younger Jason if he'd known who it was. Why save a boy who's going to grow up to become a monster bent on destroying him over and over again. "Sorry," Jason says, startled, confused, unable to wrap his head around it all as he stumbles backwards, tries to do what he always does when he's confronted with too much, too fast—run.

Red Robin—Drake—tilts his head to the side and then does something completely unexpected. He shoves back the cowl and studies Jason with cool, clear eyes. "I have a feeling this has been a weird night for both of us. You could stick around. We could figure this out together."

So help him, Jason hesitates. "Time travel is pretty weird."

"I was thinking more being kissed by my childhood crush. But yeah, that too."

"Your… what?"

"Come on," he says, holding out a hand. "I think it's time we finally talked. Maybe without the death threats this time?"

Gulping, Jason takes that hand in his.

It's not much, but. It's a start.

(The Fanfic Trope MASH-UP is still open for asks!)

#JayTim #time travel #Red Robin #ask meme #anonymous #themandylion writes #my fic #weirdly canon compliant in its own special way 🤔#trope mash up

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scaryscarecrows · 3 years ago

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I'd Crawl on Broken Glass to be the One That Laughs Last

Gotham’s gone straight to Hell in a handbasket. Scarecrow’s dead, which is no loss, but Bruce is missing, Arkham blew up for reasons unknown, and the Arkham Knight’s Militia is still in control. Oh, sure, there’s a fair chunk of them in lockup, but they’ve been getting steadily more riled as the days wear on (three days since the Asylum, their boss has to be dead, who’s in charge now?), and the tanks are still running patrols, the bombs are still in the road, and there are checkpoints and watchtowers everywhere.

Jim thinks they’re waiting for something. There’s been no assault, not like he thought there might be. The street thugs and any uncaptured Rogues are still allowed to run wild, though the watchtowers have been spotted taking shots at something big flying around out there. Honestly, they’re even leaving the police alone, for the most part...but they will still shoot at the cars if they get too close. It’s like they’re on babysitting duty or something until the Knight gets back. It’s unsettling.

He’s out doing a little exploration-he doubts they’ve killed Batman, or they’d be gone, but Bruce still isn’t around-when something drops onto the roof of his car. He hits the brakes, tires screeching, and narrowly avoids sliding into a tank crossing the road.

Breathe.

Jim has no time to go for his gun before the driver’s side door gets ripped open by what Jim can only describe as the Hulk. The man outside is only a little smaller than Bane*. There’s a rocket launcher on his back and Jim’s sure he’s not the one that landed on the car, because the car would be a pancake.

He’s proven right a second later when the polar opposite of the giant jumps down. That said, this guy might be tiny, but he moves like he knows half a dozen ways to kill you. The cherry on the disaster sundae? Both of them are wearing army fatigues.

Militia. Shit.

“Boys,” he says, already planning on how to get that rocket launcher from the big one, “don’t be stupid.”

The little one doesn’t say anything. The big one laughs and before Jim can move, he’s been pulled out of the car.

“Boss wants to see ya.”

So they have a boss. Who. Who is it? One of their own? Riddler? Penguin? Goddamn Deathstroke? Who is his new problem?

“No.”

“Sorry.” The man does sound mostly sorry. “Not really askin’. C’mon.”

Jim tries to slam his elbow into the man’s collarbone. He doesn’t even really get to move before the little guy grabs his arm and wrenches it behind his back. Not hard enough to dislocate it, but hard enough to be a warning.

“We don’t want to have to hurt you, Commissioner,” the big man says. “We’re just picking you up.”

“Go to Hell.”

A gun presses against his back. Fine. He’ll go. But he won’t like it.

* * *

He’s disarmed, bundled into an APC, and blindfolded. After way too many sharp turns and double-backs, he’s...somewhere in the underside of the city. He’s thinking over near Drescher.

Wherever it is, he’s pulled out of the APC, taken inside somewhere, and handed off to new hands. When the blindfold comes off, his kidnappers are nowhere to be seen.

The men in charge of him now (and only for now, give him time…) are less...unnerving...than the other two. One is wearing the white uniform of a medic, and the other is having a snack. Cashews? Cashews.

The medic is a man on a mission. Jim doesn’t even manage to get out a, ‘you’ll be sorry’ before the man’s turning on his heel, jaw working furiously, and snapping, “Come on.”

“Where are we going.”

“Boss wants to see you, won’t listen to reason. This way.”

He stalks off and the snacker chuckles.

“Cashew?”

“No.”

“Suit yourself.” They follow the medic down a crumbling hallway. “They didn’t scare you too much, did they?”

“What’s with the good-cop-bad-cop routine?” he demands. “Is your friend up there gonna come back and threaten to carve my face off?”

The man just laughs.

“Probably, but he does that to everyone.”

“Sometime today!”

Huh.

Jim thinks they might be in the old mall. Scarecrow had been driving that way when something had happened, and, well, if Jim were going to have an evil base of operations, this would be a good one. Lot of ways in and out, nobody ever comes down here anymore-too dangerous-and it’s big, big enough to hold tanks and soldiers and whatever else these boys have. When they round a corner, he sees a familiar logo and decides that yes, that’s where they are. Hm.

They round another corner and end up in the back of the building. Jim’s not sure what this was, but there’s a corridor lined with doors. The medic stops in front of one and turns, hands clasped behind his back.

“Twenty minutes and no more,” he snarls at Jim. “You’re lucky you get that many minutes. You try anything, you might live to regret it. Might. You tire him out, out you go, I don’t care if it’s been two minutes. Don’t touch shit, don’t knock shit down, don’t--”

“I think he’s got the picture,” his other escort soothes. “Don’t terrorize him.”

“Humph. With the amount of work I had to put in to keep his dumb ass alive, I’m entitled to terrorize people.”

“Still.”

“And I’ll tell you something else. You lay a finger, one solitary finger on him, you so much as breathe too hard--”

“There won’t be anything left to bury,” the other man says, smiles with all his teeth. “Here you go, Commissioner.”

“Twenty. Minutes.”

And then he’s shoved into a room with--and good God, how--the Arkham Knight.

The Knight is lying in bed. He looks the worse for wear, but Jim can’t quite muster up pity for him. This...this is his fault. Gotham, Bruce, Barbara…

He swallows down the rage. Not because it’s the right thing to do, but because the Knight’s not alone. Jim supposes they wouldn’t just leave him unattended, not with those injuries, but still.

The Knight doesn’t seem to notice Jim. He’s certainly not looking at him. He’s looking at the laptop the other man has. Right now, at this exact second, he looks like a sick kid, wan and tired, eyes fluttering like he’s fighting to stay awake. But he’s not. Robin or not, he’s...the Knight’s not that boy anymore. Robin wouldn’t have done this, any of this. Robin’s dead.

“Sir.” The other man here isn’t wearing a uniform, he’s wearing jeans and a raggedy flannel that hangs open over some sort of band shirt. But his bearing is still that of a soldier’s, and the rifle leaning against the wall by his chair is top-of-the-line. “Gordon’s here.”

“Hrm?”

“Remember? You wanted to see him.” The Knight blinks a few times, heavy and confused, and tries to lever himself up before his companion reaches over to pin his shoulder. “Don’t do that.”

More confused silence. Now that he’s moved his head, Jim can see his pupils are blown wide. That’s not a surprise. He’s pretty sure he was in Arkham when it came down, and he hadn’t looked well before that.

Serves him right, he thinks, remembering the cuts on Barbara’s cheeks and chin. Serves the bastard right.

He keeps his mouth shut. The laptop has been closed and set aside, and the rifle is now in its owner’s lap. It’s casual enough, but the threat’s there all the same: you’ll go through me to get to him.

He wonders, a bit, what drives these men. He doesn’t really care, but he wonders a little all the same. Even the ones in the cells have been resolute that ‘the boss’ will get them out, that he’s got everything in hand, just you wait and see.

...in their defense, Jim had thought he had to be dead, and yet here he is. So.

“S’right,” the Knight finally breathes. He sounds terrible, and Jim suddenly matches the purple swelling on his throat to handprints. That scares him. Not out of pity or sympathy, but because what little he’s seen of the man says he can handle himself. Whoever did that… “S’right.”

“You up for it?”

He’d better be. Jim was kidnapped off the street for this.

“Yes.” Good. “Glad to see you’re unharmed.”

No thanks to you, Jim doesn’t snap, resolutely ignores the memory of the Knight holding up his hands and telling Scarecrow, voice painfully earnest, to take him and let Jim and his men and Robin leave in one piece. He settles for a curt nod, can’t quite muster up a, wish I could say the same.

The Knight pulls in a painful-sounding breath and drops his head to the side.

“Bring up the footage for Commissioner Gordon, would you?”

“Yessir.” The laptop returns, balanced delicately over the rifle. Jim doesn’t know if he wants to know what’s going on. “Hang on...give it a sec to load…”

The Knight moves and visibly bites back a wince, but the new angle means that Jim can see the full extent of the bruising on his neck.

“There we go--you okay, boss?”

“Ribs,” he breathes. “They don’t like it when people zipline into them.”

What.

“Need me to call--”

“No.” He swallows hard and beckons Jim closer. “M’fine. Just sore. And stiff.” He clears his throat, grimacing. “You worry too much.”

“I worry exactly the right amount.”

“M’just not used to being still this long--”

“Deal,” his friend says sharply. The Knight just grins, but that annoys the other guy. “Did you miss the flatline bit?”

“Technically?”

“I--never mind.” He makes an irritated noise in the back of his throat. “Never mind...okay, all set.”

He turns the laptop around and Jim hesitates before perching on the very edge of the bed. Nothing terrible happens to him.

“This is footage from my helmet. How it kept going after that level of trauma, I’ll never know, but my IT department managed to recover it remotely.”

The footage picks up in a dark area, abandoned sewer network or something, probably, and it’s glitchy and stuttery.

Bruce has been caught on camera before, but not like this. This is...savage, animalistic. He comes out of nowhere, dodging gunfire and seemingly oblivious to the shouts of surprise, and moves in via a flying kick to the camera itself, which goes white and static-y for a second. A few of them come up behind him and suffer backhands and powerful kicks for their troubles, and then Bruce fills up the frame, shoulders positioned like he’s got his arms out and...and...

He looks at the Knight, looks at the bruises around his neck, and looks back at the screen in time to see Bruce going down and being dragged backwards.

“He do this to you?”

The look the man gives him is so reminiscent of the little boy Jim remembers that it makes his head spin. It screams, I know you’re not really that stupid...right?

“Well, I didn’t do it to myself.”

“--okay, sir, I’m just gonna…”

The helmet moves and Jim spots the medic from earlier before it gets set on the ground, facing Bruce. Bruce is chained to a pipe, seemingly unconscious.

“Don’t talk, just nod. Can you breathe okay?”

There’s an obvious cut--they don’t want to share it all, apparently--and then Bruce stirs and starts...giggling. Jim knows that giggle.

“What the hell.”

The Knight shudders and burrows under his blankets.

“It’s complicated. We’re reasonably sure he’s been eliminated, or at the very least contained, but--” A hand moves, presumably indicating himself. “I made it out. He might have, too.”

His friend closes his laptop and sets it aside.

“We’ve got teams sweeping Arkham’s grounds to the best of our ability,” he says. “Unfortunately, we are not a rescue team and as such are not fully equipped to handle the more unstable areas. That said, given the police department’s...track record...we would very much prefer that your men stay out of our way until we either find the individual formerly known as the Batman, or definitively confirm his demise. We’re hoping that at the very least, any injuries he may have sustained slowed him down, but we can’t prove that, given the lack of video footage for the incident.”

“It’s our understanding that Batman has, at least for the time being, lost his fight against the effects of J.” The Knight swallows. “Of Joker’s blood. I attempted to contain him--”

“Contain, my ass,” his friend grumbles. The Knight ignores him.

“I attempted to contain him,” he says again, “via...ah…”

“He blew up the goddamn asylum with himself and Batman inside,” comes the sharp interjection. “In case you managed to miss that.”

Jim had not managed to miss that, thank you very much.

“I noticed,” he says dryly. The Knight huffs a painful-sounding laugh and falls silent.

There’s. There’s a lot Jim wants to say. The Knight was Robin, and Joker killed him (and made sure they all knew it, that tape, good God, he’d sent it to everyone and Jim remembers Dove bursting into tears when she tried to tell him), but he’s not dead now, and look at what he’s done.

Much as he’d like to demand answers--or at least bring half of that up--he won’t. He doubts the man with the laptop will react well; now that he really looks, the man’s tense, clearly poised to move if he has to.

Jim can probably take him. He absolutely can’t take the others that will come at the commotion.

There’s a small dinging sound, and silence, and then an urgent, “Sir. Sir.”

“Hrm?”

“We got something.”

The Knight blinks a few times before half-surging up and demanding, “Let’s go, let’s go, then, help me up--”

“Chair or Trent?”

“Neither--”

“Chair or Trent.”

“Chair,” he grumbles after a second. “But I can walk on my own--”

“Yeah, but if the doc sees you, he’ll be mad. Here it is.”

Jim moves, semi-prepared to offer to help but not really wanting to, but they must have a system, because the Knight’s in the chair with a blanket in short order.

“I feel like a cheap Bond villain,” he’s complaining now. “One that rolls down a ramp into an electrified pool or something.”

“Maybe next time, you’ll consider your life choices, sir.”

“They weren’t supposed to come back to haunt me!”

“I know, sir.”

“Christ...what do we have.”

Should he…? Sure, apparently.

What a day. He needs a drink. A good strong one.

“My understanding is it’s better seen than explained, sir. No body, I don’t think.”

“Fantastic...the bastard’ll survive anything.”

Jim privately thinks the same applies to him, but he doesn’t share that thought. He doubts it will go over well.

The computer room isn’t crammed full of people. There’s one guy on the monitors and another one-one of the ones from before, actually, the one with the cashews-lounging in a chair next to him, drinking a Coke.

“What’s going on, you said something turned up--” He doesn’t quite hide a shiver, but when the other people in the room zero in on him, he shakes his head and insists, “M’fine.”

“Boss, I can link this to a laptop if you’re s’posed to be in bed--”

“M’fine. Pull up the footage.”

“You’re not gonna like it,” monitor-guy says, spinning around and wheeling over to make room. “Looks like he got out, same as you.”

“Seriously?”

“Would I joke when it mattered, sir? Here, look. See this?” He makes the screen bigger. “That look familiar to you?”

It certainly looks familiar to Jim. Bruce’s cowl is difficult to mistake, and there it is, crumpled in the rubble. It’s singed, and one of the ears is broken, but it is Bruce’s cowl.

“Damn,” the Knight breathes, and...Jim doesn’t like admitting it, not after tonight, but...he looks so young. A scared little boy, that’s all. “That’s not good.”

“What do we do, sir?”

“We don’t even know for sure if he’s out.” The Knight’s friend leans over the chair to get a better look at the monitor. “Maybe he tried getting out and died, we don’t--”

“I made it out,” the Knight says quietly.

There’s a wave of annoyed grumbling that includes at least one, ‘self-sacrificing dumbass’ and a, ‘in spite of your best efforts’. Jim has to wonder about that one. He can’t muster up that much sympathy, but he does wonder.

The Knight just sighs and adjusts his blanket around his shoulders.

“Fair. Anyways, seeing as I found a way out, it’s not unlikely that he’s done the same, barring the. The possibility of an instant death. I suspect we wound up in a pocket, though, so.”

“You didn’t notice anything on your way out?” Jim demands. “Was he right with you?”

“I was--”

“Concussed and bleeding to death,” a new voice snaps. “And in no shape to be walking, let alone note-taking. What the hell are you doing out of bed?”

“Briefing the--”

“Literally anybody else can do that.” The angry voice belongs to the medic from before. “You don’t seem to understand what ‘flatline’ means, sir, or maybe you’ve just got a death wish, but tough fucking titty, said the kitty, you’re not dying on my watch. Say bye-bye to the commissioner, you’re going back to bed and staying there or on God, I’ll put you in a coma and keep you there until you don’t have so much as a bruise. Do I make myself clear?”

Jim expects argument. None of the Robins ever let Batman boss them around to that extent, and he knows damn well that if he’d backtalked his superiors like that, he’d be in, frankly, deep shit. But the Knight just sighs.

“He’s been here long enough, anyway.” Long enough for what? “Keep your men out of our way, Commissioner. No offense, but Batman existed for a reason. You can’t handle him.”

Jim bristles.

