#he did steal Damian's throwing knives

[flamingpudding]

Fictober23 Prompt: 12 - "I am not saying I didn't like it."

Fandom: DPxDC

Rating: T

Warnings: -

Danny grinned at Jason who was sitting across from him on the table. Before the other a plate of… something was placed, accompanied by a cup of tea. Danny's first attempt at cooking. Jason had not managed to escape the Manor in time and had been unlucky enough to come across Danny, Alfred's new assistant / ward entrusted to him from an old 'friend'.

Of course Danny had to have that stupid baby deer and begging eye looks as he pleaded to Jason to please try his cooking and help him work out how to make it better so that he could help out Alfred more in the future. Jason was going to say no but the other teen was very insistent and had an iron grip.

He was pretty sure Danny had cut off his arms blood circulation when he had gotten dragged to the kitchen. Either way he was now presented with something that looked inedible and a tea that smelled heavenly.

"Try it!" Danny smiled brightly and damit, maybe his brothers were right saying he was a good damn pushover. Jason swallowed, looking from Danny's bright eyes down at the plate before him.

"Fuck it…" If it tasted bad he would wash it down with the heavenly smelling tea. He stabbed something on the plate, ignored the fact that he was entirely sure he had seen it wiggle and stuffed it in his mouth, eyes tightly shut.

He waited for the bad taste to impact.

And waited.

And waited.

But it never game, carefully he opened one eye seeing Danny staring expectantly at him. Carefully he started chewing and his eye widened. Not expecting to taste what he did, Jason stared at the dish before him that he could only describe as the stew of doom.

"Well? How does it taste! Is it as good as Mr. Alfred's stew?"

"How the fuck…" was the only thing Jason was able to say still not believing his taste buds. Stil in disbelief Jason then took a sip of the heavenly smelling tea and promptly spit it out like it had burned his tongue, just not with the temperature but with its taste. He coughed, hitting the table a couple of times. His eyes teared up as he stared at the sheepish teen before him.

"What the fuck, Danny?" He wheezed out, trying to catch his breath after the coughing fit.

"I was sure you were going to like ecto-tea, considering you already have ectoplasm in your system. You didn't appear to mind it in the food."

Jason's eye twitch. "You mixed fucking ectoplasm into this food?"

If Alfred weren't so fond of this boy Jason would have punched him already. Sure Danny was a good damn enigma and when Alfred had introduced them the teen had freaked out on Jason about how he had not treated his apparent sickness before proceeding to explain to Alfred and Bruce that Jason apparently needed something called ectoplasm to stay healthy. That been a fucking ordeal, Jason certainly didn't want to repeat. Plus point was that this ectoplasm did indeed cure his Pit Madness, bad point was he had to take something that looked like fucking Pit Water on a regular basis.

And now Danny was apparently using him as his experimental guinea pig for his ectoplasm cooking. He could have at least said something about having it put into the food and tea. At least the teen looked somewhat apologetic at the glare Jason was sending him.

"Sorry… you just always made a face when you had to take the ectoplasm, so I tried making it taste better for you." He couldn't help it as he ruffled the others hair earning a pout in return. The teen reminded him of his brothers, if Alfred hadn't claimed Danny already as his, Jason was sure Bruce would have attempted to adopt Danny.

"I am not saying I didn't like it. Just don't put ectoplasm in tea anymore." He stabbed with his fork into the wiggling food to emphasize his next words When he lifted it he raised an eyebrow at the wiggling goob of something, that apparently doesn't taste as bad as it looks. "It's better in the food, despite causing it to look like something you shouldn't eat."

There was a crash behind him in the kitchen area right after he had placed the fork in his mouth and Jason arched an eyebrow at the suddenly very nervous looking Danny.

"What was that?" Jason asked, his eyebrow going even higher as Danny suddenly pulled out a green glowing steak knife out of seemingly nowhere.

"Nothing!"

Another crash resounded behind him and Jason was very tempted to turn around to see what caused it. But before he could, the green steak knife flew right past his head. "Nothing? Are you sure?"

"Uhm well… I might have kept quiet about a side effect ectoplasm can have on food." Another crash and Jason wondered if this was why Danny had waited for Alfred to be out of the Manor on errands before he attempted to cook.

"I won't say anything to Alfred as long as you don't use the good steak knives."

"Deal." Danny then proceeded to pull out the Demon Brat's throwing knives. Wide eyed Jason watched how Danny jumped over the table into the kitchen area, he turned in his seat to continue watching but found that Danny had disappeared chasing whatever had caused the crashing sounds.

"Demon Brat is going to bust a blood vessel, no one touches his blades." Jason muttered, turning back to his wiggling but actually good tasting food, deciding that for now, he would ignore the fact that Danny 100% was not a normal teen Alfred had taken in for a friend. If his knowledge about this ectoplasm was't enough to tip them off then the way had moved and used the blades just now definitely would and had.

Taking another bite, Jason marbled at the taste before he chuckled and wondered what would happen first. Him and his siblings figuring out what was up with Danny, the Demon Brat attempting to stab Danny for having used his throwing knives, or Danny figuring out their nightlife activities and the reason why Damian owned throwing knives in the first place.

[lazycats-stuff]

batfam x male child reader who likes collecting buttons and random things but also likes stealing random weapons bc they look cool like steals knives from damien and has gotten his hands on jason’s funda few times

Thanks for the idea anon! Sorry this took a while and I may have taken it to another direction, so I still hope you like this.

Summary: (Y/N) is a magnet for weapons. Especially if they are the property of his older brothers.

Warnings: Weapons, (Y/N) always getting his hands on weapons, Bruce being stressed and tired.

Bruce didn't notice that (Y/N) had a liking towards weapons until the boy was 3. As any baby, he would want shiny and colorful things. It was only natural for babies. The boys knew that and always made sure to have something colorful on hand to entertain the boy.

But when he reached 3, he would seem to like weapons. Especially if it was from his brother's. (Y/N) would find a way to weapons, one way or another. The boys were sometimes careless and left weapons laying around, which scared the living lights out of Bruce more than one time.

Jason has even said that once (Y/N) grows up, he will be the most annoying Robin ever. And it's not like Bruce has started training him a little. Just in case something happens.

So, as fate would have, he was not gifted by a normal child, that likes baseball or some other sport or that likes something related to art. He got a kid that adores weapons. Almost a Damian 2.0.

Alfred would say he would grow out of it, he is just imitating his older brothers, but Bruce wasn't so sure. He really wasn't. So, to avoid such situations, Bruce told the boys to keep their weapons under lock and key. That was directed to Damian and Jason.

Now, the boy is 5 and... Bruce is even more stressed. (Y/N) is a magnet for weapons and he didn't start liking anything else. Bruce has tried. Baseball, drawing, collecting stamps, reading... But no... He has a 5th child who was in love with weapons.

So, the stress was now tripled.

Bruce got home from work, ready to go to bed and take a nap. He knew that (Y/N) would also like a nap, so he went to look for him. What he heard instead, made him regret coming home.

" (Y/N), give me back my knife! " Damian's voice rang out and it made him sigh. Not again.

He got ready as the footsteps got closer and closer. And once he saw (H/C) hair, he swooped him up, being careful of the knife.

" Papa! " (Y/N) exclaimed in surprise.

" (Y/N), what did we say about taking Damian's weapons? Especially his knifes? " Bruce asked, taking the knife and handing it back to Damian.

" Damian gave it to me. "

Bruce simply hummed and adjusted his youngest in his arms.

" (Y/N)… What did we say about taking blades? "

" That we shouldn't take them, but they are so pretty. Especially Damian's! " (Y/N) exclaimed, waving his arms around.

" I know, but they are also dangerous. "

(Y/N) pouted and simply leaned on Bruce's chest. He was slightly tired from all running around. Especially after stressing and getting Bruce some gray hairs.

" You tired bud? "

" Yes... Can you stay with me dad? "

Bruce smiled at him and nodded. He walked to his bedroom, before gently throwing his son on the bed. (Y/N) let out an oof, before giggling. Bruce quickly went to the bathroom and changed into some more comfortable clothes before snuggling his youngest son.

" Dad? "

" Yes bud? "

" Will I ever have blades? Like Damian and Jason? "

Bruce wanted to say no, you won't be surrounded by weapons, you will enjoy your life without them. And not damage my furniture.

" One day, when you get older. Your brothers will even teach you how to take care of them. "

" Really?! " (Y/N) asked, all excited.

" Yes. But for now, we can go to sleep. You did say that you are tired. "

(Y/N) didn't say anything, simply snuggling into Bruce's chest. Bruce put the covers higher and closed his eyes, making sure that his son was close to him.

Bruce sighed as he overlooked the preparations for the gala. Everything looked like perfect and more importantly, all the blades were... Somewhere safe, far away from (Y/N)'s reach. Not to mention they still had to monitor the young boy, hoping he wouldn't get his hands on any types of weapons. He doesn't want a headline in the news tomorrow.

" Okay guys, keep an eye on (Y/N). We can't have him running around with a blade in his hands. " Bruce said, tired.

Bruce got promises that there was going to be extra supervision over (Y/N). Maybe he will have a gala that won't be a disaster. For once... Bruce shook his head. Something is definitely going to go wrong tonight, something warranting a headline tomorrow.

Why does this always happen to him?

" Are you alright master Bruce? " Alfred asked, carrying the small bundle of joy that gives Bruce new gray hairs everyday.

" I have a feeling that something is going to go wrong Alfred. " Bruce said, opening his arms to take the young boy into his arms.

" Are we talking headline wrong master Bruce? "

" I don't want to say yes, but that's what I'm worried about. "

Bruce glanced down at the youngest, who was pouting.

" What's wrong bud? "

" I don't like this suit dad. "

Bruce adjusted him in his arms and gave him a kiss to the side of the head.

" I think there is an another reason, am I right? " Bruce smiled at his son.

(Y/N) had no access to blades for the whole day and was unhappy and grumpy. Bruce was proud of his boys for making sure that the blades were taken care of. Especially Damian and Jason.

(Y/N) didn't respond, simply looking away. Bruce chuckled at his son's behavior. He is a truly stubborn person.

" Oh don't be sad bud. "

Jason came into the room, wanting to hold (Y/N). Bruce gave him the toddler and Jason turned on his big brother magic.

" Don't be sad. " Jason said leaving the room. He knew Bruce wouldn't like to hear this.

" You know what we can do bud? " Jason asked waiting for the response. He got a shake of the head.

" We can sneak into Damian's room later and take a look at his blades, but, " Jason interrupted the excited child, " You need to be good tonight. No misbehaving. Now, give me a pinky promise. " Jason said, looping their pinkies together.

" Good. "

Now the only thing he needs is to let Damian know about the plan.

Bruce was suspicious of his youngest son. He was far too... Good. He wasn't creating chaos with the help of his brothers, so Bruce was confused and suspicious. He finished up a talk with one of his partners and looked for Jason. He knows Jason has something to do with this. He was the last one to talk with (Y/N) and he is behaving all of a sudden.

He found him at the table with food.

" Hey old man. "

" What did you say to (Y/N)? " Bruce asked, getting right to the point.

" What do you mean? " Jason asked, tilting his head to the right.

" Why is (Y/N) behaving? You are usually helping him with creating chaos around here. "

" I didn't do anything Bruce. " Jason said, leaving a frustrated Bruce behind.

He sighed as he turned to look at his son. He was with Damian and talking to Jon Kent. Speaking of the Kents, he needs to find Clark. Clark is (Y/N)'s favorite uncle and Clark will be able to talk to (Y/N) without making it sound suspicious.

" How's it going Bruce? " Clark asked.

" I don't know. (Y/N) is behaving well and I am suspicious. You need to use your uncle powers and talk to him. "

Clark chuckled at the uncle powers. He knew that (Y/N) loved him a lot.

" I will try to fish something out of him. "

" Thank you Clark. "

Clark got nothing. (Y/N) was either behaving because he wanted to or he was hiding something.

" Nothing Bruce. "

" What? " Bruce asked.

" Yup. He is either behaving well just because he wants to or he is hiding something. Nothing in between. "

" Oh (Y/N), what are you doing to me? "

He glanced at his son, now with Tim and Dick, who guarding him from the reporters who clearly wanted to talk to young boy.

The gala was over, there was no trouble and the boys went up to their rooms. Bruce talked with Clark for a bit, before escorting him out and going upstairs to his own room.

He stopped by Damian's once he heard Jason and some laughing that was far too child like. He opened the door and sighed. (Y/N) was on the carpet in the room, Damian sitting on his bed, looking amused. Jason was next to (Y/N) holding Damian's blades while (Y/N) was hypnotized by them.

" So this is the reason why he was behaving so well. " Bruce said.

(Y/N) didn't even react to Bruce being here.

" Okay, 15 more minutes then he is off to bed and we are off to patrol. Okay? " Bruce asked both of his sons.

They both nodded and Bruce went to the cave. He laughed to himself for a second, relishing in the fact that if (Y/N) wants to become a Robin, he will be the most annoying one.

[batsandbugs]

Bruce Wayne’s Headache Classification System Chapter 3

IKEA Verse

A/N: The author shows up a month and a half late, with Starbucks: S'up, here's 7500 words of pure chaos. Feast! Y'all are the best, thank you for the amazing comments in the last chapter. I love seeing your excitement for this crazy little world I've created. I have a new fic that I'll be adding eventually, called: "The Stalking of Daminette: A Treatise by Steph and Cass" it's still in its baby stage, so we'll see how long that grows before I post. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it because I have not started on the next part and I'm moving in less than a month, so maybe the next chapter will be out sometime in October, but I'm not making any promises. Enjoy!

Chapter 3

Bruce narrows his eyes and pins his children with an unimpressed stare. “What did you do?

“He was totally willing!” Dick insists with an innocent grin.

“Coercion.”

“Manhandling.”

Dick’s grin disappears evilly side-eyeing his brothers. “Both of you suck at being back up.”

“He didn’t want to at first,” confesses Tim. “But they held my computer hostage to convince me to agree.” Tim rubs a hand over the top of his laptop in a soothing manner. “So, I stole all his knives so he couldn’t stab us, while Jason and Dick wrangled him into the car.”

“Little demon was spittin’ nails, but we persuaded him not to throw himself out the car, so he was trapped.”

“By the time we arrived, I convinced them how a game of hide-and-seek would be a fun, non-disastrous way to spend time together,” says Dick, his face one of ruined hopes and dreams.  

“Mostly through bribes, blackmail, and calls to our innate competitiveness,” says Tim.

“Dickie kept the keys so none of us could leave, and declared himself seeker first,” Jason continues. “He found me-" 

"In the food court," says Dick.

