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lady-hammerlock · 5 years

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Through the Looking Glass - Chapter Ten (Telltale Batjokes & DC Comics Crossover)

AN: Sorry this one's taken so long guys. Between work and my mental health not being the best at the moment I've been pretty exhausted, but its finally done! We've only got one chapter left now. I hope you're all still enjoying Through the Looking Glass. :D

Just a head’s up as well that I’ve changed my username on AO3 to LadyHammerlock as well, in case you’re having trouble finding me.

CHAPTER TEN

It had been over twenty-four hours. No matter how Bruce looked at it, the Looking Glass should have been activated by now.

It hadn’t though. John Doe was still stuck in Wayne Manor, and was growing more and more restless by the minute.

“What if something’s happened to Bruce and the other me?” John asked. “What if… what if the Looking Glass is broken?”

Bruce didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to tell John the truth: that he had been anticipating this, dreading it, knowing deep inside of him that the Joker would find some way to complicate or ruin this like he managed to ruin everything else. He only hoped that the casualties in John’s world weren’t too high, and that whatever happened, they would still find a way to get John and the Joker switched over once more.

He hated this though; hated having to sit on his hands and not be able to do anything except cross his fingers and wait. All they needed was for the Joker to behave himself and follow instructions, just this one time, as impossible as that might seem.

He didn’t like the idea of leaving John alone; if only because he could switch places with the Joker at any moment, but as the hours wore on and there was no sign of anything changing at any time soon, Bruce grew more and more impatient, and less and less content with just sitting around and doing nothing, especially with the desperate, heartbroken, and yes, sometimes angry looks, that John kept sending in his direction.

Eventually Bruce’s restlessness (and John’s, for that matter) got the better of him.

“I’m going to contact Martian Manhunter and the League,” he told Dick and Jason.

Luckily Bruce’s two protégés had decided to stick around, at least until the situation with John Doe and the Joker was resolved. Bruce had rarely felt so grateful for their presence; not only because they were on hand to help in case of any emergencies that might crop up, but because they were able to distract John at least a little, and give Bruce a break from the other man’s desperate stares and the questions he kept asking that Bruce didn’t know how to answer.

“What?” Dick asked, his brows furrowing in a way that Bruce knew meant Dick was about to disagree with him.

“J’onn might know why the Looking Glass hasn’t activated yet,” he explained, prompting both Dick and Jason to start glaring at him.

“You know why it hasn’t activated yet,” Jason said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “I’ll give you a hint; starts with a ‘J’ and makes our lives a living hell any chance he gets.”

“I just hope he hasn’t done anything too bad in the other world,” Dick said, pursing his lips and leaning back against the kitchen table.

“We can’t just sit here and wait!” Bruce snapped, his tone angrier than he had meant for it to be. Dick and Jason weren’t responsible for any of this after all.

“So you’re going to leave John with us again?” Dick asked. “What happens if they switch back while you’re gone?”

John was looking between the three of them, looking anything but happy with the situation, but that didn’t tell Bruce much. John had been alternating between pouting, scowling and fidgeting restlessly for the past few hours, and nothing had really changed.

“I’m sure the two of you are more than capable of taking care of the Joker if that should happen,” Bruce said, trying to ignore the surge of worry that gripped him at the thought of Dick and Jason having to fight the Joker on their own. He tried to tell himself that even though the Joker had been able to beat the two of them in the past, it had only been with careful planning and preparation. Dick and Jason would be more than capable of taking the criminal out on their own. They would have to be.

“He’ll be disoriented,” Bruce added, as much for his own comfort as Dick and Jason’s. “That will be your chance to take him down.”

Dick and Jason didn’t look any more comforted by Bruce’s words than Bruce himself had been.

“Contact me if the switch happens while I’m gone,” he continued, “and I’ll return as quickly as I can.”

None of them seemed particularly happy about their current situation. All four of them were restless, and Alfred had refused to show his face at all for most of the day.

Bruce could only hope that things went back to normal as soon as possible.

John hated waiting. It wasn’t that he couldn’t be patient when he needed to be, but that didn’t mean he had to like it, especially not when his Bruce’s life might be on the line. There was nothing that he could do though. He was stuck here; stuck in this stupid world where everything sucked and where he couldn’t do anything to help; stuck inside Wayne Manor and unable to leave, which wouldn’t have been a problem if it had been his Wayne Manor, but it wasn’t.

Alfred hated him, the Bruce of this world wanted as little to do with him as possible, and even Dick and Jason didn’t want to be left alone with him now. John knew that was less because of him and more because of how terrible the other Joker was, but that didn’t stop it from hurting; not entirely at any rate.

He just wanted to go home. He wanted to see his Bruce; to hug Bruce as tight as he could and bury his face in Bruce’s shoulder and never, ever let go again.

He couldn’t have that though. Not now. Maybe not ever. The other Joker could have killed Bruce and destroyed the Looking Glass and none of them would ever know.

John could be stuck in this world forever.

“Hey, don’t worry buddy,” Dick said, clamping a hand down companionably on John’s shoulder. “You get to hang out with the two of us again. I promise that this time I’ll even make sure that Jason here doesn’t make fun of you too much.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Jason sniggered.

Dick snapped at him, subtly, as though John wasn’t supposed to notice it, but he did. Dick really did seem like a nice guy, and he had done everything that John supposed that he could to make sure that John felt as welcome as possible while in this world, but it didn’t matter. Dick wasn’t Bruce, and this wasn’t home, and everything was just so strange and wrong here, and John just wanted to be back home in Bruce’s arms so badly that it almost hurt.

“What do you say?” Dick said. “Oh hey! Why don’t we watch a movie together? I’m kind of curious to know whether the movies in your world are the same as ours.”

“Thanks but no thanks guys,” John said, gently pushing Dick’s hand off his shoulder. “I think I just need some time to myself.”

“Oh um… I guess that’s okay too,” Dick said.

John had already started to walk off.

“Hey, where are you going?” Dick asked.

“I’ll be in the Batcave,” John said. “It’s… well… it’s familiar, you know?”

“I’m sorry John,” Dick said gently, reaching out to grab John by the shoulder once more. “But we can’t let you go down there by yourself. What if the swap happened while you were in the Batcave without us?”

John wanted to frown at Dick. He wanted to scowl and shout at him. Couldn’t Dick see how much just sitting in the Manor and doing nothing was eating away at John?

He suppressed the instinct to snap though. He knew that stress of his current situation (not to mention the fact that he hadn’t taken his meds in days now) was starting to get to him. Dick had been pretty nice so far. He shouldn’t take it out on him.

“Please?” he tried instead, forcing himself to smile at Dick. “Just for a few minutes, you know? You can come down and check on me if you need to, but I just… I just need…”

He just needed a few minutes in the Batcave by himself. That was all. Just a few minutes and then everything would be just that little bit easier to bear.

Dick didn’t look entirely convinced, but eventually he sighed and dropped his head.

“Yeah, okay,” he said. “But just a few minutes all right?”

John made sure that his grin wasn’t too wide as he pounced on Dick and gave him a quick, tight hug.

“Thanks buddy!” he said, as he pulled away. “You’re the best.”

He heard Jason muttering something to Dick as he left the room; something that sounded far from happy, but as long as Jason wasn’t unhappy enough to stop John from going downstairs to the Batcave, then John didn’t care.

Besides, he had a feeling that Jason was never happy anyway, so what difference did it make if John and Dick were the ones to make him unhappy this time?

When the Joker and Commissioner Gordon had tumbled off the GCPD rooftop, Bruce had been terrified. How had the Joker managed to disappear? He might have worried that the Joker had activated the Looking Glass mid-fall, but there was no sign of John.

He managed to concoct about half a dozen scenarios, each one more fantastical and worrying than the last, but soon discovered the truth only minutes later in the form of an open window on the top floor of the GCPD building, right below where the Joker had jumped with Gordon.

The criminal had made a swift getaway after that. There were dozens of witnesses in the GCPD building who were able to tell Batman how the Joker had escaped with his gun still pressed to the Commissioner’s head. No-one had been willing to risk the Commissioner’s life, and so the Joker had managed to get away.

The Joker clearly had been far less worried about discretion than Bruce might have anticipated. Trying to explain all of this once John made it back home (and he was going to make it back home, no matter what the darker corners of Bruce’s psyche were trying to whisper to him) was going to be an absolute nightmare.

With so many witnesses Bruce had hoped that the Joker might have given away at least some hint as to where he was going to take the Commissioner, and what he was planning on doing with him, but the Joker had given nothing away at all, just yelled some vaguely nonsensical threats about blowing Gordon’s brains out if any of the police tried anything, and a few comments about Batman that made it very clear that he was expecting Bruce to track him down and try to stop him.

When it became clear that the scene at the GCPD would not offer him any clues, Bruce returned to the Batcave.

He was furious; with the Joker, and with himself, for allowing the Joker to do what he had done. He should have been more cautious. He should have been quicker. He should have…

God, he was exhausted. The fact that the Joker now held not only the Commissioner but the Looking Glass as well (and with it, Bruce’s only hope of getting John back) as bargaining chips certainly wasn’t helping things. He felt as though the entire situation was out of his control. It was a feeling that he hadn’t felt for a long time, and one that he absolutely hated.

For all he knew, Commissioner Gordon could already be dead and the Looking Glass destroyed, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

No. He couldn’t think like that.

There had to be something that he could do. The Joker expected Batman to find him. He hadn’t left any messages or any clues, so there had to be something else.

The Looking Glass. The radiation signal that it gave off had been unique.

Bruce’s tech could pick up radiation spikes. It wouldn’t be easy, especially not without a tech whizz like Lucius Fox to help him, but he should be able to adjust the scanners to look for a specific energy signature.

It took hours of work, and a couple of failed starts, but eventually he was able to narrow the scan down far enough that he was able to pinpoint the Joker’s location; or at least, the location of the Looking Glass.

When he saw the location the Joker had picked, he felt as though his heart had lodged in his throat.

“We’re sorry Bruce,” Dick said almost as soon as Bruce had returned to the Manor.

Bruce’s heart immediately lurched. He looked to Jason, who was nervously scratching at the back of his head and refusing to meet Bruce’s eyes. What the hell could Dick and Jason be sorry for? Bruce had left them with John and John was nowhere to be seen…

Surely Jason hadn’t...? He couldn’t have. Bruce was sure that Dick would have stopped any attempt Jason might make to actually hurt John. It had to be something else.