“Can’t handle--”

“You know it’s true,” he snaps, and straightens up, turns to the man with the cashews. “Call everyone back.” All of a sudden that’s no longer a little boy playing Soldiers. That’s the man that crippled Gotham within hours. “I want everyone off the streets and back at base, now. Do not engage under any circumstances.”

“Yessir.”

“Get into the street cameras,” he continues. “If a rat comes out of a sewer, I want to see it. I want whatever drones we have left out and searching, but leave the car alone. That hasn’t worked so far and I’m not losing more--”

He must breathe wrong, because he suddenly starts coughing, harsh, violent whoops from down in his chest.

“Get him back to bed,” the medic orders once the coughs cease. “Or he’ll be Snow White and believe you me, nobody is getting in here to kiss him awake.”

“Jones--”

“We can handle this, sir. We’ll let you know if something comes up.”

“But--”

“You trained us for this, remember? We’re professionals.”

The Knight falls silent, one hand still pressed against his ribs, and finally melts back into his chair.

“Fine,” he says at last. “Bye, commish.”

He doesn’t recognize the men that take him back. The streets are empty, though, barring the patrolling drones, and they make it back to the GCPD unscathed.

Unfortunately, Jim returns to, quite frankly, a disaster. The officers on duty are tied up, and the militia cells are empty. Not a man left. He’s just freeing Cash when the broadcast screen crackles and the Knight appears on it, face serious.

“I mean it, Commissioner,” he says. “Keep out of the way, or I’ll put you in a cell instead.”

“You--”

“Tell Bullock hey for me, would ya?” He leans forward. “Stay safe.”

Click.

THE END

*I’m figuring Bane is bigger than the Giant Mooks because his boss fight consists of you jumping on him to slash his Venom tubes AND because he can and will run you over, while Giant Mooks of any affiliation are not rideable and don’t run.

#fic #jason todd #arkhamverse #jim gordon #the squad #laughing batman timeline #happy birthday jason!#i still love you even if canon doesn't #(also friendly reminder that jay is a TACTICIAN)#(gotham didn't invade itself)#(he might be hurt and loopy but fuck with him at your peril)

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thr-333 · 4 years ago

Note

Could you possibly do one where Mari/Mari and marine is/are the daughter/son of the joker?

I actually planned quite a lot for this after you asked but could never get my thoughts to make something comprehensive so I give up here's what I got!:

-Twins are Joker and Harleys kids born before the two split up(and so help me they will split up this story needs gay aunt Ivy)

-As you might know, these two clowns have another kid; Lucy. Harley left Lucy with her sister when she was born. In canon, she thinks Harley is her aunt but I would say in this fic she learned the truth when the twins were also dropped off.

-So the twins grew up in Gotham with their aunt and big sister knowing full well who their parents are; as such they make the responsible choice to suppress every part of themselves that resembles them and constantly dye their hair in an effort to avoid looking like them. You know healthy coping mechanisms. -

-Naturally, Marinette has brown hair with blue eyes and Marion blonde with brown eyes.

-Their personalities are a bit different from Mismatch.

-Marion is still a trickster and a trouble maker but this time around has Marinette fully involved and responsible for his shenanigans. He has a bit of a habit of talking to himself(or singing random phrases), sometimes in the third person; he hates when he does, so Marinette always tells him off. He’s always gets the impulse of dying his hair outlandish colors and will vehemently deny his favorite color is green.

- Marinette is crafty, both figuratively and literally. She’s smart, her mother is a doctor after all she can be manipulative to people that arent her(close) family to protect the ones she cares about. She has a deep-seated fear of becoming a trophy, an object to be put on display like her mother and so dresses the opposite and pushes away her love for fashion.

-They will always call each other Mari but if someone else tries they both answer its a nickname they strictly use for each other.

-In a world where Gotham exists it makes absolutely no sense that Gabriel wouldn't start his reign as Hawkmoth in Gotham(the place with the most negative emotions like geez) so that works out perfectly for the twins becoming heroes(Adrien can move to Gotham or be left in Paris to be kept safe your choice)

-Instead of the twins proving themselves by helping an old man up off the street they go a step further is beating up the thugs that try to rob him(all Fu’s set up of course). When they come home to find two mysterious boxes on their beds they make the only rational conclusion children of the joker would; it’s a bomb!

-Not wanting to get the police involved for obvious reasons they find the security footage(which gets the police involved in a different way) and start tracking down fu to see why he’s trying to kill him.

-And as you may recall at this point in canon Ladybug and Chat Noir are defeating an Akuma, well they're not here they’re off to beat up an old man so thats Batman’s job for the time being.

-The twins get caught up in the fight as civilians and are saved by Batman who immediately recognizes them(you don't think Batman has case files on all of Jokers hellspawn?) so that’s gonna be a problem later but never mind that for now~

-The twins track down Fu, who is wondering why they aren’t out fighting the Akuma. Long story short Fu comes back to the house with them and proves they aren't bombs giving them the miraculous.

-I’m a bit indecisive on the names. I thought Marinette would be Red Bug and Marion Black Cat(yes I know that names already taken I don’t care). But I thought Crimson Bug would work better because then their names would start with the same letters. Then I wanted alliteration like Black Bug and Crimson Cat but that obviously doesn't make any sense since Chats color is green not red-- then I realized it would be completely in character for them to call themselves that confusing everyone in the process so no one quite sure whos name is who(if you wanna write it go with whatever I just thought it could be funny)

-As for costumes Marinette's probably wouldn't be skin tight because deep down she really doesn't want to look like that but more practical armor or less form-fitting at least. Marion's hair turns green when he transforms something he freaks out about and Marinette's turns red(glowing or not either would look cool)

-So anyway they go off to defeat the akuma blah blah blah Batman seeing these two young untrained superheroes can only think of one thing: I have to adopt them. So that’s gonna be fun!

-Anyway they go back home trying to be sneaky and immediately get caught by Lucy: ”Don’t tell Aunty!”-- ”Oh I already know” (her names Delia by the way)

- So now the twins get a support system and a family that will look out for them unbelievable right? This support system immediately threatens Fu making sure he actually trains them and doesn't just set them loose on Gotham.

Anyway that's the end of my semi-cohesive plan and here's a vague outline for the fic:

1. Becoming ladybug and chat noir setting up adoption, and school(Bruce invites them to Gotham academy to keep an eye on the jokers children)

2. First day at school setting up Artemis(and by extension young justice), and own passions, Adrien is also at this school now so Marinette falls, Jason finds out falling in love with Marion

3. Becoming friends with Artemis, convinces them to give their passions a try, Marion runs from hood, some let me adopt you stuff also Jason's spite for Cat Noir

4. Skip a bit of time a few months or so, young justice need help Artemis suggest mari and mari, Marinette has a smackdown with batman about their heritage, at odds with young justice Artemis comes to their defense. Young Justice have an ‘oh’ realization on the job when Marion sings a lullaby to a scared child, now the young justice form the mari and mari protection squad

5. Doing ladybug and cat stuff batman approaches them again this time luring them into adoption with a partnership on finding hawkmoth, Red Hood and cat fight. Marion comes back all huffy and there's a scene with Lucy this time comforting them, Marion goes out to get air runs into hood marion bristles stirring Jason to meet him as a civilian, class come to visit, at odds with lila

6. Doing well at school even made a few friends when the Paris class come to visit completely under lila’s control, lila tries to slander the twins for not worshiping her only to out herself when she tells everyone they laughed at her(the twins never laugh), Jason also drops by further discrediting her, lila tries to throw their heritage in their face but they get support openly working with heroes as civilians, this little section ends quite happily with them being sort of accepted at school and batman tolerating their existence for not attacking the person who tried to make their life miserable

7. Time skip few years out of high school now, ladybug and cat are working well with gothams vigilantes widely considered part of the batfam even if no one knows each other's identities. As mari and mari they are doing good work mainly outside of gotham. Marinette is starting a fashion boutique with a little financial help from Wayne enterprises she also does costume design for heroes and villains, villains mainly because she can't stand their current outfits. Marion quite likes his music but isn't sure how he will feel in the public eye is great friends with Jason and the skip picks up with them officially starting to go out identities unknown. They are still hesitant about their identities in civilian life Marinette starting her business under a false name and Marion cant start his because of his heritage. Jason officially has to admit they are going out to the family is met with grilling by aunt and sister, joy by harley once she tries giving them sex advice they leave, his brothers tease and both are tense about Bruces reaction but he begrudgingly accepts. Are out as ladybug and Cat still snippy with hood but it’s not as bad they are closing in on hawkmoth. Go to hang out with young justice as well they aren't well-liked in Gotham but they’re fine with that(not really)

8. NOW things can go to shit joker finally has enough of them deciding to get a hold of them but I think it should be as ladybug and chat revealing their identities to the world. The twins are terrified rightfully so. Get saved now it’s weird between hood and marion, marion feeling betrayed Jason knew who he was and knew who his father was but still decided to date him and he just can't understand why. Adrien was so scared for Marinette and now they both have to work out why. Gotham is at odds the heroes they admire are born from a villain they fear. Bats are a bit weird feeling like they were tricked while also kind of acknowledging the twins are good people

9. Harassed in their everyday life now the twins go to young justice where they get met with awe for being established independent heros, bats there are acting weird but the twins say something to shift perspective leaving to let them mull on it. Jason tries to apologise saying he doesn't see Marion like that blah blah Marion has a breakdown asking how he can be anything but a villain. Marinette's having whiplash going from loved to hated and still dealing with the trauma of seeing her father. They snap. In public a big ol scene and they get akumatised everyone sees it, it’s on tv. Hawkmoth comes out to get their miraculous the batfam can’t beat him. He’s monolouging probing at their deepest fears when they snap back to reality realizing none of it’s true every part of them has worked to be good people and they are they don't hand over their miraculous beating the akumatizaton and beating hawkmoth while akumatised.

10. They are released from the hospital a few days later, getting hesitant recognition on the streets. It's not thunderous applause but it is something. Their family comes to pick them up, Adrien is crying to Marinette about not scaring him like that(her family took him in when Gabriel was revealed). Marion gets picked up by Jason they patch things over. They get accepted into the batfam and work as ladybug and cat for everything. Marion decides to start playing music and Marinette reveals her face to her fashion brand.

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stxleslyds · 4 years ago

Text

Part 2 of my Under the Red Hood Review

Hello! Here I am again with part two of this review, if you want to read the first part I will link it here!

Let’s continue!

Chapter eight gives us a look into the past, to when Jason was stealing the batmobile’s tires, to one of the first times Jason went out as Robin with Batman and everything was wonderful…then one of the scenes from the past show a Jason that may come off as a bit more aggressive on the job, it’s also shown that he does agree that the level of aggression was unnecessary but that the criminal deserved it anyway.

I know that sometimes people get the impression that Jason was an angry and extremely aggressive Robin, which is not correct, he was a sweetheart (and I am referring to Post-Crisis Jason because that’s what is in continuity in this story) just like Dick (he had forty years of being a sweetheart too, Marv Wolfman misses me with that angsty and angry shit) but I think what’s important here is the fact that Jason saw things differently from Bruce and that does not make him a bad Robin, it makes him a Robin with different experiences and as a human being he is allowed to change his views, also let’s be honest, hormones are a bitch so emotions are at an all-time high so he is bound to change. This does not mean that his death was his fault, Jason felt lost and wanted a mother and he made some decisions but Bruce was the adult and he should have paid more attention to him and his behavior so in this house the only ones to blame for Jason’s death will always be the Joker and Batman.

Rant over.

Back to the issue we see Bruce, who has been doing tests and analyzing the coffin that Jason was supposedly buried in for hours, he is a whole ass mess but at some point in time he reaches a verdict…There was never a body in the coffin.

In chapter nine we meet Davis McCullen and Alfie Tisner who have a sort of meth lab in Black Mask or Red Hood’s territory, they don’t really know, and they also have a friend that is selling drugs to kids so yeah…they are in big trouble.

As I read I expect Hood to kind of appear out of thin air and kill them but that doesn’t happen, Batman is the one that comes crashing through a window and tells them that if they don’t pack their things and move they are dead because there is a wall full of C4 (that Jason implanted), Batman wastes no time and gets to work on disarming the bomb as he does that Jason makes himself known (trough a microphone) and tells the Bat that there is no way he can do it and that he better run too. Bruce says that the building is empty and there is no reason for him to blow it up which Jason is aware of and then suggests that Batman knows how much good it does to put a little fear into people and…boom.

Look at this little shit.

We soon find out that the building belonged to Black Mask, and that is not the only thing that Hood wants off the map, he is shown blowing up one of Masks trucks that is full of weapons. Here we also learn a bit more about his modus operandi, he never steals drugs or weapons for himself, he just destroys them and while they were expecting that behavior in what Hood deemed his territory, he is now doing it everywhere. We also find out that before he was trying to get Mask’s people to work for him but now he just kills them.

He is, however, taking his cut from wherever he can, so maybe he is building his own empire and his move as of now is eliminating the competition. This theory is proven true when Jason in all his glory and with a bazooka shoots Mask’s office floor.

Mask is pissed off and as he is screaming into the wind an angel answers his call…Deathstroke is here and he wants to play. This is not pleasing for Hood or Batman.

Slade is working with the Society and Mask wants Hood “Serious dead. Head on a pike, guts on the pavement, me wearing a sweater vest made of his skin kind of dead.” So, Slade sends people to take care of the job.

Mask isn’t pleased though, apparently Captain Nazi (???), Hyena and an unknown third party aren’t enough for him but Slade assures him that they will get the job done, no worries.

The attack on Hood comes when some men are trying to send a “message” to him and here is where weirdo one and two bamboozle our boy.

The fight that ensues is good but is overshadowed by what Alfred says behind the scene, he talks about how Jason as Robin told him that Batman and the legend of what he could do didn’t necessarily scare the “dress ups” the way that it scared the street thugs, so as a consequence they were more dangerous, Alfred true to himself tried to explain that the dress ups probably believe different things about Batman but Jason told him something that shocked him, he said “They all know he won’t kill them.” Which is true, you, me and Alfred know it.

As Alfred continues “talking” the fight welcomes a new player, Batman. He narrates the fight and realizes that they need to team up which comes naturally to them both, in a second they are in synch just like they used to back in the cave all those years ago. As the fight is coming to an end the third party arrives…yep Count Vertigo is here, the fight doesn’t last long though, because there is adrenaline and hyenas and scents the fight is over in no time (I am not explaining that fight, it’s so weird). Captain Nazi is the only casualty and Batman isn’t happy but just like Jason I am okay with it, if he had to kill one of them let it be the Nazi.

Jason obviously leaves and taunts the Bat once more.

Alfred ends the monologue by saying that Jason never understood that it wasn’t Batman’s strength or stealth that scared his adversaries but his resolve.

So, Batman makes a dramatic promise, “Time for this to end.” dun dun duuuuun

Chapter eleven part one opens with Alfred telling us about one of his and Bruce’s hobbies, they used to collect first editions of books and it soon became a tradition that Alfred then shared with both Dick and Jason…so when he finds a package for him and B that says “Just two to add to the pile. Cheers – Jason” Alfred immediately contacts Bruce.

Back to Black Mask, he apparently decided to set up a meeting with his right-hand men, they think that they are there to evaluate the idea of making a deal with Red Hood so he stops messing up their business and they are right! It’s just that the deal was made between Mask and Hood and it consisted in them being killed off.

“Are you happy?” Roman asks.

“Getting there” Hood answers.

Back with Alfred we are able to see what is in the package. In it there is a lock of green hair with tissue included so yeah, now they know that Jason has the Joker, and he was nice enough to give them an address.

Once again with Mask and Hood well, let me tell you if Hood is just “getting there” then Mask is just not happy. They get into an argument, a big one, Mask says that killing all his right-hand men should be sufficient but Hood says it isn’t. It goes on for a while and Mask loses his marbles completely, apparently he put everything on the line for the deal but Hood really doesn’t give a fuck. A fist connects with Hood’s face and a fight ensues, while they do that they also yell at each other about the proper way of running the underworld, the fear factor, who is prettier, who is the best gangster and who looks better in biker clothing…you know, the important stuff.

I am not undermining the fight, believe me but it’s just that they talk, punch and throw each other across the room a lot. Sacrifice and what they are willing to do for Gotham or better said what they are willing to do TO Gotham are the last things they discuss.

Just as the end of the fight comes, we once again have Alfred talking in the background about the time Jason died and the time Bruce’s parents died and how different the two instances are, Bruce was a little boy and defenseless when his parents died but when Jason died he had everything, the training, gadgets and abilities the only thing that he lacked was time.

