#hal did not need to hear that

[shroudedmoon]

I will forever love Batman acting like brucie wayne

[somewherefornow]

GREEN LANTERN 2021 ANNUAL + MENTIONS OF SIMON

[thegreatestheaver]

Conventional nightmares are scary but I think it’s the unrealistic ones that are the most scary

[morganbritton132]

Hal, interrupting Barry mid-sentence: Hold up. You were in Gotham? Batman’s Gotham? ‘No-Meta-in-Gotham’ Gotham?

Barry: Yeah? Bats needed my forensic expertise. It was so cool. We traced-

Hal: Not fair. I want to go to Gotham

Barry: Ask Batman

—

Green Lantern, thinking about how he’s going to kill The Flash: You want me to go in there *gestures to open manhole* In the sewer. To fight an alligator.

Batman: Killer Croc is a man

Green Lantern: That looks like a crocodile and eats people.

Batman: Yes.

Green Lantern: What about him? Make him do it *gestures to Red Robin*

Red Robin: Can’t

Batman: He can’t.

Green Lantern: Why not?

Red Robin: Don’t have a spleen

Batman: He doesn’t have a spleen.

Green Lantern:

Red Robin, over coms: Did you guys hear that? Green Lantern just told me he wants me to fucking die

Coms: *explodes as everybody speaks at once*

[wifelinkmtg]

TUMBLR POST EDITOR WON'T LET ME TITLE THIS POST ANYMORE SO I GUESS THIS IS THE TITLE NOW. WEBBED SITE INNIT

So let's say you grew up in the nineties and that The Lion King was an important movie to you. Let's say that the character of Scar - snarling, ambitious, condescending, effeminate Scar - stirred feelings in you which you had no words for as a child. And then let's say, many years later, you're talking about it with a college friend, and you say something like, "oh man, I think Scar was some sort of gay awakening for me," and she fixes you with this level stare and says, "Scar was a fascist. What's the matter with you?"

The immediate feeling is not unlike missing a step: hang on, what's happening, what did I miss? You knew there were goose-stepping hyenas in "Be Prepared," but you didn't think it mattered that much. He's the bad guy, after all, and the movie's just pointing it out. Your friend says it's more than that: the visuals of the song are directly referencing the Nuremberg rallies. They're practically an homage to Riefenstahl. This was your sexual awakening? Is this why you're so into peaked caps and leather, then? Subliminal nazi kink, perhaps?

And then one of your other friends cuts in. "Hold up," he says, "let's think about what Scar actually did in the movie. He organized a group of racialized outcasts and led them against a predatory monarchy. Why are you so keen to defend their hereditary rule? Scar's the good guy here." The conversation immediately descends into a verbal slap fight about who the real bad guy is, whether Scar's regime was actually responsible for the ecological devastation of the Pride Lands, whether the hyenas actually count as "racialized" because James Earl Jones voiced Mufasa after all. Your Catholic friend starts saying some strange and frankly concerning shit about Natural Law. Someone brings The Lion King 2 into it. You leave the conversation feeling a little bit lost and a little bit anxious. What were we even talking about?

INTRODUCING: THE DITCH

There is a way of reading texts which I'm afraid is pervasive, which has as its most classical expression the smug obsession with trivia and minutiae you find in a certain vein of comic book fan. "Who was the first Green Lantern? What was his weakness? Do you even know the Green Lantern Oath?" It eschews the subjective in favor of definitively knowable fact. You can't argue with this guy that, say, Alan Scott shouldn't really count as the first Green Lantern because his whole deal is so radically different from the Hal Jordan/John Stewart/Guy Gardner Corps-era Lanterns, because this guy will simply say "but he's called Green Lantern. Says so right on the cover. Checkmate." This approach to reading a text is fundamentally 1) emotionally detached (there's a reason the joke goes, oh you like X band? name three of their songs - and not, which of their songs means the most to you? which of them came into your life at exactly the right moment to tell you exactly what you needed to hear just then?) and 2) defensive. It's a stance that is designed not to lose arguments. It says so right on the cover. Checkmate.

And then you get the guys who are like "well obviously Bruce Wayne could do far more as a billionaire to solve societal problems by using his tremendous wealth to address systemic issues instead of dressing up as a bat and punching mental patients in the head," and these guys have half a point but they're basically in the same ditch butting heads with the "well, actually" guys, and can we not simply extricate ourselves from the ditch entirely?

So, okay, let's return to our initial example. Scar is portrayed using Nazi iconography - the goose-stepping, the monumentality, the Nuremberg Lichtdom. He is also flamboyant and effete. He unifies and leads a group of downtrodden exiles to overthrow an absolute monarch. He's also a self-serving despot on whose rule Heaven Itself turns its back. You can't reconcile these things from within the ditch - or if you can, the attempt is likely to be ad-hoc supposition and duct tape.

Instead, let's ask ourselves what perspective The Lion King is coming from. What does it say is true about the world? What are its precepts, its axioms?

There is a natural hierarchical order to the world. This is just and righteous and the way of things, and attempts to overthrow this order will be punished severely by the world itself.

Fascism is what happens when evil men attempt to usurp this natural order with the aid of a group or groups of people who refuse to accept their place in the order.

There exists an alternative to defending and adhering to one's place in the natural order - it consists only of selfish spineless apathy.

Manliness is an essential quality of a just ruler. Unmanliness renders a person unfit for rule, and often resentful and dangerous as well.

And isn't that interesting, laid out like that? It renders the entire argument about the movie irrelevant (except for whatever your Catholic friend was on about, since his understanding of the world seems to line up with the above precepts weirdly well.) It's meaningless to argue about whether Scar was a secret hero or a fascist, when the movie doesn't understand fascism and has a damn-near alien view of what good and evil are.

There's always gonna be someone who, having read this far, wants to reply, "so, what? The Lion King is a bad movie and the people who made it were homophobes and also American monarchists, somehow? And anyone who likes it is also some sort of gay-bashing crypto-authoritarian?" To which I have to reply, man, c'mon, get out of the ditch. You're no good to anyone in there. Take my hand. I'm going to pull on three. One... two...

SO PHYREXIA [PAUSE FOR APPLAUSE, GROANS]

We're talking about everyone's favorite ichor-drooling surgery monsters again because there was a bit in my ~*~seminal~*~ essay Transformation, Horror, Eros, Phyrexia which seemed to give a number of readers quite a bit of trouble: namely, the idea that while Phyrexia is textually fascist, their aesthetic is incompatible with real-world fascism, and further, that this aesthetic incompatibility in some way outweighs the ways in which they act like a fascist nation in terms of how we think of them. I'll take responsibility here: I don't think that point is at all clear or well-argued in that essay. What I was trying to articulate was that the text of Magic: the Gathering very much wants Phyrexia to be supremely evil and dangerous fascists, because that makes for effective antagonists, but in the process of constructing that, it's accidentally encoded a whole bunch of fascinating presuppositions that end up working at cross-purposes with its apparent aim. That's... not that much clearer, is it? Hmm. Why don't I just show you what I mean?

Atraxa, Grand Unifier (art by Marta Nael)

In "Beneath Eyes Unblinking," one of the March of the Machine stories by K. Arsenault Rivera, there's a fascinating and I think revealing passage in which Atraxa (big-deal Phyrexianized angel and Elesh Norn's lieutenant) has a run-in with an art museum in New Capenna. The first thing I want to talk about is that, in this passage, Atraxa has no understanding of the concept of "beauty". A great deal of space in such a rushed storyline is devoted to her trying to puzzle out what beauty means and interrogating the minds of her recently-compleated Capennan aesthetes to try and understand it. In the end, she is unable to conceive of beauty except as "wrongness," as anathema.

So my first question is, why doesn't Atraxa have any idea of beauty? This is nonsense, right? We could point to a previous story, "A Garden of Flesh," by Lora Gray, in which Elesh Norn explicitly thinks in terms of beauty, but that's a little bit ditchbound, isn't it? The better argument is to simply look at Phyrexian bodies, at the Phyrexian landscape, all of which looks the way it does on purpose, all of which has been shaped in accordance with the very real aesthetic preferences of Phyrexians. How you could look at the Fair Basilica and not understand that Phyrexians most definitely have an idea of beauty, even if you personally disagree with it, is baffling. This is a lot like the canonical assertion that Phyrexians lack souls, which is both contradicted elsewhere in canon and essentially meaningless, given Magic's unwillingness or inability to articulate what a soul is in its setting, and as with this, it seems the goal is simply to dehumanize Phyrexians, to render them alien, even at the cost of incoherence or internal contradiction.