“Where’s John Doe?” Bruce asked. He had meant to ask something else; perhaps something a little more general and a little less telling as to where his suspicions and worries had immediately turned.

“That’s just it,” Dick replied. Jason was still silent. “We don’t actually know.”

“You lost him?” Bruce growled.

“We lost him,” Dick admitted. “He said that he wanted to be alone for a while, and considering everything he’s been through we thought that surely a few minutes to himself was the least that we could do but er…”

“You thought that!” Jason snapped. “Bruce, I just want it to go on record that I was against this from the start.”

“It never occurred to you that John might switch places with the Joker while out of your sight?” Bruce snapped. “Leaving the Joker to roam around the Manor completely unsupervised!”

Bruce knew that it wouldn’t be fair to take his anger out on Dick and Jason, never mind the fact that this was almost entirely their fault. He took a deep breath. What he needed to do was think. John probably couldn’t get far on foot. They just needed to find him and bring him back before anything could happen.

“Oh, he took one of your cars by the way,” Jason said. “The red Lamborghini.”

Bruce cursed beneath his breath.

Ace Chemicals. The Joker had retreated to Ace Chemicals.

Bruce was sure that somewhere, someone was laughing at him, and it wasn’t just the Joker.

Bruce had jumped back into the Batmobile and had driven to the old factory, although not perhaps, with the same sense of urgency with which he had returned to the Batcave.

Bruce parked the Batmobile out front and soon found a way inside. The place was eerily quiet. Nothing but the creaking of old architecture and a few strange bubbling and dripping noises coming from inside the plant to disturb the silence.

It looked the same as it had the last time Bruce had been in here. There was still the same eerie green glow; still the same acrid stench of something that had been left in one of the vats for far too long.

God, Bruce was so amazingly glad that they had managed to move past that horrible evening. It was, perhaps, a miracle that they had.

He kept as alert as he possibly could, keeping an ear out for any sounds that might give away the Joker’s position. He thought he heard a burst of laughter, but if it was the Joker’s laughter that he had heard, then it had come from far away, and had echoed through the abandoned factory to make its way to his ears. He felt like the Joker was watching him; probably perched somewhere up high and laughing as Bruce stumbled his way around the factory’s lower levels.

He found Gordon before he found the Joker. The Commissioner had been handcuffed to a pipe near the entrance to the Ace Chemicals factory floor and apparently abandoned. The Joker had used Gordon’s own handcuffs against him from the look of things.

Gordon was muttering and cursing beneath his breath as Batman approached, apparently trying to break out of the cuffs with no luck.

“Damn it,” he cursed as Batman approached. “Sorry Batman. That bastard got the better of me.”

Bruce quickly scanned Gordon as he approached, looking out for tripwires or anything that might injure either of them should he approach Commissioner Gordon too carelessly. The whole thing; the fact that Gordon had been left here and the Joker was nowhere in sight, screamed ‘trap’ to Batman, but there was nothing that he could make out.

“Are you injured?” he asked, already looking Gordon over for any evidence that the Joker had hurt him. There were a few bruises and scrapes, and the Commissioner’s arm looked to have been dislocated, but Bruce couldn’t see anything life-threatening.

“I’ll survive,” Gordon growled as Batman worked on removing the cuffs. “You need to be careful though, you hear me? That nutjob dragged me all the way here just to get to you. No other reason he’d take a hostage and then just leave me here. He wanted you to find me.”

Bruce had been thinking the same thing.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I know what I’m up against.”

He didn’t. Not really, and the truth was he was trying to convince himself of that as much as Commissioner Gordon.

“He’s not going to take me by surprise again.”

“I damn well hope so,” Gordon said. “I’ve only known this bastard for a matter of hours and I can already tell you that I never want to see him again.”

In the end John’s thievery proved to be a good thing. The Lamborghini he had taken had a tracker attached to it in case of thievery, like all of Bruce’s more expensive cars. Whatever John’s intentions might have been, Bruce didn’t think that they were nefarious, and the fact that John hadn’t thought to disable the tracker before stealing the car probably meant that whatever he was up to, it wasn’t anything too bad.

A scan for the car revealed that it had come to a stop just outside of Arkham Asylum.

Bruce cursed beneath his breath. He should have known that John would be drawn back there. He was more worried for John Doe at this stage rather than worried about anything the other man might do. After all, he wasn’t sure why John had chosen to return to the asylum, but he knew the sort of monsters that awaited him inside; monsters that John would have absolutely no idea how to deal with.

“Looks like he’s grabbed some gear too,” Jason called out. He had been wandering around the Batcave, taking stock of everything while Bruce tracked the car and Dick hovered nearby. “One of your grappling guns and a few batarangs are definitely missing.”

Bruce remembered then how distressed John had been by the conditions at Arkham Asylum. The car alone might have meant that John was simply planning to get some help or medication, or possibly investigate something, but the missing equipment almost definitely meant that he had something else in mind.

“Don’t know how you lay out all of your fancy tech shit well enough these days to tell if he’s taken anything else,” Jason offered as he approached Dick and Bruce by the Batcomputer.

The tech that they already knew he had taken was worrying enough to Bruce.

He stood up from the Batcomputer and moved over to pick up the Batsuit’s cowl and gauntlets. He had only taken them off a few minutes ago. Hell, he was still wearing most of the Batsuit after his completely fruitless visit to the Justice League.

“You’re going after him?” Jason asked.

Bruce didn’t even dignify that with an answer. Of course he was going after John. He couldn’t not go after John. Not when he knew the other man was planning something that potentially involved Arkham Asylum.

“You want us to suit up and go with you?” Dick asked.

Bruce glanced over his two protégés. Jason was already practically ready to go, but Dick didn’t appear to have any of his equipment on hand. He couldn’t wait for the younger man to traipse back to Bludhaven and, if he was being completely honest with himself, he wasn’t in a particularly good mood with either of them.

“No,” he said. “The situation is delicate enough as it is.”

He told himself that it was the truth; that he couldn’t risk either Dick or Jason destabilizing the situation with John Doe any more than they already had, and that Bruce wasn’t letting his temper get the better of him.

“I need the two of you to stay here in case John comes back,” Bruce said. “Contact me as soon as you hear anything, about him or about the Joker.”

He could only hope that the switch happened while John was at Arkham, and not before.

In a matter of minutes Bruce was speeding towards Arkham Asylum in the Batmobile, going as fast as he possibly could, and hoping that he wouldn’t be too late.

He patched himself into Arkham’s private security feed as he drove, hoping that there would nothing out of the ordinary, and that when he arrived at Arkham he would discover that John was either still sitting in Bruce’s car, or had taken himself to talk to one of the doctors, but as soon as the security feed crackled into life he knew that he had been hoping in vain.

“… Sharp hostage. I repeat; the offender has taken Warden Sharp hostage.”

“What the fuck?” another voice crackled into life over the radio. “Is this the Joker or not? Nobody can fucking tell me…”

“Ivy and Quinn have retreated to the northern gardens, but are still believed to be armed and dangerous. I repeat… Ivy and Quinn are still on the grounds.”

Bruce cursed beneath his breath and wished that he could be travelling even faster than he already was. This was worse than he had anticipated. John had taken the warden of Arkham Asylum hostage, and whatever he was doing, he had managed to get Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn on side.

If it wasn’t for the two women helping John, Bruce might have even been afraid that the two Jokers had switched back. This, whatever John was planning, seemed to be at a much larger and chaotic scale than Bruce would have thought John capable of. Harley and Ivy would never help the original Joker though; no matter what his plan might be.

Bruce could only hope that whatever John and the two women were planning, Bruce would be able to get to Arkham Asylum before things grew too grim, and that the staff at Arkham would be able to hold out until he got there.

Bruce felt his heart pounding as he opened the doors to the Ace Chemicals factory floor and stepped into the large, shadowy room. The last time he had been here he had almost lost a friend, almost lost himself as well. There was a bitter tang to the whole place; rust and whatever chemicals had been left in the vats, and what Bruce would have almost sworn was blood.

If Bruce searched there wouldn’t be any blood here though. The Agency had insured that any evidence of John Doe and their presence in the Ace Chemicals building had been cleaned up as quickly as possible; fingerprints, footprints and all traces of gunpowder polished away, and every tiny spot of blood scrubbed from the catwalks and the cemented floor below.

Of course it was possible that the Joker had spilled new blood, but Bruce knew that it was not the case. Being back here was playing tricks on his mind. He knew that, and not for the first time, he found himself wondering why the Joker would choose this place above all others.

He thought he saw a shadow dart across the wall in front of him, but when he turned there was nothing there. Had the Joker always been this fast? Was John? Bruce knew that his partner could move quickly when he wanted to, but he was hard pressed to imagine him darting between shadows as successfully as the Joker was currently doing.

He told himself he was just imagining things; that the shadows and the traumatic memories he carried of this place were playing tricks on him again.

“This way Bats…” a voice said from up above.

Bruce glanced up, but didn’t see any sign of the Joker, or of anyone else. He just found himself looking at the same catwalk on which he had faced John Doe, the man that he had loved; even in those terrifyingly violent moments, covered in blood and having just brutally murdered three agents.

“Why here?” Bruce muttered beneath his breath as he grappled up to the catwalk.

The Joker finally appeared then, strolling down the other end of the catwalk towards Bruce with a wide grin on his face. Bruce glanced over him, and sure enough, he spotted the Looking Glass, tucked beneath the Joker’s jacket and attached to his belt. At least the Joker still had it. Bruce still had a chance of getting John back.

“Well here we are,” the Joker said, spreading his arms wide as though welcoming Bruce to the factory. “The old stomping grounds.”

Bruce forced himself to put one foot in front of the other. It was harder than he would have liked. This place had the same disastrous effect on him these days as Crime Alley did. His heart pounded too heavily, and too quickly, as though at any moment he was going to be plunged back into the awful memories that both places summoned.

He tried to think back to everything he had told the Joker about his time with John. Surely he hadn’t mentioned Ace Chemicals though. He hadn’t even talked to Alfred or Avesta about what had happened here. It just hurt too much to remember what had happened. He hadn’t even really talked about it with John.

The Joker couldn’t possibly have found out what this place meant to Bruce and John, which meant that it meant something to the Joker and his version of Batman too, but what?

“Ah, such fond memories,” the Joker said as he practically waltzed up to Batman.

“Give me the Looking Glass,” Batman demanded.

“No hello? You’re not even going to ask what memories I’m talking about?” the Joker asked, twisting away from Batman and out of reach of the hands that had tried to grasp at his jacket. “Oh Bats, you disappoint me. Aren’t you the least bit curious? No? Well, frankly I find your behavior today to be quite rude.”