And as it turns out that’s about to happen once more…Batman is going to arrive to the place where Jason and Mask are going at it just in time to see Jason drop dead on the floor.

Don’t worry friends Jason isn’t dead (again) it’s just a random dude with a mustache and Mask is pissed about it, what’s new?

Jason is actually with the Joker, and by “with the Joker” I mean being annoyed by the Joker…he is ranting on and on about how he killed him, how good things come in threes like Batman, Robin and himself. At some point Joker decides that the sensible thing to do next is compare Jason still letting him live with Batman’s no killing rule and then to make matters worse compare Jason’s actions as Red Hood with his own.

I absolutely LOVE Jason in this moment, I swear seeing Joker’s smile fade away brings me joy, he tells him exactly what he doesn’t want to hear. Jason isn’t like the Bat he won’t stay and play his game; this man right here just scared the Joker and nobody can’t tell me otherwise.

Back to Batman, he is trying his best to shake Mask off but the man keeps questioning if he knows who the Red Hood is and why did he let him operate in such a brutal way for so long (and affecting his business, poor thing so sad). Batman basically tells him to stop playing victim, he thinks that Mask crossed a line that someone really didn’t want crossed and that at the end of the day he is just another gagster…which is exactly what Hood had said moments ago trough the helmet to Black Mask, in a moment of great intelligence Mask deduces that maybe Batman actually knows exactly who Hood is.

Batman of course doesn’t answer because he thinks he is slick but the cat is out of the bag. Among the ruble of the helmet that just exploded (yeah the helmet had a built in bomb, that detonated after Mask unmasked the mustache man) Batman finds a message from Hood, a place and “you know where”.

The east end, Crime Alley. That’s where Jason takes him because it’s “fitting”, after all it’s the place where they first met.

Jason tells Batman that the Joker is in the building next to them and that he has it wired to blow it up, so Batman being his stupid self says that he won’t let him kill the Joker (come on Jason why do you want to kill the nice clown man, he is such a sweetheart).

The fight between those two is about to start when the scene changes. An attack, a living bomb called Chemo is being dropped (by the Society) in Bludhaven, Nightwing’s city. And Batman has a front row seat to see the show.

Yep, it’s not a good time to make snarky comments Jason; as far as both of them know Dick Grayson is dead. And the emotion in Batman’s face is heartbreaking, we as the readers have seen impossible situations, characters surviving shit that they wouldn’t in real life but characters within comics don’t know that… so, Bruce just saw another one of his sons die. (Dick is alive though, don’t worry)

Now, Jason has been a little shit during the whole story, but do not think for a moment that the situation somehow brings any form of positive emotion within him, what happens is that he sees an emotionally compromised Batman and well, will there ever be a better chance to manipulate him into feeling even worse?

…If Batman leaves, the Joker dies. So, first choice for the Bat, either he goes to what’s left of Bludhaven and searches for Dick or he stays and doesn’t let Jason kill the Joker.

Batman chooses to fight, and once again they start the same dance but this time B has upgraded his gadgets (you will never catch him wearing the same thing twice! Shame on you!) Jason teases him a little bit about the cape and B burns his jacket…

Batman has a whole speech about how Jason won’t be able to save Gotham or be better than him…that he knows that he failed him and is trying not to do it again. But Jason says that the failure he talks about isn’t really were his problem lies.

There we have it. And I would like to ask the same thing, why is the Joker still alive? Would it actually be so bad if he were beaten to death by someone’s bare hands? (Check out Joker: Last Laugh #6 (January, 2002) for a surprise)

But that’s not the point, Jason is mad because he doesn’t understand and he feels betrayed, if the mad man kills a fifteen-year-old and then continues to kill and you as Batman aren’t willing to break the cycle of: 1) Joker escapes Arkham 2) Joker does something evil 3) Batman fights and captures him 4) Batman sends the Joker to Arkham 4) Arkham is already corrupt and lets him out after a while or he corrupts/kills a few people into letting him out, then what kind of man are you?

Batman obviously has an answer as to why he hasn’t killed Joker yet. He doesn’t do it because it will be too easy and not only that but he has thought about it…not just killing him but torturing him BUT! he won’t. He can’t really, you see, If he does it once maybe he will never stop (there he goes, the man with a resolve of steel) if he walks the dark path once he will walk it forever. Basically, Batman has zero willpower and zero control…my dude no one believes you!!!! Jason doesn’t either but he does have something to say.

Heartbreaking, that’s the only thing I have to say about these panels, these are panels that have always stuck with me. If you want this conversation to reach a whole new level of emotion I suggest you watch Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010) it’s an animated movie and Jason Todd is voiced by Jensen Ackles (who plays Dean Winchester in Supernatural) which is probably the best casting ever, Jensen is excellent at showing emotion with his voice. I totally know that probably all of you have seen the movie but it’s so good that I really think it’s worth watching again.

It doesn’t matter how emotional it’s for us, Batman can’t and won’t kill him, not even when Jason slides him a gun…so here comes the second time Batman has to make a choice

And he does, well, he uses a batarang to slice Jason’s throat making him let go off the Joker. Jason falls to the floor, a pool of blood around him. As that happens Joker grabs the gun and aims for the dynamite left there (remember that the building was set to go off) and shoots. BOOM!

And that’s the end. All three of them survive although Batman didn’t know that Jason was going to survive, I mean can he actually tell the future or…maybe I am missing something.

And yes, that was the end, I understand that to some it’s just a shitty ending and I don’t blame you…but to me it’s genius.

It ends with Batman betraying Jason. They don’t make up, Batman doesn’t try to come to an understanding with him, he just makes a choice, he would rather save the Joker before killing or letting Jason kill him, which is bullshit my friends because Jason has been killing this whole story and B has been aware of it.

Jason appears later in Nightwing issue #118 (May, 2006) to #122 (September, 2006) as Nightwing and with tentacles. Don’t worry, you don’t have to read that. After that he appears here and there but personally, I really didn’t catch up with him up until Batman: Battle for the Cowl.

Anyway, I am going to end it here, I hope whoever takes the time to read this enjoys it, see you around!

#red hood #jason todd #batman #under the red hood #comics #comic review #dick grayson #nightwing #gotham #bludhaven

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theliterateape · 4 years ago

Text

I Like to Watch | Zack Snyder’s Justice League

by Don Hall

Mythology is fun.

As a kid I loved reading Edith Hamilton’s book on the Greek gods and the myths. Hercules, Perseus, Apollo, and Hera—this fell completely in line with my love for superhero comics. The strangely petty human traits of envy, greed, and lust combined with the power to level cities make for some great storytelling.

Zeus was basically Harvey Weinstein in the retroactive revision we’re mired in today. If Harvey could’ve changed into a golden animal and boned unsuspecting ladies looking for careers in Hollywood I’m pretty certain he would. The gods and demi-gods of the Greeks dealt with daddy issues, mommy issues, bad relationships, and fighting. Lots of fighting. Sometimes for the good of humanity but more often for the glory of winning.

Zach Snyder is in the business of tackling myths and reframing them with a style all his own. His career has become its own myth.

From Dawn of the Dead (not so much a reboot of Romero's zombie mythology but a philosophical reimagining of the genre that arguably jumpstarted The Hollywood fascination with it), 300 (a borderline homoerotic take on the myth of the Greek underdog), and Watchmen (a ridiculously ambitious attempt to put one of the most iconic takedowns on the potential fascism of the superhero legend machine ever written) to his nearly single-handed hack at answering the Marvel juggernaut with Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, Snyder is in the artistic business of subverting and re-envisioning the mythologies we embrace without even seeing them as such.

Snyder's style is operatic. It is on a grand scale even in the most mundane moments. The guy loves slow motion like Scorcese loves mobsters and Italian food. When you're tackling big themes with larger than life stories, the epic nature of his vision makes sense and has alienated a good number of audience members. With such excess, there are bound to be missteps but I'd argue that his massive take on these characters he molds from common understanding and popular nomenclature elevates them to god-like stature.

Fans of Moore's Watchmen have much to complain about Snyder's adaptation. The titular graphic novel is almost impossible to put in any other form than the one Moore intended and yet, Snyder jumped in feet-first and created a living, breathing representation of most, if not all, of the source material's intent. Whether you dig on it or not, it's hard to avoid acknowledging that the first five minutes of Watchmen is a mini-masterpiece of style, storytelling, and epic tragedy wrapped up in a music video.

Despite a host of critical backlash for his one fully original take, Sucker Punch is an amazing thing to see. More a commentary on video game enthusiasm with its lust for hot animated chicks and over-the-top violence that a celebration of cleavage and guns, the film is crazily entertaining. For those who hated the ending, he told you in the title what his plan was all along.

The first movie I saw in the theaters that tried to take a superhero mythology and treat it seriously (for the most part) was Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie. Never as big a fan of the DC characters as I have been of Marvel, it was still extraordinary to see a character I had only really known in pages to be so fully realized. Then came Burton's Batman movies. The superhero film was still an anomaly but steam was gaining. Things changed with Bryan Singer's X-Men in 2000, then Raimi's Spiderman, and those of us who grew up with our pulpy versions of Athena, Hermes, and Hades were rewarded with Nolan's Batman Begins. A far cry from the tongue-in-cheek camp of the 1966 TV Batman, Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne was a serious character and his tale over three films is a tragic commentary filled with the kind of death and betrayal and triumph befitting the grand narrative he deserved.

I loved Singer's Superman Returns in 2006 because it was such a love letter to the 1978 film (down to the opening credits) but by then, the MCU was taking over the world.

Snyder's first of what turns out to be an epic storyline involving perhaps seven or eight movies was Man of Steel. It was fun and, while I had my issues with the broodiness of Kal El, the odd take on Jonathan Kent, and a redheaded Lois Lane, I had no issue with Superman snapping Zod's neck. Darker and more tragic than any other version of the Kryptonian, it was still super entertaining.

Then came Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. By 2016, Marvel had codified their formula of serious characters wrestling with serious issues of power and responsibility peppered with lots of good humor and bright colors. Snyder's desaturated pallete and angst-filled demi-gods was not the obvious road to financial competition.

I'll confess, I hated it. BvS felt half-rendered. Lex Luthor was kind of superficial and played as a kind of Joker. The whole Bruce Wayne wants to kill Superman thing felt undeveloped and the "Martha" moment was just stupid.

When Joss Whedon's version of Snyder's Justice League came out in 2017, I was primed for it to be a turd and I wasn't surprised. So much of it didn't work on any level. I dismissed it as DC trying and failing miserably and was comforted by the coming of Thanos.

Following Thanos and the time heist was COVID. Suddenly, we were internationally sidelined and the movie theater industry caved in. Streaming services started popping up like knock-off smartphones and Hollywood was reeling, doing anything and everything to find a way back. Since Whedon's disastrous helming of Snyder's third act, fans online had been demanding to #ReleasetheSnyderCut but no one was ever really taking them seriously until all movie production was shut down for a year.

The stage was set to remedy a mistake (or at least make some bucks on a do-over of a huge box office failure). Snyder had left the production in part because of the suicide of his daughter and in part due to the constant artistic fights over executives looking for the quippy fun of the MCU but he still had all the original footage. Add to that the broiling accusations that Joss Whedon was "abusive" during the reshoots, the path seemed destined. For an additional $70 million and complete control, Snyder delivered a four hour mega-movie streamed on HBOMax.

Of course, I was going to watch the thing as soon as I could.

The Whedon version opens with an homage to the now dead Superman (including the much maligned digitally erased mustache on Henry Cavill). The SynderCut opens with the death of Superman and the agony of his death scream as it travels across the planet. It's a simple change but exemplifies the very different visions of how this thing is gonna play out.

Snyder doesn't want us to be OK with the power of these beings unleashed. He wants us to feel the damage and pain of death. He wants the results of violence to be as real as he can. When Marvel's Steve Rogers kicks a thug across the room and the thug hits a wall, he crumples and it is effectively over. When Batman does the same thing, we see the broken bones (often in slow motion) and the blood smear on the wall as the thug slides to the ground.

The longer SnyderCut is bloated in some places (like the extended Celtic choir singing Aquaman off to sea or the extended narrations by Wonder Woman which sound slightly like someone trying to explain the plot to Siri). On the other hand, the scene with Barry Allen saving Iris West is both endearing and extraordinary, giving insight to the power of the Flash as well as some essential character-building in contrast to Whedon's comic foil version.

One thing I noticed in this variant is that Zach wants the audience to experience the sequence of every moment as the characters do. An example comes when Diana Prince goes to the crypt to see the very plot she belabors over later. The sequence is simple. She gets a torch and goes down. Most directors which jump cut to the torch. Snyder gives us five beats as she grabs the timber, wraps cloth around the end, soaks it with kerosene, pulls out a box of matches, and lights the torch. Then she goes down the dark passageway.

The gigantic, lush diversity of Snyder’s vision of the DC superhero universe—from the long shots of the sea life in the world of Atlantis to the ancient structures and equipment of Themyscira— is almost painterly. Snyder isn't taking our time; he's taking his time. We are rewarded our patience with a far better backstory for the villain, a beautifully rendered historic battle thwarting Darkseid's initial invasion (including a fucking Green Lantern), and answers to a score of questions set up in both previous films.

Whedon's Bruce Wayne was more Ben Affleck; Snyder's is full-on Frank Miller Batman, the smartest, most brutal fucker in the room. Cyborg, instead of Whedon's sidelined non-character, is now a Frankenstein's monster, grappling with the trade-off between acceptance and enormous power. Wonder Woman is now more in line with the Patty Jenkins version and instead of being told about the loss of Superman, we are forced to live with the anguish of both his mother and Lois Lane in quiet moments of incredible grief.

To be fair to Whedon (something few are willing to do as he is now being castigated not for racism or sexism but for being mean to people) having him come in to throw in some levity and Marvel-esque color to Snyder's Wagnerian pomposity is like hiring Huey Lewis to lighten up Pink Floyd's The Wall or getting Douglas Adams to rewrite Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

I loved Snyder's self-indulgent, mythologic DC universe.

So much so that I then re-watched Man of Steel and then watched the director's version of BvS (which Snyder added approximately 32 minutes). The second film is far better at three hours and Eisenberg's Lex Luthor now makes sense. Then I watched Zach Snyder's Justice League a second time.

After nineteen hours of Snyder's re-imagining of these DC heroes and villains, I saw details that, upon first viewing, are ignored or dismissed, but after seeing them in order and complete, are suddenly consistent and relevant. Like Nolan or Fincher, Snyder defies anyone to eliminate even one piece of his narrative no matter how long. With all the pieces, this is an epic story and the pieces left at the extended epilogue play into a grander narrative we will never see.

Or maybe we will. Who knows these days?

#I Like to Watch #Zach Snyder's Justice League

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miss-choco-chips · 5 years ago

Text

Home

Four times Tim just wanted to go home, and one time he’s actually there.

( @animemangasoul I think you’ll like this one)

(I was listening to Home by Machine Gun Kelly X Ambassadors & Bebe Rexha while I wrote this. Might have cried a little. I regret nothing)

----.----

His mom is holding his hand, a rare occurrence. Were he in a more… stable state, he’d squeeze the moment for all it’s worth.

But the coldness of fear had his heart in a ice-like grip, and the scenery around them did little to appease him. Nothing, not even the warmth of being held, could keep him from shaking.

-I want to go home -he whispers in his mother’s ear when she picks him up in her arms. Safe against her body, he thinks he can feel his heart melting a bit around the edges where panic had frozen him over.

Mom tightened her hold, eyes leaving the crying kid and his dead parents for the first time in a long time. He feels how one of her hands drops its place under his leg to pat his back, more comforting than he ever thought she capable of.

-Yes, we are leaving now. Jack? Bring the car over, we’ll wait here.

She doesn’t lower him until they are back at the manor. Then, his parents retire to their rooms, both to rest and prepare for their trip to the Bahamas the following morning.

Tim shivers all night long, yearning for the warmth he was too distracted to appreciate a few hours ago, back at the circus.

This wasn't what he meant, when he asked to go home. He just wanted to feel safe.

----.----

This… wasn’t what he expected. To being caught, that is. Specially by his hero.

Jason (Robin, call him Robin, don’t you dare slip up, he can’t know you know!) is looking down at him, hands on his hips. He’s doing his best to look stern, but the short shorts, pixie boots and unconscious thug at his back ruin the effect of his glare.

Tim, camera held tightly as it’s been for the last couple of minute since the man came out of the shadows to try and steal it from him, distractedly thinks Batman should get on that, teach Robin his famous loom. He’s feeling starstruck, more than fearful.