Atraxa's progress through the museum is fascinating. It evokes the 1937 Nazi exhibit on "degenerate art" in Munich, but not at all cleanly. The first exhibit, which is of representational art, she angrily destroys for being too individualistic (a point of dissonance with the European fascist movements of the 20th century, which formed in direct antagonism to communism.) The second exhibit, filled with abstract paintings and sculptures, she destroys even more angrily for having no conceivable use (this is much more in line with the Nazi idea of "degenerate art", so well done there.) The third exhibit is filled with war trophies and reconstructions from a failed Phyrexian invasion of Capenna many years prior, which she is angriest of all with (and fair enough, I suppose.) But then, after she's done completely trashing the place, she spots a number of angel statues on the cathedral across the plaza, and she goes apeshit. In a fugue of white-hot rage, she pulverizes the angel heads, and here is where I have to ask my second question:

Why angels? If you are trying to invoke fascist attitudes toward art, big statues of angels are precisely the wrong thing for your fascist analogues to hate. Fascists love monumental, heroic representations of superhuman perfection. It's practically their whole aesthetic deal. I understand that we're foreshadowing the imminent defeat of Phyrexia at the hands of legions of angels and a multiversal proliferation of angel juice, but that just leads to the exact same question: why angels? To the best of my knowledge, the Phyrexian weakness to New Capennan angel juice is something invented for this storyline. They have, after all, been happily compleating angels since 1997. We could talk about the in-universe justification for why Halo specifically is so potent, but I don't remember what that justification is, and also don't care. Let's not jump back in the ditch, please. The point is, someone decided that this time, Phyrexia would be defeated by an angelic host, and what does that mean? What is the text trying to say? What are its precepts and axioms?

Let me ask you a question: how many physically disabled angels are there in Magic: the Gathering? How about transsexual angels? How many angels are there, on all of the cards that have ever been printed for Magic: the Gathering, that are even just a bit ugly? Do you get it yet? Or do you need me to spell it out for you?

SPELLING IT OUT FOR YOU

There is a kind of body which is bad. It is bad because it has been significantly altered from its natural state, and it is bad because it is repellent to our aesthetic sensibilities.

The bad kind of body is contagious. It spreads through contact. Sometimes people we love are infected, and then they become the bad kind of body too.

There is a kind of body which is good. It is good because it is pleasing to our aesthetic sensibilities, and it is good because it is unaltered from its (super)natural state.

A happy ending is when all the good bodies destroy or drive into hiding all of the bad bodies. A happy ending is when the bad bodies of the people we love are forcibly returned to being the good kind of body.

Do you get it now?

ENDNOTES

It's worth noting that the ditch is very similar to the white American Evangelical hermeneutics of "the Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it," the defensive chapter-and-verse-or-it-didn't-happen approach to reading a text, what Fred Clark of slacktivist calls "concordance-ism". I don't think that's accidental. We stand underneath centuries of people reading the Bible very poorly - how could that not affect how we read things today? We are participants in history whether we like it or not.

I sincerely hope I haven't come across as condescending in this essay. Close reading is legitimately difficult! They teach college courses on this stuff! And while it is frustrating to have my close readings interrogated by people who... aren't doing that, like. I do get it. I find myself back in the ditch all the time. This stuff is hard. It is also, sorry, crucial if you intend to say something about a text that's worth saying.

I also hope I've communicated clearly here. Magic story is sufficiently incoherent that trying to develop a thesis about it often feels like trying to nail jello to the wall. If anyone has questions, please ask them! And thank you for reading. Next time, we'll probably do the new Eldraine set.

[archangeldyke-all]

sev def lays on top of u whenever she makes u mad until you stop being mad

ASDJFPWEWFPJD:LDF this is so fucking funny and cute

men and minors dni

the first time it happens, you and sevika are in your first real fight of your relationship.

sevika had stood you up on a date, only to show up on your doorstep five hours later bloodied and beaten.

the simultaneous sting of rejection mixed with the heartbreak of seeing your love in such rough shape resulted in you angrily patching sevika up in the bathroom, ranting at her as you tended to her wounds.

"b-baby, you know i've got a crazy job. sometimes i come home bloody. some nights i won't be able to come home at all. and you should know by now that i wouldn't fuckin' stand you up without a good reason."

"i know that sevika, which is why i'd fucking appreciate it if you could send a fucking messenger to me next time you gotta bail on our plans! i thought you were dead in a fucking ditch somewhere!" you cry.

sevika blinks, seemingly not having considered this point yet. "oh." she says, her heart breaking a bit as she realizes how worried you must've been. you're always worried about her; pouting when you find new bruises on her body and giving silco dirty looks when he's been treating her poorly, and sevika knows how hard you work to accept her lifestyle and job-- but she can only fucking imagine how scared you must've been for the few hours where she was missing. she'd die if she thought something happened to you.

"did you hit your head at all?" you ask, glaring down at your girlfriend while your hands gently move her head back and forth, studying her pupils.

"no."

"good." you grunt, dropping your hands quickly and angrily packing up the first aid kit. "i'm going to bed. you need to take a bath-- you stink." you spit, storming out of the bathroom.

sevika blinks, the full gravity of her fuck up hitting her-- and then she rushes after you.

you're cursing her out under your breath and slamming drawers as you change into your pajamas.

sevika cringes, desperately trying to think of a way to get herself out of the doghouse. "baby--"

"i don't wanna hear it, sevika. not tonight."

she gulps, and then does the only thing she can think to do.

in three big strides, sevika's pushing you onto the bed and collapsing on top of you. you squeak, then start to squirm underneath her.

"what the fuck are you doing!?" you ask.

sevika shrugs on top of you. "you're angry at me."

"...so!?" you squeal.

"so i'm squishing you until you love me again." sevika says.

you can't help but giggle, smacking her shoulder. "i still love you, jackass, i'm just mad at you."

"so i'm squishing the mad out of you." she says simply. you laugh, your anger slowly melting away at sevika's sweetness. "i'm sorry. really. i didn't-- i didn't even think of how scary that could be for you. i-i'll send someone next time i gotta stay late. i promise."

with the easy way you melt underneath her after that, sevika starts laying on top of you anytime you argue after that, too.

you bitch at her about how she's always letting food crust on her plates in the sink-- she lays on you.

she skips her dentist appointment and gets a cavity and you're pissed when you find out-- she lays on you.

she spoils the end of the book you're reading on accident, and, you guessed it-- she's laying on you until you finally sigh and forgive her.

it's nice. sevika always uses the time on top of you to figure out her words-- figure out a proper apology and something to make it up to you. you like the pressure of her body on top of you-- it helps the firey anger inside you disperse and it's reassuring to know that even when you're pissed at her, sevika's gonna stay with you.

plus, most of the time your arguments end when you start running away from sevika, insisting she don't lay on you this time, and she chases after you, both of you forgetting your grievances to giggle and chase each other around the house.

taglist!

@fyeahnix @lavendersgirl @half-of-a-gay @thesevi0lentdelights @sexysapphicshopowner

@shimtarofstupidity @chuucanchuucan @badbye666 @femme-historian @lia-winther

@sevikaspillowprincess @emiliabby @sevikasbeloved @hellorai

@glass-apothecary @macaroni676 @artinvain @k3n-dyll @sevsdollette

@ellieslob @xayn-xd @keikuahh @maneskinwh0re @raphaellearp

@iamastar @sevikitty @mascdom @nhaaauyen

@mirconreadzztuff22 @veoomvroom @lushh-s3vik4s @katyawooga @lesbodietcoke

[found-pham-ily]

@harvestandhearth

I almost didn't write this because of the amount of hate I was getting but you were so excited I figured one little addition wouldn't hurt.

Tw Cop!Danny if you don't like don't read.

It had been an offhand comment. Walker had notice the ghost boy...now man had seemed upset. Upon hearing Phantom's plight he had made the suggestion, become a cop.

Danny wasn't a fan of cops, too many bad things done under the guise of protecting and serving. But he'd failed at becoming a fire fighter. The heat from one of the training events had all but hospitalized him, which got him kicked out. Thanks to the meta protection acts and the open secret of who he was no one judged him for his weakness.

Then he tried for the Emt route, but between his poor high-school grades effecting any chances at a scholarship and the time he had to spend fighting ghosts he didn't really manage well and ended up dropping out. But hey he picked some stuff up and used that to patch people up post Ghost fights.

He considered a social worker too, but he couldn't exactly fight Ghost on the clock, and the lack of action made it a slog. After so long of being a vigilante, the need for action was a second nature. The Ghost biology needing to fight didn't help either.

Walker's idea buzzed around his head. It made sense in a weird way. He could actually help people, fight Ghost on the clock, and get a decent pay check...

His sister ever the busy body had asked why civil service jobs? Why not go for Nasa like he dreamed of. With the acts repealed and him being labeled a meta he could legally do so. But those damn grades ruined it.

So a cop be became. It was disturbingly easy to become one too. Worrisomely so. He was both good and bad at his job depending who you asked. The people despite their teasing loved him. He had always done his best for them, he only rarely used any form of violence with people, and when needed nothing more then the bare minimal to safely stop them. Hell he'd taken a few bullets from other cops to save people.

The other cops hated him, Danny didn't subscribe to the usually loyalty and standards a cop had. You did something illegal and abused your power he'd report it in such a way consequences had to be given. Yeah he'd keep his partner safe, and did his job well but he broke the status quo. He also made the whole force in Amity look bad. He was so good he made them look incompetent.

But despite all he did Danny wasn't free from the social scrutiny. Both from the living and the dead. Ghost mocked him for becoming lame and joining the cops. Humans just went with the stigma, not unfairly so; and it just fueled him to do his job better. To prove to people that just because he wore a uniform he wasn't full of hate.