Batman made a grab for the Looking Glass, but the Joker twisted out of the way again.

The criminal tutted and shook his finger at Bruce as though he was dealing with an unruly child.

“Honestly Bats,” he said. “You absolutely have to learn how to observe the niceties more than you do. Surely even you know that at least an introduction is required before you go around trying to grab people.”

He unhooked the Looking Glass from his belt and held it up in front of him, obviously taunting Bruce with it.

“Why, it would serve you right if I was to simply toss this over the edge and let it fall into a pit of acid…”

The Joker moved as though he was about to throw the Looking Glass over his shoulder and into the vat below him.

“No!” Batman screamed, charging at the other man and pinning him to the railing of the catwalk.

“Easy now Bats,” the Joker said, cackling madly as he did. “Not that I mind, but you could have knocked it right out of my hand, surprising me like that.”

He leaned in close, so that his lips hovered barely inches away from Bruce’s own, and when he next spoke there was a menace in his voice that hadn’t been there before; a menace that Bruce had only heard a handful of times during the Joker’s stay.

“And wouldn’t that just be so perfectly, deliciously ironic,” he hissed. “You, watching your only chance to bring back your beloved John Doe go tumbling down into that vat down there. Oh, I almost wish it had happened.”

Bruce was already on edge. The Joker’s taunting certainly wasn’t helping. He found his hands clenching into fists, and he knew it was only the threat of the Looking Glass’s destruction that was stopping him from charging straight at the Joker and beating him into submission.

“Who knows?” the Joker cackled. “It might even be for the best. Don’t you think so Batsy? Why, the two of us could continue this lovely dance! And I’m sure you’ll agree that I’m so much more interesting than poor, sweet innocent John.”

The Joker threw his arm and the hand that was holding the Looking Glass over edge of the catwalk, the action so haphazard that Bruce wouldn’t have been surprised if the Joker dropped the Looking Glass accidentally.

“Don’t!” Bruce said, lunging for the Looking Glass only for the Joker to snatch it back away from the edge and start giggling maniacally.

“Why would you do that!?” Batman screamed. “That’s your only way home.”

“Some people just want to watch the world burn Batsy,” the Joker replied offhand. “I thought you would have understood that much about me by now.”

No. Bruce refused to believe it. There was a point to all of this, even if Bruce couldn’t see what it was. Even if the Joker refused to admit it.

He couldn’t think straight though; not while the Joker was tossing his only chance of getting John back up into the air as though it was nothing more than a plaything; not while his heart was thumping so hard in his chest.

He charged towards the Joker, who pulled a blade from somewhere within his jacket. Bruce managed to dodge the first swipe of the blade, but not the second, which caught him on the torso and managed to slice through the tough material just enough to leave a gash on the side of his stomach.

The Joker was still holding the Looking Glass, which meant that he could only use one hand. It put him at a disadvantage, but it also meant that Bruce had to be careful when attacking the Joker. One wrong move could see the Looking Glass flying off the catwalk and into the vats down below.

Bruce tried to focus on getting rid of the Joker’s knife. Eventually it fell, clattering onto the catwalk, and Bruce was able to kick it off and over the side. The Joker watched the knife fall away for only a moment, before darting away from Batman and dashing towards the other end of the catwalk.

“Joker!” Batman screamed, before running after him.

When Bruce caught up to the Joker he had placed the Looking Glass down on the ground directly behind him, and was standing in front of it, defending it as a mother animal would her child.

“Come on Batsy,” the Joker said. “Come and get it.”

Bruce’s blood was boiling. He didn’t even bother trying to make a grab for the Looking Glass. He knew that the Joker wouldn’t allow it, and besides, there was something inside of him that wanted the chance to fight the Joker; wanted to pummel him into the ground and make him pay for everything that he had put Bruce and now Gordon through over the past few days.

Bruce charged. The Joker dodged his first attack, as though he had known exactly what sort of move to expect from Bruce, and then the second, and then managed to land a couple of quick punches to Bruce’s torso. There was a surprising amount of force behind the blows, considering the Joker’s size, and it occurred to Bruce in that moment that he was dealing with an opponent who had a significant advantage over him.

The Joker was used to this dance. He knew exactly what was going to happen; knew the sort of moves Bruce would make before he had even made them.

He was grinning too, and there was more than just cruelty behind that smile this time. The Joker was actually enjoying this. His eyes never left Bruce as they fought, staring up at him with so much attention that Bruce felt a little uncomfortable.

Bruce stumbled, and his next blow didn’t connect, but the punch after did, slamming into the Joker’s face so hard that his nose immediately began bleeding.

The Joker took a moment to wipe his hand against his bloodied nose, but didn’t stop grinning.

“Oh, this is too easy,” he said, smiling at Batman as he dodged the next couple of Bruce’s swings. “Do you know how many people I would have had to kill to get this sort of focused attention from you back home?”

Bruce ignored the other man’s words, and felt a disturbingly strong pang of satisfaction as his next blow landed. He saw, rather than heard, the Joker’s breath catch as he successfully landed another blow, and then another.

By the time Batman arrived at Arkham Asylum, the guards had managed to isolate the wing in which John had taken Warden Sharp hostage. He found Aaron Cash and a handful of guards standing outside the door, ready to storm it.

“All right,” Cash was speaking into his radio as Bruce approached. “Good work. We’ll take the clown down in no time then.”

He looked up as Bruce grew close.

“Hey Batman,” he said. “That guy you brought in here the other day has a gun to Sharp’s head. Should be easy to take him down though. Guy’s clearly nervous and has absolutely no idea what he’s doing.”

“You’re sure he ain’t the Joker?” one of the other guards asked, while Bruce tapped into the asylum’s security feed, so that he could get a good view of the room beyond.

John was standing on the upper level of the large room, where he had a good view of the only clear entrance. Unfortunately for John, both Bruce and Arkham’s security forces knew the asylum far better than he did, and were only minutes away from entering the room through a small back corridor; one which looked like little more than a storage closet from inside the room and would allow them to enter directly behind John.

“That definitely isn’t the Joker,” Cash replied, sounding as though he was more than a little tired of answering that particular query. Bruce could certainly relate.

“No way that the Joker would ever make things this easy,” Cash continued. “That guy in there; he didn’t even really have a plan. Only reason he was able to get his hands on Sharp was because we weren’t ready for him. As far as we can tell he’s just making this all up as he goes along.”

“And Poison Ivy and Quinn?” Bruce asked.

“My men are rounding them up as we speak,” Cash replied. “It seems their only goal was to break out a dozen or so prisoners in one of the lower security wings. A few of them managed to get out and are still on the loose, but none of them were particularly high-profile.”

They might not be as infamous as Quinn or Ivy were, but there would be a reason why the two women had wanted to get these particular inmates out of Arkham. That would be a problem for another time though; one that Bruce would have to worry about once this whole mess with John was sorted out.

The security cameras didn’t have sound, but Bruce didn’t need them to hear when John started shouting. His voice carried well enough, as did the pain within it.

“This is all wrong!” he was screaming. “All of you are terrible people, and I’m the only one who seems to even notice it! You can’t keep sick people locked up like this! You’re all monsters!”

Bruce patched into Arkham’s intercom system, hoping that he might be able to talk John down before the situation escalated.

“John,” he began, watching the other man through the cameras as he startled at the sound of Batman’s voice. He looked up, as though he might spot Bruce in the rafters overhead.

“You need to let Warden Sharp go,” Bruce continued. John glared up at the ceiling and apparently tightened his hold on the warden.

“I know that you’re scared,” Bruce said. “You want to go home. But that isn’t Warden Sharp’s fault, or the fault of Arkham’s staff.”

“No!” John screamed, waving his gun about. He still seemed to be trying to find Bruce in the darkness overhead. It was no use. Even if Bruce had been in the room with John then he wouldn’t have let the other man spot him.

“This isn’t about that!” John continued. “This place is all wrong. You’re all so cruel! Someone needs to do something about it, and if I’m going to be stuck here then it might as well be me!”

“You’re not going to be stuck here,” Bruce continued. “We’re going to get you home. I promise you John.”

John let out a wordless cry of frustration in response to that.

“He’s not letting go of the warden,” Cash commented. “We’re gonna have to do this the hard way and you know it Batman.”

Damn it all. John was so clearly out of his depth here. The security team certainly wouldn’t need Batman’s help to take him down, but Bruce was still glad that he had arrived at the scene when he had.

“Be careful,” Bruce muttered. “He has that gun pointed right at Sharp’s head. If he’s startled then he might fire and kill Sharp whether he’s meaning to or not.”

“All right,” Cash said, nodding back at the rest of his team. “We go in on three.”

With that Cash started counting down, and then they were busting down the door and storming into the room beyond.

John immediately whirled around, thankfully letting his hold on Sharp go in favor of pointing the gun at his attackers. Several shots went off, one of which embedded itself harmlessly in the layers of Bruce’s Kevlar, but none of the guards were hit.

John seemed to flinch when he realized he had shot Batman, and that second of hesitation was all that the guards needed to pounce on John. Within seconds they had manhandled him and had him pinned to the ground, his face pressed roughly against the floor.

The whole encounter had taken less than a minute.

John struggled half-heartedly as one of the guards slapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists.

“Come on you,” one of them said as he hauled a now rather ruffled and slightly bruised John to his feet. “I’m sure we’ve got a cell around here somewhere with your name on it.”

“No!” Batman said, stepping in to stand beside John. “You can’t do that.”

“Come on Batman,” one of the guards said. “I’m not going to say I understand it, but everyone here knows you’ve got a protective streak for the clown that’s wider than my ass. We’re just trying to do our job, so stand aside and let us do our job!”

“Yeah, we ain’t gonna hurt him any more than you usually do,” another chimed in.

“I know what this looks like,” Batman said. “But this isn’t the Joker. You can’t arrest him and confine him here.”

“Can’t we?” Cash said, stepping up to Bruce and staring him down. Bruce had to give him some credit. Not many people had the guts to try and glare Batman down, but obviously Aaron Cash was one of them.

“He may not be the Joker, but he’s still a criminal Batman,” Cash continued. “What the hell else are we supposed to do with him, huh? Just hand him over to you? That ain’t how this is supposed to work. He almost killed Warden Sharp, and you just want us to look the other way?”

Bruce frowned.

