#dick Grayson is sad

[snakeredbirdbatkatana]

Brother will you believe (until my bones are dust)

Tim will always be the first.

The first bird to hold a mantle covered in the corpses of Dick's wings, the first to carve a space into his heart, to make an all consuming void that only a brother can be.

"Bruce's alive, I can prove it."

He's angry at the world at Batman. How dare he leave, making another mess for Dick to clean up. Damian a child that he barley knows, Jason angry and vying for a cowl that both know, they don't believe in.

It's been years since Dick has worn the suit he worked so hard for. Passed from Jason to Tim. Only one with his actual consent not that his consent ever seems to matter anymore.

"Grayson, when will Drake be gone? He's unneeded."

Tim is all he has the only constant the only thing he can actual lean on. His little brother who has had his throat slit by Jason, and Damian is doing his damn best to push his out. He's backed into a corner.

Choices, a constant balancing act that all the acrobatics in the world won't allow him to slip from. Selfishness is his only net and for once he isn't gonna hit the ground.

"Tim I need you, I need my brother, I need someone to watch my back. We can come back to it but for now I need to breathe."

He leans back into the smell of coffee and absolutely horrid axe body spray that every teenager seems to love and just inhaled. He can feel a knife uncomfortable against his back, and what sounds like typing but he doesn't dare move.

His net curled around him and for once the world is quiet. Jason, Damian, and Bruce can come later.

For now it's Tim and Dick Grayson and he can feel the air.

[lxkrissyy]

Their dynamic is very important to me.

[seilnakyle]

the way his face burst into a smile as soon as he saw Dick 😭😭

[magicpiano]

I came across the AU idea that Dick Grayson is Richard Parker, and thus, Peter Parker's biological father. There are a few fics where Peter dimension travels to the DC universe and gets to meet his dead father. It is a fun idea, but I have different one.

AU where Peter dimension travels to the DC universe, and the batfam realizes that he is Dick's son, but rather than think he is from another universe, they all come to the conclusion that he is from the future.

It makes sense, after all, the rules of time travel basically boil down to 'don't change anything.' So when Peter is avoiding them and "pretending" not to know them, they just think he is following the rules. (He isn't even really avoiding them, he just has no idea who they are.)

You know how once you have an idea in your head, it take a lot of convince you that your wrong? Same idea here, they are so convinced of their idea that all new info ends up making them surer. Confirmation bias.

So Peter is trying to find a way home while the batfam tries to subtly help him without getting involved in time travel. Hijinks ensue.

Peter once mentions his love of photography and how he used to take pictures of heroes for a newspaper. Everyone looks at Tim and thinks, 'Gee I wonder where he picked up that hobby.'

At one point Peter pulls an assassin move, and Damian is like, 'I taught him that for sure.' (In reality Peter just trained with Natasha and Bucky before.)

When dealing with some issue Peter says something like, "I know a guy with some green angry problems and he taught me a lot about staying calm when mad." Everyone looks at Jason??? (He just picked up some meditation advice from Bruce Banner)

At some point he goes to the manor and everyone is like, 'Hah! More proof! He knows his way around the building!' He doesn't know his way around, his spider sense just lead him to where people are and kept him from getting lost.

He mentions Black Cat once, and everyone comes to the "totally logical" conclusion that Catwoman had a daughter, and that Peter and Felicia also have a weird almost dating thing going on.

Peter has been forced to go to some fancy events with Tony before so he knows how to act at rich people galas, which of course just adds fuel to the time travel theory.

Peter keeps accidentally referencing things that don't exist/didn't happen. Everyone just assumes these things didn't happen/don't exist yet.

[fruitfloats]

you know what? continuation of a previous post of mine

habits other robins got from Jason

Dick- the way he sorts his books, while he doesnt have many in his apartment, Jason sorted them when he came over when he was younger and Dick has always kept them like that.

Tim- he organizes his thoughts when he writes them down the same way Jason did in reports, he even writes some letters like Jason did.

Steph- continuously blows bubbles when chewing gum. She saw Jason doing it a couple times in an attempt to annoy someone around him and she thought it was a great idea.

Damian- sorts his food on his plate and eats it in the same order as Jason does, it just seemed easier that way.