-It’s too late for a squirt like you to be out. Streets are dangerous, no’ne told you? Specially ‘is parts o’the city -the young vigilante drawled, accent thicker than Tim recalled from back at the gala when their parents introduced them in passing. Not that Jason would remember.

-I… I’m not a squirt, I’m ten -he finally blurts out, wishing he could smack himself the second the words leave his mouth.

-Children should be on bed at this time.

He does his best to calm his erratic heart, and canalizes all the sass on his pint sized body to arch an eyebrow- Hypocrite much?

Robin growls, but Tim can tell he’s doing his best to hide a smile.

-I can leave you here, you know.

He knows Jason is bluffing, looking for a reaction, but the mere idea still makes his barely calming heart kick into overdrive again. The scare of a few minutes ago was too fresh on his mind. He already knows he won’t be going out again soon, not until he could plan a new route to photograph his idols while traveling only by rooftop, to best avoid the scum of the city.

-No, wait… please -he moves forward, hand taking a handful of cape, as if that could stop the vigilante if he actually was planning to leave.

Jason took the chance to wrap him on it like a little blanket, picking him up in his arms like a baby.

-Don’t worry, shortstack. I’m taking you home so I can be sure y’er actually following your bedtime.

Feeling a little braver in his hero’s arms, he fired back- Don’t have any.

-Whatever, you lil liar.

-It’s true. You can ask my parents… that’s it, if you’re willing to go into my house for a chat. Masks are in bad taste though, you’ll have to take yours off.

Truthfully, both his parents are away on business. Not that he needed to know about the bluff.

This time, he didn’t bother to hide his amusement, letting his barking laughter come out.

-You little shit. I’m not giving you my secret that easy.

Tim just shrugs, painting his most innocent smile. It’s difficult to keep it in place when Jason asks for directions, and then drops him at his bedroom’s window.

The giddiness of meeting his hero can’t quench his disappointment when he watches Jason’s back as he leaves.

A little, childish part of himself had believed, hoped (with all the innocence his heart had left), that when Jason said ‘take you home’, he was talking about his own.

----.----

He’s training as hard as possible. His body, shaped by the multiple teachers he hired through the years, hurts in a way he never thought possible, and has been like that ever since he first went to the training mats to face Bruce.

He knows the pain is necessary, what he learns there could be the difference between life or death (his eyes never fail to go to Jason’s suit, his altar, where he, as his whorshipper, would always go ask for strength and courage), but it's hard to remember his purpose for being there when he goes to bed each night with aching limbs.

Still, he endures.

This last week has been both harder than any other, and the best he’s ever had. The first, because a full on out gang war had forced him, Dick and Bruce to work overtime, going out every night for twice their usual hours (thank god for spring break). The second, because to save time and strength, he’d been allowed to stay the night at the manor with them.

He can’t believe how nice it is to have breakfast with someone. Sure, they have it at like three pm, but still. The pained body was so, so worth this.

When they caught their last perps, all tied up and pretty for the GCPD, Tim was simultaneously absolutely beat and the happiest he’s been.

Batman puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes, saying ‘let’s go home, Robin’, and he thinks for a moment he’s dreaming again.

He actually sleeps a bit, on the Batmobile trip. Beyond tired, feels his body being raised and then lowered again in a soft surface, something warm over his chest, and then lights out again.

When he wakes up the next morning, he’s at Drake Manor. The breakfast table is empty, the hallways colder than he remembered, and he wishes last night had actually been a dream. It would hurt less, if it had been all in his imagination; instead, he has to live with the knowledge of being so close, yet so far.

Not for the first time, he wishes ‘home’ were a different place.

----.----

He sighs, dropping his suitcase uncaringly. Anything important is on his phone anyway, who gives a fuck. Certainly not an overworked seventeen year old kid who’s just getting back after a long day.

The place was clean, spacious and with a modern decoration style he kinda likes. The mechanic fishes certainly give it a nice touch, and the underground nerd cave he built for himself is the cherry on top- bottom, whatever.

It’s a nice house. A place he made for himself, to come back to. With scanners that automatically alert him if some sneaky ninja plants a bug, or a snoopy family member was sniffing around for his toys. He knows everything that happens here, in this little kingdom he built from scratch.

Of course, there are some itty bitty problems with it. Not the layout itself, that one was a dream came true, and no security issue either: all of Ra’s thwarted attempts at having his people breaking in confirmed how tight it was.

But, for some reason, the thermostat didn’t seem to work. It was always way too cold.

The soundproof walls were good at keeping his secrets under wraps, but they also made it seem so unnaturally quiet, it gave him the creeps.

No table in sight. Not that he needed one, he shrugs. Lunch he eats outside, at the office. Dinner is a quick thing, a sandwich while he gets ready for patrol or some other snack while he types away at his computer. Breakfast… he doesn’t know why, but he never feels right when eating it, so he skips it more often than not.

Sighing again, he falls face first into his absurdly pricey couch. Blindly patting the coffee table until he finds the blanket he always keeps there, he thinks about taking a lil nap. He didn’t sleep last night (or the one before that), so it feels like he’s earned this break.

Decision made, Tim takes his phone out of the secret pocket in his coat and selects the app that makes background noise. He always sleeps better with it.

Yeah. This is a nice, comfortable place.

Too bad it’s not home.

-I just want to go home -he whispers to himself before letting unconsciousness claim him.

If asked, he’d said the break in his voice was a yawn and not a sob.

----.----

When he wakes up, it’s to noise all around him. That alone puts him on guard so fast he would have pulled a muscle, if he were anyone else. As a Bat-trained vigilante though, he just tensed before opening his eyes to analyze his surroundings.

This… wasn’t his place, where he distinctly remembers falling asleep, face down on his couch.

This was Titans Tower. Was he losing track of time? Had he been on a fight and got hit on the head?

-Hey, you’re awake -Kon’s head poked out of the kitchen area, smiling as he floated all the way to where Tim was lying, on the living room’s couch.

The sight of his friend was enough to loosen his muscles. Still unsure but immediately comfortable he sat up straight and looked around. He could hear Bart and Cassie bickering on the background, probably the kitchen, Greta’s laughter coming to him from the same place, and those were Anita’s shoes and Cissie’s backpack near the elevator.

The first two and Kon, he could get. They were all Titans. But the three girls? They were retired, so what…

-Hey, boy wonder, let your brain take a break. I can hear you thinking from here and it’s giving me a headache -the super joked, landing by Tim’s side and poking his forehead lightly.

-That’s because you never think, you aren’t used to it -he fires back automatically. Then, a slow blink- What are the girls doing here? What am I doing here? Last thing I remember I was… at the Perch. Sleeping.

-Yeah, and what a deep sleep that was. Been pulling all nighters, haven’t you? -his best friend shook his head, beyond giving Tim a disappointed look. They knew each other way too much to be surprised by their respective bad habits- you didn’t even flinch when I wrapped you up in TTK and flew you here. And about the girls, I told Cassie and Bart I was gonna pick you up, and they decided to make a thing out of this and went to bring them here, just to hang out. Like back in the days, you know?

The mention of their Young Justice times never failed to give Tim a heartache, but this time it just made him feel warm.

He tried to look stern, but the smile he could feel growing on his lips against his will probably ruined it.

-But why did you? Bring me here, I mean.

Kon tilted his head, visibly confused.

-What do you mean? I heard you. You said you wanted to go home.

Something deep and frozen inside him abruptly melted, like it was hit by a flamethrower. The intensity brought tears to his eyes, body shaking uncontrollably as he bent over himself, hands clutching the opposite arm tightly, as if trying to hold himself in one piece.

Kon’s arms were around him in an instant, worried shouts piercing his ears as he plastered the smaller vigilante to his chest, unthinkingly helping him keep his broken pieces together. The warmth from his best friend’s body served as a welder, and Tim could finally breathe without the fear of breaking apart.

-Tim? Fuck, what’s wrong? Are you okay?! Here, dude, I got you.

-Kon? What is i- fuck, what did you do? Hey, Tim!

-Rob? Oh my god he’s crying, why is he crying!

The voices came closer, surrounding him from all directions as multiple hands touched him in an attempt to comfort.

It was too much, too warm, too bright.

He hoped it’d never end.

-I just…

Everyone stopped talking. His voice was broken by sobs, but he sounded happier than they had ever heard him.

-I’m just happy I’m finally home.

#Tim Drake #Young Justice #batfamily #my writting #kon el kent #bart allen #cassie sandsmark #Greta Hayes #Cissie King-Jones #Anita #Bruce Wayne #Dick Grayson #Jason todd #NO EDIT #I WROTE THIS IN ONE SITTING I FEEL LIKE I WAS POSSESED YOU GUYS

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dionsabbathenthusiast · 4 years ago

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FRIENDS ON THE OTHER SIDE [1/4]

trigger warnings: guns, murdering, talks of kidnapping.

here is the first full length chapter of my first ever series! i hope you enjoy

CHAPTER ONE - THE TWO-FACE'D BANDIT

——————————————————————————

The sound of a coin flipping echoed through the halls. Ever since the Arkham Knight had tried taking over Gotham, Harvey Dent - or Two-Face, if you prefer - had been locked up in the GCPD holding cells with the other assailants from that terrifying night. Pyg hadn't stopped with his weird comments and Deacon Blackfire would not stop with his preaching of how devoting his life to his sick cult would fix Harvey's burns. He tried drowning them out with flipping his coin and keeping his mind on what he could do to break out of his cell.

Gordon and Cash stand at the front of the GCPD containment center, discussing future plans and what they'll do with the prisoners. Since Arkham Asylum shut own, Blackgate had been the only place to put the inmates but even Blackgate had a capacity level. Tim and Barbara had found their spot beside them, researching places that Tim and the other boys could start building in hopes of putting away these psychos and thugs for good.

Luna, dressed in her Blue Canary outfit, walked through the gates and ignored the beeping noise the metal detector made. "Cash, Gordon. I need access to the containment cell. I'm here to pick up a prisoner." She says with her arms crossed as she awaited to go ahead.

The four at the front desk all exchange looks and Barbara rolled over to her, looking up at her with a sad expression. "Canary, we're all worried for Nightwing's safety and we're trying our best to find him. Riddler is our only lead so far and as you can see-"

"Neither him or Penguin is in the holding cells. They planned this, they worked together. I'm going to find them and make them pay before rescuing Nightwing." She says and walks to the cell, everybody's eyes on her.

Pyg is the first to pipe up at her with his weird oinking. "Pyg can make Canary perfect. Pyg can make Canary forget." She ignores him and opens the cell, stepping inside before anyone else can get out.

"Canary, are you crazy?!" Tim yells, talking with his hands. He tries making his way to cell to aid her, but Cash stops him. The criminals in the cell weren't trying anything, they were just as surprised as the officers around the containment center were

"I'm just here for Harvey." His heard perks up at the words and he stops flipping his favored coin, holding the piece of metal in his flesh hand. He stands up and walks toward Luna as chuckles darkly when she grabs his arms and leads him out of the cell. She shuts the door behind her and walks past the front desk and past the men that had been locked up; militia men and gang members alike.

"Just couldn't stay away, could you, pretty bird?" He asks, a smug smirk on his lips. She rolls her eyes at the comment and tugs him along out to the parking garage. She opens the door to one of the cars she borrowed from Bruce's garage and shoves him inside.

"Try anything, Harv, and I'll lock away for good." She walks to the driver's side and gets in, turning the car on and speeding out of the department.

She drives across Bleake Island, maneuvering through traffic and ignoring stop lights. "You worked with Oswald for a short amount of time, but you two had a long time to plan out what you did that night. He must've shown you a few of his hiding spots." She brings up a map of each island on her wrist guard and allows Harvey to use the map. "Point them out. I got time, I don't care if I have to go to them all."

He points out three on each island, most of them being under bridges or hidden in alleyways. "You must really care about that Nightwing kid, Canary." Two-Face says, his eyes diverting back on the road as Luna swerves down the corner and down a tight street.

"You wouldn't believe." She abruptly stops the car and gets out of the car and Harvey follows. She kicks the door down, the bright setting sun cascading into the dark room. They walk through the big warehouse, lights fluttering on as they walk through the building.

"I didn't know Oswald spent all his coin on warehouses." She mutters, analyzing the surrounding area. She flips on her detective mode and searches for lifeforms. She detects one and stops in her tracks, bending down behind a box of ammunition. "There's someone at the back of the warehouse." She whispers.

Harvey peeks out from the top of the box, his eyes watching the person that was walking around the warehouse. The figure was short and what seemed to be a male with a small, light up green figure in his hands. Harvey's eyes widen and he pushes Luna's shoulder gently. "It's question boy." He whispers and sits on the ground beside her. "Come on, pretty bird. Give me a gun."

She looks up at him and rolls her eyes. "I don't have a gun, Harv..." She peeks up and studies the Riddler, pointing at him subtly. "But he does."

She stands up and grabs the batclaw from off her hip, firing it at Eddie. Once it had attached to him she used the momentum to fly towards him and kick him in the chest.

He falls to the ground with a thud, the trinket in his hands fumbling across the floor until it's gets trapped under Harvey's foot. Eddie reaches out to the trinket and Two-Face chuckles darkly whilst he crushes it, Harvey stealing his gun as he's dragged off.

"No! No, you feeble minded fool! I worked hard on making that!" Eddie yells and tries squirming away from Luna as she drags him across the cold concrete

"I have got to get me one of those." Harvey mutters as he watches Luna string up Riddler with the batclaw, the rope wrapping around his small legs.

"This unjust! Unfair! Unruly! You're supposed to be a hero, Blue Canary! Wait until Batman hears about you teaming up with this... This filth!" He yells as he struggles against the ropes, Luna resting against the wall. "And you, Dent! You're supposed to murder people like her! You're a fool! A charlatan! A liar!"

Harvey flips his coin, experetly twirling it between his fingers. "Yeah well... Fate said otherwise, Nigma. I help the pretty lady and she doesn't toss me in jail when all this is over." His lips curve into a twisted smile at Luna, who nods in this direction. She walks over to the hanged man and bends down, thinking about the ways she could make him talk.

"You were the one that set the trap, Mr. Nigma. Now I'm willing to communicate and put you back in Arkham without any broken bones or headaches." She says softly, the tone almost menacing - striking fear into Eddie's cowardly body.

He tries swinging to break out of his ropes, and groans in frustration when he fails. "Oswald told me to put that trap there to get pretty boy as payback for what happened to him and his business during the night the Arkham Knight attacked." He says and then quickly begins begging for her to let him go. "The blood is rushing to my frontal lobe, please let me go."

Luna walks back to her old spot on the old, rotting wall and crosses her arms. She gives Harvey a nod and he slowly walks to Eddie, flipping his coin in his hand. He cuts the rope and Eddie drops on his back, groaning softly. He goes to sit up as Harvey puts his foot on his chest and elicts a loud groan from Nigma's throat. "Heads... You get to live." He says and continues to move his coin between his fingers. "Tails... You die." His voice becomes rough as his Two-Face personality slips thro

Eddie gulps and watches the coin flip in Harvey's hands, his fearful eyes darting between that coin and searching for forgiveness and sympathy in Luna's eyes - but finding none.

Two-Face catches the coin and opens his palm to reveal the scratched up side of his coin, a evil smirk on his face. "Say hello to Joker, Edward." His voice is rough and ragged while he points his handgun at his face.

The tip of the barrel is close to his eye and Eddie tears roll down his cheeks. He continues to search for sympathy in Luna's blue eyes, but she just stands there and watches.

He goes to say something but is cut off by the sound of a gun shot. A gun shot that rattles through the empty building, causing birds to flee from their nests as the sun rises on Gotham's skyline.

Harvey walks over to Luna and shakes her hand. "I'll have my boys dump the body." His voice returns to it's normal state. "Where to next, pretty lady?" He asks as she pulls up a map of the city. She points to spot on the map and zooms in on the a spot underneath a bridge.

"Here. Perdition Bridge." She says softly, her eyes darting from the map to Eddie's dead body. Deep down she felt bad for what Harvey did but she also knew he deserved it honestly much more than some of the other criminals in this town.

Harvey seems the notice this and grabs her shoulder. "Darling, he deserved it. Let's get to that bridge and get you boy back." He turns her to the door and rests his hand on her back, leading her out of the warehouse.

They get in their respective seats in the car and Luna turns the car on, backing out of the alleyway. She speeds down the roads again as she drives across the bridge to Founders Island. She parks the car down the alleyway once more, the pair of them stepping out of the car.

Three soliders drop from the buildings above them, surrounding them with assault rifles aimed at them. Harvey reaches for his gun but it's kicked out of his hand, the other two soldiers keeping their guns trained on Luna.