“The situation is more complicated than you know,” Bruce said. “I’ll take full responsibility for John’s actions here today, and I’ll be taking him into my custody now. You won’t need to worry about him any more after this. I promise you that, and I promise you that I’ll have the real Joker back in Arkham soon.”

“You’re making an awful lot of promises today Batman,” Cash said, glancing over at John, who was looking as miserable as Bruce had ever seen him. “Better start keeping some of them.”

Cash clearly wasn’t happy with the situation, and Bruce was sure that he would have words for Batman if he failed to deliver on his promise, but considering how many of the assembled guards still looked like they’d happily put a bullet through John’s forehead, Bruce would consider it a victory, at least for now.

John was exhausted. Nothing about this day was going right. He had thought that if someone had pointed out how bad everything in Arkham was then at least someone would listen. Even if… even if he’d needed to hurt some people then it would have been worth it.

But no-one had listened. No-one had wanted to listen. They’d all just pointed their guns at him and they’d all wanted to shoot him, or at least lock him up so he wouldn’t be able to point out how horrible they were all being any more.

In fact, the guards might have killed him if Batman hadn’t been there.

God, this universe was just the worst. Everyone was so cold and mean. John just wanted to be back in his own universe, with his own Bruce, but there wasn’t even anything he could do to help make that happen. Why hadn’t the other Joker used the Looking Glass already?

Maybe he never would.

John certainly wouldn’t have blamed him. Even if he had started in this universe then John didn’t think he would want to come back here; not when he could stay in the better universe; the one where Bruce was kind and people actually cared sometimes and tried to make sick people better rather than just locking them away.

God, he wanted to go back home so badly. Or he wanted something to be better. Anything to be better.

John was vaguely aware of Bruce leading him back towards the entrance of the asylum. His hands had been cuffed though. The guards wouldn’t hear otherwise, and as much as Batman had stuck up for John he hadn’t even tried to fight them when it came to John staying handcuffed.

John was aware, too, of coming to a stop in front of the Batmobile, or what passed as the Batmobile in this stupid, awful world, when suddenly it all became too much.

He was sore and he was tired and he just wanted to go home, and…

“John?” Batman’s voice reached his ears.

John realized that he had come to a complete stop. Batman was waiting for him to enter the Batmobile, but suddenly that one simple thing seemed far too difficult for John to manage.

“Can I…” John said, floundering, his cuffed hands grasping uselessly in front of him. “I need…”

He waited for this version of Bruce to take the hint. His own would have, at the very least, held out his arms as this stage, or done something to let John know that a hug was welcome. This wasn’t his Bruce though. This Bruce didn’t even seem to know that what John was asking for was a hug.

“Whatever it is just do it,” Bruce sighed.

That was all John needed. He threw himself at the other man, his cuffed hands clutching uselessly at the stiff material of Batman’s armor as John buried his face in the other man’s shoulder. He breathed in the other man in deep, desperate gulps, but it wasn’t right. It wasn’t the same. Bruce’s arms should have been around him by now but they weren’t, and he smelled like Bruce but at the same time there was something still subtly wrong about the whole thing.

John pressed against Bruce as tightly as he could, trying not to be offended by how stiff and awkward Bruce seemed to be. He told himself that Bruce had been stiff and silent that first time too, in the fun house, when John had assumed that everything was going to go wrong, and he had hugged Bruce for the first time, arms wrapping around Bruce’s whole body as tightly as they possibly could, just as he wished he could do now.

Bruce had always hugged back after that first time though, and his hugs always made John feel so much better; so safe and secure.

It wasn’t working now though. None of it was working, and this place was so, so dark and broken and lonely, and John just wanted to be home, in Bruce’s arms, where everything made sense.

He realized that he was crying, tears being drawn painfully out of his eyes along with desperate, gasping sobs that he knew sounded absolutely pathetic.

“It’s… it’s not working,” he sobbed.

He felt Bruce’s arms move up, his hands settled lightly on John’s shoulders. He clearly had no idea what to do with them though, and it was suddenly too wrong for John to be okay with. The other man’s touch felt as though it burned, and John pushed him away violently, taking several steps back. It was like being in the arms of an imposter.

“I miss it all so much,” John sobbed. “I just want to go home.”

“You’ll be going home soon,” Bruce said. “We know how the Looking Glass works now, and we know its charging properly again. The Joker and your Bruce will activate it at any moment now.”

“You might be wrong Batman,” John said. “You know, if I was your Joker; if I’d come from here and ended up in the world I’m from, then I wouldn’t want to come back. Not ever.”

John had expected Batman to tell John that the idea was foolish; that the Joker would have wanted to come back to this terrible world, because he was just as terrible, or something like that. Or maybe Batman would be surprised. Maybe he hadn’t even considered that possibility just yet.

When John looked at Batman however he didn’t see even a hint of surprise; just the same persistent worry John had been feeling the entire time. Looking at Batman’s expression, John couldn’t help but think that Batman had been worried about the exact same thing.

The Joker was only putting up a token resistance at this stage, getting in a punch or two here and there, but he was no longer dodging Batman’s blows; just staring up at him as though Bruce had hung the stars in the sky.

Bruce had pinned the Joker to the ground and was about to land another blow to his face when he realized what was happening and forced himself to stop with one fist still raised above the Joker’s head and the other caught in the Joker’s jacket, holding him in place.

What the hell was he doing? Was this really what he was going to let the Joker reduce him to?

He looked down at the other man; broken and bloodied and still smiling beneath him, and felt disgusted, both at the Joker and at himself for letting the other man goad him into all of this.

Bruce forced himself to climb off the Joker and let out a cry of rage as he realized this was what the Joker had wanted from him the whole time. And he had won now, hadn’t he? He’d gotten exactly what he had wanted.

“Why,” Bruce said as he whirled around to glare at the Joker once more. “Why would you do this?”

The Joker let out a tired laugh as he pushed himself up to lean against the nearest patch of wall.

“Have you ever had a really bad day?” the Joker asked.

“What?” Bruce murmured, unsure of where the question had come from, and equally unsure as to where it was going to lead.

“Well surely, you must have,” the Joker said. “Something must have put you on the path to becoming the Bat. That part of the narrative can’t have changed too much at least.”

There had been more than one bad day for Bruce. The first one had been when he had watched his parents die in Crime Alley. If it wasn’t for that then he probably never would have become Batman in the first place.

These days though, there were other bad days; ones that Bruce would never be able to forget, no matter how hard he tried; days that had changed him and turned him into the man he now was, in whatever way.

The worst of them had been the last time he had found himself in Ace Chemicals. He and John had almost torn each other apart. Bruce’s heart had been broken, and he suspected John’s had been as well, and it had taken them both a long time to move past it. Bruce had lost Tiffany on that day as well, discovering that the young woman he had hoped might become a protégé was more cunning and cold-hearted than he would have ever anticipated, and then, just when he was at home and hoping that he might be able to rest, Alfred had announced his retirement.

It was a bad day that had simply refused to get any better, and when Bruce had finally been able to stop, he had collapsed into bed, far too tired and numb to even cry.

“More than one,” he confessed.

The Joker looked mildly disappointed.

“Yes, but there must have been one in particular that turned you into…” he paused, and gestured vaguely and tiredly at the entirety of Bruce, “… this.”

Bruce nodded. God, he was suddenly so tired. The Joker looked as though he wasn’t going to get up and try anything anytime soon, so Bruce trudged over to the Looking Glass and picked it up.

“I had one too,” the Joker said, whispering it, as though it were a confession. “Oh, don’t look so shocked Batsy. I wasn’t born a murderous clown, you know?”

Bruce had the feeling that there was more coming, and so, making sure that he had a very tight hold on the Looking Glass, he moved over to sit beside the Joker on the floor, leaning against the same patch of wall, and trying not to look too closely at all of the wounds he had inflicted upon the other man.

“This place,” the Joker muttered. “It was where it all happened you see. I know that much. I can remember the smell of it all; the burning of the acid as it seeped into my skin. And I remember you. You were there. Beautiful and monstrous and terrifying, and so much larger than anything else in this cold, miserable world. I know this place means something to you as well. Don’t even try to deny it Batsy. I could see the fear in your face. Something happened between you and your precious John here, didn’t it?”

“It’s none of your business,” Bruce said, but he couldn’t summon up any real venom behind the words. He was too damned tired.

“So anyway, there I am,” the Joker continued, as though Bruce hadn’t said anything at all, “standing in the middle of a chemical plant, and there you are, and then, whoops, there I go, over the edge of the catwalk and into a vat of something awful down below.”

Bruce tried not to cringe as he remembered how the Joker had threatened to give the Looking Glass a similar fate just a short while earlier.

“That was my terrible day,” the Joker said. “Sometimes I think I remember my life before, and then sometimes it’s all a blur. As far as I’m concerned these days Batsy, I didn’t exist before that very bad day; before you, and before the fall.”

Bruce tried to force himself not to see the similarities between the murderous asshole sitting next to him and John, and failed miserably.

“Who knows really,” the Joker said with a shrug. “I might even be making the whole thing up.”

Maybe he was. Maybe he was just saying all of this to get at Bruce. Bruce had a hard time convincing himself of that however; had a hard time convincing himself that there wasn’t at least a little bit of truth behind the Joker’s words. Why would the other man be saying any of this otherwise?

“You know something Bruce?” the Joker said, leaning back and closing his eyes, that damn smile on his face finally fading. The criminal was starting to look just as tired as Bruce himself felt.

“I’ve been thinking about things,” the Joker continued. “I have, you know? I had a lot of time to think about things while I waited for you. Tormenting Jimmy Gordon could only entertain me for so long considering I didn’t have time to really plan anything special.”

“Get to the point,” Bruce said. He had been hoping to sound at least a little threatening, but even to his own ears he just sounded exhausted.

“So I was thinking,” the Joker continued. “And I came to the conclusion that perhaps the biggest difference between myself and your poor, dear John, is that when your John had his bad day, he had you to help him through it. It’s true, isn’t it?”

Bruce didn’t know what to say. Maybe the Joker had a point. He didn’t want to think too hard on it though. Down that way lay madness; too many ‘what ifs’, and he knew he already blamed himself for this mess more than he perhaps should have. The last thing he needed was guilt over his actions of lack thereof in another universe.

“Why would you tell me any of this?” Bruce asked. “I’m not your Batman. I can’t…”

He couldn’t do anything about it. He couldn’t turn back the clock and change events so that the Joker hadn’t become what he now was. Even if he could, that was a different Batman; a different Bruce. He couldn’t help the Joker to heal any more than he could go back in time and stop the mental breakdown that had seen John recommitted to Arkham.

The Joker seemed to ponder the question for a moment before responding.

“Perhaps it’s because you mean absolutely nothing to me, and because I won’t ever see you again after today?” the Joker suggested. “Or perhaps it’s just because you and your John seem to have this whole thing worked out so much more neatly than Batsy and I ever did. Perhaps I was hoping for some pointers.”

Despite everything that had happened, for just a moment Bruce found himself actually feeling somewhat sorry for the Joker.

“You could have just asked,” Bruce said. “You didn’t have to do all of this.”

“No, I did,” the Joker said, and he sounded so sure of it. “I had to make sure, you see? I needed to know that you and my Batsy aren’t all that different. And you’re not, you know? You’re really not. This world is a little bit kinder, but you’re still you, or close enough to it that it doesn’t make any real difference.”

They sat in silence for a short while, neither of them willing to disturb whatever fragile peace had built up. Bruce’s body chose that moment to remind him that the Joker had managed to give him at least a half dozen small wounds in the course of their fight, and he grimaced, before turning his attention to the Joker once more.

“Come on,” he said, as he started to push himself up off the floor. “It’s time for us to head home.”

Bruce picked up the Looking Glass and contemplated it for a moment before turning his attention towards the Joker once more.

“Both of us,” he added.

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#batjokes #batman telltale #batman the enemy within #batman arkham #bruce wayne #john doe #my fic

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the-sweetest-dragon · 5 years

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Puppy Love

Pairing: Platonic!Jason x Barbara

Word Count: 2383 (This was seven pages... oops)

Warnings: Mentions of death and anger

Summary: Jason feels that he isn’t welcome in the Batfamily after coming back from the dead and Barbara is on a mission to help him feel better about his place in this family.

AN: I rewrote this I don’t know how many times and I’m still not 100 percent in love with it, but I’m tired of it controlling me so here it is.

Tags: @incorrectbatfamiliaquotes @audder17 (Both of you really helped with this story and it wouldn’t exist without you. Thank you )

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Standing in the giant ballroom of Wayne manor, Jason contemplates why he’s here. Charity was always a big part of his life when he lived with Bruce before dying, and Jason always enjoyed helping people. But now, Jason isn’t sure of where he fits into the family or why he’s even here to begin with.

The large Wayne family mills around, waiting for Alfred to appear and give them their partners for today. Alfred, always in charge of giving them their assignments, was uncharacteristically late. Jason looks around the room, trying to find someone that would actually talk to him. He spots Dick, deep in conversation with the demon child and knows that he probably shouldn’t go over to talk to them. Cassandra is standing in the corner, waiting silently. Jason starts to walk over to her when the doors to the ballroom swing open, announcing everyone to Alfred’s presence. He carries a tray of coffee in one hand, and several envelopes in the other. Alfred sets the tray down on the table and clears his throat before speaking.

“Alright, here are your assignments for the day,” says Alfred as he passes out the envelopes, which contain their partners name and assignments. “There will be no trading and no complaining. Master Bruce has specifically given you each new partners.” A collective groan is heard throughout the group. “Yes, I am aware that your lives all suck. Now, get on with it.”

Barbara watches Jason from across the room, waiting in silent excitement as he opens his envelope. She had asked Bruce at the beginning of the week if she could be paired with Jason for a change, and she hopes that Bruce listened to her. Jason has been home for several months now, at least officially. He had reappeared two years ago and had spent a lot of time hating them, which had almost been harder to endure than him being dead. Knowing that someone you care about is alive but hates your guts? One of the worst things you could ever imagine. Babs knows that Jason belongs here with them, but convincing him that he’s worth their concern is a whole different problem.

Jason opens the envelope, and Babs feels a burst of happiness. He blinks a few times before looking towards where she is perched in the large window. Jason shoots her a tight lipped smile and starts to walk over to where she is. Barbara knows that Jason isn’t comfortable in the manor, and she couldn’t blame him. The family had grown a lot in the last few years, and the noise took a lot of time to get used to. Babs still wasn’t used to the number of people running around the house, which was growing every year. The number of kids running around the house brought light and life back into the dark halls.

“Hey Jay,” Babs says as Jason settles down beside her. The old nickname burns through Jason, like someone made him eat coal. Uncomfortable with her knowing stare on his face, he looks out the window. It was a beautiful fall day, the leaves had just started changing color. Autumn had once been Jason’s favorite season, but the excitement wasn’t there anymore.

“Hi Barbie.” Jason turns towards Babs, a forced smile settling on his face. “I’ll go grab us some coffees. Still take two sugars?”

“You know me too well Jaybird.” She smiles and Jason feels his heart clench uncomfortably in his chest. Babs squeezes his hand and stands from her place in the window, stretching as she does so. Jason sees the scars from years of vigilante work in that strip of skin that shows as she stretches. The bullet wound that had left her paralyzed for years, silver and healed over completely. Jason remembers crying that night, hoping that she wasn’t dead and praying for hours. Coming back to see her walking had been a shock to his system. “I’m going to go grab my coat, and then we can go, okay?”

Jason just nods and heads toward the table holding the coffees. The ballroom had slowly thinned out in the past few minutes. Tim is helping a very pregnant Stephanie into her coat and Jason can hear Dick laughing somewhere with Duke. A lot of things had changed while Jason had stewed in his anger, but the happiness that charity work brought to these people had not. Jason allowed himself to relax slightly, enjoying the peace that comes from silence. He grabs two coffee cups from the try, making sure to put exactly two lumps of sugar into both cups, before heading out to Barbara’s car. She’s standing by the drivers side door, gently swinging her keys around one finger. He hands her a coffee and watches her smile as she drinks.

“Thanks Jay.” Jason just nods and gets into the car.

The drive was mostly silent, filled occasionally with Barbara singing softly along with the radio. She desperately wants to talk to him, wants to reassure him of his place in this family, but she can’t seem to get the words out. Every time she tries, she notices he’s looking out the window at the trees or straight ahead at the road in front of him. She gathers her courage and begins.

“Jason.” She takes a deep breath and Jason begins to worry. Babs hadn’t used his real name since he had officially came home. It was always a nickname of some sorts, reminding him that his past would always be filled with warmth. The worry settles in his stomach like a brick. “Jason, I know coming back must have been hard for you. We all knew that things would be different, but…” Babs trails off for a second, gathering her thoughts. “I miss you. I miss the Jason that would do cartwheels in the cave out of pure excitement. I miss the jokes and the smiles. You were this light in my life, in all of our lives. When the Joker-” Barbara stops for a minute, biting her lip to keep her from crying. “When the Joker killed you, my heart broke. Bruce may have lost a son that day, but Dick and I lost a brother. And I was so angry, at Bruce, at the world, for taking you from us.”

Shock travels through Jason’s body, making him shake. He had always just assumed that Barbara and Dick had been fine after he died. They had never been close, but Jason had always looked up to them. They were his role models. As her words sink into his brain, he realizes how blind he really is. They had been hurt just as much as he had. He had been so filled with rage and resentment, that he hadn’t taken the time to think about how him dying had affected his family. That’s what he has now, a family that cares about him.

“We wanted the Joker to pay, but Bruce wouldn’t let us. Him not going after the Joker is what finally broke me. I left and refused to talk to Bruce. I could understand why he didn’t go after when after what he did to me, but you? The Joker deserves to rot in the ground for what he did to you.” Barbara takes another deep breath and parks the car at the adoption event. “You can’t imagine the happiness I felt when I heard you were back. I knew you wouldn’t be the same. Whatever had brought you back would have a cost but I was willing to pay it to see your face again. Knowing you were alive was the only thing I cared about. And now you’re home with us and I’m so happy to have you back. You’re different, but you’re still you Jaybird. I wouldn’t trade you for anything. You deserve to be a part of this family, whether you think so or not.”

Babs looks up to see tears forming in Jason’s eyes. She’s slightly shocked that her words had such an effect on him; Jason rarely cried, even when he was younger. He was always stoic and hard, especially after coming back from his own personal hell. She missed his laugh and smile; it felt like it had been decades without it lighting up a room. But he was smiling now, smiling through his tears. Babs smiles back at him, knowing that it’s just what he needs.

Collecting himself, Jason finally gets out of the car, making sure to also open Barbara’s door too. Once she’s out of the car, he gathers her small body in his arms, hugging her tightly. Though shocked, Babs makes sure to hug him back just as fiercely. He had grown so much in the last few years, making it hard to wrap her arms around him.

“Thank you Barbie,” he whispers into her hair. Babs can’t help but smile as she lets him go. She pats his chest and grabs her bag out of the car.

“Anything for you Jay.”

Hours pass at the adoption event. Jason is in charge of the puppies finding good homes; all of the dogs there were ones that had been abandoned for some reason or another. Barbara helps families with the adoption papers and getting the necessary free supplies from the humane society. Jason had always been more of a dog person, so he stays closer to the dogs. For whatever reason, cats always sensed something amiss with Jason and it makes him uncomfortable. He knows that the Lazarus pit that had brought him back changed a lot of things about him, but cats seemed to sense that something was wrong with him. Jason hates thinking about it and tries to not worry too much about it.

“Hey Jaybird! Can you check on the pit bull puppy?” Jason hears Babs yell from her spot at the adoption booth. Jason feels himself smile slightly. After their little talk, Jason feels this weight lifted off his shoulders slightly. Knowing that at least one person cares about him is something he never knew he needed.

“Where’s it at?” he yells back. Babs smiles and gestures to his right. Jason turns and sees the smallest pit bull puppy he’s ever laid eyes on. The poor thing couldn’t have been more than a few months old, almost too young to be away from its mother. A small tag outside the pen states that her name is Joan and she’s seven weeks old. A worker at the humane society had found her two weeks ago in the streets of Gotham, dirty and starving.

Joan is sitting calmly in her pen, watching Jason with silvery blue eyes. He reaches a hand through the squares of the pen, letting her sniff his hand. Jason is shocked when Joan nuzzles his hand slightly, but is quick to smile at her. Jason looks around to see if anyone is watching before climbing into the pen. He’s not allowed to directly interact with the dogs, but he feels that Joan is calling out to him. She’s instantly playful, wanting him to throw a ball she’s been chewing on and Jason complies, letting her wear herself out. Pitts are playful dogs and love attention, so that’s exactly what Jason gives her.

Babs would never admit it, but she had picked this event specifically for Jason. She had hoped he would find a special animal to take home with him and once she spotted Joan, Babs knew that he wouldn’t be able to resist. Jason had always had a soft spot for dogs, something that hadn’t changed in the years he had been back.

Joan soon tires herself out and curls up on Jason’s lap, surprising him for a moment. Jason smiles and holds the small puppy close, knowing that he’s falling in love with small Joan. He closes his eyes, feeling completely relaxed for the first time in years. Her soft breathing lets him know that she’s fallen asleep in his arms. The thought of this poor dog is comfortable enough to fall asleep on his chest after everything she had gone through, warmed his heart.

Noticing that Jason was still in Joan’s pen, Babs smiles and pulls out her phone to take a photo. She has been taking photos of her family and friends for forever, but she only has one of Jason. It’s always hard to get Jason to sit still long enough for a picture, so she was lucky to have even one. The photo was of his first Christmas with Bruce and his face was lit up with joy. It was Barbara’s favorite picture and she cherished it with her whole heart.

Babs snaps the photo quickly, admiring the way the sunlight glints off of Jason’s jet black hair. The small puppy is barely visible in Jason’s arms, but you can just make out the top of her head. She smiles and makes a mental note to print that one out in the future. Walking towards him, Barbara notices the way Jason sits with Joan, holding her delicately in his large arms.

“Well, what do you think Jay? Is she ready to go home with you?” she asks, though she already knows the answer. Jason opens his eyes and smiles at her. A real, vibrant, smile. Babs’ heart soars; she had missed that smile. She hands him the adoption papers, which he takes carefully, trying in vain to keep Joan asleep. He signs his name at the bottom of the page and hands the papers back to her.

“We are more than ready to go home, Barbie.” Still smiling, Jason stands and steps out of the pen. Babs scratches Joan behind the ears for a moment, smiling like a loon. It hits him suddenly; she had planned for this to happen. “This was your plan the entire time wasn’t it?”

Barbara just laughs and leaves the pair to stand in wonder at this woman who had focused so much time and energy into finding Jason someone to love again. Jason meets Joan’s eyes and shakes his head.

“She’s crazy Joan.” Joan just barks in response, and cuddles closer to Jason’s warm chest. Jason now knows he will never be alone again, not with Joan or Babs in his life.

#jason todd #red hood #barbara gordon #oracle #batgirl #jaybabs #batfam #puppies #dc comic

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hellyeahheroes · 6 years

Text

My (Many)Problems with Damian Wayne

Rape tw

I will be upfront and say that I have never liked Damian Wayne from the jump. The idea that Batman has a son through rape(and yes, it is rape to drug someone and then sexually assault them) and he was forced to take care of the little asshole never sat well with me. But as a character, I hate little shit asshole characters especially the ones that Grant Morrison creates as this edgy jerk, but their jerkiness is somehow endearing when it is really not like his other detestable creation Quentin Quire.

Now I am coming around to the idea that every character can be redeemed from a baseline standpoint, but Damian sits in the category for me as characters that were fucked from the jump right next to Cindy Moon and Alpha. These are characters that should be scrapped and rebuilt. Just throw the whole fucking character away, sis, and start over. You can’t develop a character if everything he is supposed to convey and represent was completely misplaced. Let me explain what I mean.

What is the point of Robin? Robin is a vehicle for kids to feel apart of Batman. Batman is cool so why not give him a kid sidekick. And each of these kid sidekicks were relatable. Dick Grayson was from a family of Romani acrobats that traveled in a circus which got on the wrong side of Gotham gangsters. Jason Todd was a street urchin. Tim Drake is fan of Batman who had parents involved in his life who were the same social class as Bruce so Tim trained himself to be the next Robin(a bit on the nose).

The only Robins that are outliers to the relatable rule are Stephanie(who was created to be killed anyways) and Damian.

Damian is the son of Batman via rape. His entire purpose was concocted through an eugenics experiment by Ra’s Al Ghul because Batman’s genes and heritage and other physical traits were seen as desirable so Ra’s raised his daughter, Talia, to either lure Batman through seduction to produce a worthy heir. Damian never suffered nor never intentionally had to suffer in a way that was not part of his character building as being honed to be the leader of the League. He trained to be the greatest and made well aware of the fact that he will be the greatest because of his lineage through Ra’s Al Ghul and Batman, the greatest detective of all time as well as one of greatest mortal fighters in the world. There is nothing in the world that Damian could not have and everything was always available to him.Damian knows he is better than you could ever be and there is rarely a moment that he doesn’t remind you that he is not like the reader or any other ordinary person.

Damian is not a character created in the same way that the other Robins were created. You, the reader, are not to allowed to relate to Damian. The appeal in Damian has little to do with appealing to kid readers, but a ton to do with relating to adult readers who are also parents or people who regularly have to deal with kids, particularly bad kids.

Damian’s snotty attitude could have been applied to any of the other Robin’s(in fact, that was what Jason was supposed to be personality wise), but Damian’s personality is supposed to bring out the parent in Batman. When you read Morrison’s Batman and Robin, Damian is this know it all little brat while Dick represents the very patient adult who has to deal with this know it all little brat.When Batman interacts with Damian, he has to constantly admonish him or teach him from right or wrong which, let me get into for a little bit. Most parents do teach their child from right or wrong shit like not taking things from the store without purchasing them, but most do not have to tell their 8 year old that no, it is not alright to kill people which is a lesson that Damian sucks his teeth at.

Now you can sit there and say that is what makes him fun or whatever, but Batman is about a kid who lost his parents in a dark alleyway. I am sorry. They were not to lost. They were killed. Batman is about a kid who took his suffering and all of his pain and turned it into something positive so no one else has to be that kid whose parents were taken away from him. Dick Grayson understood this. Jason Todd did not understand and strayed from this. Tim Drake understood this and tries his best to live up to Batman’s example. Cassandra Cain has taken life and understood how terrible murder was and lives her life trying to redeem herself. Damian is thematically against Batman as a concept.

And Damian sucks his teeth at it and sees it as a hindrance. And not in the same way that Jason does who was horrible killed by the Joker and then later learned that Batman let him live thus creating a sense of betrayal and abandonment. Damian just feels like it is easier to just kill people and right or wrong is irrelevant. There is no talking to a person who can’t fathom why murder might not be the modus operandi of a vigilante that regularly works with civilization.

All of these things would be okay if Damian was not constantly being written as the heir to Batman or the next successor to Batman when for all intents and purposes, he is the least worthy of all Batman’s sidekicks and family. He is not from Gotham yet he deems that he should be it’s protector just because his father is? He is sneers his nose to being decent and good and is rather okay with keeping a blacksite of prisoners so he can interrogate and torture them. And god forbid you say Damian is ever wrong?

All in all, Damian does not want to learn or grow. He has been the same character for years and there is no development in his personality. And him unlearning to not be an assassin and not killing people seems like shit he should inherently know not to do and why it is wrong. Damian does not kill because his daddy told him not to. And yeah, he could learn a lesson, but honestly that lesson should not have to be learned in the first place for a character in the Batfamily. They should intrinsically know and have strong feelings against and somehow they make an exception for Damian.

Then there is identifying Damian as a person of color which...okay, I caught some heat when I called Damian white but the ambiguity of Damian’s and therefore Ra’s and Talia’s cultural heritages allows for writers to not actually address culture or race. Ra’s Al Ghul’s ambiguity whether he is ethnically Arabic, semitic, or both allows for an interpretation that he could be white and people generally are okay with that read as him and never discourages it. Talia is the same way and while Damian might were the clothes, and eat the food(yes, I know Damian likes Lebanese cuisine because it reminds him of home), but it is wholly on the writer to address his racial identity because of what the League of Assassins is. It is not like Simon Baz where his ethnic and therefore religious identity must be upheld because it is part of his core character or a Luke Cage where race and racial issues must be ascertained when writing his character or even Miles Morales. Damian is from a made up cult of based off the Middle Eastern Hashashin’s of the Crusades. That fantastical element allows the writer to have a brown character without actually relating to brown people. And that is even if writer or artists makes Damian Brown which is not too far out of the realm of possibility because again, Ra’s and Talia’s ambiguous ethnic identities allows for that possibility.

I know people hate reboots. But Damian should be rebooted. That is just my opinion of the character. Feel free to discuss.

@ubernegro

#Damian Wayne #robin #batman & robin #Batfamily #DC comics

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hellsbellssinclub · 7 years

Text

Can You See Me Now? Chapter 1

This is my newest Batman fic.

Summary:

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

After some nudging from Spoiler and Batgirl, Tim seeks out the Red Hood to ask the older teen for permission into his territory to follow up a lead. It was a small, innocent action but it was the starting point for both Tim and Jason to get to know each other.

But things are never as they seem and things always get better before they get worst.

Read it here on AO3

(Sorry to mobile users, the read more I put on the post does not seem to be working on the app)

“Look, I’m just saying that there is probably more to everything than what Batman told you. Maybe the now not dead Robin isn’t as bad as you think.” The young woman in the eggplant purple suit said for the seventh time in the last fifteen minutes.

“And I am telling you he broke into Titan Tower and beat me with my own bow staff, Spoiler.” Tim sighed, looking over at his Ex, feeling the dull burn of his broken ribs as he breathed in deep. “I know that Batman isn’t telling me everything about what happened. Neither is Nightwing or Agent A. I am in the dark as much as you. But really, I think there might just be a chance that he holds a teeny tiny little grudge against me.”

Steph shook her head at him. “I know he beat you and I know something went down with the Joker but!” She held up her hand to stop him from saying anything over her. “I have looked into every kill and action he has made. From start to finish. While he has been incredibly violent, and well, bloody and stuff, he has not killed an innocent person. Everyone he killed were violent drug dealers and pimps who were hurting the working girls. Crime has gone down in his territory in the last month.”

Tim gave her a pained look. He knew that Jason Todd as the Red Hood was technically doing a lot of good for Crime Alley, a place that has not had a stable crime lord or hand controlling it since Bruce was still a kid. And with Bruce’s own personal dislike of the area because of what happened to his parents and the GCPD’s unwillingness to investigate anything that happens there, Crime Alley often went unchecked and unnoticed by everyone. The Red Hood had strict rules he was willing to enforce and from what Tim had managed to overhear so far, the people who lived in Crime Alley felt a lot safer with the Red Hood around.

But that still does not change the fact that Jason was completely unstable and willing to murder nearly everyone who got in his way. The former Robin was willing to take that extra step to make his point. There had already been at least fifteen cases of torture reported to the GCPD that they know about.

(Though most of those cases were of convicted paedophiles and child molesters and honestly, Tim could not really fault the former Robin for what he did there; he too occasionally got the urge to do horrible things to predators as well, though he himself never acted on it.)

Red Hood’s official death toll was almost at sixty with the possibility of the GCPD finding more bodies every day. Crime Alley might be safer for the people who live there, but that safety was brought with blood and death caused by Jason’s hands. It was not the kind of safety that would last long. Not in Gotham anyway.

At least Jason’s vendetta against the Bat’s had died down though after whatever happened with the Joker that night nearly a month and a half ago. Bruce was not willing to share what had happened and the older man deleted the Cowl Cam footage before anyone else had a chance to see it. The Joker still lived, which was unfortunate in his own personal opinion. Yes, Tim fully believed in Bruce’s ‘save everyone you can’ view of the world but if he was to be honest, Tim would not grieve if the Joker was to be violently murdered by someone. Because really, that cockroach needed to die and just be stopped permanently.

“While I do agree that the whole, you know, serial killer-antihero thing is working in Crime Alley, it still doesn’t change the fact that he beat me up and tried to kill B and N. I really don’t think he wants me to come into his territory and act like we are friends or something.” Tim kicked a stone off the ledge they were standing on. Yes, he was still holding a grudge. But who could blame him really? He got beaten up by his predecessor while said predecessor wore an absolutely horrid copy of the original, green panties, Robin suit.

“I’m not saying go out and act like his friend, Robin!” Steph waved her hands again. “I am saying maybe you could extend the olive branch to him? Because from what you have told me, the guy was murdered in a pretty traumatic way, woke up in his own grave, dug his way out and then was more or less prisoner of those crazy assassin dudes who are obsessed with immortality? Maybe if you and the other Bat’s give him a chance to talk and stuff without the Joker and explosives involved you could actually get through to him. Everything that he has done to you guys, have you considered perhaps it was a cry for help?”

Tim sighed. “When you put it like that you make us sound like a bunch of dicks you know.” He shook his head and slumped his shoulders. She was right. But only to a point. Jason’s actions at the Tower and his anger at the Bats could be seen as a cry for help, especially given what they did know about the trauma that Jason went through. “But it still doesn’t take away the point that he attacked me and the others and while he hasn’t made another attempt against me, he has fought B and Nightwing recently.”

“He probably fought them because they were the ones who entered his territory.” Steph pointed out. That was also true, if Jason had come into his territory he probably would have attacked the older teen without a second thought. He could see the former Robin doing the same if Bruce and Dick tried to enter Crime Alley. “I get it Tim, I really do. He hurt you and that sucks ass. I am not saying that you have to forgive him or anything. I am just saying maybe extend the olive branch to him. You were saying before that one the leads in one of your cases, the one with the underground alien tech, was in Crime Alley, right? Let him know that you are following up on a lead and that you will not cause any trouble for him.”

He gave a low hum of thought at that. Tim’s original plan for that case was to go out in the day, skipping his afternoon study hall at school and going to look for the tech without his gear. It would have been risky but there would have been a better chance that he would not run into the Red Hood. There also would have been a greater chance that he would have been mugged because he looks like a rich white boy with money (which you know, he is), but Tim was confident he could have taken on anyone who attacked him.

But going and asking for permission? Tim had not even considered that an option at all. And honestly, why would he? Jason Todd had made it clear that he hated his ‘Replacement’ and that he wanted nothing to do with the Bats and Birds of Gotham. How would the older teen react? He wondered. Would he attack Tim? Or would he let him pass?

“Hey, if you don’t feel that you can be near him with without him attacking you then you should just bring Batgirl with you.” Steph grinned at him behind her Spoiler mask. Smiling always looked so strange behind her mask but one can definitely see the outline of it. Tim could not help but roll his eyes at her words though.

“I am not bringing Batgirl with me like some kind of bodyguard. I am a grown ass vigilante, I don’t need a bodyguard.” He wasn’t pouting. He wasn’t. He was nearly fifteen, he could take care of himself without Batgirl babysitting him.

“Oh, come on! Batgirl wouldn’t mind! Would you, Batgirl?” Steph looked over his shoulder, causing him to spin around and glare at Cassandra, who was standing a few feet away. He had not noticed at all that she was there and there was a small shock of panic and fear that went through him at that thought. He hates it when people manage to get the drop on him. Cass was the second best in the Bat family at sneaking up on people, right after Bruce.

“We need to put a bell on you before you give me a heart attack.” Tim groaned out, covering his face for a moment. At least Cass never went out of her way to purposely scare him, unlike Nightwing had when Tim was first starting out as Robin. His situational awareness has improved since he was twelve, thank god, and Nightwing was now not able to jump out of the celling and scare him anymore.

Cass gave him a small snort. “Am not Catwoman. Don’t need a bell.” The smirk looked as strange behind Batgirl’s mask as it did Spoiler’s. “I would be happy to bodyguard for you.”

Tim rolled his eyes behind his domino mask. Steph and Cass becoming friends was a horrible idea. He never should have encouraged it. They were both terrible together. Steph always had something to say or do and Cass was always happy to follow her new friend around, enjoying being a teenager like she should. Steph encouraged Cass to step outside her comfort zone and explore being a teen and Cass was willing to do most of the things that Steph suggested.

They were good for each other. But not good for his sanity, seeing as they roped him into following whatever crazy stunt they had planned.

“I don’t need a bodyguard.” He whined at them both. He didn’t need Cass to hold his hand. He could talk to Jason. And if he gets his ass kicked then he could just blame Steph for the idea and spend a week with the Titans licking his wounds.

Not literally. That would be gross. Why is that phrase even a thing?

“Am bodyguard now. No take backs.” Cass nodded, sounding pleased with herself and he groaned in annoyance. He doesn’t need Cass babying him. He is Robin! Terror of the Night and Batman’s partner. He hated being babied by Cass and Dick. They always pulled the ‘I am the older sibling and you are the baby of the family’ card on him. He can’t wait until he could be the big brother. One day he will give the Robin suit up and then he can be the one babying someone else. “Why is a bodyguard needed?” Cass asked, moving to stand next to Steph.

Before Tim had a chance to say anything, his purple menace of an Ex-Girlfriend spoke. “Tim is going to go and ask the Red Hood if he could go into Crime Alley. We need you to bodyguard him because we don’t know if the Red Hood is going to beat Tim up again or not.”

Tim shook his head. “Names, Spoiler. No names on the field.” He reminded her, closing his eyes in annoyance. Steph was bad when it came to remembering the ‘no names on the field’ rule now that she knows his name. If he didn’t know better he would say that she is doing it out of spite because he didn’t tell her it himself.

And Cass was either going to be all for being Tim’s bodyguard or she is going to be against it and honestly, he wasn’t sure which one he preferred.

On one hand, there are a lot of advantages to having Cass actually guard him while he spoke to Jason. Mostly all of them were that she could kick Jason’s ass. It wouldn’t matter how skilled Jason now is, Cass would win.

On the other hand, if she is against it she could go and tell Bruce which would end up with him benched and on the receiving end of a cold shoulder and disappointed glare for the next month or so. And he would probably have several new trackers placed on his person without his consent. Because B can occasionally forget to use his words and just say ‘I am worried about you, please be safe’ out loud.

Mind you, Bruce is still a lot better at emotions than Jack Drake. Tim’s father only really did emotions in small, but over whelming bursts. Which means Tim usually gets a weekend or two of father-son like interactions and then it is several weeks of ‘we exist in the same house but are mostly strangers to each other’. Which is always fun.

Cass said nothing for a few moments, her head tilting to the side slightly as she no doubt read Tim’s body language and seeing his hesitance and his inner monologue. “What’s in Crime Alley?” She asked finally.

“A lead to one of my cases. The alien tech one that I have been working solo on.” Tim explained. Cass had not yet said yes or no and he was still very much undecided on which way he wanted her to choose.

“Come on! Big bad Batgirl can definitely take on the Red Hood if he tries to hurt our Baby Bird!” Steph wrapped an arm around Cass’s shoulders. “And you guys can extend an olive branch to the guy by being nice and you know, asking to be let into his territory.”

Cass hummed, which once again was not a yes or a no. She gently shook off Steph’s arm and looked at both Tim and Steph. “Why extend the olive branch?” She asked. “He is a murderer. He kills people and makes Batman sad, here.” She pointed to her chest, right above her heart.

Whelp, that’s an understatement. Anything to do with Jason Todd hurt Bruce. When Tim was first starting out as Robin he could barely mention Jason’s name without Bruce completely shutting down. It had gotten better over the years. Sometimes Bruce would mention Jason in passing or would say something about how the young boy used to be. But now that it was known that the Red Hood is Jason Todd, things have gone back to the way they were at the start and Tim did not know what to do other than avoid mentioning Jason or the Red Hood all together.

“Spoiler believes that there is more to the story than what B has said and that there we should hear Hood out and let him tell his side of the story.” Tim explained with another sigh. He wondered how many times he was going to end up sighing in this conversation and thought to himself that perhaps he should stop doing so already because ow, his ribs do not like it when he sighs at all. “She also believes there is a chance that his behaviour and actions could have been a cry for help and that we should perhaps try and talk to him instead of you know, fighting at any given chance.”

“Yep! That is some good summary skills there, Ex-Boyfriend of mine.” Steph nodded and looked at Cass expectedly. The mask made it impossible to tell what Cass was thinking. Not that it was easy for him to read Cassandra without the mask but it was slightly easier without the frankly unsettling mask staring at you in the eyes.

There is a good reason as to why he would never go for a full-face mask when he finally is ready to let go of being Robin. And that reason is that is that he is more than likely going to see his mask in the reflection of a window or something and then forget that it is his mask and then scream in fear. Which you know, would ruin the whole serious vigilante look he would be hoping for.

Thus, he will probably only stick to a domino. Or a cowl. But a cowl is slightly too Batman like and Tim did not want to be Batman. He would have to think on this more in-depth later.

“Cry for help?” Cass tilted her head again. “You believe that the killing is his way of crying for help?” If anyone else had said that, Tim would believe that they were being dismissive or sarcastic. But Cass just sounded curious.

“Well, yeah.” Steph waved her hands carelessly as she began to explain. “I met him a few times back when he was Robin. He was a great guy. He was kind. Sure, he was a little bit rougher than Nightwing was when dealing with scumbags and stuff but he always stuck around to make sure that the victims were okay. All of his interactions with you Bats so far look like lashing out and cries for help if you ask me. I mean, he dressed up in a frankly fucked up Robin costume and beat up Tim. He was apparently angry that there wasn’t a statue of him in the Tower like there was for all the other dead heroes and whatever the hell happened with the Joker and Batman was well…” She trailed off.

Tim shrugged. “No one knows what the hell happened with those three.” And it wasn’t from lack of trying to find out either. Bruce was tight lipped about the whole thing and the Joker apparently only laughed when he was asked what happened. Tim suspected that Alfred knew what went down because the older man had been very stiff and cold towards Bruce for several weeks and has only just started to warm back up to him again.

“You think that we should reach out to him?” Cass asked. “Show him we can offer help?”

Steph nodded enthusiastically at Cass’s attempt to clarify what they were telling her.

“I do think that! And I think that Wonder Boy here is the best person to do it.” She gently punched Tim’s shoulder as she said this, making him rock back a little close to the edge. Steph may not be a meta but her punches, gentle or not, were stronger than she realised.

“Why can’t you do it? He hates me.” Tim pointed out. He really did not understand why she wanted him to do this. Yes, getting permission from the Red Hood could open up a professional relationship between them where they could actively avoid each other unless they needed to do something in the other’s territory. And yes, he could definitely see Steph’s point about how Jason’s actions did seem like a huge cry for help.

But Tim has already been beaten once by Jason and he honestly did not want to have another round with the older teen. The fight between them showed Tim just how much he was lacking in his training and he could not help but feel a deep, festering bitterness that he would never be as good as Jason was. As good as Dick was. It was a bitterness he was trying to push away and forget about but it never seemed to go away.

Tim didn’t want to offer the older teen help and then accidentally drive him away because he could not get a hold of his own mental health issues. Issues that he needed to actually address sometime soon, least he turn into Bruce. Or a supervillain. Either one would be bad for his health in the long run.

Steph punched his shoulder again, this time harder; causing him to wince because ow, why, that hurts. “Because Boy Blunder, you don’t have any history at all with him. Except for, you know, him beating you. And you are more than likely a trigger for him because you are now Robin. But still, you at least don’t have a history like Batman and Nightwing do. And he knows nothing about you as a person! He probably only knows what he has read about you from the assassins he was with!”

“All the more reason why you should talk to him and not me! You are a stranger to him, not me! Spoiler is new and not actually connected to Batman and Robin. And if you haven’t noticed I am Robin and something tells me he does not like that I am Robin.” Tim waved his hands in what he could best describe as ‘I am emphasizing my point and you are not listening to me’. He learnt this gesture from Steph when they first became friends and has used it a lot over the years.

“Look Tim; think about it like this. You are brutally tortured and murdered. You wake up in your own grave, dig your way out and are taken in by evil assassins. You spend who knows how long with said assassins and find out you have been replaced by a younger, better model who comes from the complete opposite background as you do. Your attempt to kill your murderer doesn’t work and your father figure is a dick. How do you feel?” Steph put her head in her hands and sighed before continuing.

“You need to be the one who talks to him because you are a Bat and someone who probably makes him feel like he was replaced by a better, richer model and that you are everything that he isn’t. If you talk to him, show him you are an actual person and not some cardboard cut-out of someone who he wasn’t, then maybe you could actually get him to talk about what happened to him and help him! Yes, I am a stranger to him and while we could get along and stuff he is going to need someone who is a Bat to speak to him at some point and…” She groaned. “I messed up my point. Tim, you are someone who is actually a part of all of this mess. I am not. Just, go and ask him for permission to enter his territory. If he says no then he says no. I will go and follow up that lead for you if that is the case. But please, try at least.”

Tim groaned again and looked over at Cass to see what she had to say about all of this.

“You,” Cass pointed at Steph. “You want Robin to talk to Red Hood. Because Red Hood is hurting. And needs help. Robin means a lot to Red Hood. It was his name, who he was before the Joker killed him. If Robin shows that he is not…” She waved her hand in a very vague but Steph like manner. “If Robin shows that he is not who Red Hood thought he was then the Red Hood will feel less like he is replaced or… unworthy? Red Hood was a good Robin. Now he is not good as the Red Hood. Bad things happened to the Red Hood, made him hard and angry. Extending olive branch might help.”

“Yes! Thank you!” Steph let out a low breath. “Why are you guys so good at summarising everything?”

“Nightwing.” Both Tim and Cass said together. Dick had a habit of not only rambling but also talking fast and without breaks. A habit of both his ADHD and from being best friends with a Speedster. Anyone who works or is with Dick for long periods of time learns how to summarise what he says.

It is a handy trick for Tim to know, seeing as he is also best friends with a Speedster and Steph has a habit of rambling herself at times.

“So…?” Steph trailed off and Tim, though he said to himself that he wasn’t going to do it because ow, sighed and completely ignored the pain in his chest.

“If Batgirl is willing to bodyguard than I will go and ask Red Hood for permission into his territory.” Tim felt slightly defeated. He wanted to keep arguing that he really wasn’t sure that this was a good idea for either Jason or himself but at the same time he knows he would feel crap if he said no because Steph’s points were more than likely all true and-

And he did not want to be a person who ignores someone else who could be in need of help because he was selfish.

Tim has been lucky. Since becoming Robin he has had a wonderful support network that he has used a lot over the years and would never trade for anything in the world. Jason does not have that. Or at least Tim was pretty sure that Jason does not have that.

“I will bodyguard. Will only interfere if you are attacked. I will stay in the shadows and away from sight.” Cass said. “We do this tonight, on next patrol. It is late now. Time for bed soon.”

Cass was right, it was getting close to four am and Tim was due back into the Cave in less than half an hour. He was thankful that he did not have any classes until nine am because he wanted to have more than an hour sleep when he finally got back to his home.

“Oh wow. Today went quicker than expected.” Steph rocked back on her heels. “I am stuck in class tomorrow night but I expect to have at least three texts telling me how it all went from you both. Got it?”

Tim rolled his eyes but nodded. “Yes, yes. Three texts. If I get beat up you are so making me waffles.” He pulled her into a quick hug.

“Whatever, Ex-Boyfriend.” Steph pulled Cass into a hug of her own and then was grappling away with a careless wave.

“Do you think this is a good idea?” He asked Cassandra quietly now that they were alone on the ledge. Cass looked at him, the eyes on her mask stared directly into his own white out lenses.

“I think… that there is a possibility that the Red Hood is falling without a net. And that his lines may have been cut by accident. By Batman. By Robin.” She paused and looked up at the dark sky. “We can offer him a new line. And a net. Falling without a net or line… It is not good. That mindset. You feel like you are flying, until you hit the ground.”

Tim flinched at that imagery. Jason had been hurt by the Joker and whatever the hell happened with his resurrection and the League of Assassins. The trauma alone from that would be enough to make enough the sanest man go a little wonky. But whatever happened with B that night with the Joker…

Whatever happened might have taken away his line, like Cass said. But Tim was not overly convinced that this is a good idea. Cass must have read his hesitance because she spoke once more.

“He needs to see you as a person, like Spoiler said. Not just as a costume. He needs to see not Robin but you.” She gestured to his body. “When he attacked you, he was looking for reason as to why you were supposed to be better than him. He wanted to see, prove himself and you, that he was the better one. Because if he was not the better one, than him being replaced would have been a good thing.”

Tim frowned at that. He had not thought of it that way. While he could see the attack against him in the Tower as being a cry for help like Steph kept saying, he did not think to look as to the reasons why it was a cry for help. Steph and Cass both were good at getting him to take a step back and look at the full details of the bigger picture. He would certainly be lost (and probably more emotionally stunted) without them.

Tim knows that he should not use them as a crutch for explaining emotions and details that he may have missed about basic human reactions, but Tim was not ashamed to say that he did not connect with other people well and often missed simple emotional matters that should have been obvious to him. According to the internet, this was probably because he missed out on many key interactions with his parents due to them constantly traveling around the world and leaving him home with a nanny who discouraged most emotional reactions he had. Because his nanny believed that ‘boys don’t do emotions like girls and he should man up already’.

Tim really, really needed to get his mental health checked out sooner rather than later.

“Okay. Yeah, I see your point.” Tim conceded. “What about you? Are you going to try as well?”

Cass hummed and nodded after a moment. “Yes. Will try with Spoiler and Oracle. Give some space between us and you. Keep him from feeling trapped.”

He hummed in agreement and gestured to the edge that they were standing on. “I am heading back to the Cave. I take it you are going back to the Clock Tower?” He asked, feeling drained. This whole conversation and everything about it made him feel like he had fought off an energy sucking monster. He wanted to go back to the Cave, get into his own clothes and head back to his own home. Or maybe just crash at the Manor. He will see what kind of mood B was in when he got to the Cave.

“Back to Clock Tower.” Cass nodded again. “Will Comm you tonight. Find where you and Hood are. Go to bed.” She reached up and ruffled his hair fondly and then flung herself of the ledge with grace that only Nightwing could copy. He watched her grapple her way towards the Clock Tower until she was gone from his sights.

His bike was down in the alleyway below him and it would take him only a short time to get to the Cave from his location. Tomorrow, well tonight really, was going to be interesting to say the least. He would like to say that the growing pit inside his stomach was just anticipation and not the low level of fear at the thought of speaking to Jason face to face.

The Red Hood was volatile, dangerous and had a grudge against the Bats. Tim had no idea how this was going to go and it frightened him. Jason Todd could simply say yes or no. Or he could just shoot Tim in the head and Batgirl or no Batgirl there would be no stopping him if he does.

Normally, being in that kind of situation was sort of exciting. Like a free fall off the top of the Wayne Enterprises tower. It was a rush that left a bubbling feeling in his chest that just screamed ‘I am alive!’ but he did not feel that right now. He just felt a low level of fear bubbling away in his stomach, making him feel nauseous.

Jason made it clear that he did not like Tim. Did not want to be near him or see him. The beating he had taken was not the worst one he had suffered through. But it had hurt him. Hurt him badly because this was Jason Todd. Robin. The boy who Tim used to follow around with a camera around his neck hoping to see in action.

What do you say to a person that had once been one of your heroes after they beat the living shit out of you?

Tim did not want to think about it at all right now. He needed to get back to the Cave and back home before B and his dad start to worry. He would think about it before he goes onto patrol. Not now while his head was clouded. But later when he was rested and ready for the night.

#hellsbells wrote something!!!#Can You See Me Now?#batman fic #Batman #Tim Drake #Jason Todd #Stephanie Brown #cassandra cain

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