#despite both Bruce and Jason thinking he was dead til now

[era-the-witchy-birdkid]

Little idea I had

~~~~~~~~~~

“So what do you do for fun that isn't shown in the TV series anyway?” Tim asks after we finish watching the first season of my show. why he is making me watch my awkward hero beginnings with Nightwing and Batman in the same room I have no clue.

Then the question hit me, and I blush hard as the urge to keep my embarrassing secret from Robin, wars with my urge to be truthful as possible to the boy who helped shape who I am and put me on the Hero's path once my accident happened.

Being truthful won, and I hesitantly say, "I write Batman Fanfiction on Archive. My work is pretty popular too. I mostly write Titan Tower AU and stories where you join the Batfamily early though. Granted I can't update as much as I used too because of the ghost attacks." I end with a shrug.

Tim gains a look his eye that tells me he's planning something. "You can still update them even with the media blackout in Amity?"

I nod, "I don't think the GiW even knows what Fanfiction is so it was never blocked. In fact..." I snort back a laugh, "I was planning to release this one shot Titans Tower AU where ol Boxy shows up and messing up all of brainwashed Jason's plans, after I finished exploring the Ghost Zone. But of course I got stuck in Gotham instead."

Tim brusts out laughing, "The Box Ghost loose in Titans Tower," Tim say though the piers of laughter, "I can imagine the chaos that would bring, though how did you plan on ending that encounter in your story."

"Boxy leaving on his own to bother some other poor people."

"You should have totally given yourself a cameo in your story, Boxy is one of your Rogues after all. Plus it pulls into my next point you should use you fans to bring up support for abolishing the 'anti-ecto acts' and get the truth of what's going on in Amity out there."

"Aaaaaa, slight issue I may have written a vent fic where Jason can back as a halfa instead well his whole thing as Red Hood as a way to deal with my emotions after the accident and if I reveal the Amity stuff my fans might realize I'm Phantom and likely Half-Ghost like Jason in that fic is..."

"Aaa, well not the end of the world if people find out your only Half-Ghost so long as you don't drop hints to your human side??? Ow! What was that for??"

With my finger still glowing from sending a week ecto-blast at Tim, I deadpan, "Just making sure you aren't possessed, because I can't honestly believe the second most paranoid Bat just told me, the hero that mostly utilizes the Clark Kent effect to keep my secret identity, secret to purposely break said effect????"

"Clark Kent effect?" Tim asks confused

"You know Superman is an alien who lives and the Fortress of Solitude why would he have a secret identity? So no one looks for it. It's the same with me. Phantom's a ghost he's dead why would he have a secret identity of some alive kid? Probably the biggest reason why my incomplete pallet swap works so well... And I can get away with the name pun."

"You know that explains a lot on why uncle Clark gets away with just wearing fake glasses."

"I know right??? It just makes so much sense it also explains why Bruce figured it out so fast, he just never feel into the same mental trap as everyone else. Which btw Bruce don’t encourage Clark to put on a mask it would break the effect for him because why wear a mask unless he has something to hide?”

“So you can’t put on a mask either?” Tim asks

“No I think so long as I change enough of my outfit people would just think I was settling into the common superhero perception, because heroes wear masks right? How is that project going anyway?” I ask

“Badly we know what we want to do but we can’t find a way to apply it just yet. I have a few ideas though” Tim says with frustration in his voice

“You guys will figure it out you’re the Bats!” I chirp

“Danny, we’re still human and we make mistakes.” 

“I know but in the comics so long as it doesn’t deal with the family’s emotional constipation everything your family puts their mind too gets solved eventually.”