"Then Replacement-"

"At the Starbucks."

"Didn't even get to have that coffee," grumbles Tim.

"So we joined forces and decided to search for Damian together. We spent an hour chasing him in circles. Swear I almost caught him too.”

Tim scoffs, “Yeah no, he had us good. We had no clue where he was.” 

Jason rolls his eyes. “Oh, shut up Tim.”

“You shut up,” Tim shoots back.

“Boys…” warns Bruce, already regretting bringing all three of them into this sitrep.

“Okay, so he evades us long enough to team up with a girl named Marinette Dupain-Cheng-” starts Tim.

Jason growls a bit. “Lying bitch.”

“Jason…” Dick sighs but doesn’t refute the insult. This only serves to deepen Bruce’s headache which now strongly veers out of the I-am-not-mentally-or-emotionally-prepared-for-this category and straight into Ongoing-dumpster-fire territory.

This was fine.

Jason slams a fist on the table. “She lied to my face multiple times! She said she was hired to poison Tim and Damian in order to steal Tim’s phone and if I didn’t find them in time, they were gonna die from brain damage!”

Bruce blinks. Did he hear that right? “Sorry, what?”

Tim sighs. “Okay, rewind, so Damian evading us like the little assassin he trained to be, hooks up with Marinette, who, as far as my research shows, is a civilian-”

“Yeah right, girlie ain’t a civilian. No way, not in a million years.”

“Shut up Jason, let Tim talk,” snaps Dick.

“She lied to Jason about where Damian was, and between her initial meeting with Jason and the incident in the food court, about an hour passed. Then she appeared in the cafeteria with Damian’s card, how we tracked her there in the first place. She panicked when she saw us and used her magic on the shelves in the warehouse to cause a diversion-”

“She crushed a fucking forklift, and we got blamed and billed for it.”

‘How?’ Bruce thinks in despair. Not over the money, of course. They had more than enough to cover costs, just in the general sense of incredulity. One would think, after being Batman this long, it would inoculate Bruce from bewilderment at all types of situations.

It has not.

Tim shakes his head. “No, I proved we had nothing to do with that."

‘Oh well isn’t that grand?’

"Didn’t manage to pin anything on her either considering how much electrical interference occurred whenever she performed magic, but we don’t have to pay.”

“Magic doesn’t cause electrical interference,” Bruce reminds them. “Not unless it completely breaks the system in the process.” All three boys – men really, his kids all grown up now, even if they pulled stupid shit like this – turn to him. Identical expressions of contemplation played over their faces.

“Shit, you’re right,” mutters Dick.

“Well, her magic does,” counters Tim, his brow creasing heavily, grasping past the sleepy, foggy haze that comes with being awake for three days straight. Grabbing a notepad he jots down the observation. “Her magic doesn’t obey any rules we know to be true.”

“It’s magic, dumbass,” Jason sneers. “It doesn’t have to make sense. I’m still on the fence about whether she enchanted Damian though. On one hand, demon-spawn shouldn’t be capable of smiling that much, and he defended her, deferred to her, fucking used her first name without blinking an eye. That ain’t natural for him. On the other hand, she’s the same brand of demented as he is, and maybe they want to be horrible little demons together.”

“I…” starts Dick before trailing off, his face flickers through a series of emotions. Mostly fragile hope, pragmatic disbelief, and good heaping of uncertainty.

“See, Golden Boy, even you can’t say this is a good thing!”

“He made a friend?” Dick offers with a pained wince.

“She’s a psychopath!”

Bruce cuts off the argument. As much as he would love to hear more in-depth detail about Damian’s newest… acquaintance, he wants a clearer picture of what happened at the store before he judges the situation. “Boys, behave. Tim, please continue.”

Tim nods. “Okay, so Marinette escapes the warehouse, and we track her back to their entry point into the vent system. We split up to cover more ground, I take the warehouse and keep myself from the worker’s sight but close enough to the vent I could spot them exiting. About forty-five minutes later they set me on fire-”

“Wait,” interrupts Bruce. “Fire? FIRE?”

Tim looks at him like he’s being particularly slow. “Uh, yeah, I said that a time or two now, keep up. To be fair, the fire was more around me. But I did end up singed.” He shows his arm sleeve again, and the singeing on the sleeve takes on a whole new meaning.

“I wasn’t sure what happened at the time, I expected to catch the little twerps, not engage in guerilla warfare. So, understandably, I’m off my game. The security guard dragged me into the office, and I’m ready to call for backup, only to find my phone missing. I talk down the manager in the warehouse, but then he yells at these poor workers. And Bruce, they were kids, couldn’t be more than fifteen, working in this busy warehouse with no clue about any rights they had, and then after the manager became… distracted I conversed with the other workers, and-”

Tim’s one-breath ramble was swiftly cut off by Jason. “Yeah, yeah you caused a worker’s strike through the power of charisma and rhetoric. So original. No one else in the world’s history has ever done that. Can we get back to the French bitch tricking me?”

Tim huffs, crossing his arms. “You can continue then because I wasn’t part of that.”

“Cool, I will. So, there I wait at my post, and it’s been like an hour and a half at this point. Timmy finally calls, but it’s not actually him it’s the French girl. She’s actin’ like a paid assassin slash company spy, and says she poisoned Tim and Damian through tricking them into eatin’ poisoned coffee and shit.”

“And you believed that?” Bruce asks. Jason glares at him with piercing green-blue eyes, and although his second son puts off an air of anger and annoyance, it’s a mask for a deep-seated fear that his brothers were genuinely in danger. That he would be too slow, too late to save them, like what happened to-

Jason flippantly shrugs his shoulders, years of practiced reticence covering his care. “With our craptastic luck, I sure as hell wasn’t going to take any chances. So, I go chasin’ and-”

“~It’s a trap~,” Tim gloats in a sing-songy voice, his grin wide and eyes unfocused. He’s going to crash soon, it’s just a matter of time.

“Shut up, you ended up set on fire and pickpocketed. You have no leg to stand on.” Tim rolls his eyes but slouches back in his chair. “So, it’s a trap, and demon-spawn is waitin’ there with one of those tricked-out trip wires Timmy made. He and Frenchie wrapped me up good, taunted me, and stripped me taking my wallet and phone. Bitch also took my knife. I insult the brat, and he fires back, but before he does anything else Marinette pulls him back and tells him to simmer down and he does.” Jason’s wide eyes drip with incredulity and, quite frankly, a little awe.

“I see,” Bruce says, a fake calm surrounding his words. He really didn’t. They were talking about Damian. Bruce loves his only biological son, he truly does. He loves Damian’s sketches, and care for animals, he loves his dedication to sword mastery and sly humor. The way his son has the same wrinkle crease between his eyes Bruce gets, and that Thomas did before them. The similarity soothes a small part of Bruce’s aching soul. He’s ridiculously proud of all the work and effort Damian went through, put himself through, to become a better person. To overcome the trauma his upbringing caused and come out stronger.

That being said, Damian was still arrogant, stubborn, and quick-tempered. He considered his opinions and plans more highly than others, and unless one could give a quick and compelling explanation as to an alternative option, he would be proceeding with his plan with efficiency; damn anything else standing in his way. Damian spared no sympathy to the average person and even less for fools.

This behavior was extremely out of character for him.

Which made the entire situation ring with alarm.

Jason shook his head. “I don’t think you do,” he says, calling Bruce’s lie out. “You’re gonna need to see it to really understand. Anyway, they leave me there for the police to find me, and the wire’s wound on tight, so I’m still struggling to get them off when security finds me ten minutes later.” Jason smirks. “Now those idiots had no clue who they were dealing with, and they loosened the wire round my legs, cause they sure as hell couldn’t carry me. By the time we reached the car I was out of the bonds and knocked one out and escaped from the other. Fat-ass bastard.”

“Language,” Bruce reminds him. Jason flips him off.

“Fine, the heavy-set bastard. Better?”

Bruce sighs. “Not really.”

“I scale the building, figuring the store entrances would be monitored. They had a nice handy dandy human-sized ventilation shaft up there - no wonder with the place’s fucking size - so, I shimmy down-”

“Like Santa,” Tim giggles, well past bordering on a manic state, and instead moved well into the capital of it.

The comment doesn’t appear to have fazed Jason though, who takes another long sip of his alcohol-soda mixture. “And like Santa, I have a knack for toys. I emerge out of a vent in the children’s toy area and snag myself a nerf gun.”

Sharp pain blooms on the side of Bruce’s neck. He doesn’t let it show on his face though. “Why?”

“Seemed like a good at the time, ya know?”

Bruce mentally counts to ten, takes a deep breath, and says, “Sure.”

“So, I head towards the play area to find Dick, because obviously, Replacement was a lost cause.”

“Geeze thanks, Jason.”

“But before I can get there, I spot Demon Spawn constructin’ a wacky ass Rube Goldberg contraption-”

Dick winces. “I saw the remains when I chased after Marinette. It was initially meant for me.”

“You were chasing the girl?”

Dick pouts. “She stole my phone!”

“Wait, so a civilian pickpocketed all of you?” 

“She was quick,” mutters Tim.

Jason raises a finger. “She didn’t technically pickpocket me, she frisked me after tying me up. I was fully aware of the stealing.”

Bruce reminds himself that he can’t strangle his children. He. Can’t. Strangle. His. Children. “I plan to make all of you go through awareness training, again. A civilian!?”

“Still not convinced,” Jason mutters, crossing his arms.

“I don’t care she certainly hasn’t trained with assassins and spent half her life mastering stealth and deception. I expect better from you all.” All three men mutter in acquiescence, to the extent that they would do better. “Continue.”

Jason’s demureness fades to be replaced with a gleeful grin. “Yeah, there wasn’t much left of the trap after I jumped the little bastard. I started shooting-”

“Jason…” Bruce’s headaches gain a specific twinge of exhaustion whenever Jason becomes involved. It’s a talent he possessed since the day Bruce found him hi-jacking the Batmobile’s tires.  

Jason’s hands go up in defense. “With the nerf gun, chill Bruce I ain’t trying to contribute to America’s public shooting crisis. I wouldn’t take a loaded gun into a shopin’ center unless crazies were already causin’ chaos.”

“I’d prefer you not to use guns at all.” It’s a pointless request, but maybe one day Jason would cede to it.

Jason scoffs. “Yeah, you’re still gunna lose that one pops. I got a rep to maintain.”

Bruce reigns in a sigh. Expected.

“Anyway, everythin’ was fine, I’d managed to dismantle their little trap for ya, you’re welcome,” he says with a pointed glance at Dick.

His eldest crosses his arms, and with a total deadpan stare, replies, “Thanks, Jason.”

“But then a security guard interfered after I knocked down a display or two.”

“So, you strung him up and gagged him?” Dick asks voice rising into the hysterical range.

Bruce now understands why Tim looks exhausted, dealing with the fallout from a situation this unhinged for the past forty-eight hours.  

“No, I didn’t do that. Demon spawn already set the rig, waitin’ for you. The guard tripped it.” He pauses, cheese-covered chip in hand. “Although I did add the gag, he was shoutin’ too much and grabbin’ attention. It only took a second, but by the time I turned back, Damian had shot off like a rocket.”

“Don’t take your eyes off the target,” chides Tim, with a smug little grin.

Jason’s eyes flash a brighter shade of green. “Fire.”

“Shut up.”

“Boys…” Bruce warns.

“Fine, fine,” Jason mutters, as he takes another sip of his drink. “I chase him through the store and he’s barely keepin’ ahead of me. I keep shootin’ at him. Newer nerf guns have a range and a surprising amount of ammo. Bastard didn't even look inconvenienced; he takes a fucking phone call at one point.”

“That was when I was chasing Marinette and we found the remains of their plan,” Dick interrupts. “She panicked with the sprung trap and called someone, but I couldn’t hear a word.”

“Yeah, he jumps off the call when I manage a shot at his head, and I’m close enough to have him in reach. Unfortunately, he ducked into the employee-only entrance. We weave through security rooms and offices and shit, and of course, causin’ chaos there.”

“He was right there, and yet somehow, we’re the only ones banned,” mutters Tim.

Jason scoffs. “Yeah, don’t know how that happened. Pretty sure I saw him dump a pot of coffee on-” Tim groans in frazzled distress. “Bad Timbo, you can’t have any more caffeine until you take a goddamn nap!”

Tim slouches into the solid wood dining chair. “You can’t tell me what to do, you’re not my dad.”

“Tim you can’t have any more caffeine until you sleep,” Bruce says.

Jason grins, sticking his tongue out at Tim, while Tim only glares and mutters something under his breath about ‘killjoys’ and ‘he’ll show them tired’ and Bruce really doesn’t want to see the result of that decision. This needs to wrap up soon. For both Tim’s sake, and his own as his headache has moved from Hassles-have-evolved-into-ongoing-dumpster-fires to Information-overload-caused by-dumbass-decisions-please-reboot-system.

“I get tangled in an office jam – literally, there were cords involved and by the time I scramble out of it, Damian’s already through a door and down a hallway. I haven’t a clue which way he’s gone, so I pick a direction and gun it because security is on my tail and there ain’t time to waste. I head down a hallway and lock the doors behind me to give me a second of breathing room. Then I spot the intercom system.”

“I wondered how you got close enough to use that,” Dick muses.

“I wondered what they did to piss you off so bad,” Tim adds.

Dick nods. “Same.”

“Yeah, so I call out Demon Spawn and French Bitch over the intercom, and I know they both must have panicked, but the guards broke through the locked doors, so I split. Now here’s the fucking miracle.” Jason leans forward, grinning. “I find the door that’ll take me back to the showroom area, the guards bearing down on me from all four sides. I don’t have a chance in hell, when the lights go off.”

“Blackout?” questions Bruce.

“Magic,” Dick says flatly. “It was Marinette.”

Jason slaps the table, snarling, “Damnit! Now I have to give credit to her.”

“She knocked out electricity to the whole store,” says Tim.

“And caused a display to collapse in front of me. I tripped,” admits Dick.

“You have fought off assassins while poisoned, and executed advanced acrobatic maneuvers with broken bones, and you tripped over a toppled Swedish store display because of the dark?” Bruce knows he’s trained his children better. Why in the world did this go so sideways on them?

Dick braces his arms against the table and roughly slides his fingers through his hair. ”I know. I know. I was right there. Any other day and I wouldn’t have blinked about jumping right over it, but this time it felt… off. Bad day?”

“You’re getting old Golden Boy.” Jason takes a sip of his drink, doing nothing to hide his shit-eating grin as he teases his older brother. “I guess it’s all downhill from here ain’t it.”