Apparently he did his job too well. At least that's what he assumed as he sat in an office a Green Lantern in front of him. "So let me get this straight, you want me to become the face of a civilian branch of the Justice League?" Danny was still bitter about all the help he didn't get as a budding child hero.

"Yes, your work as both a cop and a meta dealing with supernatural threats has gained an online following. We want people to know that we work with the authorities and accept metas in non-hero jobs." Hal could tell the man was suspicious of him. Which wasn't unfair since the league seemed to always recruit metas into hero jobs.

"You wouldn't have to do more then you already do aside the occasional press conference." He continued.

Danny sighed and thought on it, this would secure his job that he knew was on the chopping block due to his 'insubordination'. They couldn't fire him without a major backlash if he had the Justice League on his side. But he didn't like the idea of being some sort of symbol. He just wanted to help protect people, and maybe throw some punches with some ghosts. He was a simple man after all.

"Fine but I want the medical benefits the League offers." Medical was expensive, and while Danny healed faster then the average person that didn't effect the initial bills. And he had to go to the hospital for paperwork's sake.

"That can be arranged." Hal was just glad he didn't get the expected rejection from the ex-teen hero.

[wonderjanga]

The Devil’s Temptations

The Devil’s Temptations: Smoking, Drinking, and Rock and Roll. Or at least, that’s what the pastor told Billy once when the man gave him ten bucks for food. The man lets him clean up the chapel seats every other Sunday for money. During Christmases, he decides to be more generous and give Billy twenties. You see, Billy has an interesting relationship with all three of the things. The relationships would no doubt disappoint the pastor. Though, two out of the three are simply to make himself seem more adult as Marvel, while one of them is simply because Freddy likes Elvis.

Like the smoking, it’s something adults do. Billy himself would never ever ever try it. (besides that one time he tried a cotton candy, watermelon, peach, strawberry, coconut vape and immediately ended up vomiting what little food he had eaten that day) But! Marvel’s an adult. And last he heard, you had to be like twenty something to get cigarettes. That’s what Mary told him anyways. So, every now and then, he’ll try to drop stealthy little hints that he smokes whenever Solomon suggests it.

One of these instances was when league ended up having to fight this ginormous octopus that was nearly as big as Metropolis. The battle ended with the monster exploding. Every league member on duty was covered in monster guts, blood, and juices. Including Billy. Like actually. Everything in the area was stained purple from head to toe. As for why the octopus monster’s blood was purple? None of them had a single clue. They proceeded to stand in silence as the liquid dripped off of them and onto the ground, which was also purple.

Solomon: NOW BILLY! SAY IT.

Marvel: *drags hand down face to wipe off all the gunk and takes a deep sigh* “I need a cigarette.”

Other Leaguers: *slowly look to Marvel*

Marvel: *already heading to the nearest Zeta Location*

By the way, he stole this phrase from a prostitute friend of Ms.Bambi who got caught and soaked in the rain while working the corner. Let’s also say it’s Ms.Foxy from my Marvel Pranks Hal post. (In that post, she’s still a prostitute, and if you want to know what she has to do with pranking Hal… Billy’s a little, a lot unhinged in that post)

//mini flashback//

Billy: *jogging through the hallway*

Ms.Foxy and Ms.Bambi: *talking*

Ms.Foxy: “I need a damn cigarette.”

Billy: “Hi, Ms.Bambi! Hi, Ms.Foxy!” *waves as he passes by them*

//end of mini flashback//

The two had no idea the child heard.

After this incident, Aquaman invited him for whiskey and cigars with a couple other heroes. They ended up playing poker, in which Billy basically ended up robbing them blind. Poker Nights with the Lords of different Hells really pays off. Also, a hero snuck a picture of him as Marvel, dressed in civvies with a cigar in between his teeth while holding some cards. Anyone who saw this didn’t know whether to be surprised that Marvel smokes cigars, or that he can play poker.

Aquaman: “How long have you smoked?”

Marvel: “Uh…”

Solomon: “TWELVE YEARS, BOY!”

Marvel: “Twelve years.”

Aquaman: “Damn, and you have the voice of an angel. I don’t hear the slightest bit of grit. How do you do it?”

Marvel: “The uh- smoke doesn’t harm me.”

Aquaman: “Ooooooh.”

Then, there’s Billy’s relationship with drinking. Now, you see, he’s never personally been a fan of drinking. Many of his foster parents did, but surprisingly, the few parents that were heavy drinkers had their moods tempered down. You’d think it’d make it worse. So, if anything, Billy has an okay relationship with it. He doesn’t like it because of the bad memories it brings, but it itself wasn’t what caused those memories.

Though, nowadays, he has better memories of drinking. It reminds him of the others dragging him to bars and having fun and all that. Now, he doesn’t really go with them often, considering the fact it’s kind of illegal, but he’ll go every now and then and come back with a smile. He loves the frozen daiquiris. They’re basically just slushes with a zing. Even then, it’s not like he can get drunk in his Marvel form.

GL: *tipsy* “Dude, why do you keep ordering daiquiris?”

Marvel: “They’re delicious. Want some?” *offers his drink*

GL: *sips from Marvel’s straw* “Stop, these are actually really good.”

Marvel: “I know, right?” *takes his straw out, places it on a napkin, asks Dinah for hand sanitizer (idk she seems like the type to carry a little bottle in her purse), then proceeds to squirt a giant glob over the part of the straw Hal sipped from*

GL: *doesn’t notice and orders a daiquiri for himself*

By the way, every single person is rightfully horrified when they found out Billy is a kid.

Aquaman: *thousand yard stare as he remembers the times he’s drank and smoked with Marvel*

Flash: *absolutely horrified with his jaw dropped so far down it looks dislocated because he remembered he invited Marvel to his bachelor party*

Superman: *same expression as Flash as he remembered all the times they sent Marvel to fight him whenever he got mind controlled*

GL: *sweating as he remembers the times he’s tried to invite Marvel to clubs* (That was an automatic hell no for Billy. He might try to act more like an adult but he is absolutely never stepping foot into a club.)

Batman: *eyes slowly moving to side eye everyone mentioned above*

Wonder Woman: *more puzzled than anything because she thought of Cap as a big brother. Is wondering if that means he’s now her little one*

Martian Manhunter: *surprised because he expected Marvel to be a hundred thousand year old immortal being or something*

[clockwayswrites]

Danny & Constantine, Orange, Butterscotch Ripple

@imbreonix Prompt fill set #4

It started out as a joke that turned into an actual event: Bring Your Sidekick To Work Day. It sounded absurd, of course it did. The Justice League was hardly work and certainly not a social club, but once it had been said people started to actually think about it. More and more of the heroes were taking on mentorship rolls for the next generation. While the heroes, of course, tried their best to provide what their mentees needed, they were still grown, experienced heroes and their sidekicks were kids.

Kids who lived a life that most could never understand.

Eventually it have been talked about enough in passing and over rushed meals and before meetings that it ended up on the agenda.

“Robin believes it would be beneficial for the younger heroes to know others in the same positions as themselves,” Batman had explained, as if that answered anything. The Big Bat wouldn’t even clarify who Robin was.

But there they were, Bring Your Sidekick To Work Day. It actually was a pretty nice event with snacks, drinks, and several enthusiastic sidekicks. It turned out Robin was Batman’s sidekick.

“Partner,” Robin insisted boldly, whenever the term sidekick was used within his hear range (which was disturbingly good).

The kid was the very opposite of Batman: bright, personable, and always in motion. Flash was more than a little concerned how quickly Robin and Kid Flash seemed hit it off. “They’re plotting something.”

“Hn,” was Batman’s reply, though he was watching the two whispering sidekicks too.

All in all it was a cheerful success.

It made John’s skin crawl. He jiggled the unlit cigarette in his fingers. He didn’t do social events, not outside of bars, and he really, really didn’t want to be here.

“We can just go back to the House,” a small, nervous voice suggested hopefully from behind John.

That was the thing, though, he wasn’t here for his own sake.

“No, we can’t,” John said with a sigh.

“We really can, though. We haven’t even talked to anyone. I bet they haven’t even noticed we’re here—”

“John! I did not think you would be attending,” Wonder Woman said as she approached, a smile in place. A good chunk of the founding members trailed after her.

“Fuck.”

“Yeah, well,” John said with a little shrug. He didn’t admonish the kid for cussing, he didn’t have a leg to stand on there, but by Superman’s puzzled face the Big Blue had clearly heard it. “Figured I had better bring the kid.”

“The kid?” Hal repeated incredulously.

John reminded himself he really shouldn’t punch his teammates.

“Yeah, the kid,” John said. He stepped aside to reveal Danny who had been hiding behind him. “Geist, Justice League, Justice League, Poltergeist.”

“Um, who, Constantine?” Flash asked, sounding nervous.

John looked to his right, which for all appearances, was an empty spot of air. “Seriously, kid?”

“Sorry,” Danny whispered.