“These kind of conversations will always be a little weird. But even given your surprisingly healthy coping mechanism to deal with your lab accident trauma you should be fine so long as you imply you help Phantom instead of being Phantom, and maybe imply that Halfas are a Legend you heard Phantom taking about after a Ghost Fight that you took inspiration from. Lord knows its believable, because Gothamites are down right stupid with villain attacks and I know Parkers are just as bad from the show.” Tim says patting my back

“I’ll think about it, if only because I’m afraid that Amity Park would get tourists trying to visit the one city with a irl Superhero and I have enough problems trying to keep the natives safe during an attack.” I say bringing up the remote to start season two and a fresh notebook for notes on I what I could do better, though I find myself wincing at the title card. Not Sam’s best moment, like at all. And having to experience the accident twice? Not fun

“Fuck Tourists honestly, I still question Outsiders sanity for deciding to visit Gotham or even Blüdhaven of all places for a chance to see heroes in action. Go to Star city or Metropolis for that, not here” Dick pops into the conversation hovering over the couch Tim and I are sitting on.

“Hey Dick, How are the plans for bring Jason home once he gets to Gotham coming along?” I ask looking up to stare at his face

“Pretty good I’ll say, though I don’t know why we can’t search for him early.” 

“I mean you probably could but right now he is in the clutches of the League of Assassins and I have no idea if he has even been put in the pit yet? Plus going after Jason now could get Damian in trouble.” I say with a shrug

“Who’s Damian?” Dick asks

“Oh fuck, I forgot to tell you about Damian Wayne the son of Talia al Ghul and Batman over there” I say pointing at Bruce who is bent over a laptop and paper likely going over plans to bring Jason home as soon as possible. “Was just so focused on Jason’s impending return to Gotham that other important bits of the timeline fell to the wayside. Let me explain” In the end Tim and I wasn’t able to get into Season 2 of my show that night as I get into what I remember of the tail end of the currently released comics so far.

A more fleshed out Idea, The Danny Phantom TV show exists in the DC universe, and the verses DC media exist in the DP universe. One Day after exploring the GZ Danny falls into Gotham in front of Tim who is a long time Phan since he was stalking Vigilantes on rooftops taking photos. Both sets of media are past the "present" for both universes

There is a bit of confusion and some panicking because both of them realize Danny is stuck for a while when the portal he falls through closed behind him, and Danny doesn't want to end up adopted by Batman. (To bad someone has to take care of him while he's stuck it might as well be the Waynes)

For maximum Chaos have the DP timeline either before Reality Trip or before the Episode with the Ghost King and for the DC timeline a few months before Jason's debut as the Red Hood and I'm thinking Comics wise Danny's universe the Red Robin series just came out making Tim Danny's Robin, though Danny gained a massive attachment to Jason in resent mouths because he can identify with the whole dying thing after his accident. Though he still thinks Titans Tower was way to much, but he has recently got a few headcanons on why Jason was so mentally off because of his new experiences with ghosts.

A few more things that might happen, Titan Tower gets averted thanks to Danny's foreknowledge and Danny's eagerness to test a few headcanons of his on the basically brainwashed Jason mostly testing whether or not pit water is actually the same thing as ectoplasm or not in the hope to bring him back to his senses sooner. Danny is not going to let the miscommunication happen here if he can and will definitely stop the batarang to the throat thing from happening if he can. Batman helps him train and tries to figure out how to change Danny's ghost outfit because it's definitely possible Vlad did not get blasted with the vampire knock off outfit on(mainly because Bruce has aready mentally adopted this child and wants him to have better defenses then the suit he already died in twice thanks to memory blank). And tries to figure out how to bring Danny home... hopefully without using a Ghost portal because Gotham does not need Ghosts on top of everything else.

I fully respect Danny’s “yeah i dont like how the writers made this im going to fix it” and just full sending on it. This is a wonderful idea homie. Danny having the foreknowledge and doing his best to help The Bats while also trying to not be noticed by the entire JL

[aconitemare]

[jaydick-flashfic: atonement] Vitality Begun

AO3

For @jaydick-flashfic

Summary: But Dick didn’t know at the time that his job was more than playing bait and doing high-kicks. It was to mollify Bruce, keep him grounded. Human. Remind him of how fragile life is, how careful he has to be to walk his line. And Jason — brave, bold, invincible Jason — wasn’t up for that task. He shouldn’t have had to be at fifteen, young enough to think he’ll live forever and strong enough to fool Bruce.