Dick flips him off.

Jason sticks out his tongue.

Bruce’s headache takes on a twinge of my-children-are-immature-brats feeling (generally categorized by a sharp sting right at his temple) and holds in an exasperated sigh.

“So, after magic girl shuts the lights off with her mind or whatever, I escape the security guards by an inch. One emergency exit later, and I’m back in the store proper. People are freakin’ the fuck out about the lights. By the time they turn on again, I’ve lost Damian for good, and now I just try to stay off security’s radar. I settle in a nice little blind spot right outside the children’s toy area and keep myself out of any trouble.” Jason looks over at Dick, fighting to keep a smug grin off his face. “Course I did see a woman go off on a poor employee. I kept my nose clean of it ‘cause it wasn’t my business.”

“Oh, ha, ha very funny. That woman was a menace,” groans Dick.

“Woman?” Bruce questions, almost scared to ask.

“Jessica Merope-Laverne, fifty-five, resident of Pleasantville. Married twice, has two children, a restraining order, and a police file with multiple notes about disturbing the peace,” Tim rattles off. “Thoroughly unpleasant.”

“That’s an understatement,” mutters Dick.

“Practically dragged Dickie Bird away by the ear.”

“Right as I was about to nab Marinette too. She’d hidden in one of the wardrobes in the room, and I was this close-” Dick positions his fingers scant centimeters apart from each other, “-to cornering her, and I got dragged away.”

“Shit, would have loved to know that,” mutters Jason. “Anyway, I stood around, making sure nobody was on my tail, soon I heard rumors about a ruckus in the atrium-”

“That would be me,” Tim admits with a grin.

“Well, I didn’t know that. I was hoping demon spawn and Frenchie were involved somehow, so I headed over, and then-”

“Oh, I know what happened from there. I saw the video.” Bruce pins Tim and Jason with a stare. “I respect both of you have opinions-”

“Opinions? Opinions? I have justified grounds for calling out his revolutionary bullshit! His entire life embodies nothing but the anthesis of systemic poverty, and he argues for class cooperation!” shouts Jason. Bruce always marvels at how eloquent Jason becomes when angry.

“Violence isn’t the answer,” counters Tim. “You would harm the very people you try to uplift in the process.”

“Sure, it is! It’s the natural response to a gluttonous, greedy, overburdened, bureaucratic system that’s leeching off the populous and perpetuating its own supremacy.”

Tim slams a hand against the table, raising to his feet, exhaustion clearing from his eyes. “It’s an option, not the option. We can do better than violence if we work at the cause's root problem without pulling out a fucking guillotine.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “Oh of course you would argue for that, you’ve never had less than six figures in your bank account in your life.”

“So says the self-proclaimed drug lord!”

“That was ten years ago!”

“A bag of heads on the steps of the GCPD!”

“Oh, get over it!”

“If it matters,” interjects Dick. “Probably doesn’t, systemic economic issues are hard to fix when we have bigger problems like an actively insane criminal population that likes destroying important city infrastructure on a monthly basis.”

“Which Wayne Enterprises does its best to counter,” adds Bruce, not bothering to chide his children back on track. This particular topic turned them into a bunch of unherdable cats.

“Funneling more money into the one percent’s hands!” Jason’s bordering on manic at this point.

“We are the one percent, Jason!” counters Tim. “And we stay that way, despite the copious amount of infrastructure projects, that we hire Gotham citizens for, and pay at least a living wage to all of them. Not to mention every other single employee we hire who also are paid a living wage, with benefits, and support. I know I am privileged. I am trying here.” The last sentence came out as a distraught cry, as he collapses back into his chair.

“Are… are you okay?” Dick asks tentatively, ready to cross the table to comfort his brother.

Tim shoves his hands into his hair and mutters, “I need an espresso.”

“No, you need sleep,” says Bruce, mentally calculating where all the caffeine in the house is so he can hide it. “Can we return to the recap, so your brother can go to bed?”

“My side of things is much shorter in comparison to Jason’s,” says Dick. “As long as nobody interrupts.” Casting a pointed glare in Jason’s direction. Jason shrugs casually and crosses his arms.

“I waited at the children’s play area. Now, a man my age would attract attention without a need to be there, so I’d ducked into the employee-only area, and grabbed a shirt to disguise myself. I hung out in the Starbucks for a good forty-five minutes trying to look like I was on break while observing the play area. Although I couldn’t tell where the vent entrance was, I figured two adults Damian and Marinette’s size would be easy to spot coming out of an area meant for children.

“When an hour and a half passed by, I’m nervous, because neither Jason nor Tim has sent any word. I called them both. They didn’t answer.”

“Yeah, 'cause the French phone napper took our phones,” mutters Jason.

“So, I decided to do some reconnaissance. The lady at the front desk looked bored enough, and so I went over to… chat.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “You mean flirt.”

Dick glares. “Shut up. So, I hang around the front desk for half an hour at most, before the kids went crazy. Like plastic balls being thrown everywhere, kids shrieking, this one little girl, later we learn her name is Abby, she’s doing this whole speech about a revolution-”

“Tim…”

“Not me, I’m not here at this point.”

“I stand there in shock, wondering what the heck set it all off. This one little girl runs up to the daycare worker, Melinda? Melody? Something. I don’t remember. And the little girl’s nose was bleeding, so there immediately goes my peaceful cover. I back up into the crowd, which at this point has gathered around pretty thick.”

“You know I wondered why there were so many people hanging around in that front lobby area,” says Tim.

“I’m almost sure the commotion has something to do with Marinette and Damian, so I keep my eyes peeled waiting for any adult-sized figures to emerge from the play area.” Dick sighs, rubbing a hand across his face. “I was right of course, but I missed Marinette slipping out, and she approached me from behind.”

“This is where you get pickpocketed too!” crows Jason.

“Really, Richard?” asks Bruce with a raised brow. This is ridiculous.

“Okay, look, I was distracted, off my game, there was a ton of screeching, and it had been a long day. And she was very good. The technique was flawless, minus a bit of overacting and a touch of obviousness. Which was her goal because-”

“~It was a trap~” Jason and Tim sing together.

“It was bait,” Dick corrects. “Leading me to a trap, that didn’t even work. So really, I did the best between the three of us.”  

“You all will complete remedial awareness training, so a situation like this never happens again.” Bruce massages the bridge of his nose with a long-suffering sigh. “Just… just please continue.”

“I can’t full-out chase her or anything, but she keeps out of reach through the store, until we reach the place where they set the trap. Obviously, Jason already tripped it, so she turned face and ran in the opposite direction. I followed, trying to convince her to stop and talk. But at this point, she’s full-on outpacing me and doing well too. I’m hesitant to say trained, but she had practice.”

“She’s gotta be a spy, or maybe she’s working for the League?” muses Jason.

“Damian would see right through that,” interrupts Bruce. He knows his youngest son has an instinct when sniffing out undercover League members. Talia certainly sent enough of them over the years.

“Maybe she’s just that good?” says Tim. “I certainly can’t find a damn thing on her, and being a League plant would explain that.”

Dick shrugs. “We’ll figure out her deal later. She calls Damian, and they talk briefly, but I couldn’t hear the conversation. Soon after Jason does his whole intercom takeover Marinette pulls out her little magic electro bursts and short circuits the electricity to the entire store.”

“And then caused you to trip.”

Dick wearily nods. “And then caused me to trip. By the time I detangle myself, she’s long gone. The lights come back on, and I’m stuck wondering where the hell she’s gone. I try to avoid getting clocked by security, so I keep to blind spots, which is how I eventually spot her doing the same.”

“Suspicious,” mutters Tim. “More evidence for the ‘League plant’ theory.”

“Or she could know security is looking for a woman of her description and she’s smart, either way, I tail her and corner her in a display room, no idea why she chose that one, but when I walk in it’s empty.”

“She teleported, or vanished like a ninja,” gasps Tim, eyes wide, pupils smaller than pinpricks. Bruce is now counting the seconds until he passes out.

Dick shakes his head. “No, she hid in the fucking closet. Tim, you need sleep.” Tim sticks out his tongue.

“I was this-” Dick places his fingers centimeters away from each other “-close to nabbing her, and then the whole Jessica situation happened.” He rubs a hand through already messed up, fly-away hair. “She drags me away screeching about lawyers and customer service, and it had been a very long day, so the second her back was turned I bolted. I couldn’t risk heading back to the display room, although if I were Marinette I’d be long gone, so I backtracked to where I stuffed my actual clothes and headed towards the atrium.”

“Yes, I saw your arrival as well,” Bruce confirms with an exasperated drawl. The videos spread out across multiple platforms gave an all-around idea of what happened in the atrium. “You all know better than to escalate things in public. We have an image to maintain after all." The boys nod, cowed and guilty. "That being said, things wrapped up rather neatly.” He eyes the boys with a paranoid weariness. “Too neatly.”

All three sag into their seats and gaze at each other with sheepish grimaces.

“Yeah, B, we noticed that too,” says Jason. “But at the time…” he trails off.

Tim continues, his speech sluggish. “It felt normal, to accept what was going on. The fight, the crazy lady, the little kid with the ball pit balls, her uncle being Dick’s old friend, and the store manager, and they let us go. It was easy to go along with it.” Grimacing, he gestures to his assorted piles of papers. “You know, besides for all the work I have now.” Crossing his arms on the table he lays his head in the middle. “Too many people, so little sense.”

“Damian hasn’t said a word about any of it.” Dick slouches lower in his chair.

“Kid was all smirks when he and the little liar approached us after we left the store,” grumbles Jason. "Had fuckin' ice cream and everything." He spins the almost empty bottle of alcohol coke on the table. “Of course, they made us wait, because after we left and booked it to the car, Dickie realizes his keys are gone too. So there we are standin' in the parking lot, Timmy doesn't have his shoes, and all we got between us is one nerf gun, no phones, no keys, and no fucks left to give.” Bruce, too tired from the absolute rollercoaster of emotions and information his children just sent him on, can do nothing but muster up a stern and disappointed glare. He trained them all better than to let a civilian pull one over on not just one of them, but all of them.

“Yeah, yeah, I know situational awareness. We’ll work on-” Dick breaks off his sentence, and sighs softly. A small soft smile overtakes his face, and he raises a single finger to his mouth. He nods in Tim’s direction.

Tim’s head, previously cradled in his arms, now lolls to the side. Neon blue light from his laptop highlighted his closed eyes, and the purplish bags underneath.

“Finally,” Jason mutters. “I swear he has the survival instincts of a wet paper bag. He’s been up for way too long.”

Bruce is just grateful he won't need to physically drag Tim off to bed and force him to get some desperately needed sleep. “Now we just need to get him to his room.” He would have done it himself if his ribs didn’t spasm the second he thought of the idea.  

“Not it,” Dick whispers so quickly it’s practically a rush of air.

“Not it,” says Jason, barely a millisecond behind.

“Ha!” Dick impishly grins. “You do it.”

“But-”

“Nope, I said it first. You got to carry him.”

Jason turns his head towards Bruce, big bluish-green eyes looking for support.

Bruce doesn’t get himself involved in the decision-making games his children play. “He said it first.”

Jason’s hopeful glance turns into a disgruntled snarl. “I hate both of you,” he spits.

“Love ya too, Jay.”

“Thank you, Jason.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, wrinkling his nose. Jason pushes back his chair, and although he’s annoyed, the solid wood chair doesn’t scrape against the floor, so he can’t be too mad. Despite drinking his entire liter of mystery-alcohol-diet-coke mixture, his footsteps pace steady and strong. “Come here, ya little coffee-addicted gremlin.” Jason slips his arms around Tim’s body. It’s a testament to how exhausted his son must be, that Tim only flutters his eyes and protests incoherently at being lifted out of his chair.

“Quiet down, Replacement,” Jason murmurs, his voice soft as he speaks to his sleep-deprived brother. “All your calls and research will be there when you return from the land of nod.”

“But…”

“You can go willingly, or I can grab sedatives from the med bay and forcefully put your ass to sleep. I’ll put a bet on who’ll win that brawl.” Jason stands a good six inches taller than Tim, who looks like little more than a bedraggled rag doll in his older brother’s arms. Bruce knew who would win that fight too. Tim sighs and relaxes another inch into Jason’s arms. “There ya go. You can go back to bein’ insufferable once you’ve had some fucking sleep.”

“Hmm…” Tim's eyes fully flutter shut. Jason shakes his head and rolls his eyes, but softly traverses the room so as to not jostle him. Looking back over his shoulder one last time to shoot an I-can’t-believe-I’m-doing-this look at Bruce and Dick, before walking out of the room.

Silence overtakes the grand dining room as the last of Jason’s footsteps fades into the echoing halls of Wayne Manor. A light rain drizzles outside, the faintest patter hitting the tall arched windows letting in a soft grey light.

Dicks groans, pulling himself out of his slouch gracefully and into more of a respectable position. “I’m getting too old for that.”

“If you’re old, I must be ancient,” Bruce responds. He’s not, really. Only forty-seven to Dick’s thirty-two. What he’d been thinking taking in a ten-year-old at twenty-five, he couldn’t really quite say. The only thing that mattered at the time was the aching echo of loneliness reflected in the eyes of a child who had just lost their parents.

Now, look at them, all these years later.

“Nah, you’re not ancient, B. We’ve just been through enough shit in our lives to age a person twenty times over.”

Bruce gives him a look of high disappointment. “Stunts like this do not help, Richard.”

Dick has the decency to look properly ashamed. “I really didn’t mean for the situation to get so out of hand,” Dick insists in a soft, quiet tone. Bruce doesn’t quite believe it. His sons thrive off of chaos. Even if they didn’t mean for things to get out of hand, they tended to actively encourage it once in the middle of the undertow. “I know, I know, but how was I supposed to anticipate Damian teaming up with a… witch? Magician? Whatever she is.” Dick mutters the last sentence, but Bruce hears it clearly.

His sons certainly think the young woman is dangerous. Tim is thoroughly confused and stressed by her existence, although deciphering his third son’s emotions through his fog of exhaustion is a vexing endeavor Bruce still isn’t sure he accomplishes all the time. Jason clearly hates her or at least is holding a very large, very deep grudge against her. He wonders what exactly the content of the conversation was when she threatened Tim and Damian. He wonders if she knew the effect it would have on Jason.

Flickering light from the chandelier above pierces his eyes like a particularly vicious game of stab-the-vigilante, but this conversation is important, so, despite the full body ache accompanying his you’ve-pushed-too-far-and-now-you’ll-suffer-the-consequences migraine, he pushes through to ask, “What do we actually know about her?”