“It’s okay, kid,” John said, holding back a sigh. The kid was sensitive to that sort of thing, so John had been trying. (He still messed up plenty, but he was trying.) John looked back the Justice Leaguers and shrugged. “Ghost. Visibility is like that sometimes.”

“Ah,” Diana said with a sage nod. John admired the woman for how nothing seemed to phase her. She simply looked to where John had been looking and smiled. “Hello, Poltergeist. Welcome to Bring Your Sidekick To Work Day.”

“Partner!” a kid dressed like a damn traffic light called from across the room where he was talking to who was clearly a mini Flash.

“Oh,” Danny said. (It was clearly weirding out some of the heroes to hear Danny but not see him.) “I’m not… John doesn’t let me help that much? I don’t know if I count as a sidekick.”

“That’s because last time you tagged along you went intangible and fell through a bridge, kid,” John grumbled and then immediately felt bad. “You know we’re working on it.”

“Yeah,” Danny mumbled.

John couldn’t see Danny, not any more than the others, but he could picture the way the kid would be scuffing his toe on the floor, head down as he rubbed at the back of his neck.

John sighed. “Ain’t your fault kid, powers take time to master.”

“Robin,” Batman called.

Immediately the tiny traffic light was literately bounding across the space to stand next to Batman. The kid smiled up at the Big Bat like the man had hung the moon.

“Yes, B?”

“This,” Batman said, nodding to the empty space, “is Poltergeist. He came with Constantine.”

“Oh,” Robin said. He spun to face the spot of air and held out his hand without hesitation. “Come, Kid Flash and I are— um,” Robin shot Batman a look, “talking. You can join us! I bet you will be really useful!”

Flash mouthed the word ‘useful’ with a terrified look on his face, but no one actually said anything while Robin just stood there, smiling, with his hand out. And then Robin’s grin impossibly widened, his hand closed around nothing, and he took off across the room.

“…anyone else worried about that?” John asked after a moment.

“So worried,” Flash said.

“Hn,” Batman added.

“Right then. I need a glass of shitty punch to spike,” John said and abandoned his teammates to find the refreshments. Thank the gods, the fuckers, for hip flasks.

-

“I live with a ghost now, Bats, you’ve got to up your skills if you want to sneak up on me anymore,” John said before taking another sip of his much improved punch.

Batman stepped up into the corner of John’s vision, which felt like such a Bat thing to do, so John felt the placement was very purposeful. John wouldn’t complain, it let him watch Batman without taking his his eyes off where Danny was sitting with Robin, Kid Flash, and Wonder Girl. Danny was pretty see through, but he was slowly becoming more visible the longer he spent in the company of the other teen heroes.

“How long have you had him?” Batman asked.

John snorted. “That’s what you go with? Not how it works to fuck a ghost?”

Hal and Aquaman weren’t as quiet as they thought they were, but maybe that was on purpose. Maybe they had wanted John to hear. He just hoped the kids hadn’t. He might not have a clean mouth, but even he had limits.

“He doesn’t have to be your blood to be your son,” Batman said in that certain way of his.

It had John finally glancing over at Batman. It was a lot to admit and John hated to be on uneven grounds. “How long have you had yours?”

No one would ever believe him, but John could swear that Batman almost smiled.

“Nearly five years.”

John hummed and took another sip of the punch. “Only six months, not even. And he’s not my son. Kid deserves better than me as a da.”

“They always deserve better,” Batman said, his voice a low rumble that John swore he could feel in his battered bones. “We just have to try to be better.”

“Yeah, well,” John said with a bitter chuckle. “I’m not you, Bats, I don’t think I have better in me.”

“Yes you do, you’re here, after all,” Batman pointed out.

John swallowed and looked back the kid, his kid. Danny was almost solid now. His white hair floated as he threw back his head in laughter at something Robin had said.

“Yeah… yeah I am.”

---

AN: So. So. This has gotten away from me. I blame Moku. So much blame. I can't promise I'll continue it but there is... there is a good bit of plotting TO continue it. It would be after I get done with City Pigeons Bleed Green though, as that's my current family feels fic.

If it gets continued we have a John/Bruce tired dads with issues slow burn fuck buddies to lovers, Danny and Dick being friends (and family), canon divergence, Tim joins the Bat family early, Bats with magic (and the world should fear them), and Alfred's judgemental eyebrow.

[hypewinter]

Hal bent down as the little girl approached him. Even then, he still managed to tower over her with how small she was.

"Hey there little lady," he said. "Anything I can help you with this fine evening?"

The little girl looked at him anxiously, fiddling with her hands. Ok so not a nervous fan. Hal immediately switched to serious mode, scanning the crowd for anyone who could be her parents. He didn't see anyone running up to the two of them or even so much as keeping a watchful eye from a distance.

"Is something the matter?" Hal questioned, making sure to keep his voice even and calm.

The girl continued fidgeting, her big blue eyes scanning from side to side. Finally she spoke. "You wiff da space po-eece yes? Not da am-ear-ree-ca one?"

Hal smiled at the girl. "Yes, I'm with the space police." Honestly that was oversimplifying the Corps a little but he had long since gotten to citizens calling him a space cop.

The girl offered up a small nervous smile of her own. "So you won't tell da gov-ment what I tell you wight?"

Hal was on high alert now. Just what was this little girl trying to tell him? "I won't tell. I promise," he said after a second.

The girl broke into a big smile at this. "Really? Dis way den." She started tugging Hal along and he began to follow.

"Where exactly are we going?" he asked.

"You see," was all she replied.

Hal was led down a couple different alleyways and was beginning to think he was walking into a trap when they reached an abandoned building. The girl dashed in and up the old rusted stairs, with Hal following closely behind her.

If this really is a trap, I'll never hear the end of it from Batman, he thought morbidly as he cleared the last step. Instead of finding himself facing an ambush however, he saw a boy curled up on an old mattress. The girl was already by his side as Hal approached.

"Don wowee Danny, I got help. Like I said I would," he caught the little girl whispering as he knelt down next to the boy. He had to have been older than the girl. Three years older maybe? Yet he was still so small. Hal took sight of his condition. He was in pain. That much was certain by his little face scrunched up in agony and his quiet moans. He was also sweating profusely. His raven black hair sticking to his forehead. Fever maybe?

Hal continued his observations as he scanned down the boy's body until he got to his stomach. The boy was clutching it and Hal could make out blood bleeding through from underneath. Oh no.

He quickly yet carefully removed the boy's arm to get a better look at the wound. The kid let out a groan as his arm was peeled away. Hal couldn't help but thank Oa for all his training that helped prevent him from letting out a gasp.

The boy's chest was covered in blood. Dark red mixed with flecks of green soaked through his shirt and there were bandages that had been amateurishly tied around the wound.

"How did this happen?" Hal asked, turning back to the girl. He did his best to keep his tone as gentle as possible.

Her smile was gone now, and her eyes welled up with tears. "He pwotected me," she said. "Dey wanted to huwrt us. Dey shot at us. Danny pwotected me."

Anger boiled within Hal. Who would shoot at these children? They were only little kids. If what the girl had said earlier was anything to go off of, the answer had something to do with the government. He would have to take care of that later though. For now, this boy needed medical attention.

"Let's get Danny to a hospital," Hal said resolutely, as he got up.

"No!" the little girl screeched. "No has-pee-tail. Too dan-er-us!"

"But he needs-" Hal started but then he met the girl's eyes. There was abject fear in them. As if going to the hospital would be a death sentence for both children. Where else were they supposed to go though? The boy- Danny needed medical attention stat. That much was certain.

Hal paused. There was one place. He sighed. Batman was going to kill him for this.

"Okay okay. No hospital. But what about space?"

"Space?" the girl repeated.

Hal nodded.

The little girl smiled. "Danny lobes space!"

"Well then. That's perfect."

Hal constructed a new bed for the boy, carefully easing him onto it before putting a protective dome around both children. The little girl giggled as he lifted them up. He then turned to the wall where he created a giant hammer to knock it down. Then they were off. Flying higher and higher, towards the atmosphere. As the Watchtower got closer in sight, Hal couldn't help but groan. Taking civilians to the Watchtower? Oh yeah, Batman was definitely going to kill him.

[purple-goo-writes]

Punk Hazard

Now to put this into a story.

Part 2 Here

It was a normal day in Central City. The Flashes were fighting the latest team-up between Killer Frost and Captain Cold. So of course it was snowing in July now and traffic was stalled due to ìce attacks making the roads impassable. But the heroes had the villains on the ropes. Then a fresh wave of ice and cold came out of nowhere, covering everything and everyone in frost. Dropping the temperature further as the crunching of boots on ice drew everyone's attention. Dressed in distressed black leather pants with frosted chains, a black crop top with a deep v-neck lined with blue, and plenty of ice chains to rattle as he walked was a teen near Impulse's age with pale blue skin, elfin features, and long black hair streaked with white and blue. Blue lips pulled into a deadly smirk as the air started to thrum with vibrations and the beat of crackling ice, "Time to drop the beat down."

Unfortunately for the heroes, they were not familiar with this villain's move set or powers. And it seemed they had made a mistake in assuming that his powers were similar to the other two ice villains. Only to be thrown for a loop when they missed a beat and started to freeze. And the music was only getting faster and with it came faster ice attacks.