[butchgrayson]

behold my vision

[overwhelmedandlonely]

It’s hilarious to me that the Drake’s live next door to Bruce. I haven’t read all of Tim’s backstory so maybe they moved him and his dad into a house next to the Wayne manor after his mom died but if not, can you imagine little Tim who knows Batman and Robin’s secret identities sitting in his room with a camera taking pictures into the Wayne manor.

Just.

There’s Bruce Wayne eating breakfast. Dick is currently throwing his homework in the trash out of frustration. Jason opening the door after a nightmare and asking Bruce to stay with him until he falls asleep again. Dick coming to visit and teasing his little brother over dinner. The everyday mundane things alongside the super.

And then after Jason dies, he watches constantly for life but there’s just… nothing. He occasionally spots Alfred meandering the halls, but otherwise the manor is dark where it was once so full of life.

And he realizes he can help not only Batman, but Bruce Wayne.

[deadsetobsessions]

What Do You Have There?

A knife!

Danny plunked the butter knife in its pedestal of importance. The nice thing about having a billionaire vigilante for a... foster is the amount of money Danny was allowed to drop on his hobbies. For example, his extensive collection of souvenirs.

They're not just any old regular souvenirs. No, no, no. That would be so boring! No, these souvenirs, he obtained from the various muggings, knife fights, and various other situations he's been in ever since he was dropped ungraciously into Gotham.

The butter knife? Damian. Precocious, stabby Damian who he had startled into the stab instinct. A point of pride, really. Danny knew Damian was good at fighting! It was practically, in ghost terms, a super enthusiastic hello! Yes, the butter knife would be kept in the well lit part of the wall. Alfred had told him to stay home today to recuperate. He didn't need it, since the wound would heal in an hour or two, but he'd take staying at home any day.

A couple of hours later, well into the afternoon and right before what Danny knew to be their patrol hours, Danny had a visitor.

"Danny."

"Oh, hey, Damian! What's up?" Danny turned around to see Damian hovering awkwardly near the door.

"I am here to... check upon your wound. It is imperative that it gets proper treatment."

Ancients, Damian was exactly like those alley kids. He just ate a thesaurus instead of the drawling accent the alley kids picked up. Which meant Damian endeared himself to Danny pretty quickly. Like a little ghostling.

"Oh, I'm good. See? No blood is leaking out of the wound." Danny held up spotless bandages.

Danny watched Damian step into his haunt- his room- with a pleased hum. Damian inspected the bandages and stepped back with a sharp nod of approval. His eyes flicked to the wall that Danny was rearranging (again) and did a double take at the butter knife in the middle.

"Is that the butter knife I stabbed you with?"

"Why, yes, it is!" Danny beamed.

"Why on earth would you display that?"

"Because you stabbed me with it?"

"That makes absolutely no sense, you simpleton! When someone stabs you, stab them back!"

"That would be mean!"

Damian spluttered. Danny tugged the kid closer to the wall, cheering inwardly as Damian didn't shove him away. It might be because he was exaggeratedly wincing as he moved his "injured arm" but Danny has learned to take a win where he could find them, especially with ghosts. Not that Damian was a ghost, but he sure acted like one.

"Do you want to see my collection?"

"Your collection?"

"Yeah!" Without giving him time to answer, Danny barreled ahead. "So this is the knife you stabbed me with. Which, by the way, was an awesome show of strength and accuracy."

Damian grimaced. Danny continued blithely, secretly memorizing Damian's reactions to laugh at later.

"And this is the knife those guys stabbed me with that one time Cass found me. And this one is a bullet someone shot at me down by the docks. I think I interrupted some kind of meeting?"

Damian's jaw had a slight tick to it that would have been a baffled frown on anyone else.

"And when was this?"

"Oh, like a week ago."

"What? When did you go to the docks?!"

"At night. I couldn't sleep."

"And you went to the docks?! How did you even get there?!"

"Walked," Danny lied, like a lying liar. He floated, obviously, but none of them knew that. "Anyways, this is a law book! Someone threw it at my head!"

"Hey, guys! What're you doing?"

Danny and Damian turned around.

"Richard? Brown? What are you doing here?"

"Oh, Bruce wanted me to come back for the weekend," Dick said. Danny knew it was code for "something's going down and we need back up." Man, he still couldn't believe they didn't know he knew they were crime fighting vigilantes.