"Boys, boys. What did I tell you?" A deep voice says, the sound echoing off the walls followed by footsteps. "The lady and her friend remains unharmed."

Luna turns to the sound, squinting her eyes to look at the man. She thinks for a moment as she studies the way he walks and moves his hands when he talks. Her eyes open wide and her mouth hangs open.

"Sionis."

#dick grayson x oc #dick grayson #dc comics #batman #tim drake #harvey dent #two face #the riddler #batman arkham knight

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thecomicsnexus · 5 years ago

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BATMAN #368, DETECTIVE COMICS #535 FEBRUARY 1984 BY DOUG MOENCH, DON NEWTON, BOB SMITH, ALFREDO ALCALÁ, GENE COLAN AND ADRIENNE ROY

SYNOPSIS (FROM DC DATABASE)

After their successful victory over Poison Ivy, Batman and Jason Todd have returned to the Batcave, where they start thinking of names for Jason's new costumed identity. At that moment, they are surprised by Dick Grayson, who has come to the cave to inform them about an important decision. Dick can no longer work under his sidekick identity as leader of the Teen Titans. He has also noticed that Batman and "Robin" were responsible for capturing the Joker and since it wasn't him in the case, he deduced the obvious truth. Finally, Dick has come to decide that it's time to pass on the Robin identity and he gives Jason full permission to use the Robin costume and continue his legacy. While the eager boy goes to change his outfit, Dick and Bruce share a touching moment and they are thankful for each other's presence in their lives. Jason wears the Robin outfit and Dick knows it's time for him to leave. When Bruce asks him what identity he is going to use next, Dick doesn't have an answer for this.

Now that he is officially Robin, Jason is concerned that the public will not recognize his own personal merits and Batman makes him understand that they work for justice and not for public recognition. Batman also knows that Jason is worried because of the years of legacy he has to live up to, but working together, the two of them live up to the standards of the old Dynamic Duo, although with a touch more of unnecessary violence. As their activities become known across the city, Vicki Vale makes sure to give the heroes all the advertisement they could ask for in her newspaper.

Meanwhile in Montreal, Alfred Pennyworth and his daughter Julia learn that her adoptive father was in fact murdered.

Elsewhere in Gotham, Crazy Quilt has hired a scientist to create a new helmet for him, one that would allow him to see again after he was blinded years ago by Robin. The new helmet is successful and equally powerful as the previous one. After killing the scientist, Crazy Quilt learns that Robin is back in action with Batman and he sets his plan to kill Robin, in motion.

Before going out on patrol, Jason is having concerns about people not being able to tell the difference between him and Dick Grayson. Later, Batman and Robin go out on patrol and Batman deduces that Crazy Quilt must be out looking revenge against Robin. Batman leaves Robin behind as he goes to investigate some special lights, but once Robin is alone, he is attacked by Crazy Quilt, who believes the young one is the old Robin. When Batman realizes he has been decoyed, he returns to Jason, only to find him beaten to a pulp and he assumes the kid has been killed.

Batman realizes that Jason Todd has not been killed and he takes the boy's beaten body back to Wayne Manor, where he provides medical care until his recovery. At dawn, Jason wakes and tells Batman that he was attacked by Crazy Quilt, but that the crook ran away when Batman approached. Bruce tells Jason to rest a while and the kid decides to spend the day in the Batcave.

Meanwhile in Montreal, Alfred and his daughter, Julia continue the investigations of her adoptive father's murder and back in the GCPD Headquarters, Harvey Bullock has taken a ruthless approach against crime.

At night, Batman is ready to go out and he is shocked to see Jason already wearing the Robin suit. He tries to talk to the boy, but Jason is in some kind of trance and attacks Batman, leaving him unconscious as he walks out to the city. Robin eventually arrives at the docks near the Gotham River, where Crazy Quilt is expecting him with several thugs ready to attack. Batman recovers a few minutes later and follows a clue left by Jason.

Robin is capable of dealing with most of the criminals and holds his ground until Batman arrives and they take down the thugs. Crazy Quilt then tries to eliminate Robin once and for all, but he fails, as the Boy Wonder has come prepared to fight him and uses a special device to reflect Quilt's light back to him. Then, Robin realizes that Quilt is only able to see thanks to his helmet and having hypnotized Quilt with his own light, Robin commands him to destroy his helmet and finally to go to sleep.

In the aftermath, Robin explains that he was hypnotized during his first fight with Quilt and that the villain introduced post-hypnotic commands on his mind, so that he would be forced to walk into his trap. However, knowing this, but unable to say anything about it, Jason created the device that helped him in the final battle using equipment from the Batcave. Batman is proud to see that Jason is living up to the challenge and keeping the name of Robin very high.

REVIEW

Jason Todd: Dying since 1984.

Doug Moench is finally bringing back the dynamic duo. Batman and Robin have been at odds since 1969, so it is kind of refreshing to see them like in the old times. Jason, even if he is not Dick Grayson, brings some light into Batman’s quest.

The art is a bit uneven. At times it looks great, and other times incomplete. This may be caused by seeing the digital copies of the comic. Single color backgrounds look better on paper, for some reason.

This is also the final step for independence for Dick. He passed on the mantle of Robin. He is over it. He is now a man. It isn’t common for sidekicks to do this. Sometimes they die and come back with a different identity, other times they take up the mantle of their mentors... but passing on the mantle and becoming something different, that’s rare.

And Jason is scared. It is still too crazy that Batman just adopted this kid and made him Robin. Poor thing almost got beaten to death on his first outing.

I give this story a score of 7

#ed hannigan #Dick Giordano #gene colan #anthony tollin #batman80 #batman #robin #dick grayson #jason todd #dc comics #comics #review #1984 #modern age #crazy quilt #titans

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dcarevu · 5 years ago

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Batman TAS: Robin’s Reckoning (Part 1)

“That Grayson kid’s a real boy wonder!”

Episode: 32 Robin: Yes Writer: Randy Rogel Director: Dick Sebast Animator: Spectrum Airdate: February 7, 1993 Grade: A

These blogs have come out quite out of order, so looking back to Robin’s Reckoning has been a bitter-sweet experience. As I watch further and further through the series, going back to complete unfinished blogs is a huge pain in the ass. I just finished watching The Man Who Killed Batman, and then had to go back and cover an episode I saw a couple months ago. Ouch. Don’t even get me started on the comic books. I think I’ve released a blog for maybe one of those? But at the same time, I’m coming pretty close to actually being caught up on these posts again, and that feels really great! Just a few more to go! Robin’s Reckoning was the point where I realized that my schoolwork was too much to be able to continue this series for a while, so arriving here now finally gives me the feeling of accomplishment that completing my finals almost gave me.

Robin’s Reckoning is a stand-out episode in the series, and this is evident as soon as it starts. How I’ve missed talking about Spectrum’s work. After a sea of Akom and some subpar Dong Yang (mixed in with their better stuff), there is a magic and a fluidity that is impossible to take my eyes off of. The first scene gives us a dynamic fight on top of a building (currently under construction). Every hit almost sends one of the on-screen characters flying off, headed toward the traffic below. Nothing is stilted, and it is all paced perfectly. Batman is obviously the one in charge of the duo, but his parental side is pushed further than in previous Robin appearances. It feels a little bit weird to see Batman sending Robin away from the apprehended thug like a dad telling his son that there will be no more rides on the merry-go-round, but this is very important when it comes to what is going on in Batman and Robin’s heads. It turns out that this thug has information about Tony Zucco, the one responsible for the murder of Robin’s parents. We, of course, see this through a flashback.

As soon as the flashback starts, we are greeted with playful circus imagery, but it is all blanketed in shadows, and some absolute killer music accompanies it. When we see Dick Grayson as a little boy, his identity is revealed because of some woman going, “That Grayson kid’s a real boy wonder!” I like the use of a corny joke to establish where we are in time, and who we are looking at. It gives people who already know the Batman lore something to hold onto. We see that Grayson was a trapeze artist, together with his mom and his dad back in the early days of Batman’s crimefighting. This explains a lot of Robin’s acrobatic skills and his overall strength. But what about his desire to fight alongside Batman, defending the innocent? Well, see, this Tony Zucco guy is a real asshole, right? And because the circus refuses to pay him the money that he wants, he goes and sabotages the ropes used in the Graysons’ act. This causes both of Dick’s parents to fall to their deaths once enough weight is put on them. It’s pretty well known that originally, the team behind the show wanted to display the entire murder scene in full detail. The censors, of course, said, “Are you outta yo damn minds?” So they came up with a way around it, showing the Graysons’ silhouettes swing out of shot, and then the silhouette of a severed rope swing back into shot. It’s the perfect climax to the tension (no pun intended), but it really is quite a shocking moment. This probably gave more kids nightmares than what they originally concocted ever could. Imagine if we saw real life like a Batman TAS episode is directed.

Forgive me if I go a little bit out of order here, but Dick at this point is feeling incredibly guilty that he didn’t say anything to anyone about Tony Zucco being in the tent right before the show. There is also the problem of the police (including a younger, red-haired Gordon) thinking that Zucco may attempt to go after him, in order to shut him up about the incident. So he can’t stay with the circus, despite them being the closest thing he has to family. Because of this, we get a goodbye scene that may be short, but boy is it effective. Bruce Time notes on the commentary that the part with the elephant makes him cry, and it definitely almost made me tear up. Goodbyes are something that really get me emotional, and seeing a group of usually cheerful-looking waving to Dick for the last time (yeah, laugh it up, you immature goobers) accesses that part of me. It’s not all bad, though, because Bruce’s mansion is Dick’s new destination, and, well, the rest if kinda history, no? The next section of the episode focuses on Dick attempting to adjust to such a lonely, empty place, while Bruce is constantly gone on “work meetings”. Of course, by “work meetings”, I mean trying to beat the shit out of Tony Zucco, wherever he may be hiding. During what is possibly one of the best Batman-segments yet on the show, there is no music, only the sound of guns, blows being thrown, and the night. We also get to see one of Batman’s old costumes, which features a different belt, no yellow around the bat, and other slightly different aspects. It looks kinda similar to his costume that we’ll see later in the DCAU. During this scene, Batman tries to hunt down Zucco, who is hiding at his uncle’s house. He is terrified when Batman pays a visit, but then acts all cocky once Batman leaves, teasing his uncle about how “well” he handled Batman. Of course, once they both realize that Batman is still outside, that fear sets in again, and I love listening to the voice actor go from such a punchable voice to one that is in full panic mode. In the end, Zucco manages to escape Batman’s grasp, and from what I gathered, that’s the last time he was seen in Gotham city…until present-day.

Robin uses Batman’s computer to figure out that Tony Zucco is back, and gets enraged. I don’t blame him. Ever since he was a kid, he’s been wanting a piece of Zucco. Now, not only is Batman treating him kinda like a child, but he’s trying to keep Robin out of this very personal situation. Why? Well, we’ll have to find out next episode, won’t we?

Episode leaving us hanging like...

I can’t think of a single moment in this episode that I disliked. There were some smaller moments I didn’t mention, such as Bruce offering to take Dick to a game to cheer him up, or Bruce disguising himself as a lowlife during a gambling session to get info on Zucco. He oversteps his boundaries, and the others become immediately suspicious, attacking him. Bruce, of course, handles them quite easily, and then, on one of the thugs, we all of a sudden see the Batman shadow. It’s so badass, and Bruce’s persona he was playing during this moment was pretty legit too. I love the accent, especially when he says, “They say he’s got bat-problems.” Oh, and there’s a bit at the Flying Graysons flashback where we see a young Bruce Wayne in the audience (who does look a lot younger), and as the spotlight shines on him, he drops his popcorn and his drink in the most clumsy way possible. I honestly felt bad! But, yeah, I laughed.

Char’s grade: A Next time: Robin’s Reckoning (Part 2)

Full episode list here!

#batman tas #dcau #dc animated universe #robin #dick grayson #batman the animated series #btas #robin's reckoning #part 1

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12freddofrogs · 6 years ago

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An Episode of a Batfamily TV Show

Hey, everyone. I’ve been writing out what I would do if I was the scriptwriter for a Batfam show, and this is an extract from ‘Season Two’, the Robin!Jason era.

I have a much fuller fic on Ao3 here, which includes episodes detailing how Jason got the job, a bit of Dick’s jealousy and uncertainty how to treat his new little brother, Sheila Haywood’s story being refined to fit television structure, that incident in Ethiopia, several flashes of dramatic irony, and tiny book-nerd Jason who despises Alice In Wonderland, much to the annoyance of both Babs and Jervis Tetch. Plus this episode, which is far more readable on Ao3 than tumblr, especially if you’re on mobile.

Season Two, Episode Nine - Double

In one episode, Two-Face robs a casino.

Complete with hostages.

Batman is on the other side of the city, already busy breaking up a kidnapping.

Robin had been halfway home from the patrol, excusing himself to finish a book report for class, when the call comes in.

He’s close, and isn’t so easily lured by homework that he’d ever ignore people in danger.

Robin goes in alone.

The casino is styled with one main room, complete with a stage and dining tables across the floor from the slot machines.

Two-Face is standing in front of the stage, gun hold high. The crowds are huddled up, most of them still collected at their tables.

His speech is interrupted by someone singing, the chosen song starting slow.

He turns around to see the Boy Wonder on stage, stepping lightly around the stand-up comedian who is sitting hunched at the back of the stage.

Robin had picked up a microphone from somewhere and is taking full advantage.

He doesn’t do his whole song — three minutes is a lot of screen-time. He finishes a verse, just long enough to get everyone’s attention, before taking a seat on the edge of the stage.

Two-Face is unimpressed.

“You’ll excuse me if I don’t applaud.” He points his gun.

“Well, if I end up punching you today, it’ll probably be for different reasons.”

“So you’re Robin number two.” Two-Face sneers. “Heard so much about you.”

“What makes you think I’m new?”

“Gonna claim that you got shorter?”

“Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to happen in Gotham.” Robin drops the microphone with a remarkable lack of respect for other people’s equipment and bounces to his feet. The stage means he’s looking down on Two-Face as he grins. “Or maybe I just got new boots, either-or. You gonna come quietly, or do I get to kick your ass first?”

Two-Face does not come quietly.

“You know you’re not getting out of here,” Robin warns. “The GCPD has the building surrounded, and Batman is — well, it defies the point of a secret if I tell you where he is, but he’s very close. Let these people go.”

“I’m not done yet.”

Two-Face grabs a man from the crowd — young, couldn’t be older than his early twenties, a small child with the same hair colour sitting at the same table. He drags the hostage up in one quick movement, a gun suddenly pressed to the man’s temple.

Immediately there’s a batarang in Robin’s hand. “Let him go!”

“And why should I do that, Boy Wonder?” Two-Face grins, as much as he can manage with his scarred face. “You asked how I’m getting out of here, and this here is part of my plan.”

The man whimpers, a beg on his lips before Two-Face tightens his grip. “Shut up.”

“You want a hostage?” Robin says, not moving. His mask eyes remain trained on Two-Face. “Take me instead.”

“What?”

“I’d be much more valuable if you’re trying to get leverage over Batman.”

Two-Face pulls out his coin.

He has to yank the hostage in closer to himself, wrap the man’s neck in the crook of his elbow while holding the gun so that he has a free hand. It’s the kind of trap that would potentially be possible to break free from, but no smart civilian would attempt it with a gun to their head.

Robin is still standing on the stage, batarang at the ready, as the coin flips.

“Fine,” Two-Face growls. Robin slowly lowers his hand. “But you’re not staying armed.”

Robin’s expression doesn’t change, but he tucks the batarang away.

“No. Leave the belt.”

His glare darkens.

“I said—” Two-Face presses the gun tighter to his hostage. “Drop the belt.”

“Fine.” It takes one moment to unbuckle it. Robin drops it on the stage, kicks it behind himself. Then he glances away from Two-Face to look at one of the stage managers cowering in the same area. “Don’t touch that. It’ll electrocute anyone who’s not me or Batman.”

“And your earbud. And I know you’ve got lockpicks in those gloves, loose them too.”

Robin obeys, dropping his comm unit on the stage. He takes off his gloves and tosses them towards his belt. “So you know, there’s a limit to how much I’m going to strip.”

Two-Face releases his hostage.

The man rushes back to the table where his family is sitting.

Robin steps off the stage, dropping a distance taller than him without wincing. “Let’s go.”

Two-Face raises the gun to him. Robin doesn’t blink.

The two of them walk away.