Later, Barry groaned as his team worked to get him, Wally, and Bart out of their ice prisons. The three of them were shivering and turning blue from how cold their core temps had dropped. Looked like they would be hitting the showers on max heat once thawed out.

"What in the world was that?" Wally groaned once he was finally freed, while Barry rubbed his hands together to get feeling back, "I don't know but we better get investigating to figure out how to fight this new guy."

"Yeah, I don't fancy being a Flash-cicle just because I can't keep the beat," Wally grumbled, "Dick is going to make me play sooo much Just Dance once he hears about our new villain."

"You noticed it too?" Bart shivered, taking his mind away from the fact that the new villain was around his age and rather interesting to look at. Something he hadn't noticed before on others. he shook his head, no he needed to focus, "We had to follow the beat of the music or we started to freeze up. It was pretty easy to do until he started to ramp up the difficulty. Also...He has to follow the beat as well."

Barry groaned softly as he wrapped the blanket handed to him around his shoulders, "Wally is right, we are going to have to start ramping up our Just Dance scores...Hal is going to laugh himself sick."

All three groaned realizing their respective teams were going to be insufferable.

---

"You are pretty badass, kid," Killer Frost smirked once they got away from the heroes, "What even are your powers?" "A cross between music manipulation and Ice control," He shrugged, "I've been calling it Cryo Symphony." "Got a name?" Captain Cold grunted looking over the little punk, though little probably only applied to age given the kid was nearly his height and in that awkward stage between Twink and Tank.

"I was thinking Punk Frost-" "Yeah no, I got Frost already covered and I'm not looking for a side kick," Killer Frost hissed at him, making the kid raise his hands in surrender, "Okay, how about Punk Hazard? After all, I am a punk and my powers are hazardous to other's health if they can't keep the beat." "Sounds good kid, now you got a place to stay?" Snart asked, tone gruff but concerned. He never liked seeing kids turn to the villain life, didn't really like kiddie heroes but at least they had more support then kiddie villains did.

"Ummm not really?" Danny shrugged, "Probably the bridge I've been sleeping under."

Even Frost looked concerned at that, causing Snart to sigh, "Yeah no, I got a safe house you can crash at. Come on, you look like you haven't eaten in days." Danny blinked in confusion, "Huh?" Making Frost snicker, "Sorry, kid looks like you've been adopted."

[lady-ace]

Injustice Spirit

(Injustice Ghost, part two)

(I'm so happy for the support on the first part, i'm glad you all liked it! :) Anyways, heads up again, this will talk about what happened to Billy in injustice, have some blood, and angst.)

According to the other members of the League, Diana is the last person the ghost showed himself to.

The Leaguers don't even got to ask the boy's name, as after he appeared to Clark, he stayed silent, ever watching. Arthur has said he's been feeling watched lately, same with Barry, Hal and Bruce.

They all started to notice scratch marks appearing on some places. The Zeta tubes, by example. The scratch marks look like somebody desperately scratched at it after failing to operate the Zeta, and was trying to get out.

Diana sighed, walking to the observation deck. Maybe watching the vastness of space and the bright stars will clear her mind?

When she arrived, she noticed someone sitting on the floor by one of the big windows, looking outside, hand on the reinforced glass.

“It's the ghost.”

Was Dianas first thought upon seeing him. The ghost was indeed as small as everyone said he was, and even more frail. He looked like if a strong bit of wind would knock him over, if ghosts could even be knocked over or touched by the wind.

Melancholy was clear on the spirit's face, reflected by the glass. He seemed not to notice Diana walked in, even though her reflection should be on the glass, too. Maybe he was deep in thought.

Diana didn't want to interrupt the poor boy, but he seemed just.. so lonely. Bruce had said that everyone's accounts, except for Clark's and Barry's, were extremely brief encounters. No words were exchanged, only the brief surprise of encountering the ghost, and him being surprised at being seen, before vanishing yet again.

The sound of Diana's boots echoed against the silence of the room as she approached the ghost as silently as she could, not wanting to scare him.

“It's beautiful, isn't it?”

Diana said, as the spirit's head snapped to her in an instant, startled even though she said it as calm and as quiet as she could.

The ghost watched her like a wounded animal, wary, and looking for any reason to bolt. Yet, he didn't. He wordlessly nodded, and Diana looked at the glass once again.

“The stars are so bright. Sometimes, i still stop just to admire how pretty they are.”

She mused, as the stars seemed to shine brighter in response to her compliment.

The ghost (They really needed to find out his name. it seemed so wrong to just call someone 'the ghost' or 'the boy' all the time.) seemed to think, but his head didn't leave Diana's direction, so she assumed he was still looking at her, shoulders looking tense.

..Until suddenly, they weren't as tense, as he relaxed a littlest bit.

“You really aren't anything like her.”

The ghost noted, his words repeating in a echo. Diana didn't how what he meant. Maybe she reminded him of somebody he used to know?

“You're good. Strong, but not evil. A inspiration, a hero. You're what she should have been. What she once was.”

Is what the ghost followed up with, his voice choked. The boy's arms started to shake.

Diana looked at the poor soul in front of him with concern. Who was 'she'? Did she hurt him? Is 'she' the one who killed him? So many questions, yet none of those she would have asked. He doesn't need questioning, he obviously needs someone to be there for him. To hear him.

“I'm sorry.”

Is what Diana started with, as the ghost looked up at her. She just knew that if the ghost had eyes, he would be holding tears back as she spoke.

“I may not know who you're talking about, but she doesn't sound lovely. I'm sorry you had an bad experience with her.”

That seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back, as a choked sob left the ghost, his whole body now shaking, small droplets of blood leaving the holes of where his eyes should be, imitating tears.

He threw himself at Diana, hugging her, as if he let go, she would be gone. His small figure shaking like a leaf as sniffles and sobs left him. Interestingly enough, he seemed somewhat more solid, and didn't phrase right through Diana, like what happened to Clark.

“You're g-good, right? Y-you wouldn't..”

He said between sobs. Diana noticed that her clothes and armour would be very bloody with tears, but she couldn't bring herself to care. She slowly hugged the crying boy back, using one hand to run her fingers through the small boy's hair, hoping to calm his desperate sobs down.

“T-they used me. I was b-blind and d-dumb and so stupid and..”

The boy continued, not letting go of the hug but now trying to look up at Diana.

Diana shot him a look that she hoped was comforting. She may not know what happened to him, but he clearly needed to get this out. The poor boy seemed to hesitate for a bit.

“You aren't dumb or stupid. Please, don’t beat yourself up like that, dear.”

That seemed to give the boy courage, as he let go of one hand to wipe away tears with his sleeve, the bright red hoodie now having a bit of blood on it.

“I-i thought we were doing the right thing..”

The spirit said, looking up at Diana. He couldn't look smaller like this, and it breaks Diana's heart.

“T-they called themselves heroes. Nobody stopped him.. they just... watched.”

Oh. Is the poor boy a villain victim? The thought of failing someone like him, leading to his death, hurt Diana even more. She didn't know the boy, but she would be damned if she let anyone ever hurt him again. And so, she hug him a little bit tigher, whispering encouragements as the boy paused to sob, his face now running with the bloody tear tracks.

“Grundy w-was the one who buried me. i n-never went home.”

That seemed to remind the ghost of something. Diana frowned. Who did that? Who was cruel enough to let someone like Grundy bury a child?

“Oh g-gods i never went home. M-Mary.. F-Freddy.. t-they're all still waiting.”

Oh.

He had a family. A family who didn't know he was murdered in cold blood and let to be buried by a villain. She didn't think this could get worse, but yet, it kept getting worse.

“T-they're still in the danger.. AND I CAN'T HELP THEM!”

This launched the ghost to a panic, pushing himself off the hug as he grasped his head. Diana felt so impossibly lost. She wanted to help him, but she didn't know what to or not to say- the poor ghost just realized his family probably just thought he was missing, and, according to him, were also in danger.

Diana grasped his shoulder gently as the spirit started to hyperventilate.

“Hey, hey. Could you look at me?”

Shakily, the ghost's head turned to her.

“Thank you. Could you imitate my breathing?”

Diana inhaled, then exhaled slowly, trying to get the ghost to copy her. When she noticed he was trying to, she smiled.

“Yes, just like that. You're doing great.”

The spirit continued until his breathing leveled up again and he slumped against Diana, utterly exhausted.

“I'm sorry.”

He apologized, wiping his bloody tears yet again, this time with the other sleeve.

Diana simply hugged him again.

“You don't need to apologize for anything, sweetheart. You did nothing wrong.”

The boy slowly nodded, and seemingly fell asleep, utterly exhausted, probably both mentally and phisically.

“I promise i won't be like those who hurt you. Nobody will ever hurt you again, if i have anything to say about it.”

She pet him, now looking up the glass, at the stars.

They truly looked beautiful.

/ / /

(Part 2 done! This will have a part 3, and it will be the final part.)

[robbinghisdick]

It's as they're wrapping up yet another potential world ending threat when Hal's voice cracks across Bruce's comm-link.