"Same!" Stephanie said. Danny was glad to see that her wounds from "cartwheeling in the manor" were healed.

"I see. Danny was showing me his collection of... objects people have used as weapons against him."

"What?!"

"Yeah!" Danny beamed, completely innocent. "Come on! I'll show you!"

With that, Danny continued to ramble. He just knew that the way Dick's and Stephanie's smiles strained would give him a good laugh for weeks to come. "And this is the glass bottle a drunk tried to shank me with in Crime Alley, and this is a knife the Red Hood himself threw at me."

Dick interrupted, face stiff. "Hood threw a knife at you?!"

"Yeah, but that was because my kids broke into his safe house and I was trying to get them to stop looting the place. And he didn't know I was a kid too, so he aimed a gun at my head. He shot at me too, but I couldn't go back to get the bullet, or else it would have joined my collection." Danny grabbed a box and shook it, metal rattling inside.

Dick smiled sweetly, Stephanie and Damian inching away from it.

"Oh, wow, I see!"

----

In his apartment, Jason shuddered. He grabbed his guns.

"Something's wrong. I just know it," he muttered to himself.

----

Danny smiled innocently as he described the horrific, near death events he got his souvenirs from.

"This is my bullet box! Man, Gotham has a lot of gun fights. I got shot so many times!" Danny complained, shaking the box like a rattling toy.

"Did you know Danny snuck out to go to the bay?" Damian snitched immediately, like a snitch.

"The Bay?! Danny! You know that's where people dump bodies, right?!" Stephanie poked him in the arm.

"Yeah, but like... I wouldn't die. And besides! I missed my friends!"

"You mean the minions you made in Crime Alley?" Steph asked. Danny pouted, eyeing the way Dick's gaze roved over his souvenirs and paling the more he realized how often Danny "got hurt."

Damian bumped a shoulder against Dick's arm. Danny returned to the conversation.

"If anything, I'm their minion." He said, remembering the times the Alley kids sent him on food runs.

"Fear Danny, the overlord of street rats."

Danny snorted. And- "Oh! Yeah, there was like a weird owl looking guy? And then they stabbed me with a finger and I kept it because woah, cool talon looking thing, right? And then they threw a bunch of those tiny knives at me? And then they just kind of vanished? Gotham is so weird."

And now, with all of them pale and stressed out of their minds, Danny swung a devastating blow called guilt trip.

"And that's the batarangs!" Three heads swung over to the line of batarangs. "Those vigilantes kept throwing them at me! One of them even hit me in the arm. Those things are sharp, man."

"Uh. Which ones?" Stephanie asked.

"Hm?" Danny hummed obliviously.

"Do you know which vigilantes?"

"Oh, it was like... the purple one. And the sword one? And like the one with the yellow insignia in the middle. And... all of them, I think? Except for signal. That guy's cool."

Stephanie and Damian had matching veiled looks of guilt. Dick shot them a sharp look. Danny decided to deal the last bit of damage to Dick.

"I'm glad you guys are way less stabby than the general Gotham public though, butter knife incident aside. At least I don't have to worry about you guys getting into danger, right? If you guys got hurt like my family did... I don't know..."

Danny smiled-squinted at them, channeling Cujo at his cutest and saddest: when he doesn't get to eat off of Danny's plate. So, pretty sad and pathetic.

"Uh, yeah." Dick said, guilt splayed all over his face. "Alfred said dinner was almost ready."

"Yes," Damian cleared his throat, looking away. "We shall partake in Pennyworth's hard work."

"Ahaha!" Stephanie laughed, nervously. "Welp, let's go bother Tim!"

Falling into step behind them, Danny grinned.

[p1nkshield]

Jason: (stubs toe) AH GAH F*CK THIS TABLE

Dick: Jay Language! You should be ashamed!

Jason: You. You taught me these words man.

Dick: (now sweating a little bit) Such foul language and now lies? You lie on the name of your older brother? I don’t know what I did wrong! Timber have you ever ever heard me curse?

Tim: …no?

Dick: exactly! You wound me Jacey!

Jason: you literally would party all the time and you once told this very table the exact same thing I just said!

Tim: … okay the joke was funny before but now you’re taking it a bit too far Jason.

Jason: WHAT? ME!?