“What exactly is your plan for getting past the cops?” Robin asks as he’s escorted downstairs. He’s careful with his bare hands, making sure not to leave fingerprints.

“Shut up.”

“What am I going to do with this information? You made me leave my earbud,” he protests as they enter the underground carpark. “Besides, hostages tend to notice how you travel.”

Several of Two-Face’s thugs are already downstairs, packing a van with stolen money. “Uh, is that Robin?” one asks.

Robin glances at him, waves his fingers like a ghost. “Boo.”

“Kid’s the best hostage we’ll get ‘round here.” Two-Face reaches into the front seat of the van and tosses a pair of handcuffs. “Put these on.”

“Since you asked so nice.”

Robin cuffs himself. Two-Face gestures and one of the thugs tightens it, to the point he winces.

They drive off.

Robin is startled to notice Two-Face had a car meticulously degraded so that exactly the left half is scratched.

“What do you think?”

“It’s… a lot.”

He’s impressed despite himself that it turns out to be a distraction. One of the henchmen crawls in behind the tinted windscreen. Two-Face promises they’ll meet up soon.

Two-Face gets behind a much more ordinary two-door car, forcing Robin into the passenger seat.

The car drives off.

The decoy car goes first, tearing out of the service entrance.

Two-Face’s actual car is waiting patiently behind as several cop cars chase after it.

"So did you hire a racer or was it always part of your plan that guy goes to jail?” Robin leans back in his chair, looking more like he’s at the movies then a hostage.

Two-Face grunts. “If Henry makes it back, he makes it back.”

“Oh. Chance. Right, your whole thing. Gotcha.” Robin rolls his eyes as the car continues out. “There’s still plenty of police out there.”

Despite his observation, the two waiting police cars don’t do anything to stop them, leaving Robin confused and Two-Face smug.

They escape into traffic.

Robin keeps up a steady stream of smart-ass commentary throughout the drive.

“How does Batman put up with you?”

“I’m a lot less of a brat when I’m not handcuffed.” Robin lifts his wrists. “Wanna give me the keys, let me prove it?”

“How bout I try a gag, instead?”

“Ooh, are you going to stop driving and leave me unattended while you check the back?”

At one point, while chatting, Robin’s cuffed hands slowly creep towards the handbrake.

Two-Face has his gun in his face before he can try anything. “Don’t.”

Robin’s face sours, but he pulls back.

Meanwhile, Batman has arrived at the casino.

The man Robin traded himself for is giving a statement, and is appropriately startled when a black shadow lands in front of him.

Batman hears the story again and immediately swoops off.

The World’s Greatest Detective is able to find out how and when Two-Face got away.

He accuses the cops who didn’t chase of being bribed, and judging by their reactions (one tries to run), was right. When they babble that they don’t know anything more about Two-Face’s plans, he throws them at Gordon and gets into the Batmobile.

Batman’s chase is interspersed with moments of Robin and Two-Face.

“So do you actually know where you’re going?” Robin comments as they zoom through traffic. “Cause you seem to be doing about three loops to get there.” He wiggles his fingers, all the more obnoxious with his wrists bound. “I could recalibrate your GPS for you if you’re too old to work out how.”

Two-Face is driving with a gun pinned in one hand between the wheel and his fingers. The free hand lets go of the wheel and digs in his pocket. Without saying a word or looking away from the road, he takes out his coin and flips it.

He glances at the result, and puts it away without any further action.

Robin shuts up.

Batman tracks down ‘Henry’, the decoy driver.

He’d already been caught by police, so it wasn’t hard.

Henry gives his information up very quickly about Two-Face’s rendezvous point.

The first sign of Two-Face’s plan going awry is when they run into a road block.

He veers violently to avoid them.

“That wasn’t suspicious,” Robin says brightly as the rogue starts searching for another route.

Two-Face is getting more annoyed, which isn’t helped when the Batmobile shows up.

Cue a car chase.

Two-Face is too distracted to notice when Robin slips off his seatbelt.

During a particularly sharp turn, one that Two-Face had to hit the brakes to make, Robin takes advantage and flings open the door. He rolls, landing on the edge of the sidewalk.

Two-Face curses, but doesn’t go back.

Batman is more willing to stop. Robin leaps into the Batmobile and the tyres screech off again.

Robin’s belt, gloves, and earbud are sitting on the chair. He starts working on removing his handcuffs almost immediately, even as Batman starts talking about how risky it was. The lecture is occasionally paused with a particularly sharp obstacle as they chase a supervillain.

They eventually catch him.

Two-Face is arrested, the thugs are similarly caught, and most of the cash is recovered.

Later in the Cave, Bruce and Jason talk.

The general gist is that what he did was reckless, but overall, Bruce is proud of him. “Don’t do that again, though.”

The episode finishes with Jason finally starting on that book report he should have done hours earlier.

Ao3: Here

Tumblr post for chapter one (also involving a hostage situation - specifically, billionaire’s child Dick Grayson, rather than in costume): Here

#batfamily #jason todd #bruce wayne #two-face #batman #robin #batman and robin #robin ii #12freddofrogs writes #batfam #tumblr fanfic #gotham crusaders

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crypterion-moon · 6 years ago

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Exchange: Resolution

“You can run but not forever.”

Part 3

It’s easy, at first, all Tim needs to do is be gone the moment Jason is near. Vanish he can do, but he doesn’t realize that it’s getting harder and harder as Jason gets more persistent. And Jason has come to realize it’s about time he stopped hedging around the issue.

Dick notices the deliberate behavior. Whenever Jason is close even on patrol, if he can get away with it, he'll be gone before even Batman notices, it hasn’t escaped B’s attention though but he isn’t about to confront either on the matter. He’s almost sure that it would end in disaster if he tried, Dick is too restless to keep out though, he has to hold Nightwing back every time he tries to chase either of them down for an explanation.

Tim doesn’t want to start a fight, fighting with people he’s supposed to be love, people who are supposed to be his allies, friends or family, drains him faster than a consecutive two week of work and patrol non-stop. He can’t look Jason in the eye and now, he realizes he can’t talk to Dick. At least Bruce and Alfred doesn’t force it out of him. He still can’t go back to the manor, the demon brat is there.

He collapses onto his couch, breathing a sigh of exhaustion as he pulls the cowl back. Scratch that, running away all the time is just as tiring, a lose-lose situation. The only thing left is if he...Tim’s eyes trail over to his comm unit, the batarang sits beside it under the spotlight of his kitchen counter. Bruce would understand if he just asked, maybe.

He pulls the cape and cowl off and hold it there, just staring at it from an arms length for a while. Then shakes his head and neatly folds it away. It would be stupid to throw away the thing that gave his life meaning over a simple disagreement, he’s held through worse to keep fighting. He carefully stows it away in his secret compartment.

“Pathetic Drake, you really are hopeless.”

Without even having to turn around, Tim was already groaning in his mind. Of all the people who could pay him a visit, it had to be HIM. If this was what it meant to have visitors then he’ll gladly stick to having none.

“Please, Damian,” he didn’t want to sound whiny but he is this close to crying from lack of sleep, emotional instability and generally just being fed-up, “I’m not in the mood for this.”

“That’s no excuse for being a coward,” Damian spits words like bits of red hot coal.

“Go home Damian, you got your Manor, I got my place, okay? Just...leave me alone.” Tim tries to get out of his suit while making his way over to the bedroom with full intention of slamming the door in the brat’s face and hiding under the covers. He just about makes it to the door when a batarang embeds itself in the wall next to him.

He stares at it for a few seconds before he groans, “Oh my god, I just had that done!”

“So what, you may have bought yourself a shack away from Father but you’re still in my city.”

Tim just leans back against the door, the exhaustion really hitting him hard, “If you’re about to tell me that this is your city and I don’t belong here, cool, I can-” he wants to leave, maybe then he’ll be free of all this crap. Maybe he can get a life. Maybe he won’t have to run around anymore and just be a normal person. But Damian cuts him off before he can finish.

“You’re in my City and that means everyone’s concern for you is doing us no good, get yourself together Drake and stop moping. Todd can’t chase you around forever.”

Tim struggles to get a proper response out, “Wha-I’m not, he’s not.”

“He is and it is getting to be an awfully sorry sight, deal with this for all our sakes or I’ll beat it into both of you.”

Tim would like to chalk it down to either Dick or Bruce or, god it sounds wrong, Damian leaving groceries and cooked food for when he got home. It’s not the first time they busted in on his home, without tripping the systems, but when asked, all he got were “Not me,” or “Don’t be ridiculous,” along with knowing grins or glares. It’s nice though, he hasn’t had a proper meal for so long since he left the manor. He’s convinces they were lying and actually leaving Alfred’s care packages in his apartment, but even Alfred says that he hasn’t needed to since Tim’s mystery carer.

He doesn’t have the energy to go into it so he accepts it gratefully.

Tim is in the middle of sleeping off the exhaustion when he hears a sound from outside his bedroom. His custom built alarm system bypassed, somehow. This sends all sorts of warning bells ringing in his mind and he’s reaching for the staff tucked by his bed. He steps over to the door carefully, opening it as quietly as possible. To Tim’s surprise, he sees Jason wrestling with his jacket and armor, cursing lightly as he does, it’s spattered with blood but there’s an especially large patch on his left side, dark red against the grey.

“Jason?”

The man looks up in surprise, “Oh, uh, hey.”

He winces, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak into your place, but my safe house is a little far at the moment.”

Tim sets his bo staff aside, and walks over in large strides, Jason flinches as he gets close but doesn’t move otherwise. Tim searches around for the catches in the armor.

“Let me, help you out of this.”

After some pulling and tugging, the whole thing is off and Jason’s torso is left bare, with scars criss-crossing and bullet holes as well as the tell tale cuts from his autopsy. Then, there’s the wound, not too deep but the skin’s torn from a bullet.

“Thugs?”

“Thugs,” Jason confirms and Tim stands up.

“Wait here,” he says and makes his way over to the kitchen. He reaches down into one of the cabinets for the aid kit and returns to Jason, already rooting around in it. He kneels down and orders Jason to stay still as he dabs antiseptic on the wound. Jason winces but does what he’s told.

“Sorry, it’s strong but effective, I got some painkillers if you need some.”

“I’m no wimp, this is nothing,” Jason tries to joke but it comes out slightly louder than he’d intended. Tim flinches at the rise in volume.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“S’okay, here, keep your hand on the gauze,” Tim says as he finishes washing the wound, he presses the material to the wound and Jason takes over while he roots around for the roll of bandages, “Keep it tight.”

“’Kay.”

Tim tucks his hair behind one ear as he unravels the roll. Jason’s eyes sets on the young man’s cheek, butterflies in his stomach as he quashes the urge to give Tim a quick peck there. Just, something about it was so damn attractive. Tim pulls up closer and begins to wind the bandage around Jason’s torso. He’s careful, but makes sure it’s done right. Tim is so close and Jason’s raised arms could close around him and it might not be too noticeable while he’s so focused on the task. He only goes so far as to let one arm hover above Tim’s shoulders while he’s working. He’s so damn nervous.

“There, all done.” Done it was, Jason could go back out there and it wouldn’t shift a millimeter with Tim’s handiwork.

“Thanks, I, uh, owe you one.”

Tim turns to put the kit back, “You’re welcome...to stay for the night. You need to let that rest.”

“Yeah, I’ll..do that.” The tension has never been so unbearable. He would’ve rated the night they first met as a pretty tense moment, what with all the fighting and hatred going around, but compared to now, that was nothing. He watches as the former Robin walks back to his kitchen, barefoot he notices. He doesn’t want to admit it but he looks pretty damn adorable. He starting to wonder how he ended up hating Tim in the first place. The boy walks back into his room without closing the door and a few minutes later, comes back out with an armful of blankets and cushions.

“There’s some extra blankets and pillows I thought you might want, I know it’s not cold but...uh, better safe than sorry,” the statement turns into a question with an upturned lilt in his voice. He’s trying his very best not to seem patronizing. Jason feels that pang of guilt again. “I don’t need your pity.”

Those were his words, words that he shouldn’t have thrown around, words that Tim didn’t deserve, after all the trouble he had to go through himself. He wants to take it back, maybe he can fix this.

“I...appreciate it, really,” Tim looks surprised, “I also wanted to say, I’m sorry, I was a real jerk.”

Tim looks away, biting his lip, “I can’t imagine what it was like, having to survive, and die like that. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be so angry.”

“You don’t want to,” Jason says, he shouldn’t. In the end, no one should have to go through what he did, wasn’t that the whole point of Bruce’s insane crusade.

“I do, there are people out there who aren’t so fortunate, who needs someone who can understand what it’s like, if I don’t then how can I help them?”

“Here’s the deal, Dick made his name as Robin because he needed it, I accepted it because it was as far as I got to having something better to do, the thrill was all it was to me. You asked for it.”

Tim sits back on his heels, watching as Jason pulls himself upright from the couch.

“You asked for it because you WANTED to help, you worked for it. You know what pissed me off when I first heard about you? I thought ‘Great, another dumb kid who thinks it’ll be fun to die on the street for his stupid mission.’ I tracked you down thinking I was going to see another clone of me, pretending to be Robin like it was some game. Then I saw YOU.”

Tim swallows. This must be bringing back all sorts of bad memories, memories Jason would rather deny but he needed to come to terms with it as much as Tim does.

“You weren’t laughing, you weren’t swinging around to show off, you took everything and worked out the quickest and best way to solve cases. I saw you and I knew, this was no game to you. But that also pissed me off because I realized, deep down, you were a better Robin than I ever could be. I hated you because you were better. That you put your LIFE on the line not because of the thrill but because someone out there needs you to save them.”

“When I came back, I read about you, your file. I thought yeah, another dressed up rich kid from one of those Gotham’s elites, but then I learned that they say nothing about you.” Jason slips off the couch to Tim’s level, “Your mom, your dad, all your friends, you lost them all didn’t you trying to fight crime. For the longest time, you didn’t want to let anybody else in your life because you didn’t know if just they’d die just knowing Tim Drake. Then Robin was taken from you, you didn’t outgrow it like Dick did, or lose the name by dying like I did. It was all you had wasn’t it?”

Jason is almost knee to knee with Tim, who looks like he’s ready run. The emotions he’s tried so hard to put aside, the memories he’s tried to forget were surging back with Jason’s words. His fight or flight responses were kicking in. He tries not to. Jason places a gentle but careful hand on his shoulder. He flinches but he doesn’t run.

“You thought it was your fault. Didn’t you. They said you were crazy and you almost believed it. Now you run yourself ragged just so you could prove yourself. Just to prove you’re not useless you’re burning yourself out, or was Alfred wrong?”

“I-it’s not-” Tim tries to say but Jason cuts him off.

“It is, don’t lie to me now,” he says gently. Tim buries his gaze into the floor, trying not to cry. He doesn’t like letting other people see him like this but Jason rests a hand on his cheek and pulls him back to look him in the eye. The tears fall anyway.

“I was wrong, I should’ve stuck out for you like you did for me. What role model treats his fan like that?”

“How did-?”

“Alfred and I still talk you know?”

Tim let’s out a quiet ‘oh’ he closes his eyes and focusing on his breathing. He’s still chewing on his lip like no tomorrow.

“Stop.” Jason says. Tim looks at him in confusion.

“Huh?”

“Biting your lip like that, if you...I can’t” suddenly, his mind goes blank and he can’t find the words to tell Tim why he shouldn’t bite his lip that way or blush like that because he’s still doing it.

“Ah, fuck it,” Jason growls as he lunges, making the worst decision he’d ever made in his second life and capturing Tim’s red bitten lips. Tim makes a muffled sound as he tries to say something, his hands flail a bit before settling on Jason’s strong arms, trembling. Jason in turn pulls him closer, wrapping them around Tim’s waist without breaking the kiss.

Tim’s wide eyes begin to relax and close as he gives in.

When Jason finally pulls away, he mutters and doesn’t look Tim in the eyes again.

“J-Jason?”

“Go on, laugh, tell me it’s not how you feel, but I’m not going to deny it,” Jason growls, “I’m going crazy, I can’t look at you anymore without thinking how much I wanna hold you and make you smile again, you and your dumb, cute smile.” The one that only comes out when Bruce actually fails to make a joke, or when Alfred bakes his special cookies. The sigh when he’s finally warm and holding a cup of coffee on his mornings in, alone on the couch, swaddled in a ridiculous blanket fort by himself and looking smug. Jason watching and wishing he could join him, so Tim won’t be lonely.