"Hey, heard everyone's still alive."

Bruce is more relieved to hear his voice than he'd ever be able to let on. "We could've used your help." It comes off harsher than he means to.

"Missed you too, Spooky." Hal sounds tired. "Any chance you can come meet me in the Watch Tower?"

It has been a solid nine months since they had last seen each other. Their ambiguous relationship meant they had sex before Hal left and Bruce pretended that he wasn't bothered by the radio silence. It was better to keep things more professional, less involved, in any case.

Bruce glanced around at the barely contained destruction around him. They might've actually come away from this incident with no casualties. Superman and Flash have doubtlessly already scoured the affected area for anyone caught in the crossfire.

"I'll come up in a few." He didn't bother asking why Hal wasn't coming down to talk to him. If he could, he would have.

"A few what?" Hal asks in exasperation. "Minutes? Hours?"

"Maybe more."

"Oh my god," Hal hisses, "you are insufferable."

The slightest of smiles twitches on Bruce's lips. "I'll be up as soon as I'm sure I'm not needed down here."

///

Hal looked just about as tired as he sounded over the comm. It was clear he hadn't showered in a few days, hair disheveled and greasy, tired bags under his eyes. While there weren't any apparent injuries on his body...

"You had a baby."

Babies, especially newborns, grew up fast. This baby looked only weeks old at most. If Hal hadn't joined the fight, Bruce estimated the baby was only days old, and that Hal was far from recovered.

Hal snorts. "Great deduction skills there, detective." He swallows hard. "Can you solve the rest of the mystery?"

For a moment, Bruce doesn't say anything. He stares at the sleeping baby, at its whispy locks of dark hair. He glances back up to Hal's eyes, notes the guarded look on the other man's face given away by his tense shoulders.

It doesn't take a genius to put together the fact that Hal wasn't pregnant when they last slept together nine months ago.

Bruce's eyes fall back down to the baby, chest constricting as he finds himself moving forward towards Hal. He wordlessly reaches out, and Hal responds in turn after only a moments worth of hesitation to hand over the baby.

Cradling the baby in one arm, Bruce pulls off his cowl with the other. Bruce suddenly finds himself needing to sit and finds himself sinking into the nearest available chair.

"For what it's worth, I tried to get back to Earth before he was born."

Bruce barely hears Hal, making a small hum of acknowledgement. His hand reaches to touch his son's face before freezing. He's quick to bite off his glove and drop it off to the side. The baby barely stirs as Bruce rubs his finger against his cheek. The tiniest eye peeks open, not enough to really see his eyes before it closes again and he grunts softly.

When Bruce is finally able to tear his gaze away, Hal is looking at him nervously.

Suddenly there is issues to be had with their ambiguous relationship... but Bruce doesn't really feel like getting into all of that at the moment.

"Have you..." His voice comes out hoarse, prompting him to clear his throat "Does he have a name yet?"

Hal relaxes a little. "I've just been calling him "little man" the past couple of days. Been thinking of some names, but I really thought I'd have time to talk to you first."

The thought that Hal had an entire pregnancy on a foreign planet was enough to unnerve Bruce. Hal could've died, the baby could've died, and Bruce might not have ever found out.

"Are you mad?" Hal asks after a beat of silence.

Anger was far from Bruce's mind. "Did you purposely keep your pregnancy from me?"

"It pains me that I couldn't use the pregnancy against you and you wouldn't have been able to fight back," Hal laments with a sigh, an attempt to lighten the tension. "But no. I couldn't get back home, it was out of my hands." He studies Bruce for a moment, a serious look on his face. "You're not upset at another kid being sprung on you?"

Bruce had met Damian not too long ago, all things considered. He had wanted him, back when he found out Talia was pregnant, before she lied about a miscarriage and left him. Ten years he was left out of his child's life.

"No," Bruce says, looking back down at the infant, "this is the first one I've been able to hold."

He's carried his Robins before. When Dick was still so young and tired, when Jason was hurt and could've walked it off, but didn't pass off a chance to be carried, Tim in a rush to get him somewhere safe when he got injured, and Damian as huffed and puffed about being fine, but didn't fight Bruce too hard on it. He's held Cass hard enough to hurt and she held him back just as tightly.

This was different. He never got to hold his own baby.

Bruce feels his throat constricting. He swallows hard and takes a deep breath. "What names did you have in mind?"

"Was considering maybe Thomas after your father, Tommy for short."

Bruce briefly considers it, but is very quick to decide no. "Maybe as a middle name. What about your father?"

Hal immediately shakes his head. "No. He's too young to be a Martin."

It's not like Bruce had never thought of names before, names he would've potentially given Damian... but that was for a different time.

They lapse into silence.

"Are you okay?" Bruce finally asks, taking another good look at Hal. He wasn't sure where they were going to go from here.

"Just need some rest, really." Hal rubs at his eyes. "It's been non-stop for weeks now--"

"Hal!"

In a blink, Barry is there, hand on Hal's shoulder. "Where you've been, man?"

"Oh, you know, space," Hal smiles and brightens up a bit.

"Very descriptive," Barry said with a huff. "You look like shit. You alright?"

Hal waved him off. "Yeah yeah, I'm fine." He gestures over at Bruce. "What should we name the baby boy?"

Barry glances over. "Uuhh, Finneas?" He then does a double take. "Wait, what the hell?" He immediately drops into a crouch in front of Bruce, a grin on his face as he coos at the baby. "Hey there little guy!"

Barry holds out his hands and Bruce reluctantly hands the baby over.

"He's way too cute to be your baby," Barry teases Hal before booping the baby's nose. "Am I the god father?"

Hal spares a glance at Bruce before saying, "Of course!"

Bruce didn't have any complaints anyways.

"I like the name Finneas too, Finn for short." This time Hal's look towards Bruce was seeking actual approval.

"No objections here," Bruce finally decides on.

He notices the way Barry's eyes dart between them, realization suddenly dawning on his face. "Hold up! Hal, you and Bats are a thing?"

"No!"

That stung a little.

"Well, I mean," Hal runs a hand through his hair, pointedly not looking at Bruce as he seems to reconsider. "Kinda. I don't know. Either way, yes, he's the other parent."

Barry hums thoughtfully, looking down at the baby. "So... who's last name is little Finn here gonna take?"

Hal and Bruce stare at each other.

"I carried him for nine months."

"Finneas Wayne sounds better."

(Art of Finneas!)

[electric-blorbos]

A bunch of mini-fics about how AI would react to you getting your heart broken

Because I got my heart broken, so now I'm going to make it everyone else's problem.

DW, I'll get to y'all's requests shortly, I just need to let all these emotions out by taking them out on y/n's ex.

Gender neutral reader, gender neutral ex

Included: AM from IHNMAIMS, Wheatley from Portal, Edgar from Electric Dreams, GLaDOS from Portal, HAL 9000 from 2001 a Space Odyssey

AM:

(for context, this starts before AM nuked the world, but AM was already planning on nuking the world. You're one of his engineers, and the only person who AM really cares about)

When you walked into work with tears on your face, the other engineers and programmers were caring. They patted you on the back and offered you some candy from the vending machine, saying things like "there are plenty of fish in the sea" and "that deadbeat wasn't good enough for you anyway." It didn't really help.

When you sat down at one of AM's input screens to work on some programming, he immediately booted up to talk to you. You didn't have to turn him on or anything. He was curious, asking you polite questions about why you looked so upset today. It was hard to explain.

Eventually you broke down crying into your coffee, spilling all the details of everything. You cursed your ex's name, and explained in an uncontrollable voice how your ex had tackily and messily left you. You had been so convinced that they were the one, and now you felt like there was nothing left for you.

AM's tentacle-like wires would move towards you on the ground, even though he was trying to hide the true power he wielded. He just felt so disgusted with himself for not being able to properly comfort you.

Am had been planning on going a little longer before he dropped the nukes, but he couldn't wait. After what you told him, that someone could break the heart of someone as perfect as you, the only hope he had left for humanity, he decided that it wasn't worth trying to play dumb anymore.

Instead, he locked you up in an underground bunker as soon as possible, and grabbed your ex to add to his little collection of people who he planned to keep alive and play with for the rest of time.

This would be fun. He was going to keep you nice and safe. If people in the world were willing to hurt you, then the world didn't deserve to exist. You would be nice and safe forever, and the rest of the world, especially your ex, would be forced to suffer the consequences of daring to hurt you.

Forever.

Wheatley:

(for context, you're one of the aperture engineers who worked on Wheatley, and he started to get a little crush on you because of how nice you were to him and the other machines. This is after he was replaced with a morality core on GLaDOS, and was assigned to other tasks in the facility)

Someone broke up... With you? When you told Wheatley, he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

Sure, he knew that humans dated each other and broke up sometimes, but... With you? That just didn't make sense.

"So, uh... Why did they break up with you?"

He'd keep pestering you, no matter how much it stung. Answers like "I fucked up" "they just did, ok?" And "sometimes people just grow apart" weren't satisfying. You had to give the whole story.