A timeline in snapshots of Dick processing Jason's death.

Dick stumbles into his room at 3am to one new message on his answering machine. The number is Bruce’s personal. Dick presses play like ripping off a bandaid, stripping off his Nightwing suit as he moves towards his closetspace. He’s already rehearsing his excuse for not attending the funeral, the excuse he came up with after the invitation, the excuse he’ll deliver to Bruce when he has to call him back.

He sits on the edge of his bed and slips off his boots. The answering machine announces static, pure and void. He unzips the suit down his back, patiently waiting, and then removes his gloves too. He can detect faint breaths on the other line. Dick peels off his mask last. Bruce suddenly hitches on an intake of breath; Dick pauses, mask balanced between his fingers, for the words to follow.

Instead the line goes dead. Something in the click of the phone, the robotic No New Messages, turns Dick’s stomach icy cold.

Dick glides his thumb over the smooth material of his shiny black mask. He likes his Nightwing costume, the little thrill it still sends him to be his own man, his own hero, but it can’t compete with the sheer pride he felt first donning that simple domino with the yellow cape. Being Robin had meant the world to him.

It meant the world to Jason, too, Dick knows. He wonders if he was still wearing that simple domino when Bruce dug him out of the rubble last week. Dick begins to shake. He recognizes the symptoms of panic taking over his body, helpless to stop them. He puts in the effort anyway, reminding himself of the futility of grief and the importance of moving on. He tries to even his breathing and a sob bursts from his throat.

He hears his own strangled cry like sighting an animal through the scope of a rifle and instantly thinks of his incredible vulnerability, of the open wound making home in his chest. And once the thought is there, he may as well be a child who, upon scraping their knee, slowly realizes their blood it outside their body and trembles after stunned delay. That is to say, once the thought is there, Dick can’t stop the next cry or the quick, shallow breaths that claw for air without taking any in.

He collapses onto his side in the fetal position. He’s curling deeper and deeper in on himself as if eventually he might turn inside out and hide all this external weakness, tuck in these quivering limbs and wet eyes so the world can’t find the delicate, fleshy, human parts of him and hurt them further.

He can’t get Jason’s face out from behind his eyes. He’s seared there like a second sight. Jason smiles then, smiles like he did last Dick saw him, and Dick screams.

He has no memory of falling asleep. He must have lay there like a blister on his bed for hours, just oozing and repulsive, an open sore. It’s night again when his eyes open. He can’t breathe through his nose anymore. Jason is behind his eyes still but Dick doesn’t let him smile now. He puts his suit back on instead. He glues on his mask, fingers barely touching anything, feeling nothing, and heads out the Titan Tower like a ghost in search of another haunt. He slips through his teammates, untouchable, as they hold out their hands only for him to pass through them, leaving them in shivers.

The guilt arrives later in gentle waves. This is fortunate because it allows Dick to process his emotions like toes edging into cool waters. Dick cannot afford to go into shock, nor does he have the freedom to drown as much as he craves it sometimes. The days since Jason’s funeral pass by in a state of half-reality. He hasn’t heard from Bruce after that silent voicemail. Initially Dick is grateful for this, sure that the only conversation they could have would be one of mutual accusation and blame. They were shaky before Jason and downright volatile during the new Robin’s reign — but they nonetheless had Jason in common. Now they have nothing.

Dick doesn’t even realize he misses Bruce until he’s on the phone with Alfred and hears Bruce in the background. Dick ends the call earlier than he really wants, but it’s too late; Bruce’s voice is trapped in his ears, calling him home.

Dick follows the urge. He envisions Bruce welcoming his back with open arms. The image is so warm Dick can even sort of quell the anger has thrummed beneath the skin of their interactions for over a year. His homecoming does not pan out so neatly as he hopes.