Tim’s heart skips a beat, when he hears the passion in those words. Jason’s always been passionate, in his rage, in his vengeance and his loyalty and and friendship. But never in his wildest dreams, did he think his idol would be here now, confessing to him. Holding him for dear life and laying out his heart. It made his own ache.

“Could you ever forgive me?” Jason’s voice break as he struggles with the regret, “For being the biggest asshole, for treating you like dirt.”

Tim sits up on his knees.

“Jason,” smaller hands on either side of Jason’s face gently lift his gaze up, Tim’s eyes softly gazing back, “I forgave you ages ago, I won’t ask what happened or what went on in your mind then, but I will never hold it against you. All that matters...is that you’re here now.”

Tim holds the other man as his head falls against his chest, letting Jason listen to his heartbeat, “I’m not going to laugh or deny my your feelings or my own either.”

Jason pulls Tim even closer against him in an almost crushing embrace, afraid that if he let go, this dream will end. He never could have imagined that this was where they’d end up, holding each other, confessing to one another. A far cry from the first time they met. He remembered how he’d ripped the R symbol out in anger, but now he would happily let Tim take his heart. That asshole version of himself can go to hell.

“I’ve got a lot of groceries now, thanks to you, if you’d like to stay, I can make us breakfast tomorrow.”

Jason looked up at Tim with amusement, “What makes you think it was me.”

“You’re the only other person that can get past my security system so easily, what I hadn’t figured out yet was how exactly.”

“I, uh..”

“You were watching me,” Tim chuckles, like the knowing little brat he is.

“You live an awful lifestyle, I don’t know how you manage to still look cute when you live off coffee and nearly nothing else.”

Tim laughs, a sound that still makes Jason jittery, “Well, I have you now to make sure I do better.”

“You bet you do.”

Their lips met again, their hearts singing their mutual song, hopeful, healing and of resolution. Robin’s song. Somewhere off in the distance, a -tt- could be heard, followed by a grin.

#tim drake #jason todd #damian wayne #jaytim #damian plays cupid #fluff #hurt/comfort #confessions

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ncfan-1 · 6 years ago

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Gotham 05X01, ‘Year Zero’

[Tumblr is giving me issues regarding secure connections right now. I will let you know when I’m not having these issues anymore, but for right now, please direct any comments you have to the version of this post on my Dreamwidth account, or at least cross-post your comments to there. I have temporarily changed my settings to allow anyone to post comments, rather than just registered users.]

So, first episode of Season 5, which will most likely be the last season. The last time we were here, Gotham City underwent having its bridges blown up, which while a big problem, should not have been nearly as big a problem as the show made it out to be. Yeah, things are gonna be bad for the first couple of weeks, but if a proactive government takes charge, the city can get back on its feet eventually.

A bunch of criminals decided to carve up isolated, electricity-deprived, and largely depopulated Gotham City into their own personal fiefdoms for reasons that don’t make any sense upon slight scrutiny. Only with Oswald did this make sense, since Oswald has a strong emotional attachment to Gotham City, wouldn’t want to abandon it, and would want to establish his own rule to bring things under control (Things are probably fairly stable in his fiefdom. It’s the peace of the gun, obviously, but I assure you that the peace of the gun is worlds better than whatever the hell is going on in Jonathan’s neck of the woods.). With Barbara, it sort of makes sense, until you remember that this is a woman who likes her amenities like, oh, running water and air conditioning, and she wouldn’t want to be anywhere that doesn’t have these things. With the rest, they have no real attachment to this place and would definitely want to seek greener pastures. Especially Victor Fries, whose life literally depends on having working electricity, and who probably has his goons making constant runs looking for generators and ever-diminishing supplies of fuel for those generators.

Bruce Wayne decided that he could better serve Gotham City by trying to hunt down Jeremiah Valeska than, say, using his wealth and the clout of his family name to secure desperately needed resources for Gotham like getting the bridges repaired and repairing infrastructure enough to get the power turned back on.

I expect Season 5 to be a clusterfuck of epic proportions. I’m hoping that it will veer solidly into So Bad, It’s Good territory and stay there, though I’m not entirely optimistic. I just hope the apparent Jim x Babs tryst doesn’t happen in the first episode. I can’t handle that sort of brain-breaking badness in the first episode.

This? Is Gotham.

[CN/TW: Suicide, suicide ideation, suicide attempt]

- The recap automatically loses points with me by reminding me of Lee x Ed.

- No Man’s Land, Day 391. So, just to establish, this has been going on for over a year.

- We start with Ed, because of course he’s who everyone wants to see first. (Not.) Here’s someone else who really should have headed off seeking greener pastures first thing, because it’s not like he has an emotional attachment to the city.

- Seeing Oswald and Harvey was welcome, though. I love that Oswald has makeup staff, even in these dark times.

- Jim does not deserve the hero shot.

- Why is Ed teaming up with Jim, Harvey, and Oswald? Oswald, I can understand teaming up with the cops, because he’s all about order, but Ed knows no loyalty.

- And apparently Gotham is a full-blown warzone.

- We go back to Day 87, where Jim explains why people need to

- So Oswald repurposed a factory into a working manufacturer of ammunition. So someone’s gotten power up and running.

- And so has Barbara. And it turns out that her “No Men Allowed” policy isn’t nearly as strict as last season led us to believe. What a surprise. (The fact that she deals primarily in information does at least make sense for her character; she always makes the most sense to me as an information broker.)

- Where the fuck did Jonathan find an army of followers? Isn’t he a complete loner with no real charisma?

- This is the kind of situation where you bring in the national guard, not where you just declare the city off-limits and stick your head in the sand. Given how hawkish certain people in the highest level of government are, the men among these people would probably see advisement to stick their heads in the sand while criminal elements take over a city as an assault on their masculinity or something, given their personality types.

- Oh, god, poor Selina, they couldn’t even get her out of town. (At least Alfred seems to have stuck around to look after her while Bruce goes off on his revenge quests.) She looks so completely crushed by everything. She looks like she’s been crying off and on constantly for days; her eyes are so swollen. Poor kid.

- …Of course they couldn’t even go a full ten minutes before showing us the Greedy, Ungrateful Poor. Jesus.

- We find Ed sleeping on a rooftop couch, thoroughly disheveled. Apparently waking up somewhere with no idea how he got there has become a regular thing for him.

- More Bad Ed? Really? Can we just be done with this?

- Jim is right on the money when he says it’s easy for the government to ignore people suffering, though. They have a very easy time doing that.

- So Oswald wants a thousand pounds of steak from Babs in exchange for a thousand pounds of ammo. And Tabby is hung up on revenge for Butch (ugh) while Babs is actually thinking about needing to protect the women who come to her territory. What a surprise. (Well, Babs actually thinking about the need to protect people is a bit of a surprise. But Tabby not giving a damn about anyone but herself? That’s not a shock.)

- Jonathan’s… Yeah, this makes no sense. The fact that he was able to make himself into a power who could actually do anything in Gotham makes no sense. What would make more sense would be if he was (comparatively) small-fry who survived and made a name for himself by loaning out his services to the actual powers in the city.

- The power goes out at the hospital while Selina’s surgery is going on. Bad. The power comes back on, but there are people downstairs stealing the medicine. Worse.

- Jonathan confronts Jim. In a fight between these two, I’m always gonna be on Jonathan’s side, so… yeah, I kinda wanted to see him get dosed with fear toxin again. Not sorry.

- The Greedy, Ungrateful Poor are pissed that Scarecrow’s gang stole most of their food.

- As for the food situation: Bruce has a Plan. I really hope this plan actually works, and that it doesn’t backfire for grimdarkness.

- “After all the things I’ve done, what did me in was being your friend. I just wish Jeremiah killed me.” I’ll… leave this here. (I had suspected that Selina might be portrayed as suicidal. I’d hoped I’d be wrong.)

- And a nurse says Selina needs “the witch.” (Ivy, probably.)

- Oswald’s got a new leg brace, it looks like.

- Why is Oswald being portrayed like a Caligula knockoff (Or maybe a Nero knockoff, playing his fiddle—eating steak—while Rome burns)? This makes no sense. The man is practical enough to know that his workers need proper amounts of food in order to work.

- The dog’s named Edward. I don’t know whether or not to laugh.

- It’s so nice to have confirmation that Barbara will always be second-best in comparison with the man who threatened to rape her to Tabitha. And this after Barbara gave up godlike powers to save Tabitha’s life.

- The helicopter’s here. How much do you want to bet it’ll be shot down or hijacked?

- Shot down; wow, that took… all of five seconds. My bet right now is on Jeremiah as being responsible. He’s enough of a chaos agent to do something like that; Oswald or Barbara probably would have “confiscated” the contents instead.

- What’s Alfred’s game? (What’s Bruce’s game?)

- It was actually some two-bit thugs we’ve never heard of who shot down the helicopter. Of course.

- And Oswald has shown up to confiscate the contents of the helicopter. Only to be intercepted by Jim and his buddies.

- Or maybe it wasn’t the two-bit thugs, and maybe it was Jeremiah, after all.

- And someone with a bow and arrow is killing Oswald’s goons. It’s Tabitha. Of course.

- And Tabitha’s gun had bad bullets in it. And Oswald gets real revenge for his mother, and Barbara…

- Tragic Lesbians. Fuck you fuck you fuck you the first fucking episode fuck you fuck you fuck you

- Oswald has enough sense to run like hell once Barbara’s initial shock wears off.

- …Barbara was presumably there to try to talk Tabitha out of pursuing ruinous revenge. Jim? I really don’t want to see that hook up in the first episode, but could you at least pretend to be a decent human being and extend Barbara some sympathy?

(I suppose Bruce might extend her some sympathy, since he also has experience with the “watching people you love be murdered in front of you” thing. And because he puts more effort into being a decent person.)

- And poor Barbara gets shot while being a one-woman army.

- And Oswald, interestingly, doesn’t actually want to kill Barbara. Again, proving that he is not indiscriminately violent or vengeance-driven. And he doesn’t want to kill Jim either. Well, at least they remember part of Oswald’s personality.

- And Jim didn’t want to kill Oswald. Gobblepot revival?

- Please tell me they didn’t just leave Barbara unconscious and bleeding on the warehouse floor.

- Oh, look, it’s Ecco.

- There’s someone on the other side who got in contact with Jim to let him know there are people outside of Gotham who want to help. Meanwhile, Ecco has drawn a scary smile on the map. I am underwhelmed.

- Ed woke up in a dumpster this time. I laughed. Truly, a dumpster is his natural habitat.

- Barbara and Tabitha at the morgue. Excuse me, at Barbara’s club. Barbara’s ready to raise hell. She healed very quickly from that gunshot wound.

- Once Oswald’s calmed down a bit, he’ll probably decide he doesn’t want Jim dead after all.

- Selina’s looking at the scalpel. Selina, no. Her screams are heartbreaking. (Serious question, and I know this doesn’t always help—sometimes it just makes the suicide ideation worse—but is she on anti-depressants?)

- Please don’t start a round of applause for Jim Gordon.

- And a child has showed up wanting to talk to Jim. He walked all the way across town with this message: “They’re killing us.”

#ncfan watches Gotham #Tw suicide #Tw suicide ideation #Tw suicide attempt

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iamchrissi · 6 years ago

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A blast from the past

For the Batfam Week 2018, prompt: Time travel

Steph meets Robin!Dick

Also on Ao3

Steph's not sure how it happens. One second, she is trying on her old Spoiler costume, just to see if it still fits, the next she's one a rooftop in Gotham, at night. She's pretty sure it was just morning just a second ago.

She's also pretty sure something is wrong pretty much immediately, because she's staring at an apartment tower she's never seen before. And she knows Gotham by night. She's not Batgirl for nothing.

But before she can think of anything else, three thugs attack her from nowhere. She must have landed right in the middle of them, for some reason, but there's no time to ponder that.

The first one goes after her with a tire iron. She ducks and knees him in the groin, before turning and punching the second goon in the solar plexus. As he staggers away, she kicks the third in the knee and finishes with a nice blow to the head.

By that time, the first goon has somewhat caught his breath, but he's slow, so Steph just kicks him in the head and then uses her elbow to knock out number two.

It didn't even take a minute, and Steph has to say she's kind of proud of herself. Nice take down, no trouble. Always a good feeling.

Carefully, she tries to take stock of the situation. She's definitively in Gotham, she can see the Wayne Tower and several other landmarks that she works on and around every single night. There are a few buildings she doesn't know, though, and a few missing.

Weird training situation? Possible, and wouldn't be the first time, honestly. But Batman promised her that he'd warn her of them after the last time. Not that that means this can't be a simulation, because Batman is an asshole sometimes, but she likes to think her rant made enough of an impact that she has at least a few weeks more reprieve from being kidnapped to do stupid training parcours for him.

And really, unless there is something huge she missed, the training simulation should have ended when she put the last goon to the ground. No point letting her stay in a simulation when the training situation is over.

Dream? Always a possibility, but her dreams aren't usually this vivid. And really, if this is a dream, and she's not waking up, she might as well explore.

Alternate reality? Way weirder, and less probably, but well, she's running around with the bats. Stranger things have happened.

Problem is that none of that is helpful. There doesn't seem to be a direct way of just going back home and having that ice cream she promised herself, so she decides to play along.

At least she's wearing the good Spoiler suit, the one that has Bruce's approval and is protective, warm and comes with an utility belt full of useful things.

“Are you going to do anything?” A high voice suddenly asks from behind her. Steph curses and turns, only to find... Robin?

The colorful dress is unmistakable, nobody else wears that kind of bright monstrosity. But that is not Damian. Damian's voice is not that high, and Damian would never go out in a Robin costume without the Hood. He also wouldn't look this genuily friendly.

“Don't know.” Steph finally says, cursing her slow mind. The kid is obviously not really satisfied with that answer. “What am I supposed to do?” She asks.

“I don't know. You're look kind of as though you are a super villain, and there's unconscious men there, but you aren't doing anything. That's weird. You also don't try to attack me or anything, which is nice, but still weird. And those men look like Riddler's goons, but I don't know of any other vigilantes in the city. Who are you?” The kid says, and then he smiles, and...

Dick. That's Dick. As a kid. Back when he was Robin. Some fifteen years ago. Steph swallows some truly impressive curses and really looks at the kid. No doubt about it. That is Richard Grayson, approximately 10 years old, wearing the original Robin costume.

God, she hopes this is a dream. Or a simulation. She doesn't know if she can deal with actually having time travelled.

“Hey, you okay?” Kid-Dick asks, sounding kind of concerned, but not in the big brother way she's used to. Which makes sense, Steph supposes. This Dick isn't a big brother yet. This Dick is a little boy himself.

“A bit confused. I don't exactly know how I ended up here.” Steph finally says. The Dick she knows is scary good at telling when she's lying, and she's not sure about this tiny version of him, but she's not risking it.

“How can you not know how you ended up here? Where you like, kidnapped or something?” Kid-Dick asks, and … well, it's not the worst theory.

“Don't know. Possibly.” Steph says, and then she has to stop herself from cooing when Kid-Dick puts on an adorable thinking face. She kind of wants to pinch his cheeks, it's that cute.

She restrains herself, of course. Fellow Robin empathy and all that. But still.

“I could take you to Batman, if you want. He's an awesome detective, he'll be able to figure out something.” He says, finally, and Steph almost grimaces. Yes, Bruce can probably figure something out. But she does not fancy explaining her situation to Bruce in any circumstances, and especially not when he doesn't even know who she is. On the other hand, it's not like she's got a better idea.

“Sure.” She tells Kid-Dick, and watches as his shoulders sag in … relief? Why should he be relieved that she'd accepted to go to Batman? The Dick she knows prefers to solve his problems without involving the big guy.

“Batman is like, really strong, you know. And intelligent. Like amazingly intelligent. And strong.” The kid tells her, moving to stand next to her and suddenly, looking down on this tiny kid that will someday be taller than her, something clicks in her mind. This is not Adult-Dick, who is a cop and a big brother and who can take care of himself. This is a ten year old kid. And Steph is almost twice his age. If Steph were not a friendly, Kid-Dick would probably not be able to stop her from attacking him.

Of course he wants Batman. Steph remembers being Robin, and the feeling of unconditional safety Batman could give her. Why would it have been different for Dick?

She'd always known that Dick had been a Robin, the first Robin, but... somehow, she'd never thought that thought to it's logical conclusion. Dick is always the grown one to her, the adult who can handle his own shit without Batman's intervention, the only one of them to truly not need Batman. Somehow, she hadn't realized that that hadn't always been the case.

“I believe it.” She tells the kid, trying to make herself somewhat smaller. She doesn't want to scare tiny Dick. But it's so weird.