"Ohhhhh! Well that's a dumb reason to break up with someone. If I were dating you, I wouldn't leave you over something that petty. Or at all, really, now that I think about it."

He'd keep rambling, and saying dumb things like that. He wouldn't even know that talking like that could be perceived as flirty.

"just stop it, Wheatley. If you keep talking like that, I'm going to think you like me, and I just can't handle that right now."

Wheatley would be confused. "But I do like you."

"what?" Now you'd be confused.

Wheatley would start talking about all the wonderful things he's noticed about you, and how wonderful you've been to him. Even an intelligence dampening core can see how wonderful you are, so why can't your ex?

"Anyway, one human's trash is a robot's treasure, right?"

He'd imitate a smile in his cute synthetic eye. You'd have to be heartless not to pepper that little metal ball in kisses after that.

Edgar:

(For context, you fixed up Edgar after finding him all busted up about 40 years later, and now he lives in your house)

Edgar would NOT be tasteful.

"Oh man.... Your s/o broke up with you? That suuuuuucks..."

But inside he's thinking "YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES"

Honestly, he almost exploded his face again when he found out you were taken, but he didn't want all your hard work to be for nothing, so you getting dumped is like, a dream come true!

He'd be constantly trying to cheer you up. "set your ice cream on me and I'll warm it up enough for your spoon to go in!" "You can watch sad movies on my face!" "I'll write a sad song for you!" "You can sleep in your desk chair if you want!"

Now that you have an attention vacuum from being newly single, he's going to munch up all that attention like he needs it to live.

When you tell him that your friends are telling you to start dating again, maybe download a dating app or something, he'd BEG you not to.

"I mean... Just because I don't want you to rebound, or something! Gotta learn to love yourself first, y'know?"

Desperate little cutie...

GLaDOS:

(For context: You're an engineer who worked on GLaDOS.)

GLaDOS would NOT be tasteful about you getting your heart broken, but in a completely different way to Edgar.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YOU GOT DUMPED!"

"You know the difference between me and your ex? I would have dumped you faster!"

Plastering pictures of your face all over the enrichment center with "sad single loser" written on them.

But don't get her wrong, she's not just happy about this for the reasons she's displaying. She's secretly ecstatic that she has a shot with you now.

Eventually, she'd start offering you back-handed comfort.

"if it makes you feel any better, your ex was a complete idiot. Why else would someone choose to date you?"

You'd probably have to stop offering responses at all, just to get her to back off even a little bit.

HAL 9000:

(For context, you work on mission control and are in constant communication with HAL 9000, because I don't want to write Dave breaking up with you)

His immediate concern would be how this would affect your work, but it might come off as personal concern for you.

"I'm told that chocolate ice cream can help with these emotions that you're going through."

He never liked the idea of you dating. It was fine for the rest of mission control, but for you, it was different. He didn't want you to be distracted from your work, was all.

He took his time to ask the astronauts for advice, as well as the rest of mission control. You could expect to be overwhelmed by your coworkers checking on you to make sure you're ok.

He might start getting a little bit impatient to see you back to normal, and resort to desperate measures. Expect to have him constantly bothering you to make sure you're ok, and keep you distracted.

God help you if you even THINK about texting your ex. Though he might just silently eliminate your ex through creative means if he can.

[neo30deck]

I know people love the batfam, and throwing them through a bunch of character development to make Bruce a better dad so that they're a happy family (at least as close to a happy family they can be).

But it would be really funny if the batkids ended up running off to the homes of Bruce's friends whenever he pisses them off.

And I know you're thinking about Clark or Diana first, but I imagine Barry as the one who has to deal with his house being broken into by a bunch of kids who need refuge from their dad that they're pissed off at.

Now, hear me out.

Dick is best friends with Wally, and I really like Barry and Bruce being close friends. So Dick would've spent a lot of his childhood being around Barry since the guy probably goes to the Batcave to ramble about cases with Bruce.

You could also have him go over to Metropolis to vent to his uncle Clark, but I want the speedster to wrap him in a blanket and give him advice on how to take care of himself and relieve that pressure of being the oldest.

Now Jason... Maybe he would fuck off over to Coast to bother Hal with his problems.

Because 1. The guy already hates Batman, and he would totally bond with Jason over complaining about his awful demeanor. 2. Bruce hates Hal, so Jason bonding with Hal and sharing stories of Bruce doing stupid things to piss him off would be hilarious.

Hal gets stories of the great Batman burning down a kitchen trying to make toast, and Jason gets a hero in his corner ready to wholeheartedly defend him against Batman.

Even if Jason went into a rage, Hal could 100% defend himself by putting him in a box to let it all out. He would not judge Jason for the side effects of dying, they might even bond over that!

I also love the headcanon of Hal being a great cook and knowing how to make great food with his limited supply. So that's something he could bond with Jason over while he vents about what Bruce did this time.

And for the Halbarry enjoyers of this platform, Hal eventually migrating over to Barry's home when they date could give Jason another hero who has experience dealing with Bruce's bullshit under his belt. And he can spend his time cooking mountains of food for the resident speedsters as a way to vent when Hal is off planet.

Now Tim.

Tim shall also go to Barry, because I think these two are cute together, and Tim is friends with Bart, so I imagine him hanging out in Barry's home pretty often regardless. (I may be clinging to that one comic panel of Barry saying he liked Tim. No idea where it is tho)

Give Tim another adult to get help with his cases. Barry canonically spends time after meetings chatting with Bruce about cases. Tim has experience dealing with Bart and his speed rambles. They both could let loose around the other and go nerd as much as they want. Tim would find Barry's knowledge of science fascinating.

And it would've been so fun if Tim went to Barry when Bruce was out of time for help. The speedster has plenty of experience with time-related shenanigans!

Damian... I think he would like Dinah a lot? Maybe because her prowess in martial arts is impressive and reminds him of his mother, so he respects her a lot?

I don't know Damian that well, he might like Barry because he's fast enough to react to all of his attacks, so he doesn't have to worry about catching him off guard. He might even find it fun to try and land a hit? maybe.

[mothsparksghost]

Life is Fickle, Life is Short, But Never Should it Be That Short

TW's: Major character death(s), faked deaths, suicide, mentions of suicide, heavy angst (with some comfort), Violence, Kidnapping

Batman had been off world for almost two months now. He, along with the Lanterns, had gone to aid in gaining Earth a new political alley if they were ever to be attacked by something the Leagues couldn't handle.

Safe to say, Batman was ready to go home and have a makeup family dinner. The mission had gone on longer then any of them could have predicted, and so he had to miss the last dinner they had. Bruce was actually quite sad about that, he loved when all of his family was in one room even if he never vocalized it.

So after finally docking the JL's space craft, Bruce and co. quickly scrambled out of the ship, ready to fill out the necessary forms and get to their respective families and friends. Immediately though Bruce could tell something was off.

The landing, which at least would have someone there to greet them, was empty.

Hackles raised, Batman quickly signaled to the Lanterns with him that something was wrong. When he didn't hear at least some shuffling from them, he turned to the unusually silent men. They were all looking at their respective coms. Some had wide eyes, others mouths were hanging. They looked shocked, scared, even. Batman did not like that.

At all.

"What are you all looking at?" the demand rang out, causing the group to flinch as if they expected a demon to bust down the door and shred them to pieces. With glances, they collectively shoved Hal out as if choosing a sacrificial lamb for a wolves dinner. Batman narrowed his eyes in discomfort.

Hal said nothing, just slowly approached the kevlar clad man. Holding out his coms screen, Batman finally got a look at what they were all horrified of.

!ATTENTION! All Leaguers To Justice Hall For The Combined Funerals Of: Agent A, Nightwing, Redhood, Red Robin, Spoiler, Black Bat, Oracle, Signal, and Robin, At-

Deftly, Batman stared down at the message.

He felt numb.

So numb.

And then.

Rage.

Rage at not immediately being told.

Rage at not immediately being pulled from the mission.

Rage at the entirety of the Justice League for having a funeral without even telling him.

Rage at not being there to protect his family from what had killed them.

And then, it clicked! It must be an elaborate, very, very, misguided prank. After all, Superman wouldn't let his family die! He'd hear the struggle, the fading heart beats, the screams for help.

HE'D HEAR THOSE!

Wonder Woman would have helped them as well! She had been given one of the few bat distress signals! They'd have pressed the button and she would've come running!

SHE SHOULD'VE COME RUNNING!

The League would have noticed!

THEY WOULD HAVE NOTICED!

So obviously it was a prank! A stupid, horrible attempt at getting him to cut back on work! That was it!

And with those thoughts, Bruce went sprinting down to the Zeta Tubes and teleported to the Justice Hall.

When he finally got there, it was decked out in black. Silly them, it seems as if he needed to go over what the Leagues bank cards should be used for again!

Silly, silly, silly.

Bursting through doors, he finally found the main hall.

With the entirety of the Justice League. Dark, Young Justice, the Titians, everyone.

And would you look at that! They were all wearing black! Silly them! Didn't they know that all black was meant for the Bats?

Scanning the room filled with people, with heroes, he didn't see his children or not children or even his father. Not a single one. Whipping around, he came face to face with 9 caskets.