For one, Bruce is not at the Manor when Dick arrives. Alfred made a copy of the keys Bruce took from him the day he was fired, and he knows Bruce knows Alfred did that, but it still feels uncomfortable using this mockery of trust, this replacement of something Dick was never supposed to lose. When he steps inside the house, he honestly wishes it felt more nostalgic. But Wayne Manor is like a cardboard cut-out of his childhood. There are no pictures of Dick or Jason, Alfred or Bruce — no stains he can attribute to a youthful memory. It is impersonal in the living room as it is in the ballroom or any number of Brucie Wayne’s public halls.

Dick should have called ahead and made sure Bruce would be around. Yet that’s not what family does — right? Admittedly, Dick’s knowledge of familial etiquette comes mainly from second-hand experiences with Wally. So Dick adopts the “fake it til ya’ make it” method, thinking perhaps if they act like family, they’ll become one. He wonders, wandering around the many rooms until he finds Alfred, if Wally ever enters his home when it’s empty and feels like he’s breaking and entering.

Dick sighs in relief when he finally encounters the one other living being at Wayne Manor. Alfred pulls him into a tight embrace that stretches on and on, trying to catching to Dick’s grief and contain it all in the space between their arms.

Dick cries into Alfred’s slender shoulders, gulping in his sandalwood scent with scrambling, desperate breaths. He knows he blubbers Jason’s name a few times, but it’s more than that. It’s everything Dick has lost, from his parents to Bruce to Robin to Jason. He cries because he’s lonely and angry and scared that Bruce might not always be right after all, and if Bruce can be wrong then Dick can’t be confident he’s doing right either. He cries because he knows he’s not alone in his tragedy yet he clings to loneliness anyway, pushing away friends even as he lectures them on trust and support on the field. He cries because even though Alfred is here for him more than anyone else, he still wishes it was Bruce or his parents holding him together.

Mostly, Dick cries because he can.

When Bruce does return, Dick has been sleeping in his old bedroom for three days. It’s the only warm room in the house and even though logically the Manor is vast enough to not warrant freeing up unused space, Dick is grateful that Bruce preserved his little corner. Alfred has kept it dust-free and aired out, so it’s exactly the way Dick last left it in a huff a year ago. The Flying Graysons flyer, the FIFA poster, prints from his favorite martial arts movies, photobooth pictures of him and Koriand’r…

Dick’s life was never simple, but it was simpler. He lifts the corner of a newspaper cut-out taped above his desk, slipping a thumb beneath the thin paper to better examine the one color image nestled among grainy black ink. The Teen Titans grin for their first post-mission photo-op.

Dick smiles back at them. His eyes well up, as they’ve been doing a lot the past three days, and Dick barely keeps the tears from touching his cheeks. He’s in the privacy of his bedroom yet he has this strange compulsion to save his tears as if he might need them later and they’ll all be gone.

Dick hopes to meet Bruce in the kitchen or in some other neutral, non-Bat territory. Unfortunately Bruce immediately stows himself away in the cave and Dick doesn’t have the patience to wait him out.

They hurt each other again and pretend it’s all about Jason even though they both know — or, at least, Dick knows — it’s everything between them. They draw emotional blood and can’t seem to stop reopening the wounds. The blood never clots, just pools and pools until there’s a stream and then a river and then an ocean between them.

This time, though, Dick doesn’t give up and run away. This time, Bruce doesn’t close the door. Some days they help each other heal. Other days, they hit where it hurts. But then they heal again, slowly, stubbornly, bridging the rift. It takes them a while, doesn’t happen in the course of a night or a month or even a year — but they learn to stop picking at the scabs, which helps.

 Tim also helps. Dick is hesitant initially, but Tim comes like a punctuation mark to a sentence that’s run on too long. His reclamation of Robin takes the weight off Dick’s shoulders to be something he’s not anymore. And Tim soothes Bruce in a way Dick just couldn’t after Jason. And if he’s being honest, being there to bless the passage of the mantle makes the experience a whole lot less painful than when Dick had just run into another him on Gotham streets. Tim respects Dick, appreciates his expertise despite not really needing it unlike Jason. Bruce even starts putting pictures up around the house. It’s a fragile, tentative thing, delicate and exciting as a newborn, but their family has its first heartbeat.