“You don't have to be afraid of him.” Kid-Dick tells her, moving closer as if to tell her a secret. “He looks super scary, but he's really nice.”

Steph almost snorts. Yeah. Batman. Nice. But maybe he used to be. Before Jason's death. Or maybe that's just for Dick, the tiny version.

Before she can say anything, a swirly... portal? appears before them. At this point Steph is kind of ready to sit down and stop moving until the universe stops throwing shit like this at her, but Robin seems intrigued, and as his momentary elder, it's probably her duty to stop him from getting sucked into that thing. Or attacked by whoever might come out.

She steps in front of him, ignoring his indignant “Hey!”.

Then Tim steps out of the portal, because of course he does. He looks like he hasn't slept in days, which, knowing him, he probably hasn't, but he also looks happy to see her, so there's that.

“There you are! We were worried.” He says, apparently not seeing Kid-Dick.

“Who's we, and where am I?” Steph asks, very much aware of the tiny, curious, 10 year old version of Dick currently standing behind her.

“Everyone who's in town, so everyone except B, Cass and Babs, and you are exactly 15 years and three months in the past. Wow does Gotham look different.” Tim's says, and then he notices Dick, and his eyes go wide.

“We should go.” Steph decides, before Tim gets any ideas. Or they change the past in any way more than she might already have. She turns to Kid-Dick.

“Looks like my ride is here. Take care, kid.” And then, because she can't stop herself, she runs her hand over his hair. Then she takes Tim's hand and drags him through the portal.

On the other side, Dick, Jason, Duke, Damian and Alfred are waiting. They do indeed look worried. There's some kind of … apparatus standing there, which apparently they came through, but Steph is so not looking at that. She looks at Dick.

“You were a cute ten year old, you know that?”

#bfw2018 #batfamweek2018 #stephanie brown #dick grayson #batfam #dc

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denouemwnt · 7 years ago

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badass batmom

you can also read it in AO3!

pairing: bruce wayne x batmom x batfam

warnings: swearing, angst, violence, miscarriage.

summary: Bruce’s got hurt while fighting against the Joker, who just kidnapped your sons, Tim and Damian. While the other kids are trying to end the chaos the villain is causing in Gotham City, it is up to you to save your boys... But will you leave a trauma from the past aside to save them?

words: 3207

A/N: I really love the Batmom stories the amazing authors on Tumblr write, I think I read all stories when I had my other blog (and certainly I’m re-reading everything again!). I got really inspired by them and decided to try to write one story that was in my mind for a long time. I’m not as good as these talented writers but let’s try and see where it goes. Oh, and Y/V/N is your ‘vigilante’ name.

(you can see my masterlist here!)

________________________________________________________________

Another sleepless night. You are living a hard period of your life when you even can’t do your favorite thing in the world: sleep. Maybe you need to be aware if something happens; there is always a possibility when your kids and husband are fighting crime on the streets.

This “hero” thing turned out very difficult to you. When Bruce said about Dick being his sidekick you didn’t agree for the first time. He had a very brilliant idea to put your child on the streets to fight crime. It’s not something a normal father would do.

When you saw Dick training with his father you knew that he would be an amazing Robin. And he was. This happened to all your kids and soon you realized you couldn’t stop them from doing something they liked because of a trauma of the past.

Only Alfred and Bruce know what happened. You never felt ready to tell the whole family about that period of your life, you never had the courage for it.

Because you can’t sleep, you go to one of the most peaceful places on the manor: where you make your beautiful paintings. The idea of capturing images with your own hands always made you relax since you were a kid.

You walk to pick up the new and small canvas you bought last week to put delicately on the easel. When you were about to catch the paint-brush you hear a nervous knock at the door. You turn around to see your oldest son, Richard, still wearing his Nightwing suit, but without the mask.

“Something happened, dear?” Something bad happened, you can see through his eyes.

“It’s Bruce… He- he got hurt pretty badly.” He says to you waiting for any reaction.

Your mouth tries to form words but all your mind can think of is what you just heard. What if something else happened?

Dick sees how shocked you are and leads you to where his father is.

You walk with quick steps to the cave to see your husband being stitched up by Alfred. There are new (and deep) cuts in his body. You feel tears falling through your cheeks and get closer to him.

“He is going to be ok, Mom.” He reassures you and puts his mask again, exiting the cave.

Soon the butler gives you some space, finishing stitching the last cut and going back to the house.

“What- what the hell happened to you?” You stop in front of Bruce and carefully hug him. Your heart slowly breaks from seeing how hurt he got.

“Right now, it doesn’t matter what happened to me, Y/N.” He kisses your forehead and takes your hand in his.

“What do you mean? Something else happened? Are the kids ok?” You take a step back, still with your hand in his, and look at him waiting for answers.

“Joker got Tim and Damian. Dick and Jason are taking care of him while I’m recovering, yet I don’t know if they are going to get their brothers in time.”

“What?”

You can’t believe he did it again, that he had the audacity to touch your kids again after all the suffering he already brought to your family. And getting Bruce hurt like that? He is going to certainly regret bringing so much pain to your loved ones.

You are not going to wait until one of your boys put The Joker behind bars at Arkham. You are the one who is going to do it, after getting Tim and Damian from his dirty hands.

You promised yourself you wouldn’t risk your life at the streets fighting crime anymore like your family does.

You promised yourself you would never wear that suit again.

This is a different situation. You need to do this.

And you are going to do it.

“Bruce… I am going to get our boys back.” You quickly kiss his cheek and go to the tiny secret place where only Alfred, Bruce and you know, where your old suit is.

You begin dressing it and the memories from the time when you used to protect Gotham fill your head. While being Y/V/N in the past you felt so good knowing what you did to help the city.

After you are fully dressed, steps are heard behind you and a hand is put carefully on your shoulder when you turn around to be face-to-face with your husband.

“Are you sure about this, dear?”

“It’s hard to wear it and certainly it’s going to be harder to fight again remembering what happened. But that’s why I didn’t stop training, right? I need to help my family right now.” You sigh as he gets closer to you.

“You are a very brave woman, Y/N,” he kisses me. “And I love you.”

“I love you too, Bruce.”

_____

When Damian opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was his own face.

The walls were full of mirrors, with strange shapes and sizes.

He counted ten armed men inside the room, but no sign of the Joker. If he was right and he probably where, he and Tim were just a distraction to lead Jason and Dick to the opposite side of the city.

If he could only say to Alfred that they could handle these men... but his gadget was broken.

So was Tim’s.

“Robin, can you-” The Red Robin was interrupted by a scream and after it, a blackout.

What happened was something his father would do, but Bruce got hurt, and his older brothers didn’t act like that, Damian thought.

Damian and Tim only could hear grunts, kicks, and sounds of gunshots coming from the men and the supposed vigilante that was fighting with them. They quickly undid the knots on the ropes that were supposed to be hard to undo and started fighting with the remaining men.

That’s when the emergency lights lit the room – a little later than usual – while the three of them continued combating the Joker’s thugs and both of the batboys saw a woman fighting. She remembered them the way that their parents used to train together.

She moved discretely between the men and put them on the floor one by one, using advanced techniques of martial arts. If they didn’t see her, they would believe that a ghost was fighting with them because the vigilante was so quiet and careful. It isn’t possible that the woman may be their mother, right? Tim thought.

But when the only man that was still on his feet pointed two guns at the kids’ faces, her reaction was just too fast.

“Get. Away. From. Them.” And simply like that, he fell on the ground after the shock of her fist on his face.

“Mother?” They looked at her with amusement and surprise at the same time.

“Hey, boys.” Y/N hugged them. “Are you ok? Did one of those jerks hurt you?” She checked them for any bruises.

_____

A few minutes earlier.

“Master Wayne just asked me to warn you about a new vigilante who is going to help you get Tim and Damian back,” Alfred says from the cave while seeing the images from the cameras around the place where the boys where.

The butler secretly smiles knowing that Y/N is back at her old business, proud that she decided to wear her suit again and fight for her family.

Alfred is the closest thing to a father figure for Y/N, just like he is for Bruce; however, there is a huge difference between the Bat and her: she actually has a family.

“Wait- what? Don’t tell me that Bruce adopted another kid! I don’t need help to save Tim, you know that already, Alfred.” Jason sighs and sits on his motorcycle to get to the building where his brothers are.

“And Damian.”

“Yeah, him too.” Jason rolls his eyes.

He is just tired of all this shit happening in Gotham. Some psycho makes some chaos, get caught, go to Arkham, escape, repeat. But now, deeply, it is kind of serious for him and he doesn’t need anyone to annoy him.

“Master Jason, you-” Todd turns off the gadget and starts driving to finish his mission as soon as possible.

Little he knew that Alfred was going to tell him that he could go back and help Dick.

When Jason arrives at the old building at the quiet street in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Gotham, Jason realizes it is too late.

Because Tim and Damian are already out of it with someone that is supposed to be the vigilante Alfred said. He has never seen that woman before and thinks that maybe she is some old Bruce’s affair, but there’s is something incredibly wrong. His brothers are smiling and they only smile when- oh no.

“What the hell?”

_____

The boys are still waiting for an explanation - especially when after you rescued Damian and Tim you received an invitation from The Joker himself -, but unfortunately, you can’t just go home and pretend that he isn’t around. You always have to put the others first, that was what your father always said to you when you were a child.

All of you stop in front of the abandoned construction he was supposed to be. When you prepare to enter it, two very short men dressed like clowns appear just behind you.

“Y/V/N, Mr. J said specifically that only you were invited.” And suddenly they disappeared.

Just like what happened that night, you thought.

You need to go there and face him alone again. Maybe Dick is there with him since no one can localize him. Maybe it is your chance to do what you should have done that night.

“Mom, are you sure?” Tim asks.

You nod and open the door.

The room was full of smoke, with a terrible smell and trash all over the place. You could see rats running on the floor and spider webs on the walls.

When the door closes behind you, Alfred starts talking about Dick.

“I was able to locate Nightwing, Y/V/N. He actually is not too far away from you, where Harley Quinn was found. Right now she is already in Arkham.”

You sigh with relief but it is soon replaced by anger when you see Joker.

“I knew you were still a kind of backup for the Batman, even after being so unprofessional after that night.” He smiles.

“What do you want from me?” You get closer to him.

“It is a pleasure to see you too, Y/V/N. Wow! We didn’t see each other for a long time, right? We have a lot to catch up!” He laughs.

That fucking laugh.

“Why are you doing this?” You take a few more steps closer.

“My explanation is not important at the moment.” He starts walking around you. “You are the star of the show today, my dear! How have you been after that little accident? I mean, it’s been a long time and I haven’t seen you after that!”

“Little?” You say sarcastically and sigh. “You know what you did to me. It wasn’t a little accident.”

“If you think with me, it was indeed a little accident, because the baby bat was so small I didn’t even notice.” And he shows me, the walking stick.

“Shut the fuck up or I will kill you right now!” You scream, pulling out all the anger you kept inside all these years.

“Oh, wow! Now I know why you don’t hang out with Batman anymore. Not really his type.” He makes a fake sad face and shows you a little stuffed bat. “Look what I found! That baby would have made a really good Robin.”

That was the limit.

You punched him right in the nose that started bleeding really badly. He started laughing and tried to hit your head with his walking stick, but you bowed down at the same time, so he decided to throw the stick away and grab one of his knives.

The Joker tried to stab your chest but you quickly held his arm, kicked him on the floor and picked up the knife from his hand. You were about to immobilize him when he pushed you at the wall and stabbed your lower belly.

“The baby dying inside you.” He smiled.

You were with so much anger that you didn’t even felt the blade cut your skin deeply when you took it out of you. He turned around to grab that fucking walking stick and you stabbed him in the back.

“Not fair at all.” He grunted and fell on his knees.

You took the knife out and grabbed his arms to push it against his back.

The clown strikes his head in your nose and it’s time to yours to begin bleeding. He turned around and you punched his face, making him fall to the ground. You put your feet on his chest and pressed it a little bit.

Your boys get in the room and look at you surprised one more time. Dick was about to say something when Joker’s laughter interrupts him and you interrupt the clown with another fist on his face.

“Gordon is on his way.”

_____

Some years ago...

“It is going to be fine, Bruce. It will be my last mission, I promise.” You could see how nervous he was through his eyes, so you take his hands in yours, reassuring him that everything is going to be ok.

He sighs, finally letting go of the breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

“Ok, baby. Even if you want to go on patrol with me after tonight, there’s a good chance that belly will stop you.” He genuinely smiles.

“Oh no, you didn’t say that.” A genuine smile escapes from your lips too. “No one can notice that there is a baby inside here, I’m sure he is going to be really small.”

Bruce gets closer to you and gives a really tight hug.

“She, Y/N.” He whispers.

You take a few steps back and put your mask, so does he.

“We are not discussing this again, Batman. Let’s go.”

“Ok, Y/V/N. Let’s go.”

A few minutes later, you and your fiancé arrive at the abandoned circus where Joker indirectly said he would be at.

But seconds before you make your entrance to confront the clown, two small men dressed just like the joker stop both of you.

“The Bat can’t enter.” They say at the same time. “Y/V/N, Mr. J said specifically that only you were invited.” And just like that, they disappear.

“Are you sure about this, Y/V/N?” You knew that if he wasn’t the Batman right now, he would get closer.

You nodded and discreetly went to the main entrance, it was supposed to be a door, but only some old curtains took its place. You walk through an empty hallway with some obscene drawings at the wall until your feet stop just before the stage of the old circus.

“Look who finally got here! The Y/V/N herself!” He took his hat off and revered to you as if he were polite enough to do that to someone.

“What do you want?” You cross your arms over your chest.

“To take you off from the Bat, of course! You just disturb my plans with him!” He laughs.

You felt that someone was right behind you and turned around to see one of his men. And soon you felt something you didn’t before, a needle on your neck.

How could you not feel that?

A few moments later you woke up on the ground of some dirty room. There was nothing keeping you up there, you were technically free if it wasn’t for the clown that appeared in front of you.

The Joker smiled and pointed to the door, where you could hear sounds of fighting that filled up the room. Bruce was here making his way to you.

You heard a metal crashing on the ground, it was his walking stick. You tried to get up but you couldn’t, it was certainly the thing that guy injected inside you.

No, please, this can’t be happening, you thought.

He got closer to you and started laughing; this sound was the only thing you could hear.

And then he hit you right thigh first.

You tried to get up again but your body was too weak, so tears began to fall on your cheeks as you waited for the worse. You screamed for help, it was the only thing that came out of your mouth. You tried to protect your belly with your arms and legs, but he hit it.

He hit it three times. Each one of them harder than the one before.

You wondered where Bruce was but soon you heard him still fighting, it was impossible for him to get you.

All you could do was beg him to stop.

Your baby, the only thing that came to your mind. Your poor baby. You were such a bad person, you thought. Why you decided to come here? Why? You felt blood getting out between your thighs. No, this can’t be happening.

Your baby died inside you and it’s your fault, you thought.

You killed your own baby.

And then Joker saw the blood and the shock on your face.

“Oh no! You had a little Bat inside your smashed belly, didn’t you? Such a naughty girl, Y/V/N.” He laughed even more.

You were a monster.

You felt your baby’s blood on your body. In your mind, you heard him cry.

Because you always knew there was a little boy inside you.

But he is not a boy anymore; he is just blood on the floor.

It was your last mission, indeed.

_____

“So... That was what happened. I was young, dumb and really irresponsible.” You finish telling about that night to your boys. “I’m really sorry I haven’t told you about it before. It is something that haunts me until today.” You sigh.

“And it haunts me too.” Bruce holds your hand firmly and kisses it. “Your mother, Alfred I suffered for months. It is not easy to lose a child.” He looks at Jason, who turns his gaze to the other side of the living room.

“But in the end, we have four amazing kids and we are so grateful for having all of you here with us.” You smile at them.

“I hope that you plan on not having more adoptions on the way,” Jason says.

“Who knows?” Bruce says and they look at him in shock.

“You’re kidding right?” Tim asks seriously.

“Who knows?” There is your time to say it.

“C’mon, family hug!” Dick screams and it becomes a huge mess.

Feeling the arms of your family (even Alfred, he tried to escape discreetly but you got him) around you is something that makes you so happy after those dark days.

“I hate this.” Damian murmurs but holds them like he’s never done before.

After fifteen seconds hugging (that’s a record!), all of you manage to get out of the hug.

“Ok, so everyone to the table, we ordered pizza!”

________________________________________________________________

You can go to my masterlist to read more of my batmom series and my other batfam stories!

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