Later he found a Polaroid of a younger Dick Grayson clothes in disarray, holding a bottle of tequila and dancing amongst several other people. Said photo has a note on the back that read “hope to see you again soon” next to a deep red kiss mark.

Jason: SEE I WASN’T LYING LOOK!

Tim: …This is really good photoshop! I thought you didn’t want to learn! But seriously can you drop this? You’re asking me to believe that the guy who calls me timbits did drugs. Its not gonna work.

Dick: (mouthing behind Tim) no one will ever believe you >:)

[inkpotsprite]

He really pulled his cowl off as if that would take it away.

[ikiprian]

there’s a lot of interesting stuff that can be made by examining the objectively scary stuff the robins face in a realistic light, but also? i really like the robins making trauma jokes. humor’s a coping mechanism that makes a lot of sense for them, given their previous role as the lighter side of batman. and, perhaps more importantly, i think it’s funny

Dick: did you just house an entire family-sized bag of chips? by yourself, in less than an hour?

Jason: as an orphan, i qualify as a family of one

Steph: but you died too, so that would make you a family of zero

Damian: multiple of us have died. it doesn’t make anyone special. i, however, am naturally special, on account of being heir to the batman

Steph: ah, heck. well, i’m no longer special, guess it’s time to fake my death and flee to africa

Dick: are you really heir to the batman, though, if bruce kicking it anytime soon would just put me in the cowl? which is a terrible job, by the way, to which nobody should brag about being heir?

Tim: hey, guys. has anyone seen my chips? i coulda sworn i…

Jason: [makes direct eye contact as he tips the bag up, funneling the bottom-bag chip crumbs into his mouth]

Jason: oh, sorry. did someone take something from you? steal it, perhaps?

Tim: [deep breath]

Tim: do you want guns batman. because this is how you get guns batman

Dick: [muttering] at least someone wants the job

[minnie-draws]

Made this for the tiktok trend a few months back

[pokeberry5]

my attempt at reclaiming the arkhamverse tim design

[mysterycitrus]

panel redraw of the sad gay guy who lives in my phone

og below the cut

(ntt #86)

[celaenaeiln]

Batman: *to the Justice League* This is Robin. He's in my care from now on.

Robin Dick: *emitting light from his smile* hi!

Justice League: Awwww! He's really cute but Batman, are you sure about this?

Batman: I've never been more sure.

JL: okay...

Dick: I'm robin! i'm 8! And you guys are the coolest people ever!!

JL: *melting into a puddle of love*

Hal Jordan: Man, how'd you pop out a kid like this bats?

Dick: He didn't. I adopted him.

Hal: what?

Dick: He's under my care now, all opinions and complaints about his behavior go through me.

Hal: uh. Well in that case, I feel for ya kid because Bats is a-

Dick: denied.

Hal: what?

Dick: your complaint is denied. rejected. unforgiven.

Hal: .....???

Dick: bye.

Batman: *tearing up behind his mask* Best. Decision. Ever.

[tbcanary]

2023 reading list: Under the Red Hood (2005)

“That is a father’s greatest triumph… To have a son surpass his own excellence.”

(ID under the cut.)

ID: Six edits of panels from Under the Red Hood, five of which are animated.

Batman and Nightwing swing on grappling hooks over a nighttime city skyline. Animation rolls through three speech bubbles. Dick: "Good god, he made a joke." / Bruce: "Be quiet." / Dick: "Yes, sir."

2. Batman stands on a roof in front of a sunlit cityscape. He reaches a hand out for Jason, who is suspended mid-air. First, Jason is dressed in his Red Hood costume, but the gif changes to show him as a young Robin.

3. A young Jason, in front of a purple background smeared with red, looks off to the side of the screen. Words behind him read, "He took me away from you," repeated multiple times. The words light up in order, highlighting the sentence.

4. Jason, in his Red Hood costume, perfectly executes a flip from one rooftop to the next. The gif rotates through three poses as he jumps.

5. A still image of Jason in his Red Hood costume. His body is turned slightly to the side, but he looks directly at the camera. He stands in front of a Gotham city scape in blues and purples. He has a faint shadow stretching over the buildings.

6. Bruce holds a bloody younger Jason in his hands. Animated text of the Joker's laughter flashes over the screen.

/End ID.