 Bruce and Dick celebrate Jason’s birthday on their own with as much physical distance as they can get between each other. Dick knows it’s wrong, that this is no way to honor a Robin, but the only people Dick knows who knew Jason personally are Alfred and Bruce. Alfred belongs with Bruce on this day, and Bruce — Dick still blames him. He doesn’t think he’ll ever fully forgive Bruce, so it’s best Dick keep away right now. He doesn’t trust himself not to undo all their progress.

So Jason remains a private ache in Dick’s heart, a lonely memory that rears its head every now and then to wrap its arms around him and hold him back from the rest of the world. Dick celebrates Jason by keeping busy. He doesn’t sleep, just finds petty trouble on the streets and makes mountains out of molehill missions. He imagines Jason by his side by accident a few times. He wonders what kind of man Jason would have become. If he still would’ve smiled with reckless sincerity and radiant light.

He thinks about Jason’s smile the most. The truth is that Dick knows it’s not just Bruce’s fault. Dick practically wiped his hands clean of the two. He knew Bruce was exploiting Jason, pushing him onto the field too early, and Dick let it happen out of spite. Because Bruce didn’t want Dick’s opinion and Dick maybe wanted them both to suffer for it. To realize Bruce’s mistake the hard way. Because he trusted bruce to never have to learn. He really, really trusted Bruce — and that’s where Dick begins to blame him all over again.

Even though Dick let it happen. But Dick didn’t know at the time that his job was more than playing bait and doing high-kicks. It was to mollify Bruce, keep him grounded. Human. Remind him of how fragile life is, how careful he has to be to walk his line. And Jason — brave, bold, invincible Jason — wasn’t up for that task. He shouldn’t have had to be at fifteen, young enough to think he’ll live forever and strong enough to fool Bruce.

Dick collapses thirty-six hours after Jason’s birthday, falls asleep in his shitty Bludhaven apartment to the knowledge he let him die. He wakes up, drool on his face, evening BPD shift alarm blaring. Dick turns it off and blinks blearily at his sun-soaked curtains. He shoves Jason’s smile out of his head and promises to be less angry — to never again let his emotions endanger others. It’s a promise that will guide his future actions, solidify his forever partnership with Bruce, and make him an impeccable leader, a forgiving friend, and a smooth liar.

His need for control becomes a sort of lifestyle, but Dick fancies it’s half the reason people like him so much. He is a beacon of forgiveness and second chances, always up for a joke at the worst of times. His good moods aren’t interrupted by extreme lows anymore; he keeps himself in check.

Dick thinks he might actually be a better person because of Jason. Of course, he feels like a real asshole for thinking it. He shouldn’t be able to come out the other side of Jason’s death a happier person.

“It’s not that you’re happier because Jason is gone,” Dinah once tells him during the Titans’ obligatory biannual therapy session. Dick shifts uncomfortably in the giant cushy chair. He avoids eye contact, which he apologizes for but Dinah assures him it’s about his comfort. So Dick looks everywhere but at her. “It’s that you’ve learned to handle your emotional responses better. You said you try not to hold onto anger so you can be there for people, right?”

Dick shrugs because Dinah makes it sound more righteous than it feels. Then he nods, the barest tilt of his chin signaling she’s right.

“Then think of this as your form of atonement.”

“To Jason?”

“Yes.”

Dick observes the tiny dots of suede on the chair’s arm. He shakes his head. “It can’t be. It’s too late for me to make things right with him. He’s not any better for me deciding to be a decent person now.”

He hears Dinah set her pencil down on her notepad. His eyes shift towards her feet in almost recognition of her.

“Sometimes,” she says softly, “it’s enough to be better for a person, regardless of if they know you are.”

Dick’s eyes shut and he breathes in deeply. He thinks, it’s going to have to be enough, isn’t it? and then exhales, pushing the thought out from his body. He lets it fill the room so later he can close the door and leave Jason behind for the day.