Dick sighs heavily, rubbing a hand across his face, and suddenly he looks every inch of his thirty-two years. “To be honest? Only a little. Tim wasn’t the only one to look her up. I did my searching too.”

“And?”

“Practically nothing. Basic info, but school records sealed tighter than Fort Knox, and firewalls grow tighter every time I try to hack ‘em. School activities, online media presence, and even pictures; all of it is whisps in the wind. Every time I try to look deeper, something...” Dick shudders as if shaking away a bad feeling. “I come up short and I can’t find a reason why. Even trying to think about Paris as a whole feels off and I can’t put my finger on it.”

“I can see if there’s anything in the League’s database about the city the past few years. It was Diana’s home base for decades until…” Bruce trails off, his mind an unexpected blank. Diana moved to the US from Paris eventually. Sometime within the last decade, but he can’t quite remember why. Surely, she must have told him at some point.

“She’s a fashion designer, I know that much. She has a website but it’s very bare bones. Commission work only. And her current course of study at Gotham U is Fashion and Business Management. But-” Dick’s hands flail into the air. “She’s from Paris! What on earth possessed her from moving from one of the fashion capitals of the world to here, to study fashion is beyond me.” 

“Hmmm…” Bruce’s brain whirls at a million miles a minute. Connections forming and rearranging on his mind’s case board. The incongruency is so stark, there must be a reason. They haven’t found it yet.

“As for her magic…” Dick shrugs. “She said her powers mostly affected situational outcomes, and from the incidents I saw, she told the truth. But I’ve never seen magic like that before. Magic that just… happens. She didn’t say words, she didn’t make hand gestures. She used tiny little - I want to call them mechanized balls, but we never came close enough to tell – to kickstart the magic.”

“A techno-mage then?”

Dick contemplates the idea for a moment before saying, “Could be. But it felt more than that. As soon as she became involved the whole day felt… left of normal. Which I suppose aligns with situational outcome manipulation. The day certainly went their way…” Dick shrugs. “I just don’t know.”

Bruce hums, finally asking the question that had swirled in his mind since the girl was brought up. “Do you think she’s a danger?”

Dick leans back in the chair, his face an avalanche of flickering emotions. Wind lightly howled outside the dining hall filling the intervening silence. Finally, he sighs and says, “No, I don’t think so. She was chaotic sure but genuinely enjoyed the game for what it was. Damian probably encouraged the more unhinged ideas. And yes, she has magic, but so do a ton of other, far more obviously dangerous people. Our system is tricked out for all types of magic users, and even if she can bypass them due to her own unique magic, we’d at least receive a warning. And as for our identities…” Dick half-smiles. “She didn’t even know we were the ‘Waynes’ until we were just about to leave, and she didn’t appear particularly star-struck. I doubt she’d make the jump from chaotic billionaire’s kids to vigilantes.”  

“As for Damian…?” Bruce hardly knows what to make of his youngest’s out-of-character reaction and hopes to receive some cohesive read on the situation from his eldest.  

Dick, being quite unhelpful, shrugs. “I think you should talk to him. Get his side of the story. Things may have been chaotic on our end, but he did genuinely have fun. And, yes, he’s acting out of the norm.” Dick pauses. “Way, way, out of the norm for him, but I don’t think he’s enchanted. I think he just has a crush.”

Bruce blinks. Isn’t that a hell of a thought?

Damian.

With a crush.

He doesn’t have the bandwidth to deal with these kinds of realities. Reflexively he massages his temple with the tips of his fingers trying to relieve the paining, aching pressure.

“Headache again?” asks Dick with sympathy. After twenty years his son knows his tells well, and Bruce has always had headaches, although his reasons for having them have certainly increased over the years.

“Yeah, is what it is though. We’ll keep an eye on Damian, have you run him through the influence-affected protocols?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

Dick shrugs. “Nothing, it’s mostly why I think he’s fine. She may be a danger, or powerful, but I don’t think she’s doing anything to Damian. Besides making him run up the data plan on his phone. He really hasn’t stopped texting the past two days.”

They’ve spent plenty of time talking about Damian, but Bruce hasn’t seen a glimpse of him since he woke up this morning. “Where is he?”

Dick pulls out his phone. “On a date, according to Stephanie.” Pulling up a photo that’s taken in a long-distance setting. Damian is pictured, seated at a cafe table, drinking out of a white coffee cup. Across from him sits a girl, Asiatic features, black hair, clad in a colorful sundress. They’re both smiling at each other.

It’s normal and adorable. And slightly worrying. Damian doesn’t smile like that unless looking at a fluffy four-legged creature.

“Stephanie trailed him?” 

Dick flips the phone away. “Actually, she and Cass both followed him when he left this afternoon. Not sure what they planned, but they’ve sent some nice pictures.” He pauses for a moment and smiles fondly. “If she’s not a danger, or a League plant, this could be really good for him.”

Bruce hums, unsure, and hating himself for that unsurety. He’ll make a call when he has more information, and less of a migraine. “Go wash up and grab some sleep. I’m out until my ribs heal, so I’ll need you to take point on patrol.”

Rising from his chair, Dick stretches and shoots him a grin. “It took you twenty-five years, but damn, you’ve finally learned to call it quits when you need a break. Proud of you B.”

Bruce doesn’t bother to disguise his roll of the eyes. Dick would know he did it regardless. “Get on.”

Dick shoots him a lazy salute. “Sir, yes, sir.” He ambles to the door, and Bruce calls out again before he’s gone.

“And next time, Dick, please try to keep the antics out of the paper, and off the internet.”

The shit-eating grin betrays Dick’s real thoughts when he says, “Of course Bruce, won’t happen again.”

Liar.

Bruce shakes his head in reluctant bemusement – should he honestly have expected anything else – and Dick ducks out of the door without another word. Finally, the dining room is quiet, except for the pitter-patter of rain on the window panes, and the soft hum of Tim’s computer.

Carefully, Bruce rises from the chair, his side twinging, head throbbing in what is now a full-on migraine.

He should have stayed in bed.

Ah, well, he’s suffered worse, and now he has a good idea of what happened with his sons that caused a headache so insistent he felt it halfway across the galaxy.

Gently closing Tim’s laptop, he doesn’t bother to touch the articles and paper, knowing his son’s organizational system may appear a mess to outsiders – even him on occasion – but that it has meaning for him. He observes the rest of the room; collecting Tim’s coffee mugs, and Jason’s empty plate and coke bottle – no need to have Alfred do it if he was right here – and ambles slowly to the kitchen taking care not to drop the dishes or disturb his ribs.

Placing the dishes away, Bruce leans heavily on the counter. Mind whirling, analyzing, and connecting the information as he has always done, however, it battles for dominance over the present, persistent, migraine. His body screams for more rest, and as much as he wishes to dig to the bottom of these problems right now, he trusts Dick has given him an accurate read of the situation. Later he can pry information from the girls, maybe they’ll have a less biased view of Damian’s… friend than his sons do.

He flicks the lights off in the kitchen, for now though, he’s heading back to sleep.

-line break-

A nap, a full meal, and hours later, the pitch black of the night concealed a heavier storm than the light drizzle which draped over the manor earlier in the day. Bruce, knowing damn well he wasn’t fit for patrol, sat in his office, a bottle of forty-year whisky perched next to a crystalline tumbler and a box of chocolates. A minor indulgence, especially as he should stay far away from alcohol at the moment. But if he hadn’t died from insane nutcases, aliens, or his children’s antics, mixing medicine and alcohol probably wouldn’t kill him.

Bruce snapshots a picture of the newspaper Alfred gave him this morning.

The front-page cover contains enough of the story to showcase the significant amount of drama his children had caused.

He texts the images to both Diana and Clark.

All he adds is, ‘I always know, and I’m always right.’

He pours another finger of the amber liquid into his glass and swirls it around as the computer turns on. Just because he wasn’t out and about, didn’t mean he intended to take the night off. Bruce stretches his fingers and opens up a blank case file template.

Time to find out who exactly is Marinette Dupain-Cheng. 

[peppersonironi]

Duke Thomas VS The "Good Child" Stereotype Chapter Three

Wooo! Chapter Two (not including the prologue) is up now for my @dukethomasbigbang fic! Today's art is by @a-sketchy-character and you can find the glorious piece HERE

thx again to my betas @queerbutstillhere & @theycallme-ook

Today has a special thanks to @batgirls-appreciation who dropped out as a beta, but this chapter couldn't exist without her!

Summary:

Duke pursed his lips, not quite sure why Cass had come down to the basement, only to look into his soul, shrug, and leave. But that didn’t matter right now. As Bruce would say, “The mission comes first.”

Read on Ao3

Duke frowned down at his empty pad of paper, trying to brainstorm. It had been a mere twelve hours since the failed Rick Roll (though, the Rick Roll itself wasn’t a fail. Duke would be daydreaming about the chaos for years to come), and the day shift bat was itching for a way to make up for it.

Alas, the creative juices were not flowing that day. Duke had tried everything - taking a walk, training, meditation, writer’s sprint, and even resorting to watching prank compilations on YouTube. But nothing worked. So, he found himself watching the target Bat - Bruce - in his “natural habitat.”

Also known as the living room, mid lecture.

“But I don’t know what I did!” Tim pleaded desperately, trying to convey to Bruce his confusion.

Bruce shook his head. “No, you do, Tim. Dick told me you all will appeal to my affection to get out of the consequences for your actions -” wow, Duke remembered Dick using that exact tactic just yesterday, and it worked - “So I will not allow you to shirk the punishment.”

Tim groaned. “This is tyranny! I’m an emancipated minor, I don’t need to deal with this.”

“Actually, yes you do. You will be doing chores for Alfred for the next two weeks, and you aren’t allowed to run off to Mount Justice.”

“Then at least tell me what I did wrong!” Tim cried, throwing his hands up in the air. Bruce rubbed his temples, then glanced briefly at Duke.

“You know what you did, and how it affected those around you. And you’re grounded because of it. No room for arguments. Now go work on the sprinklers, Alfred has mentioned they’ve been finicky.”

Tim scoffed and stalked out, soon after followed by Bruce.

Duke considered relocating as well - he couldn’t very well observe Bruce if said wild furry wasn’t present. But something about that conversation that sent a light shiver up Duke’s spine, some small spark of inspiration.

An idea began to form in his mind, and Duke smiled slowly.

*****

“For all Bruce’s waxing poetic on the merits of high tech stuff, this pipe organization is seriously ancient,” Duke muttered under his breath as he glanced from the blueprints he had secured to the mess of pipes and spigots and nozzles in front of him.

Though to be fair, this wasn’t the Batcave. Duke was in the basement of Wayne Manor - yes, he was just as surprised to find they actually had one of those that wasn’t dedicated to the dark and mystique training of Gotham’s Protectors. And impromptu Mario Kart challenges, because as Tim had once told Duke “We all know that’s the real reason Bruce got a giant computer setup.”

Duke cursed softly under his breath when he dropped a wrench that began to clang around in the messy cage of metal. He set the blueprints aside atop the gallons of paint he had chosen, and reached around and down to get the wrench. When he came back up, he found himself face to face with his sister Cassandra.

Oh shit, Duke thought, as he tried to figure out how to cover for what he was doing in the plumbing of the Manor.

Cass squinted at him and, not for the first time, Duke felt like he was an onion trapped beneath her gaze, slowly being peeled back layer by layer till the young woman before him knew every little detail about him. Every thought or plan he ever had.

Duke began to sweat, unable to keep his panic under wraps. Cass was scarier than Bruce, that was just a fact.

Cass tilted her head a fraction of an inch, and Duke thought he was a dead man. But, much to his relief and confusion, Cass shrugged and turned. She walked lightheartedly out of the basement and to the stairs, whistling tunelessly as she went.

Duke pursed his lips, not quite sure why Cass had come down to the basement, only to look into his soul, shrug, and leave.

But that didn’t matter right now. As Bruce would say, “The mission comes first.”

*****

As all members of the Wayne family knew, the Library was one of the best places, period. Aside from the living room which was always a mess of pillows, bean bags, inflatable dinosaurs, spare semi-automatic weaponry and knives, the Library was the most personal room in the expansive home that was the Manor. Sure, it was cleaner and home to fewer surprise nerf gun fights, but It still had an air of warmth about it. It was the place that they would go to to rest after a difficult patrol. Where you could find Jason reading some book in a corner, Tim busy with WE work at the large table, Damian trying to teach Alfred the Cat and Titus to read picture books, Cass and Steph trying to be subtle about making out (though to be fair that was only half the time, other times Cass was working on reading with Steph helpfully giving her guidance). Dick would always be trying to decide what to read and but he would never actually succeed, Bruce would sit in his tall armchair in the corner overlooking every small detail of his children with a not-quick-smile-but-pretty-darn-close on his face.

Duke himself also had his own spot that he would work on writing poetry, or just surf Tumblr. It was a window seat at the far side of the library which was technically big enough for three people, but Duke had a strict policy that it was his and his alone and no he totally wasn’t bullied by Cass that one time to snuggle. Why on Earth would you ever consider such a thing?

It was in this spot now that Duke was situated, though he was not alone. Titus - yes, Damian’s dog - was draped across his lap. Now, Duke didn’t mean to steal his little brother’s pets, but it just happened. Titus was in need of snuggles or belly rubs when Damian was away with Jon or on patrol at night, and Duke just happened to be the only one that said canine could bully into granting him.

Thankfully, like all bats were, Duke was a multi-tasker. He wasn’t put off by having to scratch a dog behind the ears whilst simultaneously checking the twelve blinking dots on his laptop screen that represented his family members.

Duke stared intensely at the diagram of the Manor as all the dots slowed down and finally stayed in their predetermined positions. Huh, Tim was right. Stalking family members did pay off!

The dots suddenly stopped blinking, and Duke snapped out of his self congratulations. It was go time . He switched windows, then quickly pulled out his phone and pressed a button.

There were several screams that echoed throughout the ancient halls, those screams spoke of terror and surprise, and passed along the message that something was very, very wrong in the world. The status quo had been broken, and there was no returning from this.

Duke smirked down at his computer, where a dozen different squares displayed camera footage of the real time happenings of the Manor. Said footage was showing several members of Duke’s family drenched in paint. The same paint that Duke had meticulously divided and poured into the ceiling sprinkling system that the Manor had for some totally-not-plot-related reason. The same paint which had been primed and ready to be sprayed out of the spigots coating each bat with the perfectly calculated, even layer.

The paint had just finished being deployed, and yet several people were for some reason trying to fight it off like it was an attacker. Duke noticed that the swinging of bo staffs, AK-47’s and katanas were altogether unsuccessful. Honestly, the people who were standing completely still in shock, or who were trying to shake off the paint were having much better luck.

But then everyone finally realised that they weren’t being sprayed anymore, and a collective sigh spread out across the Manor. The onslaught was done, and they could finally gather together and grab the pitchforks to hunt down the responsible party.

It was then that the glitter was deployed.

The chaos immediately multiplied tenfold, and the screams sounded up again. The air was filled with the sparkly dust that was way too thin to swat away. (No, Duke totally didn’t spend extra time researching to find the world’s finest glitter)

Duke was outright laughing at this point, so hard that he almost fell off the window seat. Titus barked suddenly, and Duke sobered enough to get back upright and watch the finishing up of the chaos. He had to admit, this felt wonderful. If he had to describe his current state of thrill in two words, he would have admitted that he felt altogether too close to the Hellmo Meme.

Unfortunately, Duke was not Stephanie, and ran out of glitter eventually. The vents stopped blasting the film of fairy dust, and the bats were given a reprieve.

Though the break was short lived, as just then, Bruce’s loud bellow sounded throughout the giant house.

“ALL OF YOU GET IN HERE!”

Duke chuckled as he scooched Titus over and set his laptop to the side so he could get up. This was all working perfectly! He’d arrive at Bruce's interrogation completely free from all paint or glitter, which would immediately prove his guilt. And if that didn’t work, then he supposed he could outright confess. But that wasn’t the point of this. The point was for Bruce to come to the conclusion on his own.

He walked down the hall, completely carefree. So happy and confident in his own abilities that he never even noticed that Cassandra’s paint or glitter didn’t go off. That she wasn’t even present where the tracker he had subtly placed on her earlier that day said she was.

*****

Duke hummed to himself as he skipped along the carpet, past the antique vases and random finger paintings, past the drawing rooms and bathrooms, and towards Bruce. All was quiet.

Though that began to trouble Duke, as he got closer to one of the rooms which was very special. It was where Cass had been situated, playing with Selina’s cat Isis, for the past hour. Now, Cassandra was quiet, sure. But not that quiet. And besides, wouldn’t the cat be screeching right about now? Cass didn’t seem like the person to give a nerve hit to an animal just because it was being loud ( cough Jason cough ).

He slowly entered the room and looked around, but was surprised to find it completely empty. Not just of girl and cat, but of paint and glitter too.

“You were mistaken.”

Duke whirled around to find Cass sitting in an armchair, wrapped in shadows, and stroking Isis in a manner not altogether different from that of an Evil Mastermind™.

“Uh…” Duke replied, “about what?”

Cass smirked, and Duke felt a shiver run up his spine. “Actions have consequences. ”

Duke frowned. Wait, what? He glanced around again, trying to figure out what Cass meant. On a surface level he understood, but there was something about the way Cass was eyeing him that told him something else was up.

The only thing he could find that was out of the ordinary, however, was the camera he had placed just yesterday. Huh, now that he thought about it, he was at just the right angle to see it. Which meant he was in direct view of the camera itself. Pretty darn to close to where he had been planning Cass would stand, actually.

Then a faint spitting noise came from above him.

Oh.

*****

Duke trudged forlornly into the room where the rest of the bats - except Cassandra, who had disappeared after the glitter had deployed onto Duke - had gathered. He was one of the last to arrive, muttering curses under his breath, so all eyes were on him as he opened the door and joined them.

Though that also meant that Duke could see them. He had to admit, that as disappointed as he was, it was still hard to keep a grin from spreading across his face. Boy, he had done a great job with color coordination, hadn’t he?

Bruce was front and center, covered in a dark gray paint which had the sheen of yellow glitter. Dick had black paint completely covering him (much more than Duke planned. Did Dick roll in the stuff?) along with blue glitter. Jason had both red paint and glitter on him. Tim had started off with a lighter colored paint - this time red - and then the look was finished by black glitter. Damian looked like a small Christmas tree in his green paint and red glitter. Harper had blue paint then covered in purple glitter, both of which were the exact shades of her hair. Duke wasn’t a monster ; he knew how to match colors.

The cousins - both honorary and actually - had also been present. Bette had been appropriately targeted with a flaming orange and gold combination. Kate had black paint and, instead of red, Duke had picked a rainbow glitter for her. From the slight glint in her eye, Duke supposed he had chosen correctly. Jean-Paul had been doused in yellow paint and red glitter, and he honestly looked like a very large and human shaped version of his sword. Luke was covered in silver paint and an electric blue glitter.

Bruce, however, didn’t give Duke a second glance, covered in yellow paint and black glitter (which had been meant for Cass, but honestly, it fit Duke quite well), though he was.

“Good, now we just have to wait for Steph,” Tim remarked, rolling his eyes.

Duke frowned. “What about Cass? She’s here too.”

Everyone gave Duke a weird look. “Uh, no she isn’t. She’s been hanging out with Selina and Babs all weekend.”

“Then your intel is wrong,” Duke countered. “She was just here! I planned on her being here!”

The silence in the room was palpable. Before, where there had been bickering and accusations, the quiet had taken over. Everyone stared at Duke with suspicion in their eyes.

Finally, Duke thought, sighing in relief.

Bruce opened his mouth about to question Duke’s statement when the doors to the room banged open.

“What’s up, Bitches? The Waffle Queen has arrived and looks as fabulous as ever!”

Duke stared, completely amazed that she actually seemed to like the purple on purple combo Duke had picked for her. Oh, yeah, now that he thought about it made perfect sense that Steph was the only one to like this.

“Wow, whoever did this really got my colors right!" Steph continued as she waltzed in and posed in front of everyone, her hip cocked and arm thrown up dramatically.

Bruce’s eyes narrowed, and he began to growl at her. “This is not funny.”

Steph pouted. “What do you mean? I sure think it is!”

Oh boy, she didn’t notice she was digging her own grave, did she? From the looks of the other bats, they shared Duke’s sentiment.

“Stephanie Brown, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Stephanie smirked. “Yup! I look way better than you, you old fur- hey wait! Are you blaming me ?!”

Bruce glared even harder, and Stephanie started to protest, claiming that she was but an innocent victim of these pain-filled proceedings! It was not her fault! Nor was it her fault that she happened to get colors that she liked better than everyone else.

Bruce refused to hear what she said, and told her to go get changed. “You will be cleaning up this whole mess, and no patrolling until it’s done.”

Bruce turned and stalked out, and Steph was left speechless - for once - in the hall. She backed away, seeing the angry stares from the others. The only one who didn’t seem mad at her, was Duke himself. He opened his eyes wide, conveying pity. “I’m sorry,” he mouthed silently.

Instead of being reassuring, however, Steph squinted in suspicion. Oh shit, that probably hadn’t been the best move.

Just moments after Steph left, Jason threw up his hands. “Okay, who wants to have a water gun fight to clean off?”

There were several cheers of assent, but Duke quickly made his own escape at that time. He honestly wasn’t in the mood to get splashed in the face with water. Now was not the time for fun, as the failed prank still hung over him.

Now was the time for plotting.

*****

“Okay, but why on earth do you have a fully functioning sprinkler system in every room?”

“Yeah, Bruce, even for you that’s paranoid! What caused you to think that was necessary?”

“You.”

[schweeeppess]

walk slow through the fire

__

Dick walked down the alley, hood pulled over his head, hands in his pockets, lollipop poking out between his lips, gun holstered on his thigh. 

He hummed as he walked, ignoring the water that would splash on his shoe when he stepped in some of the countless puddles in the alley. 

After twenty minutes of walking through the winding and crossing back-alleys of Gotham City, Dick paused next to an abandoned building and craned his neck back to look up at a window several feet above him. It was closed, like it always is, and there were no possible ways of entering the building through it aside from rappelling from the roof.

Unless you’re Dick Grayson.

Spitting out the lollipop stick, Dick double-checked the holster at his hip to make sure the gun was secured, then looked back up at the window and rubbed his gloved hands together. 

“Up I go,” he mumbled. He walked a few steps back, then took a running start at the wall under the window, jumping up to kick off of it onto the wall of the brick building directly across from it, which he kicked off of with his other foot. He repeated the kick-off motion until he could reach the window. 

Once he was grabbing onto the windowsill, he let his legs dangle in the air for a few seconds, then leaned his arm completely on the small sill to free his other hand up to push the window open, then once it was open wide enough, he pulled himself inside the rest of the way and fell a few feet onto the walkway under the window. 

Smiling, he grabbed the pole resting against the wall they used to close the window whenever they came in through it.

After the window was closed, Dick set the pole back down, dug a hand into the pocket of his jeans, grabbed a lollipop, took the wrapper off, stuck it in his mouth, then turned to start walking down the walkway for his room.

Dick admired the holiday lights that were strung on the walls and hung off the exposed rafters of the high ceiling to the outwardly decrepit building, shining bright even though it was the middle of February, that he’d put up years ago when they first moved into the building. Gradually, as the years passed, and when they returned to the building for work or vacationing, he’d added more of different kinds. 

Now it looked like a teenager’s aesthetic dream. 

Tim walked out of his room, apparently reading a book in his hands, and started walking in the direction Dick was coming from. He paused three steps in and turned to face the railing, putting a finger in the book to keep his place as he closed it, then swinging himself over and to the main floor of the building with a “Welcome back, Dick,” as he did. When he hit the ground, he rolled once then stood and resumed reading his book as he walked to the kitchen area. 

Dick smiled and lifted a hand in a half-hearted salute to his brother, who wouldn’t have seen it even if he weren’t reading the book since the kitchen was perpendicular to Dick’s position.

Tim was smart, and incredibly so. His nose was always buried in a book. Whether it was about psychology or three teenagers taking a spaceship for a joyride through the galaxy together, Tim would read it. He had a sort of fascination with fictional stories, almost obsessing over the skill a writer must have to create an entire world for others to enjoy and play in; to create an entire universe several thousands of people could visit whenever they wanted. He liked to balance his reading of fiction with his reading of education, though, buying—or stealing, whichever was most convenient—books about criminology and psychology whenever he had the chance to. 

Tim was as avid with his training as he was with his reading, spending hours in the training room with several different weapons and practicing different fighting styles. There were times where Tim was a normal young adult, early into his twenties—and, therefore, adulthood, though he’d technically been an adult since his third kill—when he would talk and ramble about a subject for hours or days. He could tell you three facts about disassembling a car’s engine in minutes without pausing to catch breath.

Killing people, for Tim, was just as impersonal as it was for Jason. They didn’t care about what they were doing. Tim was the youngest to be sent to complete field training, assigned to be instructed by Rose through it. He’d been groomed for this practice since early childhood. It made sense that he would be the youngest at nine years old. 

His choice in weapons mattered as much to Tim as it would to an elephant if you put a wide array of them before it. Ranged or not, Tim didn’t care. He would work with whatever he was provided, be it a pencil, a stapler, or a metal baseball. The job was in the end, just a job. Nothing more, and nothing less.

On the way to his room, Dick passed Jason’s. The door to his brother’s room was open, so Dick paused outside of it to poke his head inside to check on his brother.

Jason was in the middle of securing the straps of his uniform and raised a brow when he looked up and saw Dick standing there. 

“Back already?” he asked, returning his attention to his task and kneeling down on one knee to secure his boots. 

“Yep,” Dick replied casually, popping the ‘p’ as he spoke around the lollipop and leaned on the doorframe. “Going out so soon?”

Jason nodded, straightening and turning to his weapons drawer. 

“Yeah.” He selected two katanas, a handful of throwing knives, and a hunter’s blade, then tucked the weapons in their respective holsters strapped to his person. 

Dick took notice of the weapons type and inquired, “Political deal?”

Again Jason nodded. “Apparently, the dude paid a generous amount of cash for this to be done perfectly. It’s some judge’s… something, I don’t know, maybe a rival. He or she wants us to make sure that the kill isn’t traceable to them. I have to make it look personal, like someone in the guy’s inner circle did it.”

Humming, Dick nodded this time and left to let his little brother finish prepping for his assignment.

Jason was the one to go to if you needed a professional kill of a political or high-order business caliber. He could manage any kind of undercover op like he’d been raised in the environment he needed to infiltrate. If it was a crime organization deal, he almost was raised in the environment. Really, they all were, Dick supposed.

Out of the three brothers, Jason was second youngest to be allowed out for training, having been only ten when he went out to begin field training with Grant. If asked, his brothers would tell you Jason had no styles or weapon of preference, but they knew otherwise. Jason’s favorite weapons were his sniper rifle, that he’d been customizing himself since he was thirteen, and his kris blade, that he’d been gifted at sixteen. 

He, like Tim, didn’t have any sort of personal preference for ranged or melee weapons. Their jobs were impersonal no matter the details of them. In the end, for Jason and Tim, they were just assignments. As far as they were concerned, there was nothing to hesitate over. They weren’t killing people. They were earning money.

It was a dangerous mentality for anyone to have, but it was a realistic one for their line of business. Get too involved in a job and it would be your downfall.

Stopping by Damian’s door, Dick decided to check in on his youngest brother and knocked on the teen’s door.

“Enter.”

Twisting the doorknob and opening the door, Dick walked into the room and sat in the chair to Damian’s desk, arms leaning on the back of it and chin resting on his folded arms.

“Welcome back, Richard.”

Damian was sitting cross-legged on his bed, swiping through whatever screens he was looking at on his tablet. On the nightstand beside the bed was a steaming bowl of noodles with chopsticks resting on the lip of the bowl. The food didn’t look touched, and Dick knew his little brother would continue to neglect the meal unless someone reminded him it was there.

“Thanks kiddo,” he said, reaching to move the lollipop in his mouth between his molars, then biting down hard until he felt it break. Dick continued to chew loudly on the lollipop until Damian huffed and shifted the tablet to an acceptable position in his lap, then reached blindly for the bowl of noodles until he grabbed it and brought it close to his chest.

Brow furrowed and eyes scanning the page his tablet was on, Damian started eating his food.

Satisfied, Dick nodded and stood, walking to the trash bin in Damian’s room and depositing the stick of the now-eaten lollipop into it. 

“Your task passed without hindrance?” Damian asked between bites. 

“It did,” Dick answered. He walked over to the bed to ruffle Damian’s hair—earning a half-hearted tsk—before heading to resume the walk for his room. 

Damian was a good kid. If he didn’t have his eyes glued to the tablet reading up on their past completed assignments, he was either on the phone with a friend or his contractor, or in the training room perfecting his strategies and further honing sharp skills. He had a few sketchbooks lying around, almost more than half of them filled with menial little nothings that he found interesting. Damian drew with an artistic skill that he translated over to his fighting style, almost surgical with the brushes and strokes of his swords.

Unlike Jason and Tim, who were both skilled with both guns and blades, Damian’s primary weapons were bladed ones. He had a double edged sword among a wide variety of other, much rarer blades. The weapons were far more personal than any gun could be, and those were the only kinds of jobs Damian did, even since he was twelve and first allowed out to begin field training with Joseph. 

Dick admired his brothers and their unique preferences. 

In the hall he saw Jason stepping out of his room, black domino secured to his face.

“You eat yet?” Dick asked, pausing.

Jason scoffed. “I’m the only one with normal eating habits here; ‘course I did, you dunce.”

Dick nodded and Jason jogged off to leave for his job.

Now that he’d checked on all three of his brothers, however briefly with Tim, Dick could go to his room and be at peace. 

Opening the door and stepping into his room, Dick looked around briefly to make sure it was empty before closing the door behind him and removing the gun at his thigh—the only weapon he’d chosen to take with him for the short and easy job of taking out some random street thugs. The assignment had taken five minutes to complete once Dick had arrived at the designated location. Normally it would be called embarrassingly quick, for seven gang members, but it was almost expected since it was Dick who had killed them—not that anyone but him, his brothers, his trainer, and his contractor would know it.

He deposited the gun on his dresser and began to change out of the casual street wear, dropping the clothes into the hamper by the bathroom door as he headed to take a shower and wash Gotham off of him.

Dick wasn’t as secure in his identity as a killer as his younger brothers were. If you asked Tim why, he’d tell you it was a psychological matter; a hesitation in him that he’d gotten from his eight years living with acrobats in the circus. They’d raised him to be a good man, a good person—had taught him good civilian values and morals.

But his time with them had been cut short by a man by the name of Tony Zucco. Maybe if he’d stayed with them into adulthood, Dick would’ve been different. He wouldn’t have gone down the route he had, would’ve stayed with Haly’s Circus and become a master acrobat there.

It just wasn’t how his story had played out, though.

His weapons of choice were all guns. Blades made kills personal in a way Dick could never handle. Guns were impersonal. You could kill someone from fifty feet away with a gun, you didn’t need to get up close and be a foot away from the victim.

Victim. Even the word he used to describe the people they killed humanized and personalized them. To his brothers, they weren’t victims, they were assignments. 

But in Dick’s grey-stained eyes, they were victims.

As the warm water washed his sin off in red rivulets, Dick closed his eyes to the blood, like he always did. He couldn’t watch the blood drip from his hands—which were only stained because he always dug the bullets out of any bodies they got caught in. He couldn’t answer the question of why he did it if he was asked honestly. He’d lie. It was just his job to now.

His shower ended fifteen minutes later, and Dick stared up at the ceiling, thinking about meaningless hypotheticals. Like how different his life would’ve been if he’d stayed with his parents, how different his life would be if Haly had paid the protection money, how different his life would be if he hadn’t been taken in by the men he had been.

Maybe the multiverse is real, he thought to himself, staring at the lights hanging above him like they were stars. And maybe in one of them I’m a hero.

Two seconds later he scoffed at the idea.

His hands were made for killing.

....but what if they weren’t?

And what if fish were made for flying?

[violetnemerald]

Locked In

Hi this is my first ever Tumblr fic, please give me feedback and prompts 

Also this is a prompt from the 2019 damirae week that I took over a year to edit/ finish. Hope you enjoy it 

The sound of shoes hitting the metal steps echoed through the batcave. The dark haired woman descended the staircase as slowly as she could, a box, of Damian’s things, in hand. Raven glanced down at the various throwing knives and batarangs inside. It was some of the only things he left at Titan’s Tower. The metals clanking together creating another noise in the otherwise empty space.

Just at the bottom of the stairs sat Damian Wayne typing away on the batcomputer. Over thirty different windows had been pulled up on the computer, which was a tell that he had his face in the screen for hours. Damian was using up every second of the day to continue his research in hopes of keeping himself distracted. Distracting himself from the fight he knew was bound to happen between him and his girlfriend. Through the corner of his eye he saw her standing there.

Across the way Raven stood waiting for him to turn, unfortunately for her, he made no effort to. She drew in the corner of her lip and bit it out of frustration. Looking at him ignoring her only made her madder. She could feel the anger boiling down deep inside. It was small but still there was a tiny flame waiting for its accelerent. Raven cleared her throat attempting to get a hold of Damian’s attention, which she very well knew she had as soon as she walked in the room. He was just good at hiding it, hiding his emotions and his shock that she was even there at the batcave.

Damian didn’t even move to look at her. Frustration growing more and more by the second Raven tried it a second time this time louder and with a bit more attitude. Unable to attempt to ignore her any longer, Damian pushed back off the desk and slightly turned the chair to face the woman a few feet away. He leaned back in the chair hands grasping the arms of the chair while the corners of his lips drew into a smug smile. The only thing Raven knew in that moment was that she was gonna have to start the conversation, because no matter how wrong Damian Wayne was he was always too stubborn to admit it.

A surprise to both of them Damian was the first to speak. The smug smile left his face just long enough to get out the words, “What do you have there?”

“Your shit that you left at the tower.” Looking directly into Damian’s eyes she released her grasp of the box allowing it slam onto the desk right next to her. Not even the sound of the metals hitting one another on impact could break the intense stare they shared. Raven’s semi-peaceful state was melting away with each second she looked into his emerald eyes. She could feel the warmth of anger overtaking her body. She had so many things to say to him but didn’t know how to put them into words.

Raven debated saying anything at all. As much as she wanted to scream and yell at him she knew if she did she may not be able to control herself. Instead of fighting Raven whipped around breaking the stare. Just for a moment she paused contemplating if she should really leave or stay. She drew in a long breath as her eyelids fell softly. She let out the breath as she took a step forward.

In a matter of seconds Damian was out of his chair. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but nothing came out. The truth was he didn’t know what to say either. He dropped his hand which he didn’t even realise he had reached towards her when he jumped from his seated position. The Wayne child let his head fall backward leaving him to stare at the ceiling.

Raven was close to the door only to be startled as a large heavy door was dropped from the ceiling. The door, in place, slid its locks into place. “What the hell is going on?” Raven questioned as she whipped around to Damian who was once again typing away on the computer.

Brushing off Raven’s question he kept typing away at the batcomputer. All he could focus on now was the screen in front of him flashing through lockdown protocols.

“Damian I know you heard me. What the hell-”

“We’re locked in.” Damian huffed out in frustration to himself, then clearer and slightly louder, “We are locked in.” Damian slammed his fist into the table. Groaning he ran his fingers through his hair tugging a little at the end. Raven felt the frustration radiating off him. It wasn’t  her favorite emotion emitted from him but it was one she was fairly used to. In fact every time she brought up the matter of him leaving Titan’s Tower she felt the frustration as he would walk past her and dismiss the conversation entirely. Raven knew she shouldn’t ask but she was just curious as to why he did leave. Sure it would start a fight that neither knew if they could finish but it would lead to answers and that was the only reason Raven needed.

“Can you fix it? I wish to leave.” Raven said sass laced into her tone. It wasn’t exactly the words or the tone she thought would leave her mouth. Her subconscious had taken control of her mouth and it was looking for a fight.

“You think if I could fix it I wouldn’t have already.” Damian fired at her. “I’m in no mood to be locked in anywhere with you at the moment. You shouldn’t be here.” He turned facing her, green eyes meeting violet eyes. Raven raised one eyebrow in disgust. He did not just say that, she thought. They both were itching for the fight, so why not give in. Raven scoffed and proceeded to let her mouth fly.

“Oh I’m sorry I was returning your stuff. Stuff that you left at the tower when you left the titans and me.” The last word took Damian by surprise but not enough to lessen the intensity of his next words.

“One, I didn’t ask you to bring that stuff. Two, I didn’t leave you.”

“Really so when were you going to tell me that you were leaving?”

“Honestly I don’t see the big deal in it.”

She felt the anger, once a tiny flame, overtake her torso and extending towards her fingers. As the flame reached her fingers it manifested into energy that surged in her hand. Letting it release into the far side of the cave, it found its way to a bunch of gadgets laying sporadically on a shelving unit. The shelving unit itself went flying while the gadgets dropped creating a path from where the shelves started to where it hit the wall. Despite the loud sounds made by metals hitting metals or the shelves hitting the wall, neither of them bothered to look away to see what it was that it hit. The two were so deep in their stare down that any slight movement meant weakness that the other would surely jump at.

“It’s not a big deal.” Damian stood there as she drew herself closer to him. “It doesn’t kill you to think of me walking away without talking to you first. It doesn’t feel like you are no longer loved or cared for as you watch yet another person leaves you behind because that’s how I felt. You were quick to pack up and get the hell out of there. You didn’t, and still haven't bothered to tell me why you moved out, but honestly I don’t care at this point. I guess I should have expected a clean cut from an al Ghul.”

In one swift action Damian moved to stand over her, anger radiating in the little space between them. They both knew she pushed the right button to get through to him. Raven could feel his heated breath. He was too close. Despite her showing nothing but anger towards him on the outside, Raven was breaking on the inside. She could feel the pooling of tears in her eyes. There was just enough to threaten spilling over but it never actually did. Now that he was close enough, Damian could watch as her eyes glazed over, not that he was willing to show it but seeing her like that was breaking him just the same. He just wanted this whole stupid situation over.

Slowly Damian’s face moved closer to Raven’s, he paused his lips just centimeters from her’s. Raven wasn’t sure if this was an intimidation tactic or an effort to reconcile, nor did she care what he meant by it, she wasn’t going to stand down. Damian tried so hard to continue looking into her eyes, although the closeness of their lips was too tempting for him not to steal a glance. Once again looking into deep purple eyes he felt all his anger disappear. Various words danced around his head as he waited to find the right ones.

“I’m sorry.” After the words left his lips he took a deep breath. “I never meant to hurt you, nor do I plan on leaving you.” These were the last things to come out as he crashed his lips into hers.

Just outside the locked entrance Dick, Jason, Tim, and Cass all stood around a computer watching the scene happening in the batcave. Once the alarm sounded Dick pulled up the security camera footage, to see what may have caused the alarm. Upon finding Damian and Raven trapped inside Dick called out to anyone around, so they could enjoy Raven screaming at Damian together. The four ended up watching the whole thing from the very first word to the moment after the two teens released and ended up in a protective embrace. Jason nudged Dick’s shoulder, “Good call on locking them in until they figured it out.” Dick spun in the chair until he was facing the rest of them.

“I didn’t trigger the lock down.” With this new information, Tim shoved Dick out of the way as he typed away on the computer.

“Son of a bitch triggered it himself.” The four looked at each other impressed by their brother. Before anything else could happen, Cass deleted the tapes and turned off the computer leaving the boys fidgeting to restore the footage.

[huilian]

it only takes a taste

AO3

Characters: Alfred Pennyworth, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Cassandra Cain, Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne

Summary: 

“Be careful with the knives, Master Jason.” Dick, even as he concentrates on making sure the tofu slices are precisely the same thickness, can practically see Jason turning in disbelief. “I use knives every day, Alfred. I can handle mincing garlic!”

-The family cooks together.

A/N: it's practically inspired by all the times I'm helping my mom cook now because of quarantine. call this a Li'l Gotham continuity, shall we? title from waitress!

***

“Be careful with the knives, Master Jason.” 

Dick, even as he concentrates on making sure the tofu slices are precisely the same thickness, can practically see Jason turning in disbelief. “I use knives every day, Alfred. I can handle mincing garlic!” 

“Of course, Master Jason. A force of habit. I apologize.” Likewise, Dick can hear the smile in Alfred’s voice. He knows the butler is ecstatic to have all of them under the same roof. He just won’t say it, what with his Britishness. 

Dick lets it wash over him, along with all the other noises his various siblings are making. If he paid attention to every single one of it, there’ll be no finishing his task from Alfred. And Dick shudders to think what Alfred would do if he didn’t execute the slicing of the tofu perfectly. Probably look at him in that very disappointed frown. It’s worse than the Bat-glare™ (copyright still pending).

Dick is sure that Jason is going to say something back, but before he can do that, Tim cries out. That got Dick’s attention. Tim is usually perfectly decent in the kitchen. 

“Tim? Are you okay?” Dick says. He quickly scans Tim over for injuries, but there seems to be none. The only thing out of order is the cloud of steam coming from behind Tim. But isn’t Tim frying the fish? Where is the steam coming from?

“I’ll handle that, Master Timothy.” Alfred effortlessly transfers the spatula and the bowl Tim is holding to himself. Tim relinquishes his spot behind the pan readily. “I forgot about your… apprehensiveness with hot oil. My apologies.”.

“Thanks, Alfred,” Tim smiles sheepishly. “It’s always scary, no matter how many times I’ve done it.” 

“You’ve let the oil grow far too hot, Master Timothy. No…” 

Damian cuts in. “Scary? I know you’re a coward, Drake, but I didn’t know you’re scared of oil.” 

“Shut up!” Tim flicks his batter-covered hands towards Damian. Damian lets out offended noises as the batter hits him straight in the face. “You try frying this. It’ll scare you too!” 

Damian clicks his tongue, in a way that is very reminiscent of Talia. He wipes the batter of his face, while saying, “It’s fish.” 

“So?” That was Jason. Apparently he feels the need to barge into any and every disagreement Tim and Damian have in his presence. Dick doesn’t know why. Dick doesn’t want to know why. 

“I’m a vegetarian, Todd.” Damian pauses, then sneers. “Of course, a heathen like you won’t understand.” 

“A heathen?” Jason says. And… that’s Dick’s cue to ignore them. The three of them are going to argue it out, now, and Dick doesn’t actually want to listen to them have this argument for god knows how many times. At least when it’s about petty insults, there’s little chance of it actually going to a full-blown fight. There’s Alfred here. They wouldn’t dare. 

Dick goes back to slicing his tofu. Alfred is definitely going to give his disappointed frown to his younger brothers by the end of this, and Dick does not want to also be receiving it. 

A hand slides into one of the bowls next to Dick. One of the bowls full of ingredients Dick had just sliced up. Dick waits until the hand is near his field of vision again, then reaches out to swat it. The hand dodges. Of course. 

“Stop stealing the food, Cass,” Dick scolds half-heartedly. He looks up to see, as expected, Cass standing next to him with a pout on her face. 

“We’ll eat it anyway,” she complains. 

“You won’t eat dried ramen and then drink boiling water, would you?” Dick asks. Cass shrugs. Oh no. Dick forgets that Cass is the type of person who would actually do that. He quickly backtracks. “Never mind. Aren’t you supposed to be mixing the batter for the cake?” 

“Done.” 

“So you decided to come here and steal the fruits of my labor?” 

Cass shrugs again. “It’s not labor. You’re just cutting them up.” Dick opens his mouth to retort. He’s proud that Cass discovered sarcasm, but not when it’s directed at him, thank you very much. “Besides, there’s a free show going on.” Cass points towards their younger brothers, who are still arguing. 

Dick snorts. “Try breaking some of their arguments, and see if you’ll still call it a show.” 

“It’s entertaining.” 

Okay, Dick has to give it to Cass. By that standard, the arguments would be classified as a show. Dick cuts the remainder of his tofu, puts the (evenly sized, thank you very much) tofu slices into a bowl, and turns to fully watch the argument. When he doesn’t have to break it up, it is pretty entertaining. 

A few seconds later, Bruce walks into the kitchen. Dick sees it, then dismisses it. There’s no cause of alarm with Bruce coming into the kitchen. 

Tim, apparently, thinks otherwise. He throws the spoon that’s still in his hand towards Bruce, while screaming “No!” from the top of his lungs. 

The argument comes into a stop. Bruce dodges the spoon, because this family is full of expert dodgers, then also comes into a stop. 

“What?” Bruce says dazedly. 

“You’re banned from the kitchen, Bruce! Out!” Tim points towards the door. “Out!” he says again, when all Bruce does is stand there confusedly. 

“Tim?” Bruce frowns. 

“You’re banned. I still remember that tuna sandwich. Out!” 

“What tuna sandwich, Timbo?” Jason asks. 

“Do not remind me of that. Out, Bruce, out!” 

“I demand to know about this tuna sandwich incident, Drake!” 

Tim turns to Damian.“What did I just say? Don’t remind me of it.” Then he turns back to Bruce, with a fury in his eyes the likes Dick only sees when Tim is fighting with Ra’s al Ghul. “Out!” 

Bruce just stands there. Looking lost. Dick is content to let this play out. After all, like Cass says, it’s a free show. 

Alfred, on the other hand, calmly turns off the stove, then walks towards Bruce. Bruce turns to him, a look of relief on his face. That is, until Alfred says, “I’m afraid I have to agree with Master Timothy, Master Bruce.” 

The face that Bruce makes is priceless. Dick has to ask Babs for footage later. He hasn’t seen Bruce look so betrayed, not even when the entire Justice League turns on him. 

“What?” Bruce says again. 

“It means please kindly wait in the sitting room until dinner is served, Master Bruce,” Alfred answers in that calm but resolute tone of his. It’s a tone that brooks no argument. Not from any of them. Including Bruce.

Bruce looks towards Alfred, then towards Tim, then towards Alfred again, before sighing and accepting defeat. He walks out of the kitchen, muttering under his breath. Alfred nods, then walks calmly back to the stove and resumes his frying. 

Jason doesn’t even wait until Bruce left the room to laugh. Tim smiles smugly. Damian just looks confused. 

Cass, who stays in his side throughout the entire scene, also content to just watch, says, “Free show.” 

Dick flicks her on the head. She dodges, then laughs. This family, Dick swears. 

[bigskydreaming]

Imagine that Dick and Jason liiiiiive to synchronize their Let’s Be Shits schedules just in time for any posh gala the Wayne children are expected to attend.

Some Douchebag is like “So, Richard. What is it you do, these days?”

And Dick just plasters on the most vacuous smile in existence, like the kind that could only be engineered in a lab by combining Brucie with a Colgate commercial for sparkling teeth, special effects included.

And he’s like, “Oh, I’m an instagram model and social influencer.”

And then Jason appears out of nowhere, swaying on his feet and throwing an arm around Dick’s shoulder as if to support himself, hiccuping a little and splashing some of his wine over the edge of his glass (its apple juice, of course).

“So am I,” he says, punctuating with another hiccup. “But only like. Ironically.”

Dick leans in towards the Douchebag as if to confide a secret, as the latter tries to lean away whilst still figuring out what expression his face wants to produce. 

“He keeps saying that like it means something, but I’m not sure it does. I think he saw it on a youtube video and just started copying it. That’s not copyright infringement right? Bruce’ll probably be pissed if he has to pay out another lawsuit for copyright stuff after I just got in trouble for trying to sell tickets to my band’s show without getting permission to use all the songs we did. Like, how was I supposed to know you needed permission to sing songs? Isn’t this, like. America?”

The Douchebag starts stammering and attempting to edge gracefully away - hell, he’ll settle for not gracefully, he really was never even looking for an answer in the first place, just a soundbite he could reenact for his snobby friends later. This was more than he was actually prepared for.

Jason meanwhile surges forward and grabs a hold of Douchebag’s suited arm, acting like he still needs the support.

“Hey. It does so mean something, and I came up with it on my own, I didn’t steal shit. If I was going to steal stuff, I’d go for the silver, not words, how dumb do you think I am? He’s always doing this,” he complains to the Douchebag. 

“Just because I didn’t start school until the sixth grade and had to bribe our little brother to take all my tests for me, he acts like I don’t even know what words mean. But he’s the one who only passed his senior year of high school by getting Playgirl to do a photoshoot of him when he turned eighteen just before finals, and then most of his teachers just made sure he passed so they wouldn’t feel pervy because they’d gone gaga over his photos and then he got held back a year and they had to see him every day and feel sketchy.” 

Dick spreads his arms wide as if an extremely self-explanatory point has just been made.

“Hello? Is that, or is that not, a display of genius?”

“Really, I do have to be going, I think I see my old business partner waving at me from over there - “ the Douchebag says somewhat desperately. 

“Dammit Jay, look what you did.” Dick wails dramatically. He even stomps a foot for good measure. Jason’s struggling not to laugh. “You’re embarrassing us in front of one of Bruce’s guests. Now he thinks we’re low class and its going to be all over the news and this is gonna be the last straw and Bruce’ll get fed up and say we can never go to these things again and its going to be all your fault and none of this would ever happen if you weren’t always like. Ugh. What’s the word.”

The Douchebag is hastily assuring them he doesn’t think they’re embarrassing or low class and he’s not going to tell anyone otherwise, while still trying to pry his jacket sleeve loose from Jason’s iron grip. Jason meanwhile appears oblivious to anything the Douchebag says or does, as he fixates on his brother and starts waving his own arms around dramatically....which sends Douchebag stumbling in the process, all without either brother seeming to notice.

“Well I’m sure I can’t help you, since I don’t know words so good,” Jason hisses equally dramatically. “I’m just a fucking dumbass from the Narrows, isn’t that right. I’m not some fancy circus boy like you were, all I had to practice reading on as a kid was my rap sheet.”

He moves to fling his arms over his head in exasperation, and tears the Douchebag’s suit sleeve with a resounding ripping noise in the process. Douchebag stares at the remains of the jacket that cost several thousand dollars that he doesn’t have, because he’s a pompous jackass who lives beyond his means in an attempt to fund his social ladder climbing expeditions.

“Now look what you did,” Dick cries, flinging his head back as if in total despair, the black locks of his hair flying from side to side in theatrical disarray. “Do you even know how much that poor man’s suit must have cost him? Probably more than my parents’ trailer, I’ll bet you that much.”

“Really, its quite alright,” the Douchebag tries to insist through clenched teeth. It wasn’t, in his eyes, not by a long shot, but he forced himself to remember that for whatever reasons, these two...peasants were still Bruce Wayne’s chosen wards....or well, worse yet...adopted sons. God, but that man’s abyssmal IQ was an absolute plague on Gotham’s high society. “It could have happened to anyone.”

“No, please, don’t try and cover for him, he’ll never learn that way. You must let us pay for the damage, Bruce will just take it out of his allowance, it’ll be fine,” Dick says, patting at the man’s arm feverishly as if he can smooth out the gaping hole left by the flap now hanging limply down the man’s sleeve.

“Oh, I’ll never learn? How about you, destroying Bruce’s grandmother’s antique china at the birthday party you tried to throw for Damian after Bruce specifically asked you not to try and play host anymore?” Jason gets in his brother’s face, liquid sloshing over the side of his erratically swinging glass and in the process splashing all over the back of the Douchebag’s neck.

“I was trying to actually do something nice for someone else, not that you’d know anything about that,” Dick hisses obnoxiously loudly. “How was I supposed to know you weren’t supposed to use steak knives to cut up food on china? Its not like plates come with instruction manuals!”

“Not like you’d know how to read them if they did!”

“Have you never heard of Youtube tutorials?”

“Have you never heard of shut the fuck up, you absolute dillhole?”

“Would both of you stop it? You’re causing a scene!” The two’s younger brother Timothy arrived on the scene, smoothly sliding between them and the ecstatically grateful Douchebag, who backpeddles out of the way at the first available opportunity. Tim throws him an apologetic glance, but the Douchebag barely notes it as he furiously makes for the side entrance as fast as he can, with the less people seeing his disheveled state the better. 

So much for the networking he had planned on doing the rest of the night. He firmly vowed to steer far clear of the eldest two Wayne buffoons at all future events Brucie insisted on inflicting the oafs on the rest of them.

All of which of course means he completely missed the way the brothers’ dramatics hushed into heated whispers upon Tim’s arrival, or the high five Dick and Jason slipped each other discreetly.

“Let’s see Brucie top that,” Jason says smugly.

“Oh god. You’ve finally done it. You’ve turned a charity event into a war games scenario.”

“Oh please. All of that money goes straight into the board of directors’ pockets,” Dick says dismissively. “The only actual money being raised for charity tonight is from the jewelry Selina’s liberating from the guests. And Damian and Cass already called dibs on helping her with that, and Duke’s already doing the scorekeeping for when that inevitably turns into a competition, so we were bored. And left alone to our own devices. So really if anyone’s to blame its everyone but us.”

“Sides, this is a time honored tradition for us,” Jason adds with a smirk. “We call it guerilla class warfare. We’re sleeper agents for the working class, see.”

“You’re the reason the Valentinos never show up to any Wayne Enterprise hosted events anymore, aren’t you?” Tim realizes.

“Some of our best work,” Dick reminisces fondly. Their little brother sighs.

“Please at least tell me you never actually posed for Playgirl.”

Dick shrugs. “Oh, they offered, but even when Bruce and I were at our worst, its not like I ever actually wanted to give him a stroke.”

“Continuity error,” Jason points out smugly. “Total amateur move.”

Dick merely arches a brow. “Not when I can simply claim Bruce must have paid to cover it up for the sake of the family image, and was absolutely furious at my besmirching of the good Wayne family name. And wait a second, weren’t you the one who introduced that into the scene in the first place? I just yes and-ed according to the rules of improv, like the professional that I am.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound right,” Jason says, completely unperturbed. Not an ounce of perturbed in sight. He continues on smoothly. “And if Sir Douchely of Douchington actually digs a little deeper and yet can’t seem to find anyone who recalls ever actually seeing this oh so salacious spread?” 

Dick’s shit remains unphased.

“I’ll simply flip the script and release the hounds aka Steph, Harper, Cullen and all three dozen of their twitter handles, wondering all over the Gotham social media highways just why someone of his standing is so intent on tracking down the homoerotic depravities of the eldest Wayne heir, given that despite his unjust leapfrogging up the social ladder, he is still ultimately a....commoner.”

“Ah yes,” Jason nods sagely. “And as all Gothamites know well, if you prick us, we doth not bleed blue. Just a terribly pedestrian red.”

“Oh the humanity,” Dick sighs. He joins his younger brother in nodding the slow, steady head-bob of the intellectually validated, their seeming rivalry melting into sibling synchronicity.

Tim eyes them and shakes his head side to side instead.

“You two disturb me.”

Jason shrugs. “Well, that does make sense. Don’t get me wrong, you’re our little brother and we’re terribly fond of you now, Timmers. But when the revolution comes, we will have to turn on you as well.”

“Fair is fair,” Dick hums in agreement. “We can’t play favorites. That’s how you get an upper class in the first place.”

“Yeah I don’t know what to do with this,” Tim sighs and heads off in search of Steph.

“Just FYI, your girlfriend’s Team Proletariat too. She’s got the T-shirt and everything,” Jason calls after him.

Tim swerves in mid-step and redirects himself towards Kate. At least their cousin slash-aunt-slash-nobody’s-bothered-to-parse-the-actual-relation-there could be counted on to be somewhat normal. Her idea of making a scene was to simply start a brawl, and Tim had overheard Bruce specifically elicit a promise from her earlier in the evening that she would throw no punches or kicks or headbutts or judo throws, nor any manner of actual or improvised weaponry.

[rxsurrxcted]

Jason knows the chance of coming back from this mission is slim... nonexistent, even. But that’s ok, he’s ready for this. He’s made a to-do list; his Ten Steps to Say Goodbye:

1. Write Tim a note, and hide it in his room.

Tim’s never been good at death, that much is obvious. The boy feels too strongly, cares too deeply, and loves too openly. For all his strength and intelligence, his heart will be his downfall. Jason doesn’t want his death to affect Tim, to hurt Tim, to make him cry. So, he writes a note. A note to help Tim move on:

Dear Timberella, I’m dead. No- no, even from the grave I can see those tears. Suck those bad boys back up, cause guess what? This was my decision. My choice. Yeah, I know, it sucks, but life sucks sometimes. I know we won’t have any more Great Pancake Wars, but I’m sure the little demon spawn will be happy to join in on your breakfast endeavors. Don’t cry for me, Baby Bird. It’s ok. Death isn’t too bad, I promise. And frankly, we’ll probably be seeing each other again all too soon, one way or another. That’s just a part of being family, we can’t fucking get rid of each other. Love you, dumbass.

2. Hide the weapons he knows Damian has always wanted in his room.

What is a dead man going to do with knives and swords? Might as well give them to a good home. Give them to Damian, more specifically. The kid knows his way around anything sharp and pointy, and he sees the way the kid stares, longingly, at some of his weapons, so might as well? Jason won’t make it easy though. He’ll hide them well throughout the room, some easier and some harder to find. It’ll take months for Damian to find them all, and it will be worth it-

The way Damian may find one after a bad day, how finding it will make the day all a little better. How even months after he’s gone, and Damian finds one, he may think back on Jason in some fondness. It’ll make him remember him, for a good reason.

Jason won’t be forgotten. Not again.

3. Write positive letters on sticky notes, and then hide them around the manor for Alfred to find when he’s cleaning.

Alfred deserves the best. Always does, always will. Jason will make sure he gets the best, even dead. He’ll make sure Alfred always remembers he’s loved and cared for. He’ll write little sticky notes and hide them around the manner- all of them positive, all of them loving:

“Never stop making your famous roast beef. It’s my favorite” “Treat yourself to a movie, you deserve a day to love yourself” “You’re the best grandpa I could have” “I never doubted you.” “I missed you most.” “I love you.”

4. He would cross out ‘a good soldier’ and replace it with ‘a son I never had.’

He hates it, even now. A Good Soldier. A Good fucking soldier. Not a son. Not a- not anything more than a pawn in an elaborate game of chess. Well, he’ll fix it before he dies.

He’ll break into the cave, tearing away at the letters of the plate on the memorial, ridding them until the words are illegible. After that, he’ll write on top of it in paint: “A Son I Never Had.”

A sick part of him hopes it makes Bruce cry. He hopes it makes Bruce regret. He hopes it makes Bruce realize what he could have had, if only he reached out.

It makes himself just as angry, just as sad; because he only ever wanted to be a son. He only ever wanted to have a dad- to have Bruce look at him the way he looks at Dick, Damian, Tim...

He would leave the cave ready for his mission.

5. He’d put his favorite book in Bruce’s study.

He knows he’ll realize, he doesn’t want to leave like that. He doesn’t want to go the lesser man, upset, and angry; tears and hatred burning in his heart like it’s done most his life.

He’d take his favorite book, one worn down with age and love, the one his mother passed on to him after her own death. He’d put it in Bruce’s study, almost as a little apology after the memorial Case, in a sense. Something of an olive branch, coming far too late. It means a great deal- he hopes Bruce recognizes that (and he knows he will).

To pass on the book, it’s like passing on his heart. He only hopes Bruce won’t let it break this time.

6. He’d go to Blüdhaven and trash Dicks apartment

Revenge for all the bad Dick has been. Revenge for hating him when he was Robin, for neglecting him when he came back to life. Revenge for pushing him into the bay to let him drown. For everything he had done, for every year he has forced Jason to tears, for making Jason hate being Robin on those few bad days because he truly fell for Dick’s lies- for he believed Dick when he said Jason didn’t deserve it- that he’d become a villain- Revenge, because Dick had been right all along.

He never did deserve to be Robin.

7. When Dick cleans up his apartment, he’d find little nostalgic items laying around.

For all the bad Dick has been, he was forever and always Jason’s older brother. In the mess of the apartment, Jason will leave a picture, the one of them at the baseball game, when they were young, laughing and innocent. He’d leave the bracelet Dick won for him at the state fair- the one Jason never took off. He’d return Dick’s shirt he stole, not even bothering to wash the mustard stain off. He’d leave a drawing they did together, when Jason was Robin- it’s the one Jason couldn’t throw out because it was the first thing they ever did together that didn’t turn into fights. It was the turning point, the moment they started to bond, started to become brothers. It was the first time Jason looked at Dick and thought of him as an older brother.

Jason died two months later.

He knows Dick will cry finding it. Good, because Jason will cry when he has to leave it behind.

8. He’d blow up his safe houses.

No one will know he was there. It would be like he never came back to life, another ghost, another abandoned building littering the streets of Gotham. Forgotten.

Perhaps that’s what it should have been like in the first place.

9. He’d see Roy, kiss him like it’s their very last kiss (it is).

Roy was the reason he learned to want to live again. Roy taught him to live- not survive. No matter what shitty things Jason would throw Roy’s way, he would bounce back and return it to Jason two fold. He wouldn’t let Jason rot in despair, Roy knew too well what that felt like.

He did what Bruce should have have done.

Through it all, he healed Jason. And Jason would find him, kiss him, platonic or not he doesn’t care, because this is his goodbye.

He’d leave, without a word. They wouldn’t need to say anything. Actions always spoke louder than words.

10. He’d spend a night on top of the Gotham roofs, remembering all the good, and finally putting the bad behind him.

His last night he’d spend on top of Wayne Enterprises, no mask, no armor, simply watching. Watching as the nights goes by, enjoying his true home for all he can. Good or bad as it was, it was his. His. His home, his city, his heart. He hates to leave it again, he knows he must.

He’d remember the good more than the bad, as he wants to go happily this time- not like the first.

He remembers the day Bruce got him, made him Robin, made his heart pound and soul sour. He never felt happiness like that before. He never had so much hope.

He remembers cooking with Alfred. He remembers sneaking some of the cookie dough, but of course. Alfred would catch him and smack his hand with a wooden spoon. It felt so domestic, and he’d laugh- which would make Alfred laugh, and then they’d both eat the cookie dough together. Secretly, of course. Their only secret.

He remembers Dick and their Pizza Adventure. They wanted to find the very best pizza in Gotham, so they went to every Fucking single pizza establishments in the city. By the time they got home, they were stuffed and greasy and absolutely miserable. It was one of the best nights he had.

He remembers Tim and their movie nights. He remembers making pillow forts and hanging up fairy lights, and he remembers making too much buttery popcorn. He remembers them watching movies, both crying over the cheesy romances and clinging together when it got scary, but pretending not to.

He remembers Damian, and taking him out to a petting zoo. He remembers Damian trying to steal an Alpaca he felt wasn’t being treated right- and he remembers helping stick an alpaca in the batmobile to get it back to the cave.

He remembers, a smile on his face, and he stands as the day breaks. He makes his way back to the only safe house left standing.

It’s time for his mission, and time to erase the last trace of his existence.

When the safehouse goes up in flames, the world will know Red Hood died to let them live.

Red Hood sacrificed himself to be a Good Soldier.

[profoundcollectiondragon-things]

Prompt: Stories where the whole world knows Batman’s identity

Never mind how, just we never get these stories and I want some!

Like can you imagine Gotham getting to know the real Bruce Wayne?!

Like the Joker isn’t doing anything differently, besides attacking him out of the suit but as Batman. It takes a hot sec for everyone to slowly realize, he probably already knew/suspected & well Joker loving his theater did not want to mess with the narrative. Riddler also absolutely knew, and saw no reason to do anything with it.

There were others of course but most of them just, with great trepidation, attack him out of costume half sure there’s been a mistake. Instead they get the other thing they were afraid of- it’s like a peak behind the veil! He does not hold a damn thing back. He and the kids had an evacuation plan or, a hundred for the civilians in the usual party venues. And them they just unleash hell, still in their tuxs and evening gowns.

Damian is the easiest to identify. He wore a sword all night before this because he could now. He told everyone who asked why in God’s name his Dad let him be Robin as much about his mother & background as he could without kicking the League’s beehive.

Tim has an interesting conversation with Ms. Vale about the whole secret identity thing. He’s been reflecting on it a lot in the week since the reveal, reconnecting with old high school friends who barely recognize him. She manages to get a hell of a story just from that!

Jay is there with Roy & Star flanking him. He’s in a super lot of trouble for murders he emphatically denies. He mostly just hangs out with them and Dick & the four do a lot to ease the tension that’s come with the Bat family mystique.

Cass is there, Stephanie is there, Harper all Bruce’s forgotten kids, psuedo-kids and their friends and their having a lot of fun. Even if Jason does challenge Damian and Cass to a knife throwing contest and it doesn’t really spiral out of control so much as everyone ends up joining in. Even a few people who have no idea how to throw knives, when they bounced off the “target” hilt first there were so many vigilantes in the room they always caught it or whatever.

Their all a little impressed that none of them are magic or have meta powers and Duke pipes up. He steals himself, Gotham is so god awful to metas, but as a “Wayne kid” maybe he can do *something, anything* about that?

A million zillion things happen, but one notable bit is when the villains show up none of them are expecting Barbara Gordon to show resistance from her wheelchair! Oh damn were they wrong.

[tessatechaitea]

Teen Titans #6

Nobody wants Aqualad on the team. NOBODY!

I guess whoever escaped was in prison for fucking puppies and butterflies.

The Review! The issue begins with Damian watching a news report about the escaped convicts. The report immediately goes from the convicts to shark attacks being up four hundred percent. So that means there have been, like, four shark attacks this year? I suppose there could be more if she's just talking about shark attacks in general along the entire coast of California. But I'm assuming she specifically means the Bay Area. Why would the Teen Titans care if people were being eaten by sharks in San Diego? That's not their territory! Let Animal Man take care of that shit. Anyway, that probably means the shark attacks and the prison break have more in common than anybody suspects. Was King Shark ever arrested for fucking puppies and butterflies? Damian is spending quality time with Goliath because, in comic book terms, Goliath isn't a boring pet. I'd like to see Damian have some loving interactions with Batcow. I'm beginning to think he takes Batcow for granted.

If Benjamin Percy hadn't written so many comic books about how racism is bad, I might look side-eye at that "yo."

Remember how Vibe was written in the eighties? Sometimes white male writers trying to write an authentic minority character stray a little too far into the field of stereotypes. Unless Percy just thinks adding "yo" to the end of a statement is just how young people speak. I can accept that. What I can't accept is that he wants to try to capture how young people speak. It's impossible! It's so unauthentic in so many ways that you'd be better off not to bother. Using terms to identify with a particular group isn't the sole territory of young people, of course. Everybody does it to prove their in-group credentials. I mean, I don't, of course! I'm so unique, I make up my own words! That's probably why nobody can fucking understand my intelligent and wise digressions.

Is throwing up in my mouth due to the phrase "mouth orgasm" a mouth orgasm? Because if it is, I am spent.

Beast Boy serves a vegetarian meal because it's his turn to cook. Everybody disrespects his decision and Wally runs off to steal some pizzas. What a bunch of assholes. It's one night per week! Fucking respect Beast Boy's dietary choices! Granted, his tofu platter might be terrible. But it isn't terrible simply because it's tofu. Nobody even tastes it to see if it's any good! It looks like deep fried tofu chunks in some kind of curry sauce. And if that's what it is, I'll have seconds! After my mouth wakes up from the nap caused by the orgasm. After lunch, Titans Island is invaded by a reporter seeking a totally non-hit piece about the new group of heroes bringing serious danger to San Francisco residents while selfishly blocking those residents' ocean view. I hope she makes them look terrible! Her name is Bonnie Chung and she's probably a devotee of Brother Blood. That's how things work in Teen Titans comic books, right?! Bonnie, live on the air, calls the West Coast "the Best Coast." She also says the Teen Titans tower is "the freshest, hottest, superhero pad on the planet." She must be the member of staff who does the local fluff pieces to make it seem like their city is the most exciting city to live in. Also, she might be a fraud because she works for KARE Channel 7. Excuse me, comic book. But I grew up in the Bay Area and Channel 7 is KGO. This comic book is so unrealistic. Beast Boy gives Bonnie a tour of Titans Tower while proving he's a lech and an asshole who can't go two minutes without sexually harassing a female member of the team or humiliating a male member. Some people reading might think he's hilarious. But then those people don't have to live with him. I wonder how many pairs of Raven's panties he has hidden under his mattress? I was going to say "Starfire's panties" but I doubt she wears them. Also, panties. That word is almost as ludicrous as finger-banging and lovemaking. Meanwhile in landlocked New Mexico, Aqualad is fucking with his poor fish! He's all, "I have power over you! Ah ha ha ha! Bend to my will!" Also, his name is Jackson Hyde. That has to be one of the most dangerous last names. How many Hydes die each year when a maniac or tiger is running loose on the streets and somebody yells, "Hide! Hide!" Everybody hides but the Hyde is all, "Yeah? What dude?", as he casually turns and gets brutally devoured or chopped up, respectively. I mean, non-respectively, unless the maniac is a cannibal and the tiger has carving knives tied to its paws.

He's trying hard to be different because he's a teenager! Duh!

So Aqualad is gay. The above panel is the third panel after he's been introduced. You have to get that sexuality thing out there as quickly as possible before all the heteros start believing the character is one of them by default. Percy's reveal here is as good a way to do it as I've seen even if the writer part of me always bristles at the way sexuality has to be mentioned as quickly as possible. Since it's an unseen component of a person's make-up, it obviously needs to be mentioned to be known. Remember, there were decades and decades of comic books where gay characters just didn't exist and gay fans just had to read into every detail as best they could to find a hero they could point to and say, "See? Totally gay!" If sexuality isn't mentioned, the status quo will assume heterosexuality. At some point in the future, writers will be able to introduce a team of young superheroes without instantly calling out which ones like to fuck which other ones and people reading won't automatically assume they're all hetero. It'll be a much more exciting time of fan speculation and intrigue because non-hetero sexuality won't be taboo; it will just be accepted. Until then, just get used to somebody pointing out that a character isn't heterosexual as quickly as possible. Look, there's still some mystery to what Aqualad's penis is up to. He might also like to fuck women! And fish!

How about keeping him safe by backing his play and flipping the fuck out on anybody who disrespects him rather than trying to convince him to not be the best Jackson Hyde he can be? Which — let's face it — isn't going to be that great considering he's Aqualad.

Meanwhile back at the interview slash tour, Bonnie Chung is all, "This was a great interview. It's totes going to go viral! You're going to be so famous!" Then she disappears into the Bay, hopefully to never be seen again because she's been eaten by a shark. Oh, that interruption didn't last long. And I guess Beast Boy didn't care that Bonnie disappeared under the water because the scene shifts back to New Mexico where Aqualad is already talking about the Teen Titans tour video that went viral (I guess KARE didn't really care either? They have a whole hour between five and six that they need to fill!). Some hero Beast Boy turned out to be! Did he forget he could have turned into a penguin and followed after her? Sure, he didn't see her disappear under the water. But he did see her scarf lying on the water. He couldn't even bother to investigate? So back in New Mexico where Aqualad has seen the viral video and is all jazzed about maybe being a Teen Titan, he decides to show his boyfriend his powers. His boyfriend decides to treat Aqualad like a pariah because why not? The guy is already dating a dark skinned gay guy with weird mutant tattoos. You can't expect him to accept much more than that! He's all, "Dude! I know we were just talking about how my dad doesn't accept me for who I am and how it sucks but, um, you know what? I can't accept you for who you are, freak!" Aqualad decides to move to San Francisco. That's like Mecca for gays! I hope that wasn't disrespectful to Mecca and/or fucking other guys in the ass! I bet the main people I offended with that last sentence were lesbians because I didn't account for them with that whole fucking other guys in the ass thing. But adding something more would have ruined the flow of that super intelligent and wise statement! Meanwhile, the Teen Titans are attacked by King Shark. He must want Beast Boy so he can ask him to turn into a puppy or a butterfly. The Ranking! No change! This has all the aspects of Teen Titans comic books that drive me completely crazy. That being said, it's one of the better incarnations so far!