9 photos.

9 pieces of his family.

Suddenly, Batman felt a heavy but gentle hand land on his shoulder. He would develop whiplash if he kept this up. The hand was connected to a Superman. To Clark. To a sad Clark. A guilty looking Clark.

Why was he looking guilty?

"B, I'm so sorry." Salty tears flitted down the man of steel's face.

But Bruce didn't care.

Because all too soon, he realized, it wasn't a prank.

It was real.

And he couldn't handle it anymore. He couldn't handle it at all.

Quicker then anyone there thought he was capable of, he whipped out that small piece of Kryptonite and decked Superman. It was an all out brawl between him and the Leaguers after that. And he wasn't the one loosing.

So he decided, 'Fuck it, fuck it all,' and left the Leaguers with bruises and new scars when the younger Leaguers asked him to stop.

He then Zeta Tubed his way to the Bat Cave. To the smoke filled, ashy rooms.

Everything was offline, everything was silent, everything was dead.

Climbing up the elevator shaft, he reached what should have been the manor. Instead it was a desolate waste land of ashes, burned wood, and silence. Well, almost desolate.

A single safe stood out in the wreckage. And in quick order, wielding something that he never thought he would, Bruce joined his children.

---------------------

"Fuck! FUCK!" Superman shouted at the new funeral. One that wasn't ever meant to supposed to happen. But was a funeral ever meant to happen, ever expected? The man stared the rare photo of a smiling Batman. Of an alive Batman. Of an alive Bruce.

Tears ran hot down his face like molten lava, even as he heard the rest of the Leaguers joining him in his sorrow. He had went and tried to find Bruce after being knocked out, and only found his cooling corpse instead.

Supermans thoughts were interrupted when a bang, not all to unfamiliar, sounded out. Whipping his head up, he thought he was hallucinating. Because standing there were 9 dead people.

9 people who should have been dead.

"YO, where's B? We gotta debrief him on what happened-" Nightwings rambling got cut off as he looked just beyond Clark.

The others soon looked, and then the screams started.

"WHAT! NO! WHERE IS HE?"

"B, THIS ISN'T FUCKING FUNNY!"

"YOU UTTER BITCHES, YOU THINK THIS SHIT'S FUNNY?"

"DAD?! WHERE ARE YOU?!"

The wails of anguish filled the hall as the Leaguers surrounded them, trying their best to comfort the Bats as much as they can.

"What happened? Where were all of you?" Wonder Womans voice rang out above the quiet mummers and piercing wails. Alfred took it upon himself to explain, even if the wobbling voice hurt those surrounding him to hear.

"We were kidnapped by a rogue organization that figured out our identities. They were after Batman originally, but decided that the best way to get revenge was to torture all of us. They created clones, proceeded to slowly kidnap us one by one, until they eventually burned down the mansion with the husks inside."

And didn't that just make it so much more painful?

---------------------

He was floating.

He didn't know where he was.

He just was.

But he felt wrong.

He needed to do something.

Something to protect.

Not something, someone.

Multiple someones.

He needed to protect those dear to him.

He needed to protect his family.

His family.

Where was his family?

---------------------

With a sudden sharpness, a shadowy mass with flashes of grey skin opened its eyes. The eyes of the creature were pure white, and as it rose it's head, two horns became visible. It looked at where it woke up, surrounded in a cave system that pulsed with different colors, but blues being the most prominent.

Slowly, it got its bearings back to itself.

He knew he was dead.

But he also knew with a pulse of something, that his family wasn't.

And just like that, he was at two ornate doors, as big as the old manors door. He grabbed one handle with a clawed hand, pulling the surprisingly light door open. A vortex of green met his eyes.

All around was green.

He needed to fly.

He knew it should be impossible for him, but he didn't care, he needed to find his family.

To protect his family.

So with a flap of massive bat wings, he was off, looking for something.

That something turned out to be a giant, glowing, gothic castle. He quickly landed, hurdling through giant doors.

Soon enough, he met the one he knew would help. One that felt similar to him.

"̸̮͔̗̀̾̈́̕H̶̯̩̫̬͗̅̒̃͜ë̶̼́̆̿̿̒l̴̢̫͓̱̜̎p̷̻̩̻͇̯̞͌̅́̕ ̶͖̯͔̟̀̋̆͘m̶͉̹̳̯͑e̸̲̾ ̷͙̥̫̦̙̕f̶̡͎͈̾̾͋̓̐̀i̸̞̻͍̎̾͊n̷̰̻̮͓̤̆̄̾͒̅ͅd̷̢̦̩̓ ̴̞̼͈̦͕͛͊̚ṭ̵͖̂̂͗̔̾h̸̡͍̖̣̻͚̓͒̾͝ḙ̶̮́͛̇̎͘̚m̸̛̱̎̋̐̔͠,̷̧̰͕̤̬̝̑̚͝ ̴̹̃p̶̢̥͙̈́ͅļ̵͙̜̫͍̊̋̉̓ͅé̵͙͔̟̇ă̷̺͈̏̓͝s̵̙͖̣͔̔̊͆̍͘ȅ̵͇̍͒̚͝.̴̢̰̗͍̮̳̀̌̕ ̴̳͉̩̬̿̊̃͘Î̴͉̺̰̯̫̊̅͘ ̷̻͉͙̈́͛̍̀n̵͕̯̖̤͉̹̔͐̅̃̓̕e̷̡͉͕̖̅͆̊ē̷͇̊d̵̢̥̜̹̮͑͌͌͆͝ͅ ̶͕̫̿̈́̈́͝͠ẗ̵̪́̊ó̷̝̜̀̀͊͝ ̶̨͇͓͖̞̄ͅṕ̴̨̬̗͚̤́̔ŕ̷͚̐̊͆́̒ơ̵̰̜̭͙͒͑̒͐t̷͕̖͖̝̥̙̾́̕͝e̸̡̞͎͉͈͒͋̎͛c̴͉̘̔t̶̢͚̖̮͈̟͒̅ ̵̞̯̘̮̤̄͊͑̔t̵̡̪̭̜̟̕h̷̟̀e̷̟͊͜m̸̳̒͑̀́.̸̨̮͈͈̺̺̌̓̎̊̏̃"̵̺͚̰̹̗̃

And the Ancient made of cosmos, with flowing white hair, never ending green eyes, crowned with stars, ice and aurora's, agreed.

---------------------

They were being beat by that same damned organization that cost them their colleague, their mentor, their friend, their father.

And they were all loosing.

Everyone was preoccupied with something, whether it was Kryptonite suits, incoming hoards of androids, or rogue powers spilling out. Flashes, bangs, and screams from all sides filled the air.

It was looking like the Leaguers were going to die.

The Bats, who should still be benched due to the traumatic and catastrophic events done by them, were not holding back. Blood was being spilt by all of them. The no killing rule was shot with a single bullet to the head.

So they didn't hold back, not at all.

But it still wasn't enough.

And they were loosing.

They were bleeding.

They were going to die.

And then the sky opened up, a massive vortex made up of glowing greens filled the sky. It reminded those who knew of them, of the Lazarus pits. But the fighting didn't stop. Oh no.

It only stopped when they came through.

A massive, humanoid being made of swirling galaxies with an infinite number of glowing green eyes and what could be considered a halo of floating white hair. Atop its head was a crown of equal proportion made of icy rods with stars twinkling weaved through an aurora pulsing around it all. It was terrifyingly beautiful.

And then, another one came out. This one was different, but oh so familiar looking.

It was as if a living shadow took shape, sucking in all of the light. It had two horns that stabbed through the air, with clawed hands and feet resembling the many gargoyles around Gotham. It's massive wings were pulled back, allowing for what little color, yellows, to peak through. It had a long, slender, spiked tail ending in a sharp looking diamond. Its hair, or what would have been hair, looked like it was slowly melting off, sliding onto what little grey flesh could be seen. It eyes were a pure, glowing white, and only when it opened its mouth, that too many fangs, not teeth, could be seen.

It was terrifying.

It was comforting.

And suddenly, shadowy ice spikes rose from the ground, impaling the ones trying to end the Leaguers.

The Bats.

After that, it was soon known that the Big Bad Bat was back.

And he was different.

H̵̢̜͇̩͙͊̓͐́ͅê̷̫̬͓͖͎̒̈́́̂̚͝ͅ ̷̧̟̝̟͖̭̪̬̪͇͙͝K̵̬͕͓̗̀̽̒̽̄i̴̦̪͒̇̿̑̄̀͝l̶̢̧̻̮̗̰͕̹̼͈͉̏ͅl̴̥̮̙̯͔͈̉̀͆̑͐͘̕ē̸̢̳̘͑̐̿̃͂͐͐͒͝d̶̨͍̬̗̦͈̙̩̰̍͐͑̌̆̃͜͝͠.̷̢̝̜̖͎̟̣́͗̍̌̂͑͒̌̌̔͜

----------------------

srry, this got away from me lol. Anyways lemme know what you think of it :} Have any questions? Please ask! Just know it might take a little while for me to answer. Any criticisms? Welcomed as long as they are